ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we present a case based on a 4-year project in which we developed an innovative curriculum for at-risk high school students and studied its effectiveness. The project, The Literacy Lab, is located at Lafayette Jefferson High School, in Lafayette, Indiana. The school is a comprehensive high school that is attended by 2200 students. The Literacy Lab enrolls students who are the lowest achievers in reading in the school. These students, who are traditionally known as remedial readers, provided us with academic histories in which they chronicled a series of negative school experiences rooted firmly in elementary school and amplified through the grades. From their earliest encounters with schooling, they were predestined to fail in an unbending system reluctant to invite them into its community.
