"There is much to learn from Hamel in terms of his thoughtful pedagogical decision making, his keen sense of observation, and his delight in children as writers, thinkers, and people. All teachers, not simply those who are already believers of the importance of valuing children’s participation in official and unofficial worlds (e.g., Dyson, 2003), would benefit from his view into this classroom world of children writing."
—Teachers College Record
"With Choice and Agency in the Writing Workshop: Developing Engaged Writers, grades 4-6, Fred L. Hamel invites readers to observe a writing workshop in action, think deeply about writing workshop, and imagine how they can respond to student writers in generative ways. In addition to sharing about what works in this kind of instruction, Hamel also explores tensions that educators might experience within a workshop context."
—Journal of Language and Literacy Education
"Fred Hamel not only offers us readers insight into the text-mediated dramas of children’s lives, he allows us into the sort of pedagogical reflections that keep us all in the flow of becoming."
—From the Foreword by Anne Haas Dyson, University of Illinois
"This timely book is about the experimentation, flexibility, vulnerabilities, and risks of educators when they don’t assume to always know what is best for writers. Through classroom examples, Hamel helps us to see the complex and entangled identities of teachers and students. This book asks us all to consider putting less emphasis on expected writing endpoints and think more about the social processes and relationships of literacies coming to be."
—Candace R. Kuby, University of Missouri and author of Go Be a Writer! Expanding the Curricular Boundaries of Literacy Learning with Children
