IN THE MIDDLE: NEW UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT WRITING, READING, AND LEARNING

Nancie Atwell

Brief overview
Along with Donald Graves and Lucy Calkins, Nancy Atwell is associated with developing and guiding the Classroom Workshop approach to teaching reading and writing. In the Middle shows her development and transformation as a teacher over a 25 year span. She describes her original approach to teaching as creationist in that she diligently worked to create and maintain a superior curriculum without ceding any control or ownership to students. She has now become an evolutionist the curriculum unfolds as she and her students learn together, and she teaches them based on what she perceives they need to learn next. In the Middle continues to work out answers to practical questions about establishing reading/writing workshops.

Initial Teaching/Learning Assumptions

At first, she assumed that most of her middle school students were too intimidated to express themselves on paper without a prompt, and so she assigned topics. She also admits to assigning topics because she believed her ideas to be more credible and important than any that her students could possibly entertain. Her theory and practice drew from James Moffetts hierarchy of discourse which holds that students learn to write by working systematically through a sequence of modes drama to narrative to idea writing, with extensive pre-writing and post-writing activities (Atwell, 1998, p. 7).

Initial Teaching/Learning Assumptions (cont.)

Students were asked to

role-play assigned topics in pairs and small groups then write monologues talk about assigned topics in pairs and small groups then write dialogues read selections from literary anthology then write short fiction in response Then the teacher (Nancie) would write comments all over their drafts, and students were to revise them accordingly.

Perceived need to change teaching approach

From her perspective, she thought that such an approach worked well to produce real writing until she met Jeff, a student with a different learning style basically drawing in class and writing at home - that didnt fit her curriculum. After resisting her efforts to get him to conform, Jeff declared: Listen, Ms. Atwell. This is the way I do it, the way I write. As long as I get it done, what do you care? She backed off and conceded his right to use whatever method worked for him, and Jeff managed to produce the requisite number of writings (p. 8).

Influence of Donald Graves on Atwells Teaching

Graves case study presented at S.U.N.Y. Buffalo (1975) concluded that teachers should look for and accommodate the behaviors of beginning writers and that common sense, good intentions, and the worlds best writing program are not enough unless we actually structure our environments to free ourselves for effective observation and participation in all phases of the writing process, we are doomed to repeat the same teaching mistakes again and again (p. 9). According to a National Institute of Education (NIE) study, children could learn to write by exercising the options available to real-world authors, including daily time for writing, conferences with teachers and peers during drafting pacing set by the writer, and opportunities to publish what they had written Most significantly, students decided what they would write.

New progressivist orthodoxies but still based on rules:

Minilessons should be between five and seven minutes long Conferences with individuals are more important than minilessons. Attend to conventions spelling, punctuation, paragraphing only at end of process. Keep conferences short. Get to every writer every day. Dont look at or read students writing during conferences. Dont tell writers what they should do or what should be in their writing. Dont write on students writing. Dont praise. Students must have ownership of their writing.

New approach based on knowledge not rules

More explicit instruction provided according to perceived need. Teacher role more balanced, functioning as a listener and a teller an observer and an actor a collaborator and a critic and a cheerleader In her classroom, could serve her students as a mentor of writing a mediator of writing strategies, and a model of a writer at work

Some questions about writing workshop methods Nancie Atwell asks every year:
How do I help students develop ideas for writing that have meaning and purpose in their lives? How do we use the time available to us for maximum effect? What, how, and when do I teach about process, genre, craft, and convention? How do I teach kids to confer with each other? How do I help individuals get control over formatting, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other conventions? How do I help kids send their writing out into the world, to audiences beyond the teacher and the classroom? How do I provide models of the kinds of writing I want kids to consider and produce? How do I assess student writing so it reflects what I ask of them as writers, doesnt put them in competition with each other, and makes sense to them and to their parents? (p. 22)

Some new questions asked since rethinking her role as a teacher:

When do assignments from a teacher who writes help young writers engage and grow? What else can happen in minilessons besides me minilecturing? How do I talk to and collaborate with kids in conferences so that Im showing them how to act on their intentions, not hoping they can find their way on their own? How important are specific expectations for productivity and experimentation? What should I Ask young writers to produce over the course of a year, in terms of quantity and range of genres? What behaviors do I want to see in the workshop? How do I encourage them? Which should be mandated? (p.23)

Minilessons
Minilessons in writing workshop have become a tool for teaching at least as powerful as her conferences with individual writers. They help establish the group dynamic. They provide frames of reference when writers and teacher confer. They give the teacher a forum for telling students as engagingly as possible about the behaviors, traditions, and conventions of writers (p. 24)

Learning How to Teach Reading

Some lessons that teachers using standard approach to literature demonstrate about reading: Reading is serious, painful business. Literature is even more serious and painful, not to mention boring. Reading is a performance for an audience of one: the teacher. There is one interpretation of a text: the teachers (or the teachers manuals) Errors in comprehension or interpretation will not be tolerated. Student readers arent smart or trustworthy enough to choose their own texts. Reading requires memorization and mastery of information, terms, definitions, and theories. Reading is followed by a test Reading involves drawing lines, filling in blanks, and circling. Rereading a book is cheating; so are skimming, skipping, and looking ahead. Its immoral to abandon a book youre not enjoying. Reading is a waste of English class time.

Making a place for reading

If we want our students to grow to appreciate literature, we need to give them a say in decisions about the literature they will read. The term literature embraces more than the prescribed secondary school canon of second-rate Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities), second-rate Steinbeck (The Red Pony), secondrate Twain (The Prince and the Pauper), and second-rate Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea) (p.36). Allowing readers to select their own books has a major impact on students fluency, reading rate, and comprehension and students in reading workshop develop their own theories about literature (pp. 37-39).

Another component of reading workshop: opportunities for social interaction around literature.
Literary talk with a teacher and peers is crucial to kids development as readers. Dialogue journals one way to use writing as a way to reflect on reading Inspiring students to use literature as a prism for viewing and participating in the adult world. As in writing workshop, the goal is teaching that is based on knowledge of literature suited to middle-school students tastes and needs (and learning along with - and from- them).

Some practical questions Atwell reconsiders every year for Reading Workshop: How do I find books that compel and satisfy them? How do I use the time available for maximum effect? How do I talk with with kids about their reading in ways that move them forward? How do I organize myself? How do I arrange to keep track of each readers activity, accomplishments, problems, pace, and growth, without killing myself? How do I assess students reading so it reflects what I ask of them as readers, doesnt put them in competition with each other, and makes sense to them and to their parents?

Some questions reflecting new developments in Atwells thinking as a teacher of literature:

When do assigned readings, from a teacher who reads and loves it, help young readers engage and provide a platform for new selections and connections? What else can happen in minilessons besides me minilecturing? How do I teach about literary forms, traditions, and works without trotting out tired old Englsh-teacher clichs that mute, distort, or deny the intensity of a literary experience? What behaviors do I want to see in the workshop? How do I encourage them? Which should be mandated?