In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing, Reading, and Learning

by Nancie Atwell, Donald H. Graves (Foreword)

The best way to teach is to learn together with the students. One of the rare breed of teachers who do know this is Nancie Atwell.
- The New York TimesReading this book can be revolutionary. . . . Atwell leads us to new understandings of teaching and learning in a workshop classroom.
- Voices from the Middle 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."

Genres: Education, Teaching, College, Nonfiction, Writing, School, Read For School

546 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Corey Wozniak · Rating 5 out of 5]

What Atwell's _The Reading Zone_ was for my curriculum last year (the backbone, soul, elan vital, breath of life, Bible), _In The Middle_ will be for my curriculum this upcoming year. I am definitely an Atwell-ite.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Middle presents a fabulous approach to teaching language. It is one of those books that can refresh a stressed teacher, can fill her with ideals and ideas, and those books are very important in my world! What I found, though, was that Atwell's approach in this book really cannot be applied to my students. It can apply to me in that it presents a pedagogy I believe in and illustrates techniques that I would love to practice, but I cannot successfully practice these approaches with the students I currently work with. To me, it feels like Atwell's teaching style is culturally and/or socioeconomically bound. It occurs to me that perhaps my troubles with applying her method is more about my boundaries as a teacher than about my students' boundaries--turning criticism inward is instinctive for me--but this time, I think it might not be my fault. And as much as I wish I could teach like Atwell does, the truth is that doing so would do my particular students a disservice.

This situation reminds me of the problem we face with the bureaucracy of education today. As Obama and Duncan look for a model school system that can be replicated all over the Country--KIPP already being in the running--every day teachers discover that lessons, units, and educational approaches, as effective and promising as they might be in one setting, cannot necessarily be recast in a different environment. Schools struggle to revise and systematize, racing against test scores, while Obama and Duncan work harder to refine high stakes testing and increase the stakes than they do to help schools be who and what they need to be. Schools cannot all be the same thing. Being in Nancie Atwell's classroom or, even better, at a school modeled after her work, would be amazing for me, but it would be completely too unstructured for other kids. Differences, great, gaping differences need to be allowed if we want to successfully and lovingly serve kids all over the Country. But it's hard to reform each school for its students in its neighborhood. It's thousands of times harder than finding one model. So bureaucracy says there must be a system all schools can adopt and then personalize as needed. This idea of progress is not helping kids learn. It is not even helping them pass an ugly standardized test that now determines whether they can graduate from high school or not. There's just so much wrong with this picture. And I shouldn't have gone out drinking before writing this review.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book had a lot of good information I can use on teaching English, but some parts were more useful than others. My review focuses on the information in the text related to teaching writing, event though there is a significant amount of information related to the reading workshop.
The least helpful part had to be the chapter on evaluation since Atwell's experience, publications, and charter school allow her to evaluate in any way she sees fit without having to answer to public school administration.
I think the most helpful aspect of the book was the information directly related to running writing workshops, including the mini-lesson idea lists, sample scripts, and formative assessment techniques.
I recently read Donald Murray's Write to Learn and Shoptalk, which were both extremely helpful. However, they were primarily about how to write whereas Atwell's is a good mixture of how to become a writer as well as how to use what you know about writing to teach it.

[Dr. Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the by far the best book I've ever read! Nancie Atwell discusess so many strategies teachers can use to be as effective as possible. I plan to use many of them this year with my 6th grade langauge arts students...I know they're going to be so excited about it!

[jmjester · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit it. I have a Pinterest board for school and have downloaded a few items from Teachers Pay Teachers. They are mostly a mixed bag, however. "Here's a unit I developed. Feel free to use it once you've paid for it." To be fair, many items are free and some call for hard thinking on the part of students. What is problematic about even the very best of these ideas is that we rarely get to see the rationale behind them. Why am I supposed to start this way and finish that way? Sharing ideas like this is hardly new.They are the equivalent of teacher idea books I used to buy at Beckers.

One idea I gleaned long ago from such a book was to offer students choices of projects that appealed to one of Gardner's intelligences - kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, etc. The elephant above was submitted in response to the sundry items Boo Radley leaves in the knothole of a tree in To Kill a Mockingbird. She's a sweet little thing, but looking back on it now, I'm puzzled how I thought this would deepen anyone's connection to the themes of the book.

Not so with the latest edition of Nancie Atwell's In the Middle. If you hadn't heard of Atwell before this year and her dozen or so books that she's written, surely you saw something of her when she recently won the inaugural Global Teacher Prize.When she published the first edition of ITM back in 1988, she used the proceeds to build a demonstration school where teachers from across the country can spend a week learning how to teach in a reading and writing workshop. Reading her books make me feel like I've won one of these coveted spots. She explains what she teaches, why she does what she does, and tells you what she tells her kids. Instead of being handed a script, you feel as if you're eavesdropping in on a conversation.

You may think if you'd read an earlier edition of the book, that you're already privy to Atwell's thinking. You'd be wrong. It's not that she's changed her philosophy. It's that it's evolved in the twenty-seven years since the first edition was printed. The second edition promised seventy percent new material when published in 1998. This one has an additional eighty percent . It still contains gems from the early days. When I see her conditions for a writing workshop, I greet them like old friends.

But there is much that's built on these principles since then too.When I come across advice like asking students to research your writing and interview you, a more proficient writer than they, it strikes me as pure gold. Weekly letters in dialogue journals have grown into letter-essays composed at book's end; an aversion to fiction gives way to microfiction; persuasive essays, barely warranting a mention in the first edition, have evolved into advocacy journalism in the third.

It's also one of those rare books that will not only improve your teaching but will improve your writing as well. For example, I'd been struggling to revise a tritina I'd written in class one day. (Here's a link to an explanation and a sample poem by Deborah Neyens if you're not familiar with the form.) Rereading advice Atwell had given to one of her young writers moved me to reconsider mine. I've also taken to heart her suggestion to write off of the page. I'm not surprised that this is so. Pultizer Prize winner Donald Murray was one of her idols. Mine too.


We've all heard the observation that some people teach for twenty years while others teach the same year twenty times. Atwell's living proof that our experiences in the classroom can profoundly affect our future teaching. In fact, it's the surest way to achieve what she inscribed in my copy of In the Middle all those years ago.

Reflective practice and refining our craft are essential to achieving this goal. I promise no more "arts and crafts" elephants that do little to grow learning if you'll do the same. In the meanwhile, this edition of In the Middle is already on its way to being just as dog-eared as the first.

[Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am fortunate enough to be starting a writing workshop with middle school students, so I thought it was time for a reread of one of my favorite books. I last read this around 1990. This was a refreshing update and a wealth of valuable information.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many great ideas. Can feel a little overwhelming how to get started integrating them. I'm glad to have such an amazing example of a reading and writing workshop model, but still don't feel quite prepared for "how to start."

[Michael Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I will ever truly be "done" with this book, this referendum, consortium of knowledge experiences from viable collaborations between students and teacher. The constant pattern to take away is the exposition of theme and written accompaniment to demonstrate the succinctness of intent and idea gleaned from her tasks and assignments to the ongoing growth of her writers-becoming-authors. All of the excerpts and full length pieces are worth their fair share of the read as they demonstrate the 'how' of where students approach writing. Their writings give insight into their 'learnability' and points of variance through which teachers can gain footholds of understanding the what and the why to teach next. The independent amoeba *is* the writing as it leads them to new experiences, and, coupled with Atwell's concept of "ownership", is the vehicle in which and through which media is ingested, found important and made sense of (or not).

Yet it is only her own experiences with the classroom; its truth and boldness can seem to valiantly stand out amidst imposed prompts and ideas of curriculum negotiated through national and state means. But this juxtaposition via a jaded contextual reader response is not the intention; rather, it is merely an account of successful and reciprocal listening, speaking, reading, and writing, when those happen in collaboration and community, and when the lens of perception aims towards one that is individually realistic and uplifintg towards the acts of reading and writing.

The best thing about this book is that it demonstrates all of this with about as minimal a fuss as possible over the superfluous jargon and terminology surrounding educational research. Nancy Atwell, her students and her classroom are the ultimate grader through which such ideas can truly be seen for what they are and applied, messed up, reversed, torn inside out, made into a patch, or thrown into the recycling bin.

[jacky · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are close to 75 books on my "college" bookshelf. I bought almost all of them. This is one that I wish I had bought because I think it would be far more useful to me now than all those paperback novels and plays. I had to read this as part of my student teaching program. Although some of the ideas were excellent, I didn't see it as being practical then. Now, even though I think that Atwell's school is idealistic and doesn't even mention many of the daily problems I face, I subscribe to her overall approach. Over the last four years, I gradually followed a similar path to what she outlines in her first chapter; I moved from total control, to more choice, to much more choice with me as guide responsible for sharing as much as I can about writing. This is my first year doing this approach, so I'm not all the way there, but revisiting this text has really been an eye opener. What I thought was so impossible before is now reassuring for what I am trying to accomplish.

I wish I had time to reread more of this book, but I only could manage the first chapter so that I could use it for my lit review for my teacher research paper.

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first exposure to the workshop model. She gives a basic outline, an brief description of how she implemented it in her classroom, changes made over time, and then student anecdotes. She obviously is in an ideal setting being that she teaches at a school she helped to found.

Useful: Giving students more choice in their writing (increase motivation), use of portfolios, drafting writing in front of students, exposure to many genres, practice with lit. devices/syles in their own writing.

Not so realistic to apply right away in a high school setting with students who are far below grade level. Also level of homework could be built upon if students struggle with the 30 mins sustatined reading.

It could be modified by slowly building stamina, routines, and allowing more student choice/control.

[Heather Pratt Lowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great resource for ELA teachers. Read this if you are looking to change your teaching style to be more student-centered and authentic. Atwell offers a ton of practical tips and resources to help you implement the workshop model in your classroom, and helps you anticipate some of the questions/challenges you will face in changing to this style of teaching. I am excited to practice what I learned from this book in my classroom this year!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book saved my butt what when I was teaching middle school and was instrumental in my shift from education to composition for my graduate work. Atwell's approach teaching writing still holds up 30 years later. The tragedy is that the book may be less relevant to current public school teachers because of the current testing culture.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

though she can be long-winded at times with her narrative writing, Nancie Atwell offers a lot of great suggestions and insights for those considering using the workshop model. I will definitely be referring back to this again in the future.

[Nichole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not recommend this book more highly. Any English or elementary teacher should read this book.

[Megan Mather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica Fisher
Megan Mather
Sarah Lodwick
ENG 315 – M 4p
September 21, 2010

In the Middle by Nancie Atwell
Book Review

“Surviving adolescence is no small matter; neither is surviving adolescents. It’s a hard age to be and to teach.” (p 53). Nancie Atwell understands the many challenges young adolescents face as well as the challenges their teachers face. Atwell has been an educator for 37 years, specializing in middle level education. Atwell later founded the Center for Teaching and Learning in Maine, which uses many of the ideals presented in her book, In the Middle in which she describes how to teach middle school writing using a writing workshop approach.

Chapter three focuses on the unique needs of adolescent students and how a writing teacher must cater to those unique needs. Adolescence is a particularly diverse age group to teach because students are constantly changing physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, and psychologically. In addition to these changes, each individual student is changing and growing at their own pace, making a wide range of developmental levels that the educator must consider while teaching.
Atwell explains that “A workshop approach accommodates adolescents’ needs, invites their independence, and challenges them to grow up” (pg. 71). Middle level educators should focus on aspects of the writing workshop that appeal to the unique needs of middle level students. At this developmental level, socializing, relationships, friendships become one of the most significant factors in their life, and therefore in their writing. Within the writing workshop at the middle level, educators need to incorporate aspects of adolescence that are of great importance, such as social interaction. Therefore, teachers should channel young adolescents’ need to socialize by incorporating conferencing and peer editing into their teaching; this way students are learning while fulfilling their need to talk to friends.

Atwell focuses on the importance of writing-teacher-as-writer in chapter ten. "When we, as English teachers, demonstrate the uses of writing in our lives, we answer the most important question of all about writing: Why would anyone want to write? We give our students another taste of the complexities and satisfactions of composing a life" (p 369). In her classroom, Atwell would write with her students, showing them her own writing process and mistakes: from brainstorming ideas to the finished product. This is particularly important because students need to see the process directly and not just infer how to be a writer. Many students have never experienced a writing process or workshop; how can we expect them to be writers, if they have never been directly taught how? Examples are great, but experiencing the process is more meaningful.
Chapter eleven examines memoirs and how students can use these memoirs to “discover and tell our own truths as writers.” (p 372). A memoir is a piece of writing that allows the student to inject their feelings and thoughts about events in their own lives. The memoir lets the reader see into the actual life experience of the writer and is always written in first person narrative. It can be used to replace the commonly used personal-experience narrative and it is a more effective form of writing. Instead of just telling what happened during a life experience, a memoir delves deeper into that experience by reflecting on thoughts, feelings, and the meaning behind the experience. Much of the chapter showcases pieces of Atwell’s students’ writings and covers the various styles of memoir, also showing the various writings of adolescents.

These three chapters work together to give the reader a good understanding of how and why a writing workshop is a beneficial way to teach writing in the middle level. The first chapter describes the needs and characteristics of young adolescents; the second chapter demonstrates how you can use those characteristics to teach young adolescents in an effective way, specifically when it comes to teaching them how to write through modeling; the third chapter uses the memoir to showcase different examples of how the writing work shop really benefits young adolescents. It does so by teaching the students how to write in a way that meets their needs and showing how writing helps them to discover themselves and the world around them (which is what adolescence is all about).

As future middle level educators, we saw many overlapping practices of what we learned in our middle level cohort classes. Atwell focuses on the needs and characteristics of the adolescent and how it pertains to the writing workshop and the classroom in general. Atwell uses real life examples from her teaching experience, which makes the book relevant to our needs as pre-service teachers. She shares her successes and her failures to help the reader determine what might work in their own classroom. Atwell’s ideas are clearly expressed throughout the book and genuinely enjoyable to read.

We would recommend this book to any writing teacher, specifically middle level educators. The book covers both the pedagogical practices of the writing classroom and how to teach to the needs of the learner.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica Fisher
Megan Mather
Sarah Lodwick
ENG 315 – M 4p

In the Middle by Nancie Atwell
Read Share: Book Review

“Surviving adolescence is no small matter; neither is surviving adolescents. It’s a hard age to be and to teach.” (p 53). Nancie Atwell understands the many challenges young adolescents face as well as the challenges their teachers face. Atwell has been an educator for 37 years, specializing in middle level education. Atwell later founded the Center for Teaching and Learning in Maine, which uses many of the ideals presented in her book, In the Middle in which she describes how to teach middle school writing using a writing workshop approach.
Chapter three focuses on the unique needs of adolescent students and how a writing teacher must cater to those unique needs. Adolescence is a particularly diverse age group to teach because students are constantly changing physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, and psychologically. In addition to these changes, each individual student is changing and growing at their own pace, making a wide range of developmental levels that the educator must consider while teaching. Atwell explains that “A workshop approach accommodates adolescents’ needs, invites their independence, and challenges them to grow up” (pg. 71). Middle level educators should focus on aspects of the writing workshop that appeal to the unique needs of middle level students. At this developmental level, socializing, relationships, friendships become one of the most significant factors in their life, and therefore in their writing. Within the writing workshop at the middle level, educators need to incorporate aspects of adolescence that are of great importance, such as social interaction. Therefore, teachers should channel young adolescents’ need to socialize by incorporating conferencing and peer editing into their teaching; this way students are learning while fulfilling their need to talk to friends.
Atwell focuses on the importance of writing-teacher-as-writer in chapter ten. "When we, as English teachers, demonstrate the uses of writing in our lives, we answer the most important question of all about writing: Why would anyone want to write? We give our students another taste of the complexities and satisfactions of composing a life" (p 369). In her classroom, Atwell would write with her students, showing them her own writing process and mistakes: from brainstorming ideas to the finished product. This is particularly important because students need to see the process directly and not just infer how to be a writer. Many students have never experienced a writing process or workshop; how can we expect them to be writers, if they have never been directly taught how? Examples are great, but experiencing the process is more meaningful.
Chapter eleven examines memoirs and how students can use these memoirs to “discover and tell our own truths as writers.” (p 372). A memoir is a piece of writing that allows the student to inject their feelings and thoughts about events in their own lives. The memoir lets the reader see into the actual life experience of the writer and is always written in first person narrative. It can be used to replace the commonly used personal-experience narrative and it is a more effective form of writing. Instead of just telling what happened during a life experience, a memoir delves deeper into that experience by reflecting on thoughts, feelings, and the meaning behind the experience. Much of the chapter showcases pieces of Atwell’s students’ writings and covers the various styles of memoir, also showing the various writings of adolescents.
These three chapters work together to give the reader a good understanding of how and why a writing workshop is a beneficial way to teach writing in the middle level. The first chapter describes the needs and characteristics of young adolescents; the second chapter demonstrates how you can use those characteristics to teach young adolescents in an effective way, specifically when it comes to teaching them how to write through modeling; the third chapter uses the memoir to showcase different examples of how the writing work shop really benefits young adolescents. It does so by teaching the students how to write in a way that meets their needs and showing how writing helps them to discover themselves and the world around them (which is what adolescence is all about).
As future middle level educators, we saw many overlapping practices of what we learned in our middle level cohort classes. Atwell focuses on the needs and characteristics of the adolescent and how it pertains to the writing workshop and the classroom in general. Atwell uses real life examples from her teaching experience, which makes the book relevant to our needs as pre-service teachers. She shares her successes and her failures to help the reader determine what might work in their own classroom. Atwell’s ideas are clearly expressed throughout the book and genuinely enjoyable to read.
We would recommend this book to any writing teacher, specifically middle level educators. The book covers both the pedagogical practices of the writing classroom and how to teach to the needs of the learner.

[Pernia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know why I never read her book before, but if you can stick with it - it’s beyond inspirational. Atwell has a deep passion and thorough understanding of author’s craft, the process of writing, literature and children. I just can’t imagine another teacher practitioner-writer who gives this much depth and detail to what a writing workshop could look like. It is a very authentic and organic system. Students are at the center and their choice determines everything else. To me this is the ideal, one I wished I had experienced as a child.

Atwell weaves in how she uses authentic purposes for writing as genres students study. She uses mentor texts. She writes a lot and understands what the writing process can be and models writing in the drafting stages with her students. She demonstrates how they define genre and craft. Students publish their writing.

To me it is very messy - in one class each student is working on a different type of writing. It’s not just a matter of keeping track, but also of pulling lessons to teach. To me it makes more sense to begin with narrative and move to argument the way Penny Kittle does in Write Beside Them.

Other criticisms of this book are fair. I’m not sure very many teachers can spend 4-12 weeks on narrative. This is the greatest shame. Even if we could, this is not an easily duplicated way of teaching.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as writing programs go, hers is one that I absolutely adore and want to incorporate into my classroom (maybe next year?). She has more freedom as a private school teacher than I do (blast those SOL tests), but there are definitely ideas that I can use. Her biggest push - and one that I particularly want to explore - is her idea of choice. As teachers, we feel that we need to give parameters for everything to ensure that students follow directions and experience as few "lost at sea" moments when writing as possible. It's hard enough to get them to pick up the pen, so to keep everything open-ended seems even more treacherous. However, she is against prompts, against limiting their creativity, against parameters. Students write about what THEY want to write about. I love this. I wish I could do this. I'm going to explore doing so this summer when I'm finally free of grading and lesson planning and meeting and IEP-ing... etc.

I wonder if CTL needs an English/Latin teacher?

[Olivia]

Apparently I've read all of this I had to for class, which wasn't the whole thing, but also I read so much outside of the text that I'm gonna mark it. Anyway, this was really useful and I'll probably be coming back to a lot of the resources in it, even in the genre-specific chapters we didn't read--but I don't like her reading philosophies as much as her writing workshop strategies. She's pretty blind to the importance of diversity in literature and almost every book/poet/author she lauds is white and she seems to hold them in such high regard that there's not much space for critical evaluation of these texts. She also has this elitist idea about literature that shuts out a lot of valid genres and texts because they're not literary fiction? I understand she teaches at a very small school in rural Maine, but her process is so influential, so...

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atwell describes an appealing approach to reading and writing. To some teachers, the approach can seem quite daunting for their situations. Dan Rothermel simplified Atwell's approach for his middle school classes and wrote Starting Points: How to Set Up and Run a Writing Workshop (Paperback) describing his modifications. Now, he uses his modifications with pre-service teachers in the Department of Education at UNE.

We are discussing how to use technology to support the approach. Noelle Richard, one of our candidate interns, used GoodReads in an eighth grade Saco Middle School reading class to support the Reading/Writing Workshop approach. We'd like to learn how others are using it, too.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read (closely read the first / skimmed the second) her other two editions. This edition, I'm devouring, but cannot decide a page number. I'm here, there, and everywhere, like a squirrel trying find my next morsel. I've set up my classroom, using many of her record keeping suggestions and even asked my husband to make me one of those low-to-the-floor chart easels. My students are sitting on pillows and bean bags I made from old, barely worn T-shirts. Moving 8th graders from their seating around tables to the floor in semi-circles surrounding me, the flip chart, and the Smart Board is the single best thing I think I've learned from this crazy experiment. Love, love, love Nancie Attwell and her ability to write about this crazy, wonderful, and meaningful work we do!

[Kirsten Wiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read "In the Middle" as part of a graduate school course, but I wish I'd read it sooner! I have attended training and received various excerpts and articles regarding workshop practices in the English classroom for the past several years, but Atwell's text has by far proven to be the best source and most inspiring. I'm excited to continue putting what I've gleaned from this text into practice.

While many of the practices shared within the text work for Atwell because of her specially designed school, she offers advice at points for making it work in more traditional classrooms (e.g., the single period of about an hour). I found myself making copious amounts of annotations as I noted ways to adapt and/or implement.

[Liz B · Rating 5 out of 5]

When students see themselves as readers and writers rather than students of reading and writing, they start to care. When they care, they grow tremendously. If you try this approach in your classroom (which I obviously recommend), you have to modify it to fit your style and your students' needs...and you really need to jump in and DO it, and be willing to wait for results. I usually start to see enormous leaps in writing in January, but increased proficiency in reading starts showing up as early as November.

One of the two books which most profoundly changed my teaching (the other is Literature Circles by Daniels.)

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

good ideas, methods, instruction, philosophy, stories, sample student writing. students need TIME, OWNERSHIP, RESPONSE to read and write pieces of their choosing. learning to read by actually reading--so simple, yet so revolutionary in our current system. want to read her other books, see what updates she made to this, since this was first published late 80's. wonder whether standardized testing makes setting up reading/writing workshop in public schools near impossible.

need to brainstorm new literacy. how does technology play into this. blogging as journaling, writing for media. typing to publish/publishing online etc. maybe not that big of a change...

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancie Atwell is a hero to me. I wish I could just transfer a tiny amount of her experience and knowledge into my own brain. I'm trying to copy some of her teaching methods, but I swear somehow her 90 minute classes last longer than mine. She actually does get to teach the same students for two years . . . I'd love to keep my present sixth grade LA group another year. Anyway, the book outlines, what is to me, the ideal way to teach language arts!

[Ami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nancie Atwell is one of my heroes in the world of teachers. I enjoy her humility and her writing style. Additionally, I am a huge fan of her educational procedures in reading and writing. My only complaint with the book is that it was revised over a decade ago. So many new books have emerged on the middle school front that it would be interesting to know if Atwell has come to use any of these more recent works in her classroom.

[Chris May · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than its first edition, this revises Atwells seminal book re:workshop strategies in middle school. Read this and then read her "Reading Zone" for further revisions she has made to her workshop strategies to make them more meaningful and managable. Every Middle school la teacher should read this.

[Angela]

Read in order to learn more about the concepts of reading workshop and writing workshop. Atwell's stories are inspiring, and her organization and examples were really helpful. Concepts and strategies needed to be adapted for a high school setting, but worth learning from one of the best in the field.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

a classic, but harder to implement Atwell's teaching style than she lets on.

This is the central problem of a lot of teaching books: teachers can be great at explaining what they do, but not as good at thinking about what's easy to adapt and what isn't. If only I had an encyclopedic knowledge of books and infinite patience for writing letters back to each student too!

[Nellie Bewley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic resource for innovative/progressive reading and writing teachers. Atwell's style requires a LOT of preparation and maintenance - but so, so good.
I couldn't implement it in it's entirety, but I sure wanted to.