In the Middle: New Understanding about Writing, Reading, and Learning (Workshop Series)

When first published in 1987, this seminal work was widely hailed for its honest examination of how teachers teach, how students learn, and the gap that lies in between. In depicting her own classroom struggles, Nancie Atwell shook our orthodox assumptions about skill-and-drill-based curriculums and became a pioneer of responsive teaching. Now, in the long awaited second edition, Atwell reflects on the next ten years of her experience, rethinks and clarifies old methods, and demonstrates new, more effective approaches.

The second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."

More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading.

The second edition of In the Middle is written in the same engaging style as its predecessor. It reads like a story - one that readers will be pleased to learn has no end. As Atwell muses, "I know my students and I will continue to learn and be changed. I am resigned - happily - to be always beginning for the rest of my life as a teacher."

Atwell, founder and teacher at a K-8 demonstration school in Maine, urges middle school educators to come out from behind their desks and turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create the curriculum together. Includes several hundred mini-lessons with scripts and examples for teaching them, ideas for teaching conventions, and systems for record keeping. Seventeen appendices offer forms for keeping track of individual student work, and lists of favorite adolescent literature. This second edition contains new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer.
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When first published in 1987, this seminal work was widely hailed for its honest examination of how teachers teach, how students learn, and the gap that lies in between. In depicting her own classroom struggles, Nancie Atwell shook our orthodox assumptions about skill-and-drill-based curriculums and became a pioneer of responsive teaching. Now, in the long awaited second edition, Atwell reflects on the next ten years of her experience, rethinks and clarifies old methods, and demonstrates new, more effective approaches.

Nancie Atwell reflects on the ten years of her teaching experience since writing the first edition of the seminal work, In the Middle.

Nancie Atwell teaches seventh-and eighth-grade writing, reading, and history at the Center for Teaching and Learning, a K-8 demonstration school she founded in Edgecomb, Maine, in 1990. Nancie was the first classroom teacher to receive the NCTE David H. Russell Award and the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for distinguished research in the teaching of English.

Always Beginning

Learning How to Teach Writing

Learning How to Teach Reading

Making the Best of Adolescence

Writing and Reading Workshop

Getting Ready

Getting Started

Minilessons

Responding to Writers and Writing

Responding to Readers and Reading

Valuing and Evaluating

Teaching with a Capital "T"

Taking Off the Top of My Head

Call Home the Child: Memoir

Hanging with Big Sis: Fiction

Finding Poetry Everywhere

Taking Care of Business

Appendixes:

A. Materials for Writing, Reading, and Publishing

B. Ways Student Writers Can Go Public

C. Kinds of Writing That Emerge in Writing Workshop

D. Writing Survey

E. Reading Survey

F. Student Writing Record/Sample Record

G. Student Reading Record/Sample Record

H. Personal Spelling List/Sample List

Weekly Word Study/Sample Study

J. Peer Writing Conference Record

K. Editing Checksheet

L. Favorite Adolescent Literature

M. Favorite Collections of Poetry

N. Quotes for the Walls of a Writing-Reading Workshop

O. Final Self-Evaluation of Writing and Reading

P. Weekly Homework Assignment Sheet

Q. Recommended Resources for Teachers of Middle School Writing, Reading, and Literature