This letter to the next president of the United States recommends the transformation of teacher in-service learning as a powerful means of education reform. Too often, professional development is perceived by teachers as being idiosyncratic and irrelevant. The authors recommend a reconceptualization of professional learning for practicing…

This paper describes the signature role played by accomplished, experienced teachers in professional learning communities, and the importance that these practitioners make their teaching public and shared. In so doing, the authors describe how accomplished practices can be shared between classrooms and between practitioners with varying levels of…

Discusses the benefits in extending writing center services to teachers both for inservice training and to help instructors see themselves as writers and teachers of writing. (AEA)

Describes the instruction for basic teachers at Ohio's Findlay College. Discusses course materials and the training of writing assistants and current faculty members. (HTH)

This booklet documents the first 5 years of the Alaska State Writing Consortium, an association made up of 45 Alaska school districts, the Alaska Department of Education, and the University of Alaska. The Consortium, which oversees the organization and implementation of teacher training programs in writing and the teaching of writing, has five…

Describes the seminar/practicum program for teachers of basic writing at the University of Iowa. Includes the instructional sequence and the function of course journals and rationales. (HTH)

Describes the training program at Penn State University for training nontraditional composition instructors--those with no formal training in English. Evaluation of the training program indicated that students' writing neither benefited nor suffered from new teachers' lack of teaching experience, because of the effectiveness of the training they…

Describes an inservice and preservice training program for writing teachers at the secondary and postsecondary levels at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Includes a description of a one-day writing workshop and of a graduate course with a laboratory component. (HTH)

Describes the West Virginia Writing Project, a long-term inservice training project based on team teaching, on-site consultants, and teacher input. (HTH)

This article describes an effort to create a teacher learning community in which university and local school teachers worked together to improve the teaching of writing at elementary and secondary levels. I describe how a university's National Writing Project (NWP) engaged in developing a cadre of selected teachers to share understandings about…

Stockton State College, New Jersey, recognizes that the teaching of writing is not the responsibility of the English department alone, but of the entire college faculty. Stockton's writing across the curriculum project is designed to give all faculty members general theoretical information and practical training in writing instruction and the…

Reflects on the experience of training teachers from non-English disciplines to teach writing by inviting them to take a freshman level, basic writing course. (AEA)

Describes a writing workshop in which teachers work with clay and write about their products. (HTH)

An inservice course on the teaching of writing was designed to provide a content within which reflection and learning could occur. The course began with a week-long period of study and discussion of theories of language, with particular emphasis on the development of writing abilities, and a consideration of the implications of such theories for…

Reports on ERIC materials that emanate from writing teachers participating in the Bay Area and the National Writing Projects. Lists resources that provide program descriptions and learning activities for writing teachers. (RL)