Nancie Atwell, CTL’s Founder

Nancie Atwell is one of the most respected educators in the U.S. and across the world.  Winner of the Varkey Foundation's inaugural Global teacher Prize, she donated the $1 million award to the Center for Teaching and Learning, the K-8 demonstration school she founded in Edgecomb, Maine, in 1990. Nancie’s classic In the Middle, now in its third edition, has inspired generations of teachers; in it she describes her teaching journey and the practices she developed that led to her nomination. Thomas Newkirk calls In the Middle “the greatest book on literacy teaching ever written in this country.” Visit Heinemann.com/InTheMiddle for more about the book and Nancie.

A middle school English teacher for almost forty years, Nancie is also the first classroom teacher to be awarded the NCTE David H. Russell Award and the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize, both for distinguished research in the teaching of English. She was also honored as NCTE’s Outstanding Middle School English Teacher and as the River of Words Poetry Teacher of the Year. She has received honorary doctoral degrees from Middlebury College and the University of New Hampshire.

Nancie’s books for Heinemann include Systems to Transform Your Classroom and School, which takes teachers inside her award-winning school to learn about the innovations that make the biggest impact on achievement and community; Lessons That Change Writers, a year’s worth of instruction straight from Nancie’s file cabinets; and Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons, which helps teachers to jumpstart their teaching of writing and literature each day by unpacking a poem with their students. Her DVDs Writing in the Middle and Reading in the Middle give teachers a seat in her workshop as she presents lessons and conducts conferences that transform her students’ literacy—and their lives.

Katy Inman: Head of School

Workshops and Presentations

• Literacy for All, 2021

“Morning Meeting; Invitations to Literacy and Community-Building”

• Progressive Educator Network (PEN), Workshop, National Conference, 2017; “Planning and Implementing an Integrated Project”
• National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS); Speaker, National Conference, 2015; “Implementing and Assessing a Reading Workshop Using Choice”

Awards

• Appalachian Mountain Club’s Youth Opportunities Program, Volunteer Service Award, 2010
• Blackstone Valley Education Foundation: Featured Grant Project, 2006
• Massachusetts EPA Educator of the Year, 2005
• Massachusetts Cultural Council, Grant Recipient, Blackstone Valley Watershed Project, 2004

Stacey Adams: 7-8 Humanities

KIPP: Summit Academy Excellence in Teaching Award 2017 (“KSA Teacher of the Year”)

Teachers College at Columbia University Dean’s Award for Outstanding Scholarship

UC Berkeley, Graduate Division Summer Research Opportunity Fellowship

Angela Lathem-Ballard: 5-6 Humanities and K-8 Art and Drama

Presentations + Publications

• Presentation: Call Courage to the Classroom - SDAWP Fall Conference, 2021

• Presentation: Ba-Da-Bing! Grammar with Zing! - SDAWP Spring Conference, 2020

• Article: Eleven Hearts and Minds - SDAWP Dialogue, Fall 2020

• Presentation: The Creative Classroom - San Diego Early Childhood Workshop, 2019

Honors + Affiliations

• San Diego Area/National Writing Project —Fellow (SDAWP/NWP)

• San Diego ABC affiliate, 2018 — Feature - https://bit.ly/3t7tHUE

• The Huffington Post, 2011 — Feature - https://bit.ly/3q1gzP8

• San Diego Shakespeare Society - Director of Student Performances

Emeritus:

Anne Atwell Merkel:

The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Passionate, Skilled, Habitual, Critical Readers, 2nd Ed.

Glenn Powers: River of Words Poetry Teacher of the Year

Helene Coffin: Every Child a Reader: Month-by-Month Effective Lessons to Teach Beginning Reading

Ted DeMille: Making Believe on Paper: Fiction Writing with Young Children