Research on the sociocultural processes of writing and its impact on writing instruction in the middle grades has gained increased attention in educational research. Less attention has been devoted to research on writing with middle grade English learners (ELs) who are mainstreamed into English only classrooms. National assessment data, reports, and literature reviews indicate that this is an area that is sorely in need of exploration. The focus of this paper is to examine how one teacher created and used third spaces in her middle school classroom to support her EL's academic writing abilities. Third spaces, defined as hybrid cultural spaces that create opportunities for students to navigate and develop bridges between their linguistic and cultural resources with school discourses, serve as the guiding framework for this study. Through a third space lens, the author examines the complexities and demands of academic language learning in middle school. This study is based on findings from the second year (2008-2009) of a 3-year project that documented how middle school teachers, who participated in a professional development institute in the summer of 2008, enacted culturally responsive writing principles and practices in their classrooms. Funded by the National Writing Project, the goal of the project was to help teachers improve the academic writing achievement of their ELs. The study used an ethnographic approach to data collection. The findings suggest third space theories and academic language learning are integrally connected and illustrate how middle grade teachers can cocreate third spaces in order to link local ways of knowing to the academic demands of school. This research provides insights toward developing a new writing pedagogy for ELs in the middle grades.