KENNEBUNK, Maine – Teachers from all three RSU 21 elementary schools learned how to improve their writing instruction skills during a three-day paid professional development earlier this week.
The training was hosted by Matt Glover and Carl Anderson, authors of How to Become a Better Writing Teacher, a “practical guide for teachers who want to improve their writing instruction,” according to the publication’s website.
“High-quality professional development opportunities like this are vital to improving literacy skills and giving our excellent teachers even more tools,” said Kenneth Spinney, assistant principal at Sea Road School.
The training focuses on 50 powerful actions that teachers can take key aspects of their work to the next level, including increasing student engagement in writing, taking ownership of curriculum decisions, individualizing instruction, and facilitating connections between students and mentor writers.
“Writing is an essential aspect of a student’s overall literacy development,” said Molly Dilworth, RSU 21’s instruction and assessment officer. “Prioritizing mentor texts to encourage writing and teaching students to look at texts from the author’s perspective will impact not only our students’ writing ability, but their reading ability as well.”
Teacher training and salaries were funded by the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) Literacy Grant, an initiative announced in January to support the development, expansion and improvement of evidence-based elementary literacy instruction.
“It was great to see a packed room of our RSU 21 elementary teachers committed to improving our students’ writing skills,” said Paul Rasmussen, RSU 21 assistant superintendent. “Thanks to the MDOE Reading Promotion Grant, we were able to bring Matt and Carl to our district and pay our teachers for the three days they spent with us.”
“The three days of writing training were absolutely incredible,” said Sea Road School teacher Katya Pardu.
Every participant in a post-training survey said the information was both “valuable to me” and “will impact my practice.”
“This will change the way I talk to my students and will drastically change the amount of writing work my students will do,” said another teacher who attended the training. A group of educators from MSAD 35 at Eliot also joined the group.
Glover and Anderson will return to RSU 21 in September and March 2025 to attend additional training that will be available to all elementary school teachers in the district.
