Sarah McCarthey's current focus is on the impact of professional development on teachers' writing instruction. Funded by a Hardie Grant, Sarah and two graduate students collected data on 20 teachers' writing instruction, philosophies of writing, and perceptions of professional development. in her work investigating teachers' attitudes towards writing and their writing instruction within policy contexts such as NCLB, she has identified trends in writing instruction including the implementation of writer's workshop, genre-based instruction, and skills approaches.
Sarah is P. I. on the project "u-learn.net: An anywhere/anytime formative assessment and learning feedback environment" funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, Small Business Innovation Research Program. This project corresponds with her work as a consultant on the Assess-As-you-Go Project with Bill Cope as P.I. The projects focus on innovation in assessment in writing as students engage in writing and peer review in technology environments.
Sarah's work with Georgia Garcia to investigate the ways in which second language learners construct their identities as writers in English and in their native language was published in Research in the Teaching of English (2004), Written Communication (2005) and Journal of Second Language Writing (2005).
Sarah is co-editor with Mark Dressman and Paul Prior of Research in the Teaching of English, a premier journal in the field of literacy. She is also a co-investigator of the University of Illinois Writing Project with Paul Prior (Writing Studies) and Elizabeth Morley (Writer's Workshop). The project brings together local teachers to improve writing instruction in grades k-12.