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This paper documents the journey of a professional developer engaged and trained to support the implementation of a literacy innovation in an urban school district. The innovation, First Steps, is a systematic organization of best practices linking assessment and instruction, supported by an ongoing program of school-based professional development. First Steps employs a teacher of teachers professional development model. The story of the professional developer's experience over 4 years as a site-based tutor, set against the backdrop of a district-wide initiative to improve writing instruction, documents and illustrates the lessons learned, and questions raised, about the personal and professional trajectory of a professional developer in the context of school reform. The paper analyzes the way the professional development model played out in the context of one school, suggesting how the experiences, personality, concerns, and beliefs of the professional developer, as well as the nature of supports for that person, affected the outcome of the reform. The paper draws on the findings of a 3-year qualitative research project which used data from personal journals, written records and observations, tape recorded focus group discussions, and individual interviews. (Contains 51 references.) (SM)

This paper reports on the findings of Year 1 of a three-year project, funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, to study the implementation of the First Steps Literacy Program in a New England urban school district. The study is informed by theories of literacy that view reading, writing, and language as integrated components of a process; development in one area facilitates development in the others. Effective instruction is informed by ongoing assessment and provides opportunities for immersion, modeling, relevant feedback, diverse opportunities to use language in purposeful ways, and by current research on teacher development and curriculum change that view professional growth as situational and socially constructed. First Steps, originally developed in Australia, is a holistic, developmentally sequenced approach to literacy instruction designed to give teachers explicit ways of mapping children's progress through observation--it links assessment and instruction and creates a support system for ongoing professional development. The qualitative study focused on the nature and response to First Steps professional development. Observations were made in eight elementary schools implementing First Steps in the 1996-97 academic year; four schools were selected for case studies. Data were collected by surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observations. Data to date indicate that several professional development indicators appear to be present in the First Steps professional development model as implemented in Southtown. Moving into the second year, data indicate that First Steps personnel are rethinking their role and identifying new ways in which they can most effectively support teachers. (Contains 12 references.) (NKA)