Rails has a helper that generates the controller method for you. You would add:
in_place_edit_for :item, :title
Also, in_place_editor_field generates an Ajax.Updater, so the render :update is not really appropriate. From the docs for in_place_editor,
"..the action on the server should process the value and return the updated value in the body of the reponse"
Using in_place_edit_for in your controller takes care of that for you.