The National Writing Project’s (NWP) College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) is designed to improve students’ argument writing through intensive teacher professional development, instructional resources, and formative assessment. In 2016, based on evidence of C3WP’s prior success in improving student achievement, NWP received a federal Investing in Innovation (i3) Scaleup grant to test C3WP in new contexts.
Nicole Arshan
SRI Author
Research Brief: SRI Finds Positive Effects of the College, Career, and Community Writer’s Program on Student Achievement
The National Writing Project’s (NWP) College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) is designed to improve students’ argument writing through intensive teacher professional development, instructional resources, and formative assessment. In 2016, based on evidence of C3WP’s prior success in improving student achievement, NWP received a federal Investing in Innovation (i3) Scaleup grant to test C3WP in new contexts.
As part of this grant, SRI International (SRI) conducted a 1-year random assignment evaluation of C3WP in grades 7–9 that found consistent program implementation and positive, statistically significant impacts on student writing achievement.
This is the third evaluation of C3WP in secondary grades, all of which have found positive and statistically significant effects on student achievement. The size, scale, rigor, and independence of these three studies provide a strong evidence base to support C3WP’s effectiveness in improving students’ secondary writing achievement at scale and in diverse contexts.
This research brief provides a high-level overview of C3WP and its evidence base.
The Pathway to Academic Success: Scaling Up a Text-Based Analytical Writing Intervention for Latinos and English Learners in Secondary School
This study reports findings from a multisite cluster randomized controlled trial designed to validate and scale up an existing successful professional development program that uses a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing. The Pathway to Academic Success Project worked with partner districts affiliated with 4 National Writing Project (NWP) sites in southern California. Informed by a wide body of research on the efficacy of strategy instruction to enhance students’ academic literacy, the intervention aimed to help secondary school students, particularly Latinos and mainstreamed English learners, to develop the academic writing skills called for in the rigorous Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Two hundred thirty teachers from partner districts affiliated with the NWP sites were stratified by school and grade and then randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. Treatment teachers participated in 46 hrs of training and learned how to apply cognitive strategies by using an on-demand writing assessment to help students understand, interpret, and write analytical essays about nonfiction texts. Multilevel models revealed significant effects on a holistic measure of an on-demand writing assessment ( d = .32) as well as on 4 analytic attributes: content ( d = .31), structure ( d = .29), fluency ( d = .27), and conventions ( d = .32). Four dimensions of scaling up—spread, reform ownership, depth, and sustainability—are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
The pathway to academic success: Scaling up a text-based analytical writing intervention for Latinos and English learners in secondary school
This study reports findings from a multisite cluster randomized controlled trial designed to validate and scale up an existing successful professional development program that uses a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing.
Evaluation of National Writing Project’s College-Ready Writer’s Program 2015 SEED Grant
The National Writing Project’s (NWP) College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) provides professional development for teachers in Grades 7–10 with the goal of improving students’ source-based argument writing. C3WP aims to build teachers’ understanding of and skill in teaching argument writing. C3WP was subject to a prior rigorous evaluation, which found that 2 years of C3WP had a positive impact on writing outcomes for students in Grades 7-10 in high-need, rural districts (Gallagher et al., 2017). C3WP was formerly called the College-Ready Writers Program (CRWP). In 2015, with the support of a Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant, the National Writing Project sought to extend the reach of the program to nonrural contexts and to examine the efficacy of a short-cycle version of the program. The SEED grant also supported researchers at SRI Education to conduct an independent evaluation (a within-teacher randomized controlled trial) designed to examine both program implementation and the impact of the program on teachers’ instructional practices and student learning. This report presents the results of the short-cycle impact analysis that focused on 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers in high-needs districts. The technical report begins with a discussion of the C3WP program components and intended outcomes. Then, it describes the research design including a discussion of recruitment and randomization; site, teacher, class, and student samples; and data and methods. Finally, the report provides findings related to program implementation, teacher practice outcomes, and student learning outcomes. Ultimately, we find that the short-cycle implementation of C3WP had positive and statistically significant impacts on a measure of student writing achievement.
Emerging Leaders Program: Impacts on Students, Teachers, and Leaders in Three Sites
In 2017–18, New Leaders partnered with SRI Education to undertake a randomized control trial of the Emerging Leaders program in three sites: Arlington Independent School District and San Antonio Independent School District in Texas and Shelby County Schools in Tennessee. The Emerging Leaders program was implemented largely as designed and had a positive, statistically significant impact on participants’ data-driven instruction leadership knowledge. This large impact on leadership knowledge led to few measured impacts on the instructional practice of teachers on Emerging Leaders participants’ instructional teams. The program had positive impacts on the math achievement of some subgroups of students. Impacts on overall math achievement were mediated by (i.e., operated through) program impacts on participants’ leadership knowledge and by teachers’ participation on instructional teams. The Emerging Leaders program had no measured impact on students’ English language arts (ELA) achievement. Supplemental analyses suggest that these differences in student achievement impacts may have been driven by differences in how datadriven instruction was enacted by math- and ELA-focused instructional teams.
Lifewide or School-Only Learning: Approaches to Addressing the Developing World’s Learning Crisis
This cluster randomized controlled trial tested the impact of school-only and lifewide-learning (LWL) approaches to supporting early-grade learning over 2 years in rural Rwanda. We compare school-only and LWL treatments with a business-as-usual control condition and with each other. Schools in both treatment groups received reading materials and teacher training. LWL villages also received support to enrich home and community literacy ecologies. Student reading assessments, administered across 21 sectors (analogous to U.S. school districts), showed that both treatments positively impacted learning. LWL produced a greater impact, particularly in oral comprehension, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. However, nearly one third of the students lacked basic skills at endline, indicating that further efforts are needed to address the learning crisis in the least-developed countries.
Lifewide or School-Only Learning: Approaches to Addressing the Developing World’s Learning Crisis
This cluster randomized controlled trial tested the impact of school-only and lifewide-learning (LWL) approaches to supporting early-grade learning over 2 years in rural Rwanda.
Linked Learning San Bernardino (LLSB): Accelerating College and Career Readiness in Low-Performing Schools
In 2013, ConnectEd received an Investing in Innovation (i3) Development grant to support the development of Linked Learning career-themed academies in four high schools in the San Bernardino City Unified School District (SBCUSD). This technical report provides an independent evaluation examining both the program implementation and the impact of the program on students’ cognitive and noncognitive outcomes.
