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This qualitative study examined writing instruction in two linguistically diverse fourth-grade classrooms in order to determine the genres taught and the instructional practices favored by teachers. Researchers observed writing instruction and interviewed teachers in a culturally and linguistically diverse elementary school in Southern California to study how teachers worked with children to develop their capacity to negotiate different writing tasks. Findings revealed that students were engaged in content-area expository writing, and the writing assignments were influenced by assessment requirements. Both teachers evidenced explicit instruction of academic language, attention to genres, and scaffolding for writing. Observations revealed that teachers tended to focus their feedback on word and sentence level discourse during classroom instruction. For lengthier pieces, teachers used mentor texts and heavy scaffolding to ensure that every student in the class would be able to produce the writing required. Implications for professional development are discussed.

Although the mission statements of most comprehensive teaching institutions of higher education include serving as a resource for the global and local community, the tenure and promotion process typically does not recognize these community partnerships as research endeavors, even when the nature of the work is firmly grounded in sound empirical practice. This paper shares the process a faculty task force undertook to gain consensus and incorporate language on engaged scholarship within the College's personnel document. The process took four years and included five steps: (a) establish a definition of engaged scholarship grounded in scholarly literature, (b) gather practice-oriented information regarding best practices as well as faculty perceptions of engaged scholarship practice, (c) create policy language for department personnel documents, (d) generate consensus among faculty for the policy language, and (g) submit final documents to the University Personnel committee for approval. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for policy and practice.