Current high school instructional practices trending across our nation primarily focus upon providing content to students and lack content-area literacy strategies or higher-order metacognitive reflective writing practices. Educational research consistently demonstrates the need for increased skill development in American secondary schools, so why are these proven "best-practices" not pervasive in our classrooms today? Educators regularly default to a lack of time due to extensive curricula, lack of professional development that engages deep understanding, or enough self-confidence to provide the necessary skills-based instruction for their students. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of secondary social studies teachers' perceptions related to their own instructional experiences utilizing content-area literacy-based instruction and reflective writing practices with ninth- and 10th-grade social studies secondary students. I conducted a qualitative action research study incorporating an in-depth single case study design utilizing general survey questions, interviews, and observations. Recorded interviews were professionally transcribed. All documents supplied by teachers and notes were saved into JPEG or PDF format. The interview and document analysis data were initially coded by the researcher and then uploaded to NVivo 12 for final analysis. Results of the data analysis were the following eight themes that emerged: 1. Contextualizing the Work: Effective When Teachers Are Supported; 2. Dependent On the Students and their Academic Disposition; 3. Lacking Structure; 4. Consistent Instructional Practices; 5. Focusing on Student Perspectives; 6. Focusing on What Students Understand; 7. Naturally Improving Literacy; and 8. Students Begin Thinking for Themselves. The findings from this descriptive single case study suggested that only by practicing content-area literacy skills in concert with consistent metacognitive practice in secondary classrooms appears to be the most effective set of instructional strategies taking place in not only social studies classrooms, but in all secondary classrooms. Once such a culture and foundational academic climate is established in secondary classrooms, then instructors can move forward with implementing disciplinary-area literacy strategies that will further enhance student learning in the various content areas. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]