Search

Developed by the National Writing Project (NWP), the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) seeks to improve students' argument writing by building teachers' understanding of and skill in teaching source-based argument writing. The program features intensive professional development, skill-based instructional resources, and formative assessment tools designed to help teachers bring C3WP into their classrooms. After two prior studies of C3WP showed positive and statistically significant effects on grade 7-10 students' source-based argument writing, NWP received a 2016 Investing in Innovation (i3) Scale-up grant from the US Department of Education. With this grant, NWP aimed to: (1) develop greater capacity to implement and sustain C3WP through scaling activities and (2) implement C3WP in grades 7-10 in 2018-19 and 2019-20 and grades 4-5 in 2019-20. SRI received funds through this grant to serve as external evaluator. This technical report provides SRI's independent evaluation findings in line with i3 reporting requirements. SRI employed a district-level cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of C3WP on students' source-based argument-writing achievement. In spring 2018, SRI randomized 48 rural districts in 16 states to receive either C3WP or a business-as-usual comparison condition. One treatment district attrited shortly after randomization. SRI used various data sources, including administrative program data and teacher surveys, to examine scaling and program implementation. SRI administered a source-based argument writing performance task as a baseline measure in fall 2018 and outcome measure in spring 2019, after one year of program implementation in grades 7-9. SRI deidentified the writing and NWP scored it using the four attributes measured by the Analytic Writing Continuum for Source-based Writing (AWC-SBA): content, structure, stance, and conventions. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the second year of C3WP implementation in grades 7-10 and the only year of implementation in grades 4-5. Ultimately, SRI found that NWP's implementation of C3WP met all measured thresholds of implementation fidelity and scaling other than those impacted by the pandemic (number of hours of professional development in 2019-20 and regional conferences, intended to be held in 2020). SRI found that one year of C3WP had positive and statistically significant impacts on all four attributes of grade 7-9 students' writing measured by the AWC-SBA.