Already Readers and Writers: Honoring Students' Rights to Read and Write in the Middle Grade Classroom

By Heather Anderson

Already Readers and Writers: Honoring Students' Rights to Read and Write in the Middle Grade Classroom is meant to help all middle school educators encourage their students to build literate lives both within the classroom and well beyond it.

Veteran middle school teacher Jennifer Ochoa has brought together middle school teachers and teacher leaders, children’s author and We Need Diverse Books cofounder Ellen Oh, children’s literature scholar Kristin McIlhagga, reading and writing workshop teacher-author Linda Rief, and censorship expert Millie Davis to examine current middle school literacy practices that support students’ rights to read and write.

By showcasing their experiences and activities, and positioning NCTE policy statements—The Students' Right to Read and NCTE Beliefs about the Students’ Right to Write—as foundational guiding documents, Ochoa and her colleagues prove that even in today’s standards-driven environment, authentic reading and writing practices can create literacy-rich middle school classrooms.

As a bonus, teachers who don’t have strong support in their schools to implement these practices will find a myriad of suggestions for developing a virtual personal learning network—a grassroots professional development tailored to their needs and interests—that will support them in their efforts to help kids as readers and writers.

About Principles in Practice
Books in the Principles in Practice imprint offer teachers concrete illustrations of effective classroom practices based in NCTE research briefs and policy statements.

Each book discusses the research on a specific topic, links the research to an NCTE brief or policy statement, and then demonstrates how those principles come alive in practice: by showcasing actual classroom practices that demonstrate the policies in action; by talking about research in practical, teacher-friendly language; and by offering teachers possibilities for rethinking their own practices in light of the ideas presented in the books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
• Release date: Oct 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9780814100219

Book preview

Dear Reader,

As a former high school teacher, I remember the frustration I felt when the gap between Research (and that is, by the way, how I always thought of it: Research with a capital R) and my own practice seemed too wide to ever cross. Research studies—those sterile reports written by professional and university researchers—often seemed so out of touch with the issues that most concerned me when I walked into my classroom every day. These studies were easy to ignore, in part because they were so distant from my experiences and in part because I had no one to help me see how that research could impact my everyday practice.

Although research has come a long way since then, as more and more teachers take up classroom-based inquiry, this gap between research and practice unfortunately still exists. Quite frankly, it's hard for even the most committed classroom teachers to pick up a research article or book, figure out how that research might apply to their classroom, convince their administrators that a new way of teaching is called for, and put it into practice. While most good teachers instinctively know that there is something to be gained from reading research, who realistically has the time or energy for it?

That gap informs the thinking behind this book imprint. Called Principles in Practice, the imprint publishes books that look carefully at the research-based principles and policies developed by NCTE and put those policies to the test in actual classrooms. The imprint naturally arises from one of the missions of NCTE: to develop policy for English language arts teachers. Over the years, many NCTE members have joined committees and commissions to study particular issues of concern to literacy educators. Their work has resulted in a variety of reports, research briefs, and policy statements designed both to inform teachers and to be used in lobbying efforts to create policy changes at the local, state, and national levels (reports that are available on NCTE's website, www.ncte.org).

Through this imprint, we are creating collections of books specifically designed to translate those research briefs and policy statements into classroom-based practice. The goal behind these books is to familiarize teachers with the issues behind certain concerns, lay out NCTE's policies on those issues, provide resources from research studies to support those policies, and—most of all-make those policies come alive for teacher-readers.

This book is part of the seventh series in the imprint, a series that focuses on students’ rights to read and write. Each book in this series highlights a different aspect of this important topic and is organized in similar ways: immersing you in the research principles surrounding the topic (as laid out in two NCTE documents: The Students’ Right to Read and NCTE Beliefs about the Students’ Right to Write) and then taking you into actual classrooms to see how the principles play out. Each book closes with a teacher-friendly bibliography.

Good teaching is connected to strong research. We hope that these books help you continue the good teaching that you're doing, think hard about ways to adapt and adjust your practice, and grow even stronger in the vital work you do with kids every day.

Best of luck,

Cathy Fleischer

The Principles in Practice imprint offers teachers concrete illustrations of effective classroom practices based in NCTE research briefs and policy statements. Each book discusses the research on a specific topic, links the research to an NCTE brief or policy statement, and then demonstrates how those principles come alive in practice: by showcasing actual classroom practices that demonstrate the policies in action; by talking about research in practical, teacher-friendly language; and by offering teachers possibilities for rethinking their own practices in light of the ideas presented in the books. Books within the imprint are grouped in strands, each strand focused on a significant topic of interest.

Adolescent Literacy Strand

Adolescent Literacy at Risk? The Impact of Standards (2009) Rebecca Bowers Sipe

Adolescents and Digital Literacies: Learning Alongside Our Students (2010) Sara Kajder

Adolescent Literacy and the Teaching of Reading: Lessons for Teachers of Literature (2010) Deborah Appleman

Rethinking the Adolescent in Adolescent Literacy (2017) Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides, Robert Petrone, and Mark A. Lewis

Restorative Justice in the English Language Arts Classroom (2019) Maisha T. Winn, Hannah Graham, and Rita Renjitham Alfred

Writing in Today's Classrooms Strand

Writing in the Dialogical Classroom: Students and Teachers Responding to the Texts of Their Lives (2011) Bob Fecho

Becoming Writers in the Elementary Classroom: Visions and Decisions (2011) Katie Van Sluys

Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom (2011) Maisha T. Winn and Latrise P. Johnson

Writing Can Change Everything: Middle Level Kids Writing Themselves into the World (2020) Shelbie Witte, editor

Literacy Assessment Strand

Our Better Judgment: Teacher Leadership for Writing Assessment (2012) Chris W. Gallagher and Eric D. Turley

Beyond Standardized Truth: Improving Teaching and Learning through Inquiry-Based Reading Assessment (2012) Scott Filkins

Reading Assessment: Artful Teachers, Successful Students (2013) Diane Stephens, editor

Going Public with Assessment: A Community Practice Approach (2018) Kathryn Mitchell Pierce and Rosario Ordoñez-Jasis

Literacies of the Disciplines Strand

Entering the Conversations: Practicing Literacy in the Disciplines (2014) Patricia Lambert Stock, Trace Schillinger, and Andrew Stock

Real-World Literacies: Disciplinary Teaching in the High School Classroom (2014) Heather Lattimer

Doing and Making Authentic Literacies (2014) Linda Denstaedt, Laura Jane Roop, and Stephen Best

Reading in Today's Classrooms Strand

Connected Reading: Teaching Adolescent Readers in a Digital World (2015) Kristen Hawley Turner and Troy Hicks

Digital Reading: What's Essential in Grades 3–8 (2015) William L. Bass II and Franki Sibberson

Teaching Reading with YA Literature: Complex Texts, Complex Lives (2016) Jennifer Buehler

Teaching English Language Learners Strand

Beyond Teaching to the Test: Rethinking Accountability and Assessment for English Language Learners (2017) Betsy Gilliland and Shannon Pella

Community Literacies en Confanza: Learning from Bilingual After-School Programs (2017) Steven Alvarez

Understanding Language: Supporting ELL Students in Responsive ELA Classrooms (2017) Melinda J. McBee Orzulak

Writing across Culture and Language: Inclusive Strategies for Working with ELL Writers in the ELA Classroom (2017) Christina Ortmeier-Hooper

Students’ Rights to Read and Write Strand

Adventurous Thinking: Fostering Students’ Rights to Read and Write in Secondary ELA Classrooms (2019) Mollie V. Blackburn, editor

In the Pursuit of Justice: Students’ Rights to Read and Write in Elementary School (2020) Mariana Souto-Manning, editor

Already Readers and Writers: Honoring Students’ Rights to Read and Write in the Middle Grade Classroom (2020) Jennifer Ochoa, editor

NCTE Editorial Board: Steven Bickmore, Catherine Compton-Lilly, Deborah Dean,

Antero Garcia, Bruce McComiskey, Staci M. Perryman-Clark, Anne Elrod Whitney,

Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, Kurt Austin, Chair, ex officio, Emily Kirkpatrick, ex officio

Staff Editor: Bonny Graham

Imprint Editor: Cathy Fleischer

Interior Design: Victoria Pohlmann

Cover Design: Pat Mayer

Cover Image: Pam Hinden

NCTE Stock Number: 01155; eStock Number: 01179

ISBN 978-0-8141-0115-5; eISBN 978-0-8141-0117-9

©2020 by the National Council of Teachers of English.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holder. Printed in the United States of America.

It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.

NCTE provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all staff members and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, physical, mental or perceived handicap/disability, sexual orientation including gender identity or expression, ancestry, genetic information, marital status, military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, pregnancy, citizenship status, personal appearance, matriculation or political affiliation, or any other protected status under applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Every effort has been made to provide current URLs and email addresses, but because of the rapidly changing nature of the web, some sites and addresses may no longer be accessible.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ochoa, Jennifer, 1970- editor.

Title: Already readers and writers : honoring students’ rights to read and write in the middle grade classroom / [edited by]Jennifer Ochoa.

Description: Champaign, Illinois : National Council of Teachers of English, 2020. | Series: Principles in practice | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: Middle school teachers and others examine current middle school literacy practices that support students’ rights to read and write authentically—Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020019869 (print) | LCCN 2020019870 (ebook) | ISBN 9780814101155 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780814101179 (adobe pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Language arts (Middle school)—United States.

Classification: LCC LB1631.A46 2020 (print) | LCC LB1631 (ebook) | DDC 428.0071/2—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019869

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019870

For Franki, our lovely little reader.

My wish for your school life is that every teacher you learn with

honors that you have been a reader since your very first days.

Contents

Acknowledgments

The Students’ Right to Read

NCTE Beliefs about the Students’ Right to Write

Introduction: Where We Have Been, Where We Are, Where We Are Going

Part I…….. The Golden Rules of Reading and Writing: The Students’ Right to Read and NCTE Beliefs about the Students’ Right to Write

A Visit to Room 354 at Tompkins Square Middle School

A Day in the Life of a Reading Workshop Classroom

Carole Mashamesh

A Visit to Room 201 at Oyster River Middle School

Choices and Challenges in the Writing Workshop

Linda Rief

A Final Thought from Jen

Part II…….. Intervisitations

A Visit to Room 219 at Wydown Middle School

The Giver and the Real World: ‘The Perilous but Wondrous Times We Live In'

April Fulstone

A Visit to Room 151 at Stillwater Junior High School

Nike Socks and Ceiling Tiles: Conversations That Push and Clarify

Heather Anderson

A Visit to Room 905 at Central Junior High School

Grappling with Passage-Based Writing

Shelly K. Unsicker-Durham

A Visit to Room 422 at The Bronx School of Young Leaders

Teen Activists: Designing Curricula Today, Shaping the World Tomorrow

Alex Corbitt

A Visit to Room 223 at Horn Lake Middle School

Access and Care: Supporting a Student's Right to Read

Chad Everett

A Final Thought from Jen

Part III…….. Shifting Our Shelves: Intentional Book Sharing and the We Need Diverse Books Movement

From a Classroom

Room 205 at MS 324, The Patria Mirabal School

Jennifer Ochoa

From an Author

The Diversity Movement and We Need Diverse Books

Ellen Oh

From an Advocate

Now What? Shifting Your Shelves

Kristin McIlhagga

A Final Thought from Jen

Part IV…….. Reconsidering Composition: Analyzing Standard School Composing Practices to Honor Students’ Right to Write

Jennifer Ochoa

Part V…….. Shoulders to Lean On and Arms to Link With: Seeking Support and Connection as We Do This Work

From an Advocate

Protecting Your Students’ Rights to Read and Write and Yours to Teach

Millie Davis

A Final Thought from Jen

From an Experienced Teacher

Developing a PLN That Supports Your Work

Jennifer Ochoa

Afterword: A Call to Action

Annotated Bibliography

References

Index

Editor

Contributors

Acknowledgments

The first meeting I ever had with Principles in Practice Imprint Editor Cathy Fleischer was ten days after the 2016 presidential election. Everyone that year at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention, it seemed, was reeling. And after Cathy and I hugged and stared at each other meaningfully—because at that point, there just were no words—she said, wisely, Well, let's talk about your book; it's going to be really important for it to be in the world now. As with many people, that election went beyond stunning me; it paralyzed me. The results gripped me in a vise that made productivity difficult. During the writing of this book, I often sat staring at the screen and thinking, What can I possibly say when everything feels so impossibly out of control? And throughout it all, Cathy kept saying, Jen, we need this book! Just keep writing! For that, I am forever thankful. What a kind, generous editor, who got this book and its author through the writing so patiently.

Similarly, I thank the Books crew at NCTE, Kurt Austin and Bonny Graham, who waited and continued to wait for a book well past the time we'd thought a book would be born. I so appreciate that you were still there, ready to publish when I finally finished.

I'd also like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to all the teachers and other contributors who shared your classrooms, your kids, and your teaching life through your vignettes. As other middle school teachers read your words, I know they will feel the special kinship that only people who spend all day being the grownups in middle school classrooms completely understand.

Personally, I have to start with my teacher moms. When I was a baby teacher in Lansing, Michigan, in 1992, Diana Mitchell opened her classroom and her career to me. She stood next to me as I took the reins, coached from the sidelines, and then became my colleague. Luckily, she brought my other teacher moms, Janet Swenson and Toby Kahn-Loftus, into my life. Thank you, Moms; I am the teacher I am today because of all of you. You didn't tell me what to do or even show me what to do; you all said, Come stand next to us. Do this with us. And that has made all the difference.

I could not have written a book without my Flock: Priscilla Thomas, Alie Stumpf, Kate Seltzer, Tom Venker, and our additional flock member, Christy King-ham. A person could never have better cheerleaders than all of you. Thank you for just deciding it was a fact I would write a book. I never thought that I would, but you all always knew it would happen. Thank you for our teaching family.

I want to extend love and appreciation to the four amazing teachers I have shared a classroom with as a co-teacher: Ann George, Blake Kastle, Sarah Merchelwitz Kuhner, and Meagan Hammerbacher. Folks who co-teach say it's like a good marriage or a bad marriage. Our relationships have been the kind of teaching marriages that feel like a home. There is something extraordinary about having another adult in the classroom; in all the moments that are charged with adolescent electricity, it's good to have a partner to bear witness with; … thank you for bearing witness with me.

In addition, these pages are fillled with ideas and strategies and lessons born not just from my own thinking, but from the deep collaboration a grade team can achieve together. I want to thank my amazing eighth-grade co-planners: thank you Gina Salerno, Lindsey Stoddard, Jon Cabrera, Thelma Dolmo, and Judith Myrthil Singleton. When my ideas get loopy and too big, you all have helped me bring them down, added your own ideas, and together we've made a really fine curriculum for our MS 324 kids to live and learn through.

When you are in your classroom teaching, you don't think that what you do is work others could easily learn from. I'd like to thank Kylene Beers and Bob Probst for visiting Room A205 and telling me, and then the world, the work we were doing was something worth knowing about.

Of course I have to thank my brothers, Ian and Jon(athan). Before I was a teacher, before I read books every day with students, before I read drafts of kid writing that I needed to grade, I read books with you and edited your poetry and essays and papers. I have loved being your big sister, and I thank you for letting me practice being an English teacher on you two.

Mom and Dad, you both showed me what it meant to honor a person's rights to read and write from the time I was a tiny person. You let me pick whatever books I wanted, never limiting how many stories you read and reread to me or censoring what books I was reading. You were the first readers of my writing when I was writing plays and stories and poems and reports because I was bored and had stuff to say. You always told me that my words mattered in the world. Without you two and the literacy ground you planted me in, I would not be the reader, writer, or teacher I've come to be. I am so lucky I got to be your kid.

And finally, thank you to my beloved Pam. Everything just got better when you came along. Thank you for knowing we belonged to each other. Your encouragement and support through the process of writing this book has made the whole thing possible. Even now, as I type, you are calling down that you've made dinner and I should come up and have some. I'm done now, and I can come back to joining you in our happy, happy life.

The Students’ Right to Read

The NCTE Executive Committee reaffirmed this guideline in November 2012.

This statement was originally developed in 1981, revised April 2009 to adhere to NCTE's Policy on Involvement of People of Color, and revised again in September 2018.

Overview: The Students’ Right to Read provides resources that can be used to help discuss and ensure students’ free access to all texts. The genesis of the Students’ Right to Read was an original Council statement, Request for Reconsideration of a Work, prepared by the Committee on the Right to Read of the National Council of Teachers of English and revised by Ken Donelson. The current Students’ Right to Read statement represents an updated second edition that builds on the work of Council members dedicated to ensuring students the freedom to choose to read any text and opposing efforts of individuals or groups to limit the freedom of choice of others. Supported through references from text challenges and links to resources, this statement discusses the history and dangers of text censorship which highlight the breadth and significance of the Students’ Right to Read. The statement then culminates in processes that can be followed with different stakeholders when students’ reading rights are infringed.

The Right to Read and the Teacher of English

For many years, American schools have been pressured to restrict or deny students access to texts deemed objectionable by some individual or group. These pressures have mounted in recent years, and English teachers have no reason to believe they will diminish. The fight against censorship is a continuing series of skirmishes, not a pitched battle leading to a final victory over censorship.

We can safely make two statements about censorship: first, any text is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason; second, censorship is often arbitrary and irrational. For example, classics traditionally used in English classrooms have been accused of containing obscene, heretical, or subversive elements such as the following:

• Plato's Republic: the book is un-Christian

• Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days: very unfavorable to Mormons

• Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: a filthy book

• Shakespeare's Macbeth: too violent for children today

• Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: a poor model for young people

• Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: contains homosexuality

Modern works, even more than the classics, are criticized with terms such as filthy, unAmerican, overly realistic, and anti-war. Some books have been attacked merely for being controversial, suggesting that for some people the purpose of education is not the investigation of ideas but rather the indoctrination of a certain set of beliefs and standards. Referencing multiple years of research completed by the American Library Association (ALA), the following statements represent complaints typical of those made against modern works of literature:

• J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye: profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the disabled

• John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: uses the name of God and Jesus in a vain and profane manner

• Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson's And Tango Makes Three: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

• Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: promotes racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy

• Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia: occult/Satanism, offensive language, violence

• Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

• Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings's I Am Jazz: inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group

Some groups and individuals have also raised objections to literature written specifically for young people. As long as novels intended for young people stayed at the intellectual and emotional level of A Date for Marcy or A Touchdown for Thunderbird High, censors could forego criticism. But many contemporary novels for adolescents focus on the real world of young people—drugs, premarital sex, alcoholism, divorce, gangs, school dropouts, racism, violence, and sensuality. English teachers willing to defend classics and modern literature must be prepared to give equally spirited defense to serious and worthwhile children's and young adult novels.

Literature about minoritized ethnic or racial groups remains controversial or objectionable to many adults. As long as groups such as African Americans, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Latinxs kept their proper place—awarded them by a White society—censors rarely raised their voices. But attacks have increased in frequency as minoritized groups have refused to observe their assigned place. Though nominally, the criticisms of literature about minoritized racial or ethnic groups have usually been directed at bad language, suggestive situations, questionable literary merit, or ungrammatical English (usually oblique complaints about the different dialect or culture of a group), the underlying motive for some attacks has unquestionably been discriminatory. Typical of censors’ criticisms of ethnic works are the following comments:

• Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: homosexuality, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

• Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima: occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, violence

• Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner: sexual violence, religious themes, ‘may lead to terrorism’

• Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexu ally explicit, unsuited for age group, violence, depictions of bullying

Books are not alone in being subject to censorship. Magazines or newspapers used, recommended, or referred to in English classes have increasingly drawn the censor's fire. Few libraries would regard their periodical collection as worthwhile or representative without some or all of the following publications, but all of them have been the target of censors on occasion:

• National Geographic: Nudity and sensationalism, especially in stories on barbaric foreign people.

• Scholastic Magazine: Doctrines opposing the beliefs of the majority, socialistic programs; promotes racial unrest and contains very detailed geography of foreign countries, especially those inhabited by dark people.

• National Observer: Right-wing trash with badly reported news.

• New York Times: That thing should be outlawed after printing the Pentagon Papers and helping our country's enemies.

The immediate results of demands to censor books or periodicals vary. At times, school boards and administrators have supported and defended their teachers, their use of materials under fire, and the student's right of access to the materials. At other times, however, special committees have been formed to cull out objectionable works or modern trash or controversial literature. Some teachers have been summarily reprimanded for assigning certain works, even to mature students. Others have been able to retain their positions only after initiating court action.

Not as sensational, but perhaps more important, are the long range effects of censoring the rights of educators and students to self-select what they read and engage with. Schools have removed texts from libraries and classrooms and curricula have been changed when English teachers have avoided using or