The nation's focus on the literacy skills of students--especially boys--has produced many notions of reform. School districts reorganized and changed curricula to meet the needs of struggling readers and writers. In New York City, where this author was teaching, "Balanced Literacy" (a reading and writing workshop) had been implemented in…

River guides and teachers share important characteristics, like having a rescue plan or a teaching plan for every imaginable scenario. A raft guide describes her modified teaching plan that will help the students with diverse learning needs and also describes the similarities between a teacher and a raft guide as she studies a high school…

Calls for sensitive treatment of learning disabled teenagers by teachers. Discusses approaches that have proven effective in working with this population of students. (RBW)