The Impact of Intensive Writing Workshop Professional Development on a Cross-Curricular Group of Secondary Teachers

Abstract

This paper reports on the responses of six secondary teachers to a six-day writing workshop led by the author in January, 2013. These teachers, representing a range of subject areas, underwent this professional learning as key participants in a two-year, participatory action research project being conducted in their school entitled: “A culture of writing: Impacting on teacher and student performance across the curriculum”. The specific focus of this paper is which writing workshop features and practices are viewed positively by teacher-participants as contributing to increased self-efficacy as writers and teachers of writing? To gauge teachers’ responses to the workshop, two datasets were analysed by the author: 1. a questionnaire completed at the conclusion at the workshop which included response items that were rated on a 10-point Likert scale, and open-ended prompts where participants could comment on aspects of their experience; and 2. a final-day focus group. A range of themes emerged across both datasets related to the use of response groups, workshop features contributing (or not) to learning about writing, workshop features contributing (or not) to writer confidence, and the likelihood of future classroom use of writing project activities. A discussion of these findings reveals interesting convergences and divergences in the responses of these teachers to writing workshop participation, especially in relation to the range of subjects they represented.