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

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.

Jennifer Ochoa taught high school English in Lansing, Michigan, and Bronx, New York, for 16 years. She now teaches eighth-grade literacy in Washington Heights, in addition to English Education courses at Lehman College in the Bronx.