Writing Can Change Everything: Middle Level Kids Writing Themselves into the World

Writing Can Change Everything invites all of us to consider how the principles outlined in NCTE's Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing position statement weave throughout the best practices on display as students write through creative self-expression, narrative, inquiry, and project-based learning.

Identifying writing as central to what makes us human, editor and teacher educator Shelbie Witte has gathered a diverse group of middle school teacher-writers who open the doors of their classrooms to share their approaches to mentoring, modeling, and facilitating middle level writers as they explore their places within our world.

Early adolescents might be physically and emotionally in flux, but they are also multidimensional, multitalented creatures of curiosity, always pushing the boundaries of discovery and possibility. The seven educators whose classrooms are showcased in this book know that being a writer is being part of the world, and they lead their students toward the understanding that writing makes a difference, both in their own lives and in the broader world.

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.

Dr. Shelbie Witte is the Kim and Chuck Watson Chair in Education and professor of Adolescent Literacy and English Education at Oklahoma State University. She is proud to serve as site director of the Oklahoma State University Writing Project and founding director of the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research, which recognizes the annual recipients of the Divergent Award for 21st Century Literacies Research as well as provides theory to practice resources for classroom teachers and students interested in implementing 21st century literacies in the classroom.