“Stuck in the Middle”: Helping Students Begin New Literacy Lives

Radcliffe describes how one middle school teacher works with her struggling eighth-grade readers to break the cycle of failure and begin new literacy lives. Five principles guided her over-age middle school students toward success after years of failure: accepting the challenge, building strong teacher–student relationships, creating literacy-rich environments, connecting readers to text, and supporting readers with strategic literacy instruction. Reflecting students’ voices as well as the teacher’s, this article shares classroom practices that enable those left behind to get “unstuck” and move on to high school with positive attitudes concerning learning.