The field of literacy education has long been concerned with the question of how to help classroom teachers improve their practices so that students will improve as readers. Although there is consensus on what characterizes effective professional development, the reading research on which this consensus is based most often is small scale and involves direct support provided by university faculty. The South Carolina Reading Initiative is an exception: It is a statewide, site-based, large-scale staff development effort led by site-selected literacy coaches. Although university faculty provide longterm staff development to the coaches, the faculty are not directly involved with the professional development provided to teachers. In this study we sought to understand whether site-based, site-chosen literacy coaches could help teachers' beliefs and practices become more consistent with what the field considers to be best practices. To understand teacher change, we used two surveys (Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile, n = 817; South Carolina Reading Profile, n = 1,005) and case study research (n = 39) to document teachers' beliefs and practices. We also had access to a state department survey (n = 1,428). Across these data, we found that teachers' beliefs and Articles 216 Journal of Literacy Research 43(3)practices became increasingly consistent with best practices as defined by standards set by the South Carolina State Department of Education, standards that were consistent with national standards. This suggests that large-scale staff development can affect teachers when the providers are site-based, site-selected literacy coaches.

through Art and Language I'm a writer. But I'm an artist, too. Look at my artist's notebook. In this declaration, we learn that Rebecca is developing a sense of self beyond the given (i.e., 'I am a girl, I am a second grader, I am someone's daughter') and that keeping an artist's notebook as compared to just an ordinary notebook plays a role in her sense of self as writer. That children find support for writing in drawing is not surprising (Dyson, 1986; Ernst, 1994; Oshanksy, 2008); that children like Rebecca discover a sense of self in their writing and drawing pursuits is, however, noteworthy. Important, because in experimenting with ways of meaning on the page, children like Rebecca can discover forms (e.g., dot, line, shape, value, texture, color, space, movement) that make sense to them and use those forms to make sense of their ideas in unique ways. When schools privilege language over other ways of knowing, like art, a verbocentric ideology prevails (Arnheim, 1974; Eco, 1976), the belief that language should be privileged over other ways of knowing and verbocentrism, the practice of privileging language. Historically, K-12 schools have positioned language as the sole channel for learning, privileging linguistic abilities over all others. From a more contemporary perspective, this climate can still be seen today through a steady diet of worksheets and workbook activities despite research that shows what can happen when we redefine school literacy to include the arts (Cown & Albers, 2006). What that means for children is that the pencil (or keyboard) has been privileged over the paintbrush. By so doing, verbocentrism has limited not only how children respond to the world, but also limited the world's understanding of ways of knowing, how those ways are used to communicate, and why they have import. The gap between the current literacy landscape and US policies on literacy, whether through No Child Left Behind (NCLB) or the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), is perhaps wider than ever, the tension no more easily felt than in classrooms. As such, there is little support for K-12 teachers "to stretch the literacy curriculum beyond words" (M. Siegel, personal communication, October 18, 2013). In my dissertation study, I sought to understand "What happens when art and language are ways through which children construct meaning?" I closely followed three children as they represented diverse relationships among themselves, art, and language though they represented all the ways of responding in the classroom. For the purpose of this article, I focus on one of those children, Rebecca, a writer who discovers visual art as a way of knowing, and, through drawing, develops a greater appreciation for her love of writing.

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body leaning into the hard and gentle lines. He stirs the marker bin like he would a cake batter, searching for specific colors, wondering out loud which ones to use. He is careful. He is deliberate. He is responding to text with the thoughtful consideration anyone would expect from an architect. The classroom is abuzz. In the midst of this gentle hum of meaning-making energy, Timmy is approached by the teacher from the side and asked, "Talk to me about your drawing." With a quizzical brow, he turns and says, "That's not my drawing, that's my writing." In this single suspended moment, what Dyson (1986) has long observed is clearly understood, "Young children are symbol weavers. Their 'drawings' may be composed, not only of lines and colors, but of language as well" (p. 381). Timmy is one of 17 first-graders in a pilot study reviewed herein. In the study, the researchers observed how children construct meaning through drawing, writing, or a combination of the two. Specifically, we asked when given a choice between drawing or writing or both drawing and writing, which forms did first graders choose to communicate meaning? In parallel fashion, based on these same student responses and drawings we hoped to determine ways in which students made qualitative aesthetic choices (Eisner, 2002; Siegesmund, 1999). We believe this study contributes to existing research (

This paper explores the potential of sketchbooks as a pathway for developing ideas for writing in high school English classrooms. This paper examines how shifting between drawing and writing impacts students’ ability to develop ideas for writing and create meaningful texts. Specifically, this paper explores four types of visual sign making that students use in mediating, expressing, and representing meaning. Findings in this study suggest that sketchbooks can be used as an effective tool for inquiry in the pedagogy of writing instruction. As well, students’ voices offer clarification on perceptions about art and language as modes of expression which suggest curricular changes for the secondary English classroom.