My student-population can be roughly divided into two camps: students for whom reading and writing is difficult, and students who don't see the point in academic reading and writing. A substantial number fit both descriptions. Nearly all are "at risk" of leaving high school without having experienced the joy of written language, or its power.

An informal survey revealed that all but two of my first year's 120 students believed that a good reader is someone who reads aloud fluidly. It's a misconception shared by many; more than one teacher has asked me, "How else can we evaluate their reading ability?"

Not only is this method of judging reading ability psychologically unsound - after all, most Americans would rather walk into a burning building than speak in public - but it is also technically possible and tragically common to read aloud without comprehension. In fact, many of my students are surprised to discover that the purpose of reading is understanding. More than one has said "What does it mean? How would I know? I was busy reading!"

For this group of students, I studied throughout the Summer of 2003. I learned what research says about why students struggle to read and write, and I learned how to offer children the opportunity to learn the skills and strategies of successful readers. This year's Academic English II class was based on well-researched and pedagogicallly sound principles.

And equally great challenge, I believe, are the "underachievers," children who read and write well, who could pass Advance Placement classes it they wanted to, but who prefer to take mine. Despite my own history as an underachiever, or perhaps because of it, I have struggled to differentiate instruction and motivate them to participate. As I've progressed through the year, experimenting, adapting, and creating, I've found that my high-ability, low-motivation group has responded to activities that incorporate choice, technology, and deep discussions of important issues.

In the sections that follow, I offer a brief overview of the foundations of my approach to this extremely mixed student population.

Sustained Silent Reading - While some research shows that a substantial proportion of library patrons are teenagers, other studies note a marked decrease in reading - some indicate that teenage boys may not read at all. A quick survey of my 20 second-period students has three of them (15%) using a library card and three more who say they would use one if they didn't owe fines.

Since so many of my students read very little, and since they read at such wildly varying grade levels (4.2 - college-level), I have students choose books from the library based on their own interests and reading abilities. They read silently for increasing periods of time; this practice, called Sustained Silent Reading, is required by TEK 7(I). While students complain at the beginning of the year, most soon become eager library patrons and complain if they miss SSR time. I hold them accountable for their reading with Reader's Response Logs and tests.

Reader's Response Logs and Tests - Current reading research - too much to cite here - describes techniques that proficient readers use to comprehend text, usually without conscious effort. While AP students and other proficient readers benefit by making this knowledge conscious and by extending these techniques to more difficult assignments, especially to textbooks, struggling readers need explicit instruction and frequent practice. Therefore, as part of SSR, my students complete a Reader's Response Log (RRL) every day. It requires students to chart the usual things (number of pages, key characters and events). But my logs go beyond the ordinary to requires students to ask questions about the text; make connections to self, word, and text; identify surprises and conclusions they draw; make predictions about what they might read next; hole arguments with the author or characters; and identify phrases, ideas, or plot points they find appealing. There is also space to draw a scene or diagram, since visualization is a powerful reading strategy. Next year, I hope to institute an AR-type program using Reading Tests based on the RRLs for my struggling readers.

Young Adult Literature - "Quality YA novels will challenge and engage most teens" writes Australian librairan May Owen. Both here an abroad, YAL is increasingly recognized as appropriate for high school students (Alvermann, 2003; Bean, 2003; Cline, 2001; Collins1996; Owen, 2003; etc.) and particularly important for struggling readers (Baines, 1994; Bean, 2003; White, 2001; ). "Young adult literature offers an excellent means of engaging adolescents in reading for pleasure... because it offers students a high level of engagement that influences comprehension and reading achievement" explains Thomas W Bean of the University of Nevada. YAL is promoted by the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, NCREL, the Center for Latin American and Carribian Studies, and the Multilingual Student Education Association. Numerous universities promote YAL including Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Purdue, and too many others to list here. In fact, the University of Maine's College of Education and Human Development's Literacy Collaborative puts YAL at the top of their "mainstream best practices in literacy instruction."

"Young adult literature is moving into closer connection with adult literature" writes Kay E. Vandergrift of Rutgers. Modern YAL includes a vast variety of quality literature, including well-respected authors like Isabel Allende and Joyce Carol Oates. Often, a piece of excellent and important literature, such as Ernest Gaine's A Lesson Before Dying, is defined as both YAL and adult. Indeed, much of the traditional high school literary canon fits the description, which can include many of these qualities: a teenaged protagonist with admirable personal qualities is the center of a narrative in which he/she confronts situations that teenagers find compellilng to arrive at deeper self-understanding.

Since many YAL offerings are short, they can introduce or extend the themes of cannonical literature for proficient readers. And for struggling students, they may serve as a bridge toward classic selections. By using YAL in Reading Clubs, I can effectively add a multicultural element to the cannon and diversify my curriculum without sacrificing quality of instruction.

Metacognitive Analysis -Metacognition refers to awareness of our own thoughts. A Metacognitive Analysis requires us to understand why we hold certain opinions, how we arrive at certain conclusions. It is a skill crucial to informed participation in society.

To teach this skill, teacher Rebecca Meadows and I developed an extremely effective technique. When debriefing after a test, we go beyond informing students about right answers and model how to explain why the right answer is right. We then analyze why each of the wrong answers is wrong. Finally, we generate a "test-taking hint" for each question. To keep students from going into information overload, I use this activity as a warm-up and as homework.

Before the first major exam, my students create posters describing our favorite test taking hints and post them on the wall. Students vote on those they feel are most beneficial. Before the End of Course exam, I choose those I feel will be most beneficial to my student population (obviously, struggling readers will need a different set than AP students need), assemble them into a mini-booklet, and distribute it as part of the review. This technique is especially effective for teaching Editing and Revising skills.

Revising and Editing - Known among professional writers as copy-editing ( I published for a decade before coming to the high-school classroom), this complex and difficult skill is tested by TAKS under the heading "Editing and Revising." It is a high skill; good copy-editors can expect to earn $50 to $100/hour on a freelance basis, provided they've mastered the appropriate style book (the most common American style-books include MLA, APA, AP, and Chicago).

Current pegagogy suggests that we teach editing and revising skills "in context," which is usually assumed to be an essay. But I have found that copy-editing one's own writing is extremely difficult, even for professionals, and students are notoriously bad at it. Further, they will most often encounter the skill on standardized tests. I therefore use standardized tests as the authentic context in which to teach peer editing skills, using the Metacognitive Analysis technique described elsewhere in this document.

Technology - Students love technology, a good thing for the ability to use computers is critical to their ability to succeed in college or enter the job market. Thus, I incorporate technology at every opportunity. It's critical that students master 10-finger typing, for without this skill, composing on computer is extraordinarily difficult, drafting more time consuming, and revising less effective. I have described some of the ways I've already incorporated technology into the traditional writing curriculum below. I also have a web-based resarch unit that students found both valuable and fun. Next year, I expect to use more WebQuests and Scavenger Hunts to build the prior knowledge necessary to understanding literature thorougly.

Reading Clubs - The International Reading Association's position statement on Adolescent Literacy states that teenaged readers deserve "access to a wide variety of reading material that appeals to their interests," but as Blasingame and Goodson point out, "prescribing another go at The Sound and the Fury" will not meet this need. "The problem is not so much that tough guys lack the brainpower to read: they simply do not want to." Even for high-motivation, high-ability students, says NCREL "using multiple texts including young adult literature helps students learn to synthesize concepts across a range of texts.... [YAL should] "be paired with the classics."

To achieve this in my classroom, I've adopted the Book-Club style of teaching. Popularized by Harvey Daniels and supported by a wealth of research, book clubs feature groups of 4-5 students who meet regularly to discuss a book they have chosen to read. Each student takes a role, and conversations are open-ended. This year I experimented with Reading Clubs during the final grading period. I used them in conjunction with higher-order questioning strategies to allow students to create their own tests over their self-selected books. I structured their discussions around storyboards that bolstered their understanding of plot development. In the future, I expect to use book clubs to explore themes appropriate to the focus of English II, which is persuasion.

Focused Development - The problem with student revisions is that they tend to focus on copy-editing and rarely address developmental issues, the type of revising that is the heart of process-papers. Using technology, I have developed a method by which students learn to make real developmental revisions.

They first word-process an essay using Microsoft Word, which I grade by my version of the writing rubric. They then carefully examine the rubric, analyzing each section and examining samples that would earn an A or an F. Since the TAKS rubric has five sections, we take one at a time. After a section of the rubric has been thoroughly analyzed, students re-write their essays to raise their score on that dimension.

To ensure that the essay as a whole is well-organized and that each paragraph of an essay is well developed (the most critical section of the TAKS rubric, according to my analysis of their samples), I created the Focused Development Sheet (FDS). Students copy sentences or paragraphs (or even phrases) from their essay and paste them into the correct section of FDS. They then fill in any missing sections on the sheet, then copy these back into the original essay. Their final revisions are for voice and conventions. Using this method, my students raised their TAKS essay score over a full point on a four-point scale.