Mission Possible: A Literacy Support System for Adolescent Readers in the Content Areas

The task appeared to be one that even highly trained secret agents would deem daunting. A middle school principal had requested assistance from a faculty member of a university education department to participate in a form of scholastic subterfuge. The concern expressed by the building site administrator revolved around an intense level of reluctance by the content area teachers to directly address reading challenges exhibited by their early adolescent or transeunt population. Therefore, the principal suggested using the middle school classrooms as a type of academic laboratory thereby allowing preservice teachers an opportunity to explore the effectiveness of various literacy-based strategies on early adolescents in the seventh and eighth grade enrolled in curricular-based courses.