Literacy Learning Communities in Partnership

Abstract

This article describes how a literacy learning community model was developed between two high school partnership sites and a large southern public university, and how teacher collaboration and shared learning across content areas in the first year impacted teachers' learning about literacy instruction and their school's vision for literacy. Specifically, teachers' learning was analyzed using multiple data: in-depth teacher interviews, surveys and inventories, teachers' coursework and portfolios, and classroom artifacts. Findings indicate that embedded staff development characterized by collaborative approaches to teachers' learning located in professional learning communities is effective especially with respect to teaching content area reading; teacher collaboration that honors continuous professional learning, either in a school-university partnership or within a wider group at the school or district level, offers rich possibilities for generating viable literacy learning communities.