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Serena White, an administrator in the Monroe, La., school system whose 11-year tenure ended in January, has advice for other school districts interested in boosting student literacy through The Writing Revolution approach. (She鈥檚 now TWR鈥檚 director of state and district partnerships.)

Ensure teacher buy-in from the start. 鈥淚 had teachers attend some informational sessions,鈥� she says, 鈥渟o the excitement was there. I think that鈥檚 just Leadership 101, [but it] often gets skipped when things are legislated.鈥�

Use a curriculum rich in content. 鈥淭he rigor of the writing is based on the content,鈥� White observes. 鈥淲hen students write about something, there鈥檚 understanding at a deeper level.鈥� And with rich content, she adds, 鈥渢here鈥檚 a whole lot more for students to explore and learn about.鈥�

Don鈥檛 rely on a train-the-trainer model. All training in Monroe has been done directly by TWR faculty. White says the method is trickier than it appears, and it鈥檚 worth the cost to have educators trained by experts. TWR now offers online courses, which wasn鈥檛 the case when Monroe started implementing the method.

Train widely. Have district administrators, special education teachers and non-English language arts teachers take the training. Special education teachers need to be able to support their students in using the method. Ideally, the method will be used across the curriculum to reinforce students鈥� knowledge of writing strategies and deepen their knowledge of content in all subjects.

Don鈥檛 stop training. Because of teacher turnover, training needs to be ongoing. But White cautions against training new teachers at the beginning of the year because they鈥檙e likely to be overwhelmed by other tasks. Mid-year training makes more sense. If new teachers are surrounded by veterans who have been trained, they can pick up aspects of the method even before they鈥檙e trained.

Rely on a cadre of teacher experts. Monroe鈥檚 鈥淩evolutionaries鈥� created ready-made TWR activities embedded in the curricula the district used. TWR is developing AI tools to help teachers adapt the activities to their content, but White says having teachers do it themselves builds capacity and buy-in. 鈥淭hose Revolutionaries become your built-in experts.鈥�

Don鈥檛 expect immediate improvements in test scores. Individual teachers who used TWR with fidelity saw their students鈥� scores improve right away, but, White says, 鈥渢o move a school, to move a district, it takes time.鈥� Before students can fully benefit, teachers need to practice using the method to mastery, and that can take two or three years. 鈥淥ne thing I would love to drill into people who are into accountability,鈥� White says, 鈥渋s that education is a marathon after marathon after marathon.鈥�

鈥斺��  Natalie Wexler