Nancie Atwell

Nancie Atwell is an American educator who in 2015 became the first recipient of the Global Teacher Prize.

Career A teacher since 1973, Atwell started her career in western New York, but found traditional teaching methods constraining.

In 1990 Atwell founded the nonprofit Center for Teaching and Learning, a school at Edgecomb in rural Maine where students read an average of 40 books a year, choose which books they read, and write prolifically. She donated the $1million from the prize to the upkeep, development, and scholarships of the school, which is also a demonstration school for developing and disseminating teaching methods.

Atwell has authored nine books on teaching. In The Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning (1987) has sold more than half a million copies. and, in 2003, the National Council of Teachers of English award for outstanding middle school English language arts educator.

Selected books In The Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning (1987). Side by Side Lessons That Change Writers Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons The Reading Zone Systems to Transform Your Classroom and School