ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a promising high school English course, the expository reading and writing curriculum (ERWC) that effectively integrates multiple theories from the fields of reading comprehension, literacy, and composition to foster college readiness, academic literacy development, and literate identity formation at the high school level. It shows that the rhetorical dimension could greatly enhance young people's academic literacies as well as the abilities to successfully engage in meaningful and principled civic debate. A particularly critical element of the ERWC—the integration of Aristotelian rhetoric—is not considered fully enough in the many studies cited earlier, nor is it considered more generally in most research on literacy and reading comprehension. The rhetorical literacies enacted through the ERWC promote textual and conversational processes and dispositions that aid comprehension, engagement, and transfer. An Investing in Innovation development grant from the U. S. Department of Education is currently funding additional research on the efficacy of the ERWC.
