Disciplinary Literacy or Reading Instruction?
Disciplinary Literacy
By: Samantha Burns
"I’m a math teacher, so I shouldn’t have to teach literacy… right??"
This is a comment I regularly hear from teachers in
secondary education, or even those studying to be middle/high school teachers. There is a very common belief that because you
have studied to become a teacher in a specific content area, you shouldn't be expected to learn or teach anything outside of that. It's seems that it's up to the elementary and reading teachers to teach literacy.
But if our students are only taught basic and intermediate literacy skills, are we putting them at a disadvantage? And if they're taught incredible literacy skills in language arts, what happens to their literacy skills in other disciplines? Are we just letting those dwindle away?
In order to understand the importance of incorporating literacy across disciplines, we have to understand that literacy is more than just general strategies of reading and writing that are adopted from basic reading classes.
Victoria Gillis, the author of Disciplinary Literacy- Adapt Not Adopt stated that teaching literacy doesn't have to be a separate idea apart from your content area. In fact, it actually LINKS to your content area.
Our second reading, Mentoring Studetns in Disciplinary Literacy adds on to this idea by stating that "[T]here are times when reading through a scientific lens, a literary lens, a mathematical lens, or others is more appropriate for organizing my thinking, and reaching understanding," (9). Each content area will require literacy skills in different ways, each practicing a different aspect of critical thinking.
When our students transition to high school, and even the work force in the future, they will come into contact with literacy everywhere, and we HAVE to prepare them for that.
When you read about history, or even see a news report, how will you know how to critically analyze it unless you've been mentored in the process of breaking down and comparing/contrasting sources?
When you're faced with a math textbook in college, how will you know how to break apart that language and utilize the math skills you've learned unless you've been given the support necessary to interpret your book?
When you walk into that dreaded anatomy class in high school and you are expected to understand the myriad of scientific terms and processes, and how to interpret scientific data, how will you do that unless you've been taught how to break down data, read graphs, build hypotheses based on prior scientific findings, and understand all of the vocab?
I'm sure by now you get the point.
To teach literacy does not make you a reading teacher. Below I've put a link to an interesting article that explains what it means to apply literacy to other content areas: how to read like a historian, read like a mathematician, read like a book critic, etc.
https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2016/10/13/disciplinary-literacy-and-the-value-of-making-connections
We are not ALL reading teachers. But we all do carry the duty to allow our students the chance to develop into competent readers and critical thinkers in all academic disciplines.
After reading these articles, I started to think back on my own experiences in school. Immediately, my high school chemistry teacher came to mind. I have never had anyone push my critical thinking abilities to the limit quite like this woman did. In her class, I learned far more than chemistry. In fact, I don't remember a lot of the chemistry concepts that she taught us, but I do remember how often she would show us how to analyze extremely difficult scientific text, and use what we already knew to move to a deeper, more critical understanding of what we were being taught. She showed me that I do have the ability to problem solve and think critically and that I could carry that into my other classes. Have you had an experience like that? Who have been significant literacy mentors in your life? If you haven't had positive experiences like this in your schooling history, why do you think that is? What could your teachers have done to better connect these critical thinking literacy skills into their lessons?
Keeping all of this in mind, here are a few more questions for you to think about!
1. Do you believe that disciplinary literacy is necessary? Can teachers adequately teach without it or are they putting their students at a disadvantage by disregarding it?
2. How do you think this applies to us as elementary teachers? Do we also need to learn how to incorporate disciplinary literacy or is that just for the secondary education teachers?
3. What would you say to someone who refused to incorporate this type of literacy into their content area (for example: a history teacher tells you that he/she is only required to teach history and that literacy is outside of their scope of knowledge)?
4. How do you think developing literacy skills across a variety of content areas affects your identity as a reader?
Samantha,
ReplyDeleteI loved when you said "We are not ALL reading teachers. But we all do carry the duty to allow our students the chance to develop into competent readers and critical thinkers in all academic disciplines. " It is so true. Of course we are not all going to be teaching an English/Language Arts class but literacy applies to all subjects. I found it really interesting that you had a teacher than expanded your knowledge in Chemistry, as that was one of the classes I struggled so much with. It really shows that the teacher can either make the classroom somewhere you want to be, or a place that you dread. I think it's important that we make our space where our kids feel welcomed, have fun, and are excited about learning. When we do that, they are going to thrive, and we can push their critical thinking beyond what they know.
To answer your first question, I definitely think Disciplinary Literacy is necessary, and we definitely are putting students at a disadvantage when we disregard it. If our students do not understand literacy, it is going to make it difficult for them to accomplish much else in their education.
Jazlyn,
DeleteI agree with your last point! Literacy is something that is interwoven into every other discipline, so if we take that out of our instruction, our students are being put at a disadvantage. "Literacy" is not just reading- it is a way for students to further decode the information they are learning, so I think that incorporating literacy will only deepen the students' understanding of each subject!
I definitely agree with your viewpoint on disciplinary literacy! I believe its so important to branch out and not just have literacy in language arts/reading. You are right that we are putting students at a disadvantage when we aren't providing it other content areas. Many of my teachers in elementary school would only focus on their subject and nothing else. They would never try and include literacy in my other classes. You're right, we need to teach them to come at the world in a critical lens in whatever it may be. I think disciplinary literacy applies to us as elementary teachers because we are the ones that need to prepare them for not only middle/high school, but also for when they get in the real world! I think it is important to teach these concepts at a young age so they can continue to grow and see things in a critical way.
ReplyDeleteAbby,
DeleteThanks for sharing your experiences with literacy in elementary school! I would have to agree- I don't think I can remember many times when my elementary teachers would incorporate literacy into more than just our reading block. I think that's why it came as such a shock to me when a few of my high school teachers pushed me to think in that way when it came to their classes. I can't help but wonder how different my schooling experience would have been if I had been exposed to that form of literacy at an earlier age!
I like how you mention "There is a very common belief that because you have studied to become a teacher in a specific content area, you shouldn't be expected to learn or teach anything outside of that." As a teacher we always have to be able to adapt and incorporate more than just the basic skills into our teaching. This also applies to incorporating social justice themes throughout our curriculum. If we are just teaching the basics and bare minimum in all classes, we are doing a disservice to the students. I love how you give examples as to how disciplinary literacy can be applied to different classes. I believe even as elementary teachers, we need to incorporate disciplinary literacy in order to further help the students literacy skills grow to their full potential. If students are constantly thinking about literacy and the many forms it takes place, their skills will continue to grow and become even better than if literacy was only taken place during a small allotted time.
ReplyDeleteAlaina,
DeleteI love the way you explained the impact that teaching the bare minimum has on students. I can definitely say that I have never remembered anything important from a class where I was just taught the bare minimum. In fact, in those classes I didn't feel like my teachers even wanted to be there, so why should I have cared or engaged at all? Showing students why they are learning what they're learning and how it relates to life outside of the classroom is so important, which goes along with a lot of what you said about teaching social justice and disciplinary literacy skills. Thanks for your comment!
I do think it's necessary! We need to incorporate literacy across all aspects of education. Literacy is an important part of not only our educations, but our lives! Literacy is everywhere. If we don't have our students see the importance of that in our classes other than English then they wont understand the importance that Literacy has. It also helps students understand different concepts of subjects too. Maybe reading/writing about a different idea in math or science they may be struggling with might become more clear to the student if they study it in a less traditional way, using literacy!
ReplyDeleteMara,
DeleteI appreciate that you emphasized the fact that literacy is everywhere! Students won't just run into literacy when they open up a book or study grammar. They'll run into literacy in every single aspect of what they do in this world (as I explained in some of my examples in the blog). We should frame literacy as something that is real and useful, not just another reading or writing assignment in class.
I am going to answer your third question because I HATE IT when people say they don't need to know literacy for what they are teaching. As we have learned in our classes, literacy is not just words on a page, it's graphs, pictures, math equations, music... The list goes on. In history for example, students have to be able to look at charts, graphs, words, pictures, maps, etc. If those things aren't literacy, then I would love to hear that teacher's definition of literacy and what literacy is. The same goes for math, science, art, PE, etc. Literacy is everywhere. There's no avoiding it even if we wanted to, so there is no point in pretending that we shouldn't know it and teach it in our classrooms. The big thing to realize is that every student has some sort of background with some form of literacy. That is one of the most important things to remember as an educator. We should want to help our students be more fluent in literacy. If a student has a wide range of knowledge on literacy, then they can teach themselves anything. I agree with you, literacy is important no matter what grade or subject area you teach!
ReplyDeleteDani,
DeleteYou make such a great point! When teachers refuse to incorporate literacy into their area of discipline, they are actually just in denial about the areas it already exists! Intentional literacy incorporation is so important because it allows an opportunity for students to independently decode information and think critically about it. This is so crucial if we want to develop literacy fluent, critical thinkers in our classroom!
You ask quite a few questions in your last paragraph and I think they pair well with your fourth question: "How do you think developing literacy skills across a variety of content areas affects your identity as a reader?" To answer, I think that developing literacy skills across a variety of content areas affect your identify as a reader by providing you with the opportunities to learn and enjoy all content areas with a deeper and more meaningful understanding. I used to say "I hate science" or "I'm not any good at science" because I did not understand the literacy of science (the language, the vocabulary, etc.). It was not until the summer of 2018 when I took my Intro to Scientific Inquiry class that I was truly taught the literacy of science and how science should be taught so that all children can better understand science and its literacy. This past spring semester when we all had our Methods of Scientific Inquiry class, I was fortunate enough to get a better understanding of the literacy of science and how it is taught with the same professor who originally opened my eyes to it. Your entire blog reminded me of children that say things such as "I hate math" or "I suck at science" or "I'm not good at writing." All of those sayings can be abolished if literacy is properly taught through all subjects and carried out over time.
ReplyDeleteHayley,
DeleteYou make an interesting point! Students tend to categorize themselves as being "good" or "bad" at a certain subject, but really they all have the ability to become a critical thinker in each subject area, which literacy allows for. I found it interesting how in our Methods of Scientific Inquiry field, my students tended to be more engaged in the lessons and experiments when they were able to contribute their own thoughts and work together to come up with hypotheses or drawings of what was happening in our activities. This is just one small example of how literacy was included in another subject area, and I could already see that it was opening up those students' eyes to see that they are all capable of thinking critically about science.
Hi Sam! I definitely agree with your viewpoint. It is very important to teach literacy in all subjects, not just language arts/writing like many teachers believe. Literacy can be found in every subject, whether that be reading math story problems and learning how to write short answers to them, or when reading something from a history book. Literacy is even found in specials subjects like art and music. I’m going to answer your 4th question. I think as a reader, you would feel more comfortable in other subjects as you got older knowing that you’ve seen a lot of the material being taught. Learning math languages and critically reading problems only becomes more necessary as students progress, so these skills should be taught as early as possible. Teaching the vocabulary of subjects is so important, especially in subjects like art and music, which are basically a whole other language themselves. Teachers should teach students how to think critically in all subjects.
ReplyDeleteThis is Emily.
DeleteHi Samantha, I loved when you said, "In order to understand the importance of incorporating literacy across disciplines, we have to understand that literacy is more than just general strategies of reading and writing that are adopted from basic reading classes." I think too often we define literacy as simply "the ability to read and write". We've learned through our classes that literacy is a meaning making process and a way of thinking that is socially and culturally situated and can applied in many ways. The chapter we read, Mentoring Students in Disciplinary Literacy touched on this when it talked about our identities as readers. It said, "Teachers can directly through their language encourage the creation of new identities (for students)" p. 8. We can motivate students with our words and actions to expand their identities in specific disciplines. Although this chapter talked mostly about Middle school and High School I think that we certainly should be teaching/modeling disciplinary literacy in elementary. I think back to the science experiments we did last semester with students. We were already using the scientific language, like observation, hypothesis, etc. We also had them write in their journals, what they observed. They didn't have to use words, they could use visuals, pictures, etc - all literacy. More than anything that time was spent motivating and engaging students in scientific disciplines and teaching them the tools to communicate. All this to say, I think disciplinary literacy applies to elementary teachers. This was just one example of how to incorporate it.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to keep literacy into every subject! Literacy as we learned before is anything that can "read" into. for example symbols and pictures. I believe this type of disciplinary literacy can be used in every subject! They are tools to communicate amongst the children which can probe further discussion on any topic.
ReplyDeletei think one of the main things we’ve learned in blocks is just how much literacy is around us everyday and in saying this it doesn’t only regard to reading. it is so important to let kids understand the importance of literacy because it is how we communicate. if we are not open to different teaching mechanisms then we might as well not even become a teacher. i loved your viewpoints and your article. you made many valid points along with a lot of important evidence to support your opinion!
ReplyDelete