Writing skills are crucial for student success in school. Students are assessed on their ability to write well using both lower (grammar, sentence structure) and higher (writing to respond to literature, demonstrate understanding of a topic) order skills. Writing is also important beyond the classrooms, as many jobs require the use of strong writing skills. Our children are overwhelmingly below proficient in the area of writing. According to The National Center for Education Statistics, 74 percent of 8th grade participants and 73 percent of 12th grade participants scored below proficiency. With only 3 percent of students in both grades achieving advanced status, which means only 24 percent of 8th and 12th graders are proficient in writing (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011). This trend continues beyond 12th grade with many college professors assessing their students' writing as fair to poor, (Mo, Kopke, & Hawkins, 2014; Troia, & Olinghouse, 2014). Educators are clearly not doing enough to support writing in our classrooms. With the acceptance of Common Core State Standards, schools have to increase writing throughout all content areas for a variety of purposes. Teachers in all content areas are expected to have students write to demonstrate their knowledge and expand their understanding. Pair the preceding information with the fact that many teachers do not feel qualified or prepared to give writing instruction and it is evident why our writing instruction and practices are weak. Improving writing instruction at all grade levels is clearly needed if we want to create stronger writers. Teachers need to be given the skills and pedagogy necessary to effectively teach writing for their particular content areas. Districts and schools try to provide professional development workshops that target teachers' needs in the area of writing instruction but based on national results, it's clear that is not enough. This research will look beyond workshops and focus on professional development and professional learning communities (PLC's), based on adult learning principles, to appoint several teachers with current writing research strategies, like increasing student motivation and how to build self-efficacy in both the student and the teacher. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]