Book excerpt: Energize your teaching by infusing new ways to reach your 21st century adolescent learners! Thomas Bean's friendly conversational style (with references to surf culture!) adds a level of accessibility and authenticity to the research-based and classroom-tested strategies and instructional practices. Brimming with information about why creative and collaborative learning across the content areas is important to foster 21st century skills, this book also expands the definition of "text" to encompass multimodal elements, including print, visuals, audio, and other dimensions. This resource is aligned to the interdisciplinary themes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and supports the Common Core State Standards.