Abstract
I will begin my comments on Reviewing Adolescent Literacy Reports: Key Components and Critical Questions by commending the authors for taking on this rather massive project. The project required not only locating and reading the many lengthy reports that exist on adolescent literacy but also sifting through the numerous claims, ideas, and suggestions in each report to offer an analysis of dominant themes. Faggella-Luby, Ware, and Capozzoli discerned a two-pronged focus on (a) improving teaching and assessment practices, and (b) changing infrastructures of secondary schooling to support those practices. I concur with their analysis. The reports I have read and the panels on which I have served tend to acknowledge the critical need to change not only practice inside the classroom but also the structures that support and constrain excellent teaching and assessment practice. That is a good thing; it is wise of policy makers, researchers, administrators, and teachers to think in terms of both practice and structure. I suggest, however, that two additional dimensions must be considered if educators are to make change in secondary school literacy teaching and adolescent literacy learning: 1) history, and 2) the role of social and cultural norms and practices in changing practice and structure.