Welcome to CELA!  Center on English Learning & Achievement   

Partnership for Literacy
(Middle School)

Project Coordinator: Jacqueline Marino

Participating Researchers Arthur Applebee, Deborah Brandt, James Collins, Adam Gamoran, Virginia Goatley, Mary Louise Gomez, Peter Johnston, Mark Jury, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Judith Langer, Martin Nystrand

Need for the Research. Over the past several years, researchers have learned a great deal about what works in schools that are successfully teaching English - as measured by student achievement. More recently, they have found that when certain things are not in place in the school (and/or district), even good teachers who are using effective instructional practices do not get the same results as teachers using similar practices in a supportive school environment. This is especially true for schools that serve poor, diverse student bodies.

But we do not yet know how to put into place those features that research has shown to be important - the plans, programs, and processes that make schoolwide success in English language arts possible. Therefore, CELA will conduct an implementation study in which Center staff will be working in partnership with a variety of schools in an instructional development program in English language arts. This Partnership aims to develop instructional capacity by improving teachers' knowledge, skills, and understandings about what their students are capable of doing and providing strategies and ideas for them to be able to act on this new knowledge in their classrooms.

Research Questions and Methodology. Teams of CELA researchers will assess the effectiveness of the intervention on an ongoing basis and compare results to results in a set of similar, comparison schools. Schools that opt to join the Partnership for Literacy will be divided into two cohorts, one that will start in 2001, the other in 2002.

The research will be looking for commonalities across sites, which will be middle schools located in New York and Wisconsin and will include schools in a variety of communities and contexts, with an emphasis on those that serve poor, underperforming youth. The quasi-experimental design provides for participation of 18 schools, 72 teachers, 144 classrooms, and 2880 students over a two-year period. A variety of quantitative and qualitative analyses will seek to answer such questions as:

  • Have curriculum and instruction in the partner schools changed as a result of the instructional development program?
  • How has student achievement in writing, reading, literature, and English language usage changed over time in the experimental and comparison classrooms?
  • Has the achievement of struggling readers changed as a result of the intervention?
  • To what extent, if any, does school-based literacy learning carry over into students' lives outside school?
  • To what extent does participation in the Partnership for Literacy change teachers' thinking and teaching - and subsequently their students' performance?
  • What strategies are most effective in increasing and sustaining academic discussion in low-achieving, inner city classrooms?

Educational Significance of the Research. Having identified features of English programs whose students are meeting success on high stakes tests and other measures of performance, it is essential to work with schools in a wide variety of settings to implement these features, study the results, and then share those results and strategies widely so that other schools have an opportunity to learn from them.

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The National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement