This book offers middle and high school teachers useful suggestions and strategies for cultivating literacy in their classrooms, focusing primarily on the key skills of reading and writing. It discusses the nature of standards-based education and emphasizes the power and importance of good literature in the ELA curriculum. Included are detailed approaches to reading and writing with simple strategies for teaching close reading of complex text, as well as textual evidence and elaboration. A variety of sample performance tasks are included for commonly taught works of American and world literature as well as a variety of strategies to strengthen students reading and writing skills needed for success in college and the workplace. This book is a practical handbook for teachers, who can easily find appropriate strategies to use in their classrooms and begin implementing them right away. It is a useful collection of tips with suggestions and instructions for implementing effective and engaging literacy strategies and performance tasks.