"How can adolescents think and learn like mathematicians, historians, or biologists if we do not teach them how to read, comprehend, and think deeply about the texts of each discipline?"
TIMOTHY SHANAHAN & CYNTHIA SHANAHAN
This year we have focused on content area literacy in our Professional Learning as 7-12 teachers. This topic is essential to our view of ourselves as teachers of reading and our desire for students to truly understand and internalize the content from their classes. So when I stumbled onto this article by Timothy and Cynthia Shanhahan, I was delighted to read about the work that was done with content area teachers, content experts and reading specialists to create a cohesive approach to disciplinary literacy instruction. Disciplinary literacy refers to the ability to recognize the purpose and strategies best used in each of the disciplines and apply them so as you more successfully read like an expert of that subject would. The article summarizes the a research project that strategically gathered groups of people to discuss, analyze, reflect and focus on reading purposes and strategies in individual content areas in order to better prepare students for the types of reading they will encounter in their various courses.
The article begins with the explanation of the difference between the literacy instruction received prior to middle school, and the increased need for more specified literacy instruction in grades 7-12. The following figure is provided as an explanation of the literacy grow and stages at Shanahan sees it.
Shanhan explains that the project "has challenged us to rethink the basic curriculum of adolescents literacy instruction, particularly with regard to reading comprehension strategy instruction within the disciplines." This seems to be the most logical way to approach instructing our students. Rather than asking students to make the jump from a Basic to Intermediate Literacy and then tossing them into the world of very complex content text to "figure it out", the results of this project support the need for explicit instruction of reading strategies specific to content and purpose.
Teachers, disciplinary experts and reading specialists gathered to look at the textbooks being used, record their own think-alouds as they themselves read portions of the text, and then identified the most important strategies for readers to master and apply when reading science, history, and math texts. The representatives in each team were able to synthesize what they knew about the topic, curriculum, and reading to create frameworks for instruction that were aimed at providing students what they needed to be successful in the top portion of the pyramid.
The following article sites this project and more simply explains what is necessary to consider in the topic of Disciplinary Literacy. Additionally, this author includes some questions that could be used in a PLC conversation or in collaboration with your site's reading specialist.
"If we are knowledgeable about the distinct differences among content areas why are we using generic literacy strategies across the content areas?"
PLC Discussion Questions
No comments:
Post a Comment