In an era of increased accountability mandates, school leaders face daunting challenges to improve instruction. Despite the vast research on instructional leadership, little is known about how principals improve teaching and learning in the subject of writing. Leadership content knowledge is the overlap of knowledge of subject matter and instruction in leadership. Using a cross case study format, this study examined the work of three elementary school principals who had different levels of leadership content knowledge in writing. Through observations and interviews, the study focused on how leadership content knowledge in writing influences the work of the principal.

The findings of this study indicate that principal practice is strongly influenced by leadership content knowledge in writing. The greater the leadership content knowledge, the more aspects of instruction the principal attended to, moving beyond surface features of instruction to underlying pedagogy and assessment. The principal with high leadership content knowledge gave more feedback to teachers and that feedback was much more detailed and specific than the feedback given by the principals with developing or moderate content knowledge. Leadership content knowledge also influenced how the principal designed professional learning opportunities for teachers and how they supported individual teachers through differentiation. This study contributes to the research literature by investigating the link between principal's knowledge and principal's practice.