How do you access the element HTML from within an Angular 2 attribute directive?

The Angular 2 docs provide an example for creating an attribute directive that changes the background color of an element:

https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/guide/attribute-directives.html

<p myHighlight>Highlight me!</p>

import { Directive, ElementRef } from '@angular/core';

@Directive({ selector: '[myHighlight]' })

export class HighlightDirective {
    constructor(el: ElementRef) {
        el.nativeElement.style.backgroundColor = 'yellow';
    }
}

Can I also use el.nativeElement to get the content of the element (e.g. Highlight me!), modify this and update the element?