REL Pacific is developing a toolkit of resources for middle school (grades 6–8) teachers to help them incorporate recommendations from the What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively into their own classroom practices. The toolkit will include professional learning resources and activities for teams of teachers to use to explore the recommended instructional strategies and guide their lesson planning, as well as videos showing the strategies being used in actual classrooms. The project’s goal is to support teachers in strengthening their knowledge and use of evidence-based practices for teaching writing and, ultimately, increase their students’ efficacy as writers.

This coaching project is supporting the Hui schools to collaboratively engage in Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) inquiry cycles to test and refine the networked improvement community’s common working theory of improvement. Coaching topics include the identification of what to measure; reviewing existing instruments; planning data collection routines and building school-level data teams, processes, and structures; evaluating and refining practical measures; and planning for data discussions.