He also serves as Director of the UIC Reading Clinic where he hosts an annual African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute. He authored the award-winning books Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap and Reading for Their Life: Re(building) the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males. He has written more than 25 publications on the topics of adolescent literacy, teacher professional development in urban middle schools and high schools, and the literacy development of African American adolescent males, particularly the impact of texts on their lives. He continues to support middle and high school teachers and administrators. He is active in several professional, national and international literacy organizations. He began his career as an eighth-grade teacher in Chicago, later becoming a reading specialist.