This text explores learning at all ages with a particular focus on middle and high school classrooms. The contributors discuss the factors which complicate the production of readers and writers who understand, learn from and think critically about the information in various forms of text.

This volume is an attempt to synthesize the understandings we have about reading to learn. Although learning at all ages is discussed in this volume, the main focus is on middle and high school classrooms--critical spaces of learning and thinking.
The amount of knowledge presented in written form is increasing, and the information we get from texts is often conflicting. We are in a knowledge explosion that leaves us reeling and may effectively disenfranchise those who are not keeping up. There has never been a more crucial time for students to understand, learn from, and think critically...