Renee Hobbs provides the first empirical evidence of the impact of media literacy on the academic achievement of adolescents. This book chronicles the practice of high school teachers who prepared their students to critically analyze all aspects of contemporary media culture. To do so, they developed an innovative curriculum that incorporates popular media, television, journalism, film, and new media into the required English curriculum. This book examines the processes they used to design and implement the new curriculum as well as the specific, measurable impact that the program had on students.