A comparison of writing scores of students taught by National Board Certified teachers who have and have not participated in the National Writing Project

The Mississippi Writing Project is a collaborative network of eight National Writing Project sites in Mississippi. The heart of the Writing Project continues to be the annual Summer Institute conducted at every Writing Project site. Through these invitational programs, individual Writing Project sites prepare excellent teachers to become Teacher Consultants who will lead other teachers in staff development sessions.; The purpose of this investigation was to compare Mississippi Writing Assessment test scores of students in Mississippi whose teachers were Writing Project teachers, National Board Certified, and had earned an advanced degree with the Mississippi Writing Assessment test scores of fourth-grade students whose teachers were National Board Certified and had earned an advanced degree, but were not affiliated with the Writing Project.; The study was conducted in seven elementary schools in Mississippi. Ten fourth-grade classrooms were involved in the study. A quasi-experimental design was used in this study to determine if the writing skills of students of Writing Project teachers differed qualitatively from the writing skills of students of non Writing Project teachers.; An independent two-tailed t test showed no significant difference in mean scores on the Mississippi Writing Assessment of fourth-grade students who were instructed by Writing Project Teachers when compared with fourth-grade students whose teachers were not Writing Project teachers. The ANCOVA also showed no significant difference in mean scores on the Mississippi Writing Assessment of fourth-grade students who were instructed by Writing Project teachers when compared with fourth-grade students whose teachers were not Writing Project teachers when the third-grade Mississippi Language Arts scores were used as a covariate.; Based on telephone interviews, the researcher reached several conclusions. First, Writing Project and non Writing Project teachers used many of the same teaching strategies to teach writing, although Writing Project teachers implemented these strategies more often. Second, Writing Project teachers seemed to have obtained a higher level of confidence and demonstrated more professional behaviors. Third, Writing Project teachers expressed more supportiveness of school-level administrators than did non Writing Project teachers.