Denise Leograndis is a classroom teacher at the diverse Ponderosa Elementary School in the Santa Clara Unified School District, of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an exemplar writing teacher for the Noyce Foundation's Every Child a Reader and Writer Initiative, opening her classroom to groups of teachers new to writing workshop. She is also cofounder of the Writing Workshop Think Tank, a group of K6 teachers and teacher educators, dedicated to the pursuit of a deeper understanding of writing instruction and improved teaching practice.