An Exploration of Coaches' Coordination of Micropolitical Strategies to Gain Access to Teachers' Classrooms Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides and Jen Munson pp. 155-175 Abstract For coaching to fulfill its promise as an effective teacher professional development model, coaches need access to teachers' classrooms and practice. However, teachers largely have autonomy over whether, when, and how such access is granted. Previous research has identified the types of strategies coaches leverage to gain access, and in this study, we explore whether and how coaches deliberately coordinate multiple strategies to gain access. Drawing on interviews conducted with 28 content-focused coaches, we found that gaining access involved orchestrating a complex network of micropolitical strategies and propose an emergent model depicting how coaches coordinate access-granting strategies. These findings indicate that developing and coordinating a repertoire of access-granting strategies is a sophisticated coaching practice in itself and a gatekeeper to initiating professional development activities with teachers. Implications for school districts and research are discussed.

Common Core-Related Shifts in English Language Arts Teaching From 2010 to 2018: A Video Study Mark White, Bridget Maher, and Brian Rowan pp. 37-63 Abstract The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts (ELA) called for several "key shifts" in classroom instructional practice. This study combined archived video data on classroom teaching collected in 2010 with new video data on classroom teaching collected in 2018 to conduct a pre-/postexamination of the extent to which this corpus of lessons showed the kinds of key shifts in ELA instruction called for by the CCSS. The data presented in the article show meaningful time trends consistent with some, but not all, of the key shifts in ELA instruction called for by the CCSS. These findings are discussed in light of the goals of the study and prior research on post-CCSS instruction in classrooms across the country.

Getting A Foot in the Door: Examining Content-Focused Coaches' Strategies for Gaining Access to Classrooms Jen Munson and Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides pp. 128-154 Abstract Coaches are called upon to provide productive, job-embedded professional development for teachers, but their capacity to do so hinges on gaining access to classrooms. Teachers typically have autonomy over whether, when, and for what they give coaches access to their practice, because, although coaches are viewed as instructional leaders, they lack positional authority over teachers. How coaches navigate the political task of gaining access to classrooms has yet to be systematically explored. Drawing on interviews with 28 content-focused (mathematics, literacy, and technology) coaches in one school district, this study examines the nature of micropolitical strategies coaches reported using to gain entry to work with teachers in classrooms. We identified 41 individual access-granting strategies that coaches leveraged and clustered them into six broad categories: relational strategies, structural strategies, direct offers, indirect strategies, cloaked coaching strategies, and pitching in strategies. Implications for school districts and research are discussed.

Predicting Efficacy to Teach Writing: The Role of Attitudes, Perceptions of Students' Progress, and Epistemological Beliefs Steve Graham, Tien Ping Hsiang, Amber B. Ray, Guihua Zheng, and Michael Hebert pp. 1-36 Abstract Three studies examined if teachers' beliefs about writing predicted their efficacy to teach writing. We surveyed primary grade teachers from Taiwan (N = 782), Shanghai (N = 429), and the United States (N = 214). At each location, teachers completed surveys assessing attitudes toward writing and the teaching of writing, beliefs about students' progress as writers, and epistemological beliefs about writing instruction, writing development, and writing knowledge. We examined if each of these beliefs made unique and statistically significant contributions to predicting efficacy to teach writing after variance due to all other predictors, as well as personal and contextual variables, was controlled. With one exception, these three sets of beliefs each accounted for unique variance in predicting teacher efficacy at each location. There was, however, variability in unique variance in teacher efficacy scores accounted for by specific beliefs across locations and the factor structure of various measures by location.

Reconceptualizing Civic Perspective-Taking: An Analysis of Elementary Student Verbal and Written Contributions within a Curricular Intervention William Toledo and Esther A. Enright pp. 64-98 Abstract This study examines how a project-based civics curriculum emphasizing locally relevant issues developed students' civic perspective-taking by creating discursive spaces for students to make connections with content. The underlying aim of the curriculum was to foster deliberative social studies classrooms by developing students' civic perspective-taking on local issues. This article uses thematic analysis of student discussions (i.e., verbal contributions) and writing assessments (i.e., written contributions) to identify and describe the types of connections students made. Our findings show that students made three types of connections with content using the civic perspective-taking framework: (a) realizing thematic connections among the issues to identify larger societal themes, (b) making personal connections to content, and (c) making connections to larger issues as they consider the public good. We found that students engaged in civic thinking in ways new to them, which prompted the research team to update and reconceptualize the framework for civic perspective-taking.

Upper-Elementary Students' Metacognitive Knowledge about Writing and Its Relationship to Writing Outcomes across Genres Joshua Wilson and Huijing Wen pp. 99-127 Abstract This study investigated fourth and fifth graders' metacognitive knowledge about writing and its relationship to writing performance to help identify areas that might be leveraged when designing effective writing instruction. Students' metacognitive knowledge was probed using a 30-minute informative writing prompt requiring students to teach their reader how to be a good writer (i.e., a metawriting task). The metawriting task was coded for eight dimensions of metacognitive knowledge. Students' writing performance was assessed via additional 30-minute prompts-two narrative, one informative, two persuasive-and evaluated for quality and length using automated essay scoring. Students were most aware of general characteristics of writing quality and production procedures, but they were less aware of substantive processes, genre, or other dimensions. Multiple regression analysis showed that, after controlling for demographics and literacy skills, only knowledge of general characteristics of writing and production procedures uniquely predicted outcomes. Overall, metacognitive writing knowledge inconsistently predicted writing performance.

When School Doesn't Start at Age 5: Elementary Principal Leadership of Pre-K Programs in Schools Michael Little, Timothy A. Drake, Lora Cohen-Vogel, and Jessica Eagle pp. 176-202 Abstract Today, about 50% of US elementary schools have a pre-kindergarten (pre-K) program located in the building. This article systematically reviews the empirical literature on principal leadership of pre-K programs in elementary schools. We collected studies using academic database searches, scanning reference lists of relevant articles, and consulting with experts in the field. Our efforts yielded 16 sources for review. Using thematic synthesis, we analyzed the data to reveal key findings related to principal leadership of pre-K programs. There has been limited scholarly attention to principal leadership in the pre-K context. Prominent themes in the existing literature on the topic include (1) a common framing of the "colliding" worlds of pre-K and K-12 education, (2) principals' beliefs about pre-K, (3) the scope of principal responsibility for pre-K programs, and (4) principal preparation to lead pre-K programs. We unearthed limited evidence on the topic but charted a path for future research on pre-K principal leadership. Future research should focus on the design of principal capacity building efforts that have direct, positive impacts for students.