A Principal's Guide to Leadership in the Teaching of Writing: Helping Teachers with Units of Study (The Units of Study for Teaching Reading Series)

"A Principal's Guide to Leadership in the Teaching of Writing will keep you company during the hard work of leading school reform in teaching writing. It will bring you inside a community of practice comprised of scores of principals who have also thought, 'How can I provide my teachers with the support they deserve in teaching writing?' This book will allow you to stand on the shoulders of others who have tackled the challenge of supporting whole school reform in writing." Lucy Calkins & Laurie Pessah

Schoolwide reform in writing involves all members of the school community. This resource is for the leader in that reform effort. Organized around the school calendar, A Principal's Guide to Leadership in the Teaching of Writing will help you work strategically throughout the school year researching, imagining, problem solving, building infrastructure, and developing leaders. The accompanying DVD welcomes you into a community of practice where you can learn from other principals who have engaged in the beautiful, difficult, exhilarating work of supporting schoolwide reform in the teaching of writing.

This Principal's Guide is a companion to theUnits of Study for Teaching Writing series. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study for Teaching Writing series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, curricular calendars, overview presentations, frequently asked questions, and information on the companion principal's guide and the Workshop Help Desk series visit unitsofstudy.com.

Lucy Calkins is the author of the best-selling grade-by-grade Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades K-8, Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grades K-8, and Units of Study in Phonics, Grades K - 2 series, which have quickly become an indispensable part of classroom life in tens of thousands of schools around the world, the Up the Ladder: Accessing Grades 3-6 Units in Narrative, Information, and Opinion Writing series, and classroom essentials such as the groundbreaking TCRWP Classroom Libraries and the Workshop Help Desk series. Lucy is also the author or coauthor of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including Leading Well, The Art of Teaching Writing, Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions, Grades K-8 , Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement, and One to One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. In her role as the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, a New York City - based organization that has influenced literacy instruction around the globe for more than thirty years, Lucy has developed a learning community of brilliant and dedicated teacher educators who have supported hundreds of thousands of teachers, principals, superintendents, and policy-makers in schools that bear their distinctive mark: a combination of joy and rigor in the classrooms, and entire school communities - teachers, principals, parents, kids - who wear a love of reading and writing on their sleeves. Lucy is the Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, Columbia University where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program - a masters and doctoral program that brings brilliant teachers and coaches to TCRWP schools everywhere and to the Project itself. She and her husband John are the parents of two sons, Miles and Evan. Visit UnitsofStudy.com

Laurie Pessah is a Senior Deputy Director at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, where she has responsibility for staffing the Project's work with several hundred schools in New York City and around the country. Coauthor of the DVD A Principal's Guide to Leadership in the Teaching of Writing: Helping Teachers with Units of Study (Heinemann 2008), Laurie has special responsibility for leading the TCRWP's work with school leaders and supporting staff developers. In this capacity, Laurie leads study groups, institutes, and a calendar of conference days for superintendents, principals, and assistant principals. She also has a longstanding special interest in primary-level reading and writing workshops.