Disciplinary Literacy: Why It Matters and What We Should Do About It
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The document discusses the importance of disciplinary literacy, emphasizing the need for teaching literacy practices specific to different disciplines to enhance students' understanding and proficiency in subject matter. It outlines various strategies and practices for implementing disciplinary literacy in classrooms, focusing on reading, writing, and synthesizing across texts. The document also highlights the relationship between disciplinary and generic literacy, stressing that effective literacy instruction must navigate complex discourses within and across content areas.
Disciplinary Literacy: Why It Matters and What We Should Do About It
- 1. Disciplinary Literacy: Why it Matters and What We Should Do About ItElizabeth Birr MojeNational Writing Project ConferenceWhat’s Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area LearningMarch 6, 2010
- 2. Helping Youth Navigate from Everyday to Disciplinary Literacy Practices . . . Or . . .
- 3. What is Disciplinary Literacy?A Prior Question
- 4. What is Disciplinary Literacy?Disciplinary literacy perspectives argue that the tools of knowledge production and critique, whether rooted in the disciplines or in everyday life, should be uncovered, taught, and practiced.Disciplines v. subject areas
- 5. Discipline-Specific Literacy Teaching Practices/StrategiesHow do members of the discipline use language on a daily basis?What kinds of texts do they turn to or produce as part of their work?How are interactions with members of the discipline shaped (or governed by) texts?Who are the primary audiences for written work in your discipline?
- 6. Discipline-Specific Literacy Teaching Practices/StrategiesWhat are the standards for warrant demanded by those audiences?Are there words or phrases that are demanded by or taboo in your discipline?Are there writing styles that are demanded by or taboo in your discipline?What is unique about your discipline in terms of reading, writing, speaking, and listening?
- 8. Why disciplinary literacy matters?Question 1
- 9. Why Disciplinary Literacy?Disciplinary slicing of middle school, high school, and university into subject-areas leads to:Masking of the role that disciplinary practices play in knowledge productionReification of disciplinary differencesChallenges to coherence for the learner
- 10. Access and OpportunityExplicit attention to navigation across multiple discourse communities provides greater access to more young peopleIn the service of enhancing subject-matter learning (i.e., to develop deep subject-matter proficiency)Builds critical literacy skills for an educated citizenry
- 11. What is the relationship between disciplinary and generic literacy?Key “Generic” Literacy Skills/StrategiesPredictingPreviewingQuestioningMonitoringVisualizingSummarizingMost “strategy instruction” attempts to develop these strategies/skills in readers
- 12. Discipline-Specific Literacy Teaching Practices/StrategiesPreviewing like a historianWho is the author?When was this written?What is the context?Previewing like a biologistWhat is the problem/phenomenon I’m studying?What do I know about this phenomenon?What do I predict/hypothesize about the phenomenon?
- 13. History Previewing Example:A Nation of ImmigrantsIf I told you to that we were reading a chapter from the book, A Nation of Immigrants, what do you expect it would be about?If I told you that the book was written in 1961, how would that change your predictions?If I told you that the author was John F. Kennedy, how would that change your predictions?
- 14. Now it’s your turn . . . Previewing like a mathematician? ????Previewing like a literary theorist or textual critic?????
- 15. Differences across Content Areas: The Persuasive Essay
- 16. What to Do About Disciplinary Literacy?Question 2
- 17. The Work to Be DoneDisciplinary ReadingDisciplinary Writing
- 18. Disciplinary ReadingReading like an XDrawing from and developing “necessary knowledge”Talking about textsSynthesizing across texts (or “coming back around”)Teachers taking on texts
- 19. Necessary knowledgeDrawing from and Developing . . .
- 20. Foreign-Born Residents by Country of Origin, 1890-1920
- 23. Talking about TextsEmphasis on TEXT
- 24. taking on textsAnalyzing the texts of instruction
- 25. Text AnalysisAnalysis of Nature of the Text: Structure and tone of this text?Syntactic (i.e., sentence structure, organization) complexitySemantic complexityCohesionOrganization and flow of ideasDensity of ideasKey ideas or conceptsKey words or technical terms Density of vocabularyTexts within text?Role of images, charts, or graphs Coh-Metrix (Graesser & McNamara)
- 26. Text AnalysisAnalysis of Relationship between Text and Reader:Assumed knowledgeChallenges to an adult reader with relatively deep knowledge of this subjectChallenges to adolescent readers of this textNecessary scaffoldingScaffolding necessary for STRUGGLING readers?Cultural, racial/ethnic, or gendered connections
- 27. Text AnalysisAnalyzing and Planning for Relationships Across Texts: How would you select other texts to accompany this one?What connections might you imagine students making across texts?What connections would you try to help students see across the texts?
- 28. What do you need to address in the text and with your students?Vocabulary?Conceptual definingVocabulary concept cardsConcept of Definition mapsDistinguishingSemantic Feature AnalysisMorphological analysisSimple defining!Text Structure?Text structuring strategiesGraphic or relational organizingPrior Knowledge?BrainstormingPreviewingPreview GuidesAdvance OrganizersPredictingPOEAnticipation/Reaction GuidesVisualizingLack of coherence?Purpose settingGraphic organizersComprehension monitoringNotetakingDisciplinary reading strategies?Problem framingEvaluating data warrantCritiquingSynthesizingApplying to investigations or activities
- 29. Synthesizing Across TextsHelping youth read across texts
- 30. Synthesis JournalsPrimary Source 1Primary Source 2Analysis across texts (i.e., a history)Primary Source 3Primary Source 4
- 31. 1. What are the sources of this material? 2. What are the effects of this material in the air? 3. How much of this material is typically found in air? SUMMARY: Summarizing From and Synthesizing Across Texts: Questions Into ParagraphsDriving Question: What affects the quality of air in my community?Learning Set Question: Is material X a pollutant?Sub-Questions Source 1Source 2Source 3 SUMMARYAdapted from:McLaughlin, E. M. (1986). QuIP: A writing strategy to improve comprehension of expository structure. The Reading Teacher.
- 32. Disciplinary WritingExposure to and opportunities to write multiple genres and registersLearning to write the valued genres and register of the discipline . . . really well
- 33. Opportunities to WriteExposure to Writing . . .
- 34. Student writing in English classDetroitMotor city of the worldAutomaker and designerA player of cars and casinosA city of violenceThey tell me your the #1 murder cityFor I have seen your people and streets.They tell me you are feared and violentAnd I have seen the results of that withMy friends who have passed away.For the people who want to show me theGood side, I’ll show them my reality.The view that only people who live here see and hear.Gang violence, gun shots, drug dealing, rappistsProstitutes, crackheads, bumps, thieves, burn houses,And dirty streets.All of this hides under those beautiful buildings In Downtown.Under the unknown places of the camera hidesThis terrible everyday dilema we have to go through.Underneath the streets of Detroit hides its peopleAnd underneath those peopleTheir solidarity toward society.
- 35. Student writing in Social Studies I think middle school students should be required to participate in a community service program because it make them more responsible and teaches them what work realy is. Another reason I think this is because it will help them to be successful and not to die as a teen gang member. Some people have thrown away their lives in gangs this community service program will help prevent that by keeping students away from gangs and away from drugs. The Core Democratic Value that I choose is Common good, I chose this value because it states that we should protect and provide safty for our community as well as for anyone who lives here. Also because the community service program reduces the gang killings and increases the safty around us. Community servics are when students help around their community and to help older neighbors cut the lawn, rake the leafs, or shovel the snow. I have learned that gangs are no good they bring nothing but trouble. All gangs are just about which gang is better the only things they do are fight, steal and cause trouble. Here in Detroit there have been alot of teens being killed because they were involved in gangs.
- 36. Learning to write wellValued Genres and Registers
- 38. Scientific Explanation Writing: An Iterative PracticeExamination of explanations written by others Classroom-based, whole-group generation of rubric using models (i.e., comes from the students; see next slide)Engagement in scientific investigationsWriting to explain one’s own investigationsPeer review (e.g., poster displays, museum walks)Revision of explanationsNew investigations, new explanations, more peer reviewAnd the cycle continues . . . .
- 39. In an age of AccountabilityDilemmas of Literacy Instruction . . . .
- 40. Dilemmas of InstructionWriting to a rubric (i.e., “rules”)Writing to a problematic rubric
- 41. State Social Studies Writing RubricState a claim.Use at least one piece of data from the data provided.Use a core democratic value to support your argument.Use at least one idea or principle from one of the social studies (economics, history, civics, etc.) to support your argument.
- 42. Dilemmas of InstructionWriting mixed genresWriting “objective” pieces about highly personal or social issues
- 43. Teaching practicesTo Address the Dilemmas . . .
- 44. Teaching Practices: Task AnalysisWhat does the task assume about youth and/or ask them to do as thinkers?What do youth need to know to meet the task demands?What kind of text does the task ask youth to produce?What do we need to do instructionally to scaffold young people’s thinking before they even begin to write?
- 45. A Few More Teaching PracticesWriting multiple versionsTeaching students to “go to” or abstract the larger issueExplicitly critiquing the rubric with and for students
- 46. Disciplinary LiteracyThe Dangers of . . .
- 49. For more information . . .www.umich.edu/~moje
Editor's Notes
- #6: Why and when do they turn to or produce such texts? What do they do with texts when they use or produce them?
- #7: What would you consider to be critical for novices to learn about these unique aspects of oral and written language to become strong readers and writers of disciplinary texts? What would novices need to know to gain at least a cursory understanding of the discipline?In what ways might learning some of the unique language/literacy features of your discipline be helpful to novices? In what ways might this be confusing or frustrating?
- #10: Because students move from class to class, and subject matter to subject matter, the practices of each area may appear to be artifacts of particular teachers, classroom spaces, or groups of students, rather than artifacts of disciplinary thinking or cultural practice.
- #26: Reading demands of images Reading demands in making meaning across the images, other forms, and print