On the brink : negotiating literature and life with adolescents /

This qualitative study, spanning three years in a middle school language arts classroom, provides insight into the gender, racial, and social chasms that exist among adolescents. The portrayal of the student Jason is particularly poignant. Hynds (Syracuse) voices a concern shared by many middle school teachers that the workshop model advocated by Graves (Writing, Teachers and Students at Work, 1983), Atwell (In The Middle, 1987) and Calkins (Lessons from a Child, 1983) seems too perfect to be possible. The text traces the struggle of Meg, the teacher in Hynd's study, to find the best way to align the traditional transmissionist approach to teaching reading and writing with the political, social, and linguistic dimensions of her students' lives. Although this book provides few answers to the concerns of contemporary practitioners, it does provide some comfort that others are struggling with these issues as well. Appropriate for graduate English and English education students and practitioners. A. K. Wilson; Buena Vista University