The project, titled “Closing the Achievement Gap Write Now: Using an Innovative Literacy Program to Strengthen Teacher Practices and Pedagogy,” will bring the Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS) program and the Area 3 Writing Project (A3WP), both housed in the School’s CRESS Center, together to create and implement an in-depth professional development experience for teachers. Our K-12 partner is Twin Rivers Unified School District (located in North Sacramento).

All of the English teachers at Martin Luther King Jr. Technology Academy (grades 7-8) and Grant Union High School will participate in the project over the next three years, receiving coaching from SAYS poet mentors, lesson study sessions with A3WP teacher leaders, seminars, and summer institutes all designed to strengthen teachers’ ability to provide engaging, culturally relevant, standards-based instruction.

The Need

• 82% of students in the Twin Rivers Unified School District are categorized as socioeconomically disadvantaged
• About one-quarter of teachers at both partner schools (Martin Luther King middle school and Grant High School) are not credentialed or are teaching out of their certification.
• Fewer than 30% of students at both schools are proficient on California’s standardized English language arts tests.
• In 2008, only 63% of tenth graders passed the state’s high school exit exam.

Project Goals

• Provide teachers with innovative research-based professional development that integrates spoken word poetry and standards-based writing instruction
• Increase teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogy in writing instruction as well as their ability to analyze student writing
• Increase secondary students’ academic achievement in writing, the ELA section on state standardized tests, the high school exit exam, and district written assessments
• Improve student engagement and literacy skills within the Twin Rivers Unified School District

Summary of Activities

• Literacy Seminars will focus on instructional strategies relevant to grade level content writing standards, spoken word poetry and student engagement strategies.
• Poet-Mentors will coach teachers in SAYS writing workshops and spoken word performance poetry
• Teachers/Poet-Mentors will collaborate in the lesson study process in Years 2 and 3.
• Intensive summer literacy retreats will be held each year to strengthen literacy innovation and enhance program implementation and planning.

Anticipated Outcomes

• A unique partnership that provides a comprehensive literacy intervention to augment teacher pedagogy and practice, as well as student achievement
• Increase in teachers’ content knowledge in writing instruction and ability to analyze student writing
• Narrowing the achievement gap in English Language Arts in Twin Rivers Unified School District
• Student proficiency rates including significant subgroups will increase in English Language Arts on the State’s standardized tests for grade 7, on the high school exit exam for grade 10, and on district assessments.