Linda Friedrich is the Director of Literacy at WestEd and leads the agency’s Reading Apprenticeship team, which has a proven track record in improving disciplinary literacy in middle school, high school, and college.
For nearly three decades, Friedrich has worked at the intersection of practice and research to engage teachers in collaboratively improving teaching and learning, with a strong focus on literacy.
Most recently she served as the Director of Research and Evaluation at the National Writing Project (NWP), where she led writing assessment efforts and developed and co facilitated an initiative that engages young people in crafting civic arguments and improving academic arguments. Prior to joining NWP, she served as Research Director at the Coalition of Essential Schools and as a program officer at the Philadelphia Education Fund.
She has won competitive program and research grants, coauthored peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, edited collections of teachers’ research (including Working Toward Equity), and, with Ann Lieberman, coauthored How Teachers Become Leaders: Learning from Practice and Research (Teachers College Press, 2010).
Friedrich co-led a team that received a WestEd Strategic Investment Grant to expand WestEd’s Reading Apprenticeship service to include a parallel and innovative teacher professional learning program for secondary teachers that addresses the nationwide need for secondary learning acceleration in writing.
Friedrich earned her PhD in administration and policy analysis at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, and holds an AB in history from Bryn Mawr College.