Judith Langer focuses here on middle school and high school literacy programs that effectively support student learning in an era of national and state standards and high-stakes testing. The book offers a programmatic vision, a set of principles, and real-life examples to guide educators who wish to inform their practice with research-based knowledge in order to best help their students become more highly literate. Drawing on her five-year study of classes in twenty-five schools attempting to improve student learning, Langer discusses the essential features of teachers' professional experiences and of curriculum and instruction that mark the more effective programs, whose students earn high test scores as part of impressive overall achievement in active learning.
In this work based on a comprehensive study, Judith Langer explains what effective literacy instruction looks like. Most importantly, she urges teachers to help their students achieve "high literacy," a kind of literacy that includes speaking, writing and reading, as well as being able to do well on high stakes tests.