When Tom Kelner, a 7th grade social studies teacher, realized that under the Common Core standards he'd be responsible for strengthening students' reading, writing, and research skills in his social studies classes, first he panicked. Then he approached Dana Haring, an English language arts teacher on his 7th grade team, and asked if they could…

This article reports on a middle school literacy intervention implemented during a yearlong teacher-researcher collaboration. The purpose of this collaboration was to combine and adjust commonly recommended pedagogical approaches to address the literacy needs of a heterogeneous group of seventh graders attending an urban school. University…