How An IBD Teacher Drives Student Writing Growth Every Year

Featuring IBD Teacher Natalie Heath from Tigard-Tualatin School District

As an educator, few things are more rewarding than watching your students make meaningful progress throughout the school year. For Natalie Heath, a 7th grade English Language Arts teacher at Fowler Middle School in Tigard, Oregon, one of the most fulfilling aspects of teaching with Inquiry By Design curriculum is the measurable growth in her students' writing and comprehension skills.

“My overall highlight with IBD is the student gains in their writing and comprehension each year,” Natalie shares. From the very first essay, she sets high expectations and grades rigorously. While it might feel overwhelming for students at first, she has found that when you set the bar high, they rise to the challenge. “We grade really strongly and expect the students to work hard to improve their writing, and they do,” she explains. Students focus on improving paragraph structure, crafting strong introductions, and, most importantly, developing claims, supporting them with evidence, and explaining how that evidence connects to their claim—all without relying on personal opinion statements like “I think” or “in my opinion.”

“This is one of my personal classroom goals each year, and I am always blown away at the gains and effort of my students,” Natalie says. She has been teaching 7th grade IBD units for five years and consistently sees her students make significant progress in these areas.

Natalie also takes a data-driven approach to track her students' progress. She uses their original essay submissions as a baseline and sets a goal for them to improve their scores by at least 10% by the end of the year. “We are hoping that students increase and maintain a 10% (or more) score improvement each year,” she notes. And the results speak for themselves—students not only meet but often exceed these goals, gaining confidence in their writing along the way.

Watching her students grow into thoughtful, clear writers who can confidently make claims and back them up with evidence is one of the most rewarding parts of Natalie’s teaching journey. Through hard work, high expectations, and the support of IBD’s curriculum, Natalie Heath’s students are thriving as writers.