Joan Dabrowski

Joan Dabrowski is a literacy educator, writer, and consultant whose work focuses on strengthening writing instruction across the elementary grades. She co‑authored Interactive Writing Across Grades: A Small Practice with Big Results, PreK–5 with Kate Roth, a practical guide that shows teachers how to use interactive writing as part of a comprehensive literacy program for students from prekindergarten through fifth grade. Dabrowski and Roth have also collaborated on the article “Extending Interactive Writing Into Grades 2–5” in The Reading Teacher, which argues that interactive writing is a valuable method not only for emergent writers but also for more fluent writers in upper elementary grades.

Dabrowski has extensive classroom and leadership experience, having worked as a K–2 and 4–5 classroom teacher, K–8 literacy coach, and pre‑K–12 director of literacy. She has served in district‑level roles including Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning in Wellesley Public Schools in Massachusetts and later Chief Academic Officer for Baltimore City Public Schools, where her work has emphasized literacy, instructional leadership, and PreK–12 curriculum and assessment. She holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Doctorate of Education in K–12 School Leadership from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, and maintains teaching, administrator, and superintendent