ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the growing importance in the 21st century of nurturing students' abilities to consider multiple sources of information in developing an argument, making a decision, and navigating the complexities of key social, civic, and scientific questions. It describes a curricular materials so as to display how content area learning and more sophisticated literacy skills can be supported simultaneously through the use of multiple texts. US teachers have been given very few tools to support reading comprehension other than teaching reading strategies. Despite the promise of multiple-source curricula for developing content knowledge and overall literacy abilities, larger-scale impact studies, particularly using random assignment, have rarely been attempted. The use of multiple documents relevant to a particular topic or unit might be thought of as appropriate for advanced students or those with relatively well-developed reading skills. The success of both the programs discussed here in promoting students' literacy skills confirms both the feasibility and the effectiveness of the multiple-documents approach.
