Coach.Teach.Write is an innovative year-long professional learning program aimed at improving teachers’ instruction and, as a result, increasing student engagement and improving writing outcomes. Teacher leaders provide coaching and support to 7th- and 8th-grade English language arts (ELA) teachers to implement evidence-based instructional methods that integrate personal narrative writing. The project has been introduced in districts across the U.S. in response to a need to provide teachers with greater support for writing instruction and find new ways to engage students in the classroom.

Coach.Teach.Write is a partnership between the National Writing Project (NWP) and American Institutes for Research (AIR) with funding from the U.S. Department of Education. AIR is conducting an evaluation to examine whether the program improves teachers’ confidence and instructional practices as well as students’ attitudes toward writing, writing skills, and overall ELA achievement compared to standard instruction.

Learning Forward recently met with Tanya Baker, executive director of the National Writing Project, to discuss Coach.Teach.Write’s beginnings, purpose, and coaching approach.

What is Coach.Teach.Write and what roles does the National Writing Project play?

The National Writing Project is a 50-year-old professional learning network for teachers interested in the teaching of writing. We work through project sites, mostly located on college campuses, serving districts in a service area around that campus with coaching support to improve writing instruction.

Building on a long-running series of coaching research, AIR was interested in studying coaching, including whether it could impact social-emotional learning for students. To make that link, we argued to have a focus on narrative writing. In too many schools today we have removed the personal connections between kids’ lives in and outside of school. A personal narrative is an opportunity to bring what students know or care about into the classroom. Teachers could do a lot of separate programming for social-emotional learning, but if it doesn’t connect to the learning in school, it just feels like an add-on.

What does the writing instruction look like?

At the NWP, we think writing classrooms are best conceived as communities of writers where writing is shared with peers. Students have some say in the decisions, whether it’s about the topic, which evidence to use to make an argument, or feeling some efficacy and control over the task. 

In Coach.Teach.Write teachers can lead eight lesson sequences in an order that makes sense based on what they know about what students are able to do as writers. These lesson sequences have been codeveloped with our teacher educators and leaders. Modules move from writing from your own experience, to writing about others, to argument writing with narrative elements in “This I Believe” essays. We’ve made resources that draw on a meta-analysis study about what works to change writing [see Graham et al., 2023]. The program puts more language to the complexities and interesting parts of writing and teaching writing.

When we are looking for evidence of student growth and the efficacy of teaching, we have teachers look for tracks in their teaching. For instance, if the teacher taught a lesson on combining sentences for effect, we look for evidence that students are incorporating that skill in their writing. Assessment of writing is focused on skills taught and practiced. We coach teachers to look at student work in cycles of instruction, see if they grew in a particular focus area, and ask, “What can’t they do yet?” in order to determine where to focus instruction next.

How do educators become coaches?

Teachers are invited to serve as coaches through the National Writing Project. Initially their practice of teaching writing has been lifted up by someone because they seemed to achieve results that other teachers didn’t. They then attend an NWP leadership institute that helps them become leaders in our teachers-teaching-teachers model of professional learning.

At an NWP leadership institute teachers read research about the teaching of writing, and they write and participate in writers’ groups. They analyze student work together and discuss common strengths and challenges that can inform their teaching. They also do a demonstration of their practice, so they take some lesson or idea they do with kids, unpack it for other people, and show the evidence of the student work that comes from that.

The NWP organizes a lot of teacher-to-teacher professional learning, using leaders who have come through that summer institute to share their practice to lift up other people’s practice. We believe knowledge about teaching writing comes from all kinds of places. Writers have their own experiences, both as students and as writers, that inform their practice; they also read research about teaching writing and reflect on their own teaching practices. Braided together, these ways of knowing help them lead other teachers.

Each cohort of Coach.Teach.Write begins with a short summer institute of about 2 1/2 days for NWP teacher leaders who will serve as coaches in this program. Even though these coaches already have a lot of experience as leaders, we want them to really be embedded in thinking about the range of middle school teachers they will be working with and to be very familiar with our eight instructional modules and the research behind them.

After the institute, coaches continue to receive support from the NWP throughout the program. Coach.Teach.Write staff meet monthly with coaches to check in and problem-solve what’s coming up for teachers. We remind them, for instance, of ways to look at the student work together, or of strategies for note-taking or giving feedback. It’s important to note that coaches also have a group of peers for support. They have to be able to talk to each other about the program and ask, “What are we trying to do or change in the school or in the department?”

What kind of coaching do the teacher leaders then provide to teachers?

There’s a range of coaching types [in the field at large], and research shows the outcomes are very different. Coaching models are highly successful when they start in the relationship between the coach and the teacher and focus on the teacher’s competencies, interests, and desire to move or change. In the writing project, what I’ve learned over many years is everybody has competencies we should recognize, celebrate, and build on. It’s not one-size-fits all. But coaching that starts from an outsider point of view or is just ticking the boxes of what to do next tends not to show very good results.

We frame coaching around who you are coaching. What is next for that person? Sometimes coaches are more directive, especially with newer teachers. New teachers can feel very vulnerable, depending on the way their schools work or who they are personally. A teacher could say, “I’ve got this, I’m totally competent, I’m good,” but then not show the coach anything because of the fear they’ll find out the teacher isn’t doing a good job.

On the other hand, if a teacher has 15 years of experience it’s going to be a very different kind of relationship to the coach, the materials, and the work. A coach can help a teacher prep for a lesson and then come to the teacher’s room and either coteach or observe and take notes, debrief a lesson, or look at student work with them. In this program, teachers usually engage in most if not all of these activities with their coaches.

What does Coach.Teach.Write look like in the schools?

When we onboard schools there’ll be a launch that frames the program and engages teachers with the materials. Every school customizes the program to work in their setting, but there will be 10 to 12 hours of group professional learning over the course of the year, and in addition each teacher will get approximately 10 hours of individual coaching. We want that to work for the teachers and their schedule, so the local writing project will adjust to the school schedule.

I think the best schedule is to have participating teachers come together four times a year for about three hours of learning, during which they’ll probably unpack a new lesson sequence and talk about the skills and strategies kids are going to develop by doing it. They will probably do some writing, look at student work, and ask questions. Basically, they do that once a quarter, then teach that lesson sequence during the quarter, and the coach works with them on that.

How does the coaching change the interactions between teachers and students? 

In these last 12 to 15 assessment-heavy years we have spent a lot of time worrying about what kids can’t do, and both teachers and kids absorb that message. When teachers work with an asset-based coach, they begin to imagine what an asset-based approach might look like in their teaching. Once teachers have had an experience of being treated as competent, sharing their own writing or their students’ writing and hearing, “Here’s what’s great, and here’s what you could do next if you try something new,” they develop a new way of thinking about formative assessment and ongoing work they bring to their classroom. It changes the nature of their relationship to kids, and kids’ relationship to writing.