This document provides research-based guidance on academic literacy instruction in the content areas, specifically focusing on the effective use of text in content areas. It reviews the research evidence about content-area literacy instruction for adolescents and suggests ways teachers can use content-area texts to enable students to understand…

This paper draws on theory and research on motivation in education to identify principles that might guide decision making concerning National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments for twelfth graders. It draws on three areas of motivation theory, identifies motivational issues that make twelfth-grade NAEP assessments problematic,…

Discusses high school seniors' apathy and unruliness prior to graduation and suggests ways to combat these behaviors. Profiles an independent study program adopted by one school as a remedy and which expanded seniors' perceptions of how they learn while uniting the senior class in the latter months of school. (RJM)

Investigates how a secondary-school teacher uses her "turning-point literacy experience" as a narrative template to guide changes in her teaching of literature. Scaffolds students' narrative modes of thinking in two contrasting classroom contexts: a twelfth-grade class for "at-risk" students and an eleventh-grade class for…