The Literature Project is a literature-based reading program designed to meet the needs of adolescent females with behavioral/emotional disorders, adolescent female offenders, and adolescent females at risk. The project uses novels and short stories written by and for women as basic reading material. Literary selections with heroines who are self-reliant and confident and who accomplish goals against difficult circumstances are used to improve the adolescents' self-concepts. Selection criteria for the literature include: produce a vicarious experience in the adolescents; change the adolescents' self-concepts, their future aspirations, or their attitudes; provide a story relevant to the adolescents' lives; and allow the adolescents to identify with and learn from the heroine. The literary selections are read orally by the teacher and students as a group. Group and individual activities that reinforce the ideas and concepts covered in the novel accompany each reading selection. The 50 adolescents that have participated in the project have improved their self-concepts and self-confidence. (Contains 31 references.) (JDD)