ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on teachers as writers and the positive flow-on effects for their students and describes our attempts to develop teachers as teachers of writing as a way of facilitating authentic and innovative writing strategies and practices. ‘Coercion’ signals participation in high-stakes systemic compliance requirements including Australia’s standardised testing program and the New South Wales school leaving credential examinations; as well as the implementation of local classroom requirements such as tests, assignments and teacher-directed activities. Teachers adopted what might be termed ‘shifting’ roles throughout the writing process. Teachers exploited a range of strategies to facilitate a classroom environment conducive to writing, not only for students, but also for themselves. Identity centres on shifts in the professional identity of the teacher as she engages with the ideas, processes and strategies of professional communities, reconstituting identity according to a range of factors such as: interpersonal relationships, extant skills and understandings, individual motivation and resulting practices, based on orientations, knowledge and beliefs.
