The purpose of this "Adolescent Literacy Walk-Through for Principals" ("ALWP") is to help principals monitor and support adolescent literacy instruction in their schools more effectively. To meet the goals of improving adolescent literacy in grades four through twelve, principals must be familiar with what literacy instruction should include and how to assess the quality of classroom literacy instruction quickly and effectively. The "ALWP" can be used to build a secondary school leader's literacy knowledge and to provide guidelines for structuring schoolwide professional development. As they work with teachers to improve instruction, school leaders could use this guide to help monitor literacy instruction in (1) late elementary school, (2) content-area classes in middle and high school, and (3) intervention groups or classes. The information gathered may be useful in planning and implementing ongoing professional development to support effective literacy instruction in individual classrooms and across grade levels and subject areas. This document assumes more than a beginning level of knowledge of reading and reading instruction. It summarizes research in adolescent literacy instruction and provides a resource to help convey the messages of state policy and research-based reading instruction through templates that principals may use. This "ALWP" is offered as a scaffold to build principals' understanding of scientifically based reading instruction, both as a means for gathering information about the quality of literacy and reading intervention instruction in a school, and as a data collection guide for planning targeted professional development and resource allocation. Policies and materials to support policies can influence classroom implementation when (1) teachers have opportunity to learn what the policy means for their practice, (2) there is coherent interpretation within the state framework of policies, but also from the classroom to the state level, and (3) support is available for innovation, even when it requires considerable effort (Cohen & Hill, 2001). (Contains 2 tables.) [For related report, "Eight Scenarios Illustrating the Adolescent Literacy Walk-Through for Principals," see ED521605.]