A study examined the relationships among early adolescents' motivational goal orientations (task and ability focus), cognitive processing strategies, self-efficacy, and expectancy-value for literacy activities. These factors appear to vary by gender, academic status (special education, at-risk, and not-at-risk), and grade level. Subjects, 678 middle-school students from a largely "blue collar" district near a major city in the midwest, completed a self-report questionnaire. For students who are learning-focused, findings support use of deep-level cognitive processing strategies such as monitoring of comprehension, paraphrasing, and summarizing; students who are ability-focused tend to use surface-level cognitive processing strategies such as memorization, copying, and rehearsal of information. The relationships between these variables and performance on several standardized measures of language and reading achievement were also measured. Results indicated that (1) self-efficacy was the most powerful predictor of success; and (2) those students who valued literacy activities and were learning-focused tended to do worse on some standardized tests than their peers. Findings suggest that educators should place greater emphasis on the relationships between motivational and affective factors with strategy usage, rather than referring to gender and academic classifications such as "at risk" or "special education" when considering the ways in which adolescents approach reading and writing activities. (Contains 12 references and five tables of data. An appendix presents a list of the constructs and items of the students' scales and four figures of data displaying the motivational, affective, cognitive, and achievement-related belief scales.) (RS)