Resource Topics

Teacher Research/Inquiry

Featured Resources

Book Review: Teachers' Writing Groups: Collaborative Inquiry and Reflection for Professional Growth

March 2009
Caroline Griswold
Caroline Griswold reviews Teachers' Writing Groups: Collaborative Inquiry and Reflection for Professional Growth, finding that it is, like the best writing project work, both practical and personal, and is full of useful ideas for teachers interested in exploring writing groups. More ›

Student-Driven Research

Educational Leadership, January 2009
Susan Yonezawa, Makeba Jones
Two researchers with the San Diego Writing Project report on a student-led research project in which a group of students design, conduct, and present research about their school with the object of initiating and supporting educational reform. More ›

Developing Site Capacities Through Program Evaluation and Research

December 2008
Paul M. Rogers
Carrying out an LSRI study not only increased the South Coast Writing Project's capacity for doing research; it yielded other unexpected benefits for the site, including connections with more teachers in the area. More ›

Additional Resources

“Mizzou Men” Explore Their Roles as Men in the Elementary School Classroom

June 2009
Funded by a Teacher Inquiry Communities Network Minigrant, the Missouri Writing Project hosts an inquiry community for men who teach elementary school. They meet and inquire together into that shared experience. More ›

Article Exploring Process, Inquiry, and the Benefits of Site Research Wins Award

December 2009
Art Peterson
Researchers from the South Coast Writing Project compared the classroom practice of teachers who had experienced their site's inquiry-based professional development with the practice of those who hadn't—and reaped unexpected benefits. More ›

Group Conversations Around Images, Documents, and Videos

December 2009
Jason Shiroff
Denver Writing Project technology liaison Jason Shiroff discusses the deliberate inquiry process he uses with his students when introducing new technology tools—in this case, a wiki—in his classroom. Listen, watch, and even comment on this VoiceThread presentation. More ›

What Data-Driven Instruction Should Really Look Like

June 2009
Kathie Marshall
Kathie Marshall argues that data-driven instruction should come from groups of teachers working together on research and using data to improve instruction—rather than having data monitored as a way of checking NCLB "compliance." More ›

Exploring Resources from Teacher-Researcher Marian Mohr

January 2008
Marian Mohr, a dynamic leader in teacher research, published a wealth of resources. This article summarizes her contributions and gives an annotated list of her publications. More ›

Getting “Inside Inquiry”: Teachers’ Questions Transform Their Practice

December 2008
Inside Inquiry, sponsored by the Teacher Inquiry Communities Network, brought together teachers from across the country to consider the practice of teacher research and plan teacher inquiry groups at their home writing project sites. More ›

Integrating Writing Project Practices into a Mandated Program

March 2008
Bob Fecho
Required to implement a mandated program in their schools, San Diego teacher-consultants launched an inquiry group that developed ways to use the mandated materials as a venue for creative approaches based on writing project principles. More ›

Practitioner Inquiry and the Practice of Teaching: Some Thoughts on Better

February 2008
Susan Lytle
Susan Lytle, founding director of the Philadelphia Writing Project, observes that teacher-researchers aim primarily to teach better, a theme she finds illuminated in a physician-written book about the practice of medicine. More ›

Sonia Nieto Explores What Sustains Teachers

April 2008
Sonia Nieto, a leading authority in bilingual and multicultural education, delivered the keynote address at NWP's 2008 Spring Meeting. She explored the question of what sustains teachers in challenging situations and discussed the implications for professional development. More ›

Teacher Inquiry Publishing and Research Resources

July 2008
The following publishing and research resources provide support for teachers at various stages of the inquiry and dissemination process. More ›

Teachers Writing for Publication: Tips from a Teacher, Author, and Editor

April 2008
Louann Reid
The former editor of NCTE's English Journal provides tips for writing professional articles, a list of appropriate journals accepting professional writing, examples of "calls for manuscripts," and an inside look at the manuscript review process. More ›

Beyond Strategies: Teacher Practice, Writing Process, and the Influence of Inquiry

English Education, April 2008
These case studies of two teachers, one who worked with the South Coast Writing Project in an inquiry-oriented inservice program and one who did not, explore how they each interpret and implement a process-centered theory of writing in different ways. More ›

The Challenge of Change: Growth Through Inquiry at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project

National Writing Project at Work, 2008
Authors Susan Connell Biggs, Kevin Hodgson, and Bruce Penniman describe the inquiry approach their site took in responding to both planned and unplanned change at their writing project site. Their account chronicles the creation of a site structure that places the work of the site at the center, providing stability for the site in the midst of changing circumstances. Processes detailed in the monograph will be useful to any local site. More ›

Teacher Inquiry Communities Network Resources Bibliography

July 2007
Ann Dobie
This annotated bibliography about teacher research provides information for teachers at various stages of the inquiry process. The work was updated in 2007 by the Teacher Inquiry Communities Network Leadership Team led by Pam Brown. More ›

Teacher Inquiry Study Group Focuses on Racism and Homophobia

July 2007
Gavin Tachibana
An NWP inquiry group focuses on race and sexual orientation, providing a safe place for teachers to explore these areas, develop curricula, discover methods for handling controversy, and honor the backgrounds of all their students. More ›

Toward a Scholarship of Teaching Practice: Contributions from NWP Teacher Inquiry Workshops

March 2007
Patricia Lambert Stock
In her keynote speech at NWP’s 2007 Spring Meeting, Patricia Lambert Stock reports on her study of an overlooked genre of educational research: the teacher workshop. Describing in detail a presentation on mock trials, she shows that such workshops not only have the customary elements of research published in professional journals but have four additional characteristics that make them a uniquely valuable genre of research in education. More ›

Southside Elementary Writing Focus: Site-Based Leadership Reforms the Writing Curriculum

National Writing Project At Work, March 2005
Robert McGinty, Nancy Remington
The story of an inquiry-centered approach to professional development, designed and led by teachers, that could be a model for any school. More ›

The Saginaw Teacher Study Group Movement: From Pilot to Districtwide Study Groups in Four Years

National Writing Project At Work, March 2005
Mary Calliari, Janet Rentsch, Mary Weaver
The authors describe a districtwide approach to teacher-led study groups that resulted in significant changes in teacher practice and student learning as well as leadership development among teacher facilitators. More ›

Keep the Spirit Going: Teacher Inquiry Communities Focus on Student Work

The Voice, 2005
Shirley Brown
Brown shares insights gained through work with the Teacher Inquiry Communities Network as to how teachers can create space during the school year for the kind of collaborative work that happens at the summer institutes. More ›

Digging Deeper: Teacher Inquiry in the Summer Institute Demonstration

The Voice, 2004
Art Peterson
Peterson explores writing project summer institute teacher demonstrations as a form of teacher inquiry at the Northern California Writing and the Red Cedar Writing Project. More ›

Out of Our Experience: Useful Theory

The Quarterly, 2003
Sheila Clawson, Marion S. MacLean, Marian M. Mohr, Mary Ann Nocerino, Courtney Rogers, Betsy Sanford
In this excerpt from Teacher Research for Better Schools, the writers describe and annotate their emergence as researchers, detailing the influences that shaped their ideas about how teachers and students learn, and how schools change. More ›

How Can Teacher Inquiry Help Achieve Equitable Outcomes for Students?

The Voice, January-February 2003
Linda Friedrich
The core work of the Teacher Research Collaborative is to investigate how teacher inquiry can address the challenges encountered in the effort to ensure that all children achieve at high levels. More ›

Jeff Wilhelm: You Gotta BE a Teacher-Researcher

The Voice, January-February 2003
Ruth Devlin
Wilhelm finds that teachers can do their jobs "better and more efficiently and faster by becoming reflective practitioners who do teacher research." More ›

Write from the Start: A Teacher Research Project

The Quarterly, Winter 2002
Mary Racicot
With her kindergarteners, Racicot make use of a home journal plan and the "Visiting Writers' Club" to lead all involved through unfamiliar territory. More ›

Lessons from Tony: Betrayal and Trust in Teacher Research

The Quarterly, Spring 2001
Sharon K. Miller
When Miller's student ultimately refuses to give up ownership of his work, the experience shapes her thinking regarding the relationship between the teacher-researcher, her students, and the data that are the work of those students. More ›

A Personal Bibliographic Essay

The Quarterly, Fall 1999
Marion S. MacLean, Marian M. Mohr
In this excerpt from Teacher-Researchers at Work, the authors share an annotated introduction to the many works that have informed their many years of work in the field of teacher research. More ›

Drawing: Another Path to Understanding

The Quarterly, Fall 1999
Theresa Manchey
Manchey examines her strategy of asking students to draw in response to literature and concludes that this helps students understand large concepts, serves as a memory aid, and prompts students to learn from each other. More ›

Teacher Research Crucial to Success of Profession

The Voice, November-December 1999
Richard Sterling
NWP Executive Director Sterling stresses the need for NWP teachers to continue their work as teacher-researchers, "taking charge of difficult educational question, investigating complex problems, and sharing finding with our colleagues." More ›

A Picaresque Tale from the Land of Kidwatching: Teacher Research and Ethical Dilemmas

The Quarterly, Winter 1996
Jane Zeni
Drawing on series of hypothetical episodes, Zeni explores a variety of ethical problems and dilemmas encountered by teacher-researchers. More ›

The Perils and Pleasures of Teacher Research: Excerpts from a Journal I Never Kept

The Quarterly, Summer 1996
Martha Dudley
As Dudley looks back on this journal, created after the fact, documenting her student Matthew's growth, she vows to study one student a year until "I am so old and eccentric that the district makes me a roving sub to get me to resign." More ›

Teacher Researchers Together: Delving into the Teacher Research Process

The Quarterly, Fall 1994
Sarah Warshauer Freedman, Elizabeth Radin Simons, Karen Alford, Reginald Galley, Sarah Herring, Doris Williams Smith, Elena Valenti, Patricia Ward
A group of teacher-researchers describe a year of the M-CLASS, a collaboration between university-based researchers and teachers of multicultural urban English and social studies classes. More ›

Book Review: Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge, by Cochran-Smith and Lytle

The Quarterly, Summer 1993
Joe Check, Roberta Logan
Check and Logan conduct a dialogue around aspects of this text, concluding that the book will appeal to multiple audiences as it offers theory, practice, critique, description, and analysis of the challenges facing teacher research. More ›

Risky Business

The Quarterly, Winter 1993
Susan Lytle
The author advocates the formation of collegial teacher research groups to collaborate in investigating "risky" questions that open up their classroom to closer scrutiny and the possibility of critique. More ›

TR 64. Ideological Divergences in a Teacher Research Group

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1992
Shawn Parkhurst, Sandra R. Schecter
The authors focus on differing ideologies of research, teaching/learning, and writing held by members of a teacher research group, providing evidence that divisions exist within the teacher research movement that are intellectually and socially important. More ›

TR 50. A Teacher-Research Group in Action

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1991
Rafael Ramirez, Sandra R. Schecter
Based on a two-year study of a university-affiliated teacher-research group, this article addresses the support teachers need in order to conduct classroom research, the effects of becoming researchers, and the knowledge teacher research can provide. More ›

Spinning Talk into Writing: Behind the Scenes of a Research Project

The Quarterly, Fall 1991
Smokey Wilson
In this long-term study, Wilson explores the transition that occurs as writers convert spoken speech into written prose. She also gives extensive attention to the research methods she employs. More ›

Teachers as Researchers: Writing to Learn about Ourselves - and Others

The Quarterly, Fall 1990
Sandra Hollingsworth
Focusing on the work of one teacher-researcher, Hollingsworth documents the perils that a researcher may encounter, such as taking on an overly ambitious project or adopting a method of analysis that does not fit the problem. More ›

Research, Recalibration, and Conversation: A Response to Cazden, Diamondstone, and Naso

The Quarterly, Fall 1989
Susan Florio-Ruane
The author considers the multiple uses of teacher research, concluding that contemplation is an integral part of practice and that conversation about practice is preferable to argument, as it allows room for tentative knowledge. More ›

Teacher Research: Toward Clarifying the Concept

The Quarterly, April 1989
Susan Lytle, Marilyn Cochran-Smith
The authors discuss such issues as generalizability, documentation, and analysis in the context of teacher-research, then consider forms teacher research might take, including teacher journals, essays, accounts of oral inquiry processes, and classroom studies. More ›

Teacher-Researchers: Their Voices, Their Continued Stories

The Quarterly, April 1989
Judy Grumbacher, Carin Hauser, Gretchen Mathews, Marian M. Mohr, Karen Willoughby
More ›

Teachers and Researchers: Roles and Relationships

The Quarterly, Fall 1989
Courtney Cazden, Judy Diamondstone, Paul Naso
More ›

Institutionalizing Inquiry

The Quarterly, July 1987
Miles Myers
More ›

University and Classroom Teacher: Research Partners

The Quarterly, January 1983
Sarah Warshauer Freedman
More ›

Window Sill: Teacher-Researchers and the Study of Writing Process

The Quarterly, June 1982
Marian M. Mohr
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The Teacher as Researcher

The Quarterly, November 1980
Marian M. Mohr
In this 1980 piece, Mohr describes her own early forays into teacher research, which begin when she comes to understand that the "humiliation of not knowing everything catches up with every teacher." She concludes that one way of learning to live with this realization is to "begin asking why things happened the way they did in my classes, to become a student of my students, encouraging them to teach me about the way they learned." More ›

What Happens when Teacher/Consultants Become Curiouser and Curiouser?

The Quarterly, November 1980
Don Gallehr
More ›