What It Means to Teach Disciplinary Literacy

What It Means to Teach Disciplinary Literacy
Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago

Some Adolescent Literacy Statistics
Performance of the nation’s 12th-graders in reading has declined in comparison to 1992 (NAEP, 2005) 60% of 12th graders read at basic or below basic (NAEP, 2005) 42% of college students take remedial classes (U.S., Dept of Education, 2007)

Instructional responses to adolescent literacy: Elementary School Continued
Adolescent literacy as an extension of primary grade literacy Adding reading to the curriculum With a reading textbook Monitoring of learning with DIBELS-style assessments Often with supervision and support from elementary reading coaches, etc.

Instructional responses to adolescent literacy: Remedial Reading Grade 9
Adolescent literacy as a remedial program Administer a large-scale reading assessment to identify laggards Require that they trade an elective for an intervention class (buy an intervention)

Instructional approaches to adolescent literacy: Content Area Reading
Content area literacy emphasis “All teachers are teachers of reading” Teachers receive cross-disciplinary training in how to teach reading using content area instructional materials Championed since 1940s by Reading Community

Instructional approaches to adolescent literacy: Disciplinary Area Reading
Not just a hip new name for “content area reading” Disciplinary reading refers to the specialized ways of knowing and communicating in the different disciplines The idea is that students need to be taught these specialized routines

Comparing Content Area Reading and Disciplinary Literacy
Source Reading experts since 1920s Wider range of experts since 1990s

Sources of Content Area Reading
In 1920s, the idea of “every teacher a teacher of reading” first raised Rhetoric is good, but fundamental idea is that reading experts know the necessary reading skills and that those should be taught across the curriculum Leads to the development of lots of general approaches: SQ3R, KWL, three-level guides, etc. Research focuses on effectiveness of these instructional routines

Sources of Disciplinary Literacy
Studies that compare expert readers with novices (Bazerman, 1998; Geisler, 1994; Wineburg, 1998, etc.) Functional linguistics analyses of the unique practices in creating, disseminating, evaluating knowledge (Fang, 2004; Halliday, 1998; Schleppegrell, 2004, etc.)

History Reading (Wineburg)
Sourcing: considering the author and author perspective Contextualizing: placing the document/info within its historical period and place Corroboration: evaluating information across sources

Source Reading experts since 1920s Wider range of experts since 1990s Nature of skills Generalizable Specialized

Content area reading KWL Summarization
Generalizable skills and activities that can be used in all or most reading: KWL Summarization SQ3R Previewing Word maps Brainstorming Frayer model Notetaking 3-level guides QAR DR-TA I-Charts Morphological analysis Reciprocal teaching

Disciplinary reading Specialized skills and activities
Idea is to consider the learning demands of a subject matter Example: textbook use Science - Essential History - Antithetical Literature - Irrelevant

Intermediate Literacy
Increasing Specialization of Literacy Literacy Disciplinary Intermediate Literacy Basic Literacy This pyramid illustrates the development of literacy. The pyramid base represents highly generalizable basic skills entailed in all reading tasks, (decoding skills, print and literacy conventions, recognition of high-frequency words, basic punctuation, etc). Most kids master these in the primary grades, and even those who struggle tend to master them before high school entry. As students progress, more sophisticated skills develop. These skills are not as widely applicable to different texts and reading situations, but neither are they linked to particular disciplinary specializations. They include decoding multisyllabic words, less common punctuation (such as split quotes), knowing more vocabulary including words not common in oral language, developing the cognitive endurance to maintain attention to extended discourse, monitoring comprehension, and using fix-up procedures such as rereading. They gain access to more complex forms of text organization, and begin to use author purpose as a tool for critical response. Most students learn these by the end of middle school, but many schoolers struggle with them. In high school, some students even begin to master more specialized reading routines/language uses, but these new routines, though powerful, tend to be constrained in their applicability to most reading tasks. The constraints on the generalizability of literacy skills for more advanced readers — symbolized here by the narrowing of the pyramid — are imposed by the increasingly disciplinary and technical turn in the nature of literacy tasks. Although most students manage to master basic and even intermediate literacy skills, many never gain proficiency with these more advanced skills. Progressing higher in the pyramid means learning more sophisticated, but less generalizable, skills and routines.

Chemistry Note-taking
Substances Properties Processes Interactions Atomic Expression Experts, teacher educators and high school teachers displayed reluctance in embracing the idea of strategy instruction. For most, the concept was new, and the reading strategies we shared with them seemed contrived and irrelevant. This reluctance was revealing, because it mirrored the disinclination of the preservice students in the high school literacy class. The chemistry team’s reluctance only changed when we introduced our version of structured summarization, a strategy that we based specifically on their insights about chemistry reading. Using this strategy, students take notes in a chart format. Each section of the chart reflected the information that these chemistry specialists said was essential to reading chemistry text. Because chemistry is about the properties of substances and their reactions, a reader who paid attention to these would be engaging in a disciplinary-focused reading. We had illustrated the chart using information from one of the chemistry textbooks the team members had shared with us. One of the chemists who had been dismissive of teaching content area reading strategies (such as summarization) in chemistry reacted by saying, “Well, if they used this, they would be learning chemistry.” He then suggested a modification (the inclusion of a place to summarize atomic expression). The difference between this strategy and summarization was its subject-matter specificity. This strategy was not just about understanding text; it was also about understanding the essence of chemistry. This structured-summarization strategy meshed well with concerns the chemists had expressed earlier when they examined high school chemistry textbooks: the need to identify where the chemistry was. That is, although they understood that some of the information in the text was included purely for motivational purposes or to establish context for students, they were concerned that what students were actually supposed to learn about chemistry was obscured and hidden by these devices. One of the chemistry teachers bitterly complained about a text she had to use in which each chapter began with a real-life problem (such as lake pollution) that was then followed by an explanation of the chemistry behind the problem. She complained that the students were not learning the chemistry. Chemistry learning is somewhat hierarchical in nature. The concepts build on each other, and these concepts can then be applied to situations. That is, the principles are taught as abstractions, and the particulars are exemplars of the abstractions. This chemistry book, however, perseverated on the particular, providing students with little real opportunity to learn the abstractions that could be used to solve other problems.

Source Reading experts since 1920s Wider range of experts since 1990s Nature of skills Generalizable Specialized Focus Use of reading and writing to study/learn information How literacy is used to make meaning within a discipline

Content area reading Exit notes Advanced organizers
The focus is on learning from text The idea is not to read like a chemist, but to know how to study books (including chemistry books) Emphasis on literacy learning tools: Exit notes Advanced organizers Response journals Dictionary Internet Readability analysis

Disciplinary reading The focus is on the specialized problems of a subject area Disciplines represent cultural differences in how information is used, the nature of language, demands for precision, etc.

Math Reading Goal: arrive at “truth”
Importance of “close reading” an intensive consideration of every word in the text Rereading a major strategy Heavy emphasis on error detection Precision of understanding essential For example, during think-alouds, the mathematicians emphasized rereading and close reading as two of their most important strategies. One of the mathematicians explained that, unlike other fields, even “function” words were important. “‘The’ has a very different meaning than ‘a,’” he explained. Students often attempt to read mathematics texts for the gist, or general idea, but this kind of text cannot be appropriately understood without close reading. Math reading requires a precision of meaning, and each word must be understood specifically in service to that particular meaning. In fact, the other mathematician noted that it sometimes took years of rereading for him to completely understand a particular proof. The mathematicians we studied were theoretical rather than applied mathematicians. In their field, errorless proofs are by their very nature true, and the purpose of their work is to create these proofs; hence, to create truth. Because proofs must be error free, they are read carefully in order to discover any possible error. Every word matters. Rereading is essential. One mathematician said, “I try to determine whether it’s [the solution to the problem] correct. That’s the important criteria, and it’s by no means assumed. It would be unusual to read a paper like this and not find something incorrect.” This mathematician is illustrating the belief that truth (correctness within the confines of a particular problem) is attainable if one can determine an error-free solution. However, errors are easy to make, so vigilance is required.

Chemistry Reading Text provides knowledge that allows prediction of how the world works Full understanding needed of experiments or processes Close connections among prose, graphs, charts, formulas (alternative representations of constructs an essential aspect of chemistry text) Major reading strategies include corroboration and transformation The chemists were most interested in the transformation of information from one form to another. That is, when reading prose, they were visualizing, writing down formulas, or if a diagram or a chart were on the page, going back and forth between the graph and the chart. One chemist explained, “They give you the structure, the structure of the sensor is given, so I was looking at the picture as I was reading, and I tried to relate what was in the picture to what they were saying about how mercury binds to one part of the molecule.” This explanation, corroborated by the chemists’ other comments, helped us to understand that in chemistry, different or alternative representations (e.g., pictures, graphs or charts, text, or diagrams) of an idea are essential for a full understanding of the concepts. These various representations are processed recursively as reading progresses. Unlike historians, chemists create knowledge through experimentation. The findings of experiments are somewhat dependent upon the quality of the instrumentation, the design, and the statistical analysis. However, these variables are all decided upon prior to the actual experiment. The findings are generalizable to other experiments under the same conditions. Although chemists are not uncritical readers, we found that the chemists we studied did have more confidence than historians in the utility of the knowledge that had been created; they believed they could use that knowledge to predict what would happen under similar conditions. What is important to them in reading, consequently, was a full understanding of the way in which an experiment took place and the processes the experiment uncovered. Gaining that full understanding required them to think about the phenomenon being presented in prose, to visualize it, and to manipulate it in formulas and equations.

History Reading History is interpretative, and authors and sourcing are central in interpretation (consideration of bias and perspective) Often seems narrative without purpose and argument without explicit claims (need to see history as argument based on partial evidence; narratives are more than facts) Single texts are problematic (no corroboration) Historians emphasized paying attention to the author/source during reading. Before reading, they would consider who the authors were and what their biases might be. Their reading purpose seemed to be to figure out which story that particular author wanted to tell; they were keenly aware that they were reading an interpretation and not “Truth.” One historian said when reading a text about Lincoln: “I saw, oh I don’t know him very well, but he [the author] is part of a right-wing group of southern conservatives who is a secessionist. I’m not sure that the best model for thinking about Lincoln as a president is one that comes from a racist. So I have my critical eyes up a little bit, so it’s a bit of a stretch to be friendly to, so I wanted to make sure to read it fairly.” In this nuanced example, the historian reveals that he does not read the text as truth, but rather as an interpretation that has to be judged based upon its credibility. He attempts to evaluate its credibility through an examination of the author’s biases. However, he also knows that he, as a reader, has his own biases, and that his disregard for right-wing secessionist groups might color his reading and he could miss important insights. He reads with a view that both author and reader are fallible and positioned. The varied emphases shown in these examples are related to the intellectual values of a discipline and the methods by which scholarship is created. History relies on document analysis (document being widely defined to include films, interview protocol, etc.). These are collected after an event occurs, and their selection/analysis take place somewhat simultaneously. Thus, it is possible for a historian to choose and analyze evidence, unwittingly perhaps, that corroborates a previously held perspective. The historians we studied read with that caution in mind. Unfortunately, the nature of historiography (how history is written/presented) is not often the subject of discussion in adolescent history classes. Students believe they are reading to learn “the facts,” and fail to consider potential bias.

Source Reading experts since 1920s Wider range of experts since 1990s Nature of skills Generalizable Specialized Focus Use of reading and writing to study/learn information How literacy is used to make meaning within a discipline Students Remedial Whole distribution

Content area reading Content area reading is promoted for all students
But the strategies that are taught tend to work with younger and lower level readers – with no evident benefits for average and higher readers Teachers often won’t use approaches that don’t have a wider impact

Disciplinary reading Effectiveness has not yet been tested
However, the nature of the activities that have been developed so far suggest a wider range of learning benefits

Character Change Chart
What is main character like at the beginning of the story? What is the main character like at the end of the story? How has he or she changed? Crisis Given this character change, what do you think the author wanted you to learn? ________ ________________________________________________________________________

History Events Chart TEXT WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? Relation:
1 Relation: 2 3 Relation 4 Main point: In the history meetings, the team liked a number of strategies and made suggestions for improvement. One such strategy was the history events chart. Coherence and understanding how the stories of history connect to each other is crucial to understanding narrative history. As students read about a particular event, they write down answers to the questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why in order to summarize the key narrative events. They do the same with each event they read about. However, the compelling task — the one that addresses a specific disciplinary problem in reading history — is to determine what the relationship is between the first and second event, between the second and third event, and so on. Students are asked to think about the most likely connections and to write these on the chart. The historians were approving of this task because it mirrored the kind of thinking that historians do. That is, historians infer cause-and-effect relationships when they study events and what precedes and follows them. These relationships are not necessarily visible in the events themselves, nor are they always made explicit in high school history texts, so they must be surmised. And, if they are made explicit in the text, students generally regard the connection as “truth” rather than as the construction of the writer. The task, then, not only mirrored historians’ thinking, but also offered the opportunity for students to construct the cause-and-effect relationships themselves. The high school teachers have tried out several promising strategies in the classroom, including the ones described above. One of the history teachers engaged in a quasi-experimental study of another history strategy — one he called “The Multiple Gist” strategy. In this strategy, students read one text and summarize it, read another text and incorporate that text into the summary, then read another text and incorporate that text into the summary, and so on. The summary has to stay the same length, essentially, and this forces a student to use words such as similarly or in contrast when incorporating texts that compare or contrast with each other. His preliminary results reveal that students who learned the multiple-gist strategy wrote longer, more coherent answers to essay questions.

Source Reading experts since 1920s Wider range of experts since 1990s Nature of skills Generalizable Specialized Focus Use of reading and writing to study/learn information How literacy is used to make meaning within a discipline Students Remedial Whole distribution Texts Often encourages use of literary text Only focuses on disciplinary text

Content Area Reading Often promotes reading of plays, short stories, novels, poems for math, science, and history Thematic units and integrated curriculum (focused on the non-disciplinary use of disciplinary information)

Disciplinary Literacy
Language differs across disciplines, so it is critical that readers confront the language of their discipline The Friendly Textbook Dilemma

History Reading (Schleppergrell)
Text constructs time and causation Attributes agency (readers need to focus on the reasons for actions and the outcomes of those actions—cause/effect) Presents judgment and interpretation (argument) Often lack clear connections

Science Reading (Schleppergrell)
Technical, abstract, dense, tightly knit language (that contrasts with interactive, interpersonal style of other texts or ordinary language) Nominalization (turning processes into nouns) Suppresses agency (readers need to focus on causation not intention)

Source Reading experts since 1920s Wider range of experts since 1990s Nature of skills Generalizable Specialized Focus Use of reading and writing to study/learn information How literacy is used to make meaning within a discipline Students Remedial Whole distribution Texts Often encourages use of literary text Only focuses on disciplinary text Role of graphics Ignored or taught generally Specific to the discipline

Content Area Reading Graphics as adjuncts
Interpretive skills are general for pictures, tables, charts, etc. No differences across disciplines

Disciplinary Literacy
Need for translation skills in sciences Pictures differ in their role (describing/defining nouns, verbs (processes), relationships) Difference between technical drawing and other photos or drawings? Is the information: Descriptive? Sequential? Relational/hierarchical? Causal?

Problems with Content Area Reading
Literacy is not as generalizable as once thought Some practices make no sense in disciplines Its strategies are more helpful to poorer readers Pre-service teacher resistance to non-disciplinary courses

An important outcome of this work
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FOR English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies & Science

Literacy in History/Social Studies (6-8, 9-10, 11-12) – Key Ideas/Details
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources. Determine the main ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; summarize the source, basing the summary on information in the text rather than on prior knowledge or opinions. Identify key steps in a text’s description of a process related to history/social studies (e.g., how a bill becomes law, how interest rates are raised or lowered). Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information. Determine the main ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; summarize how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text and the causes that link the events; distinguish whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. Determine the main ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide a summary that makes clear the relationships between the key details and ideas. Analyze how ideas and beliefs emerge, develop, and influence events, based on evidence in the text .

Literacy in History/Social Studies (6-8, 9-10, 11-12) – Craft & Structure
Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. Identify how a history/social studies text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally). Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts). Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text, including the vocabulary describing political, economic, or social aspects of history. Explain how an author chooses to structure information or an explanation in a text to emphasize key points or advance a point of view. Compare the point of view of two or more authors by comparing how they treat the same or similar historical topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts. Interpret the meaning of words and phrases in a text, including how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10 and No. 51). Analyze in detail how a complex primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text contribute to the whole. Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, evidence, and reasoning.

Literacy in History/Social Studies (6-8, 9-10, 11-12) – Integration
Integrate graphical information (e.g., pictures, videos, maps, time lines) with other information in a print or digital text. Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a historical account. Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. Integrate quantitative or technical information presented in maps, time lines, and videos with other information in a print or digital text. Assess the extent to which the evidence n a text supports the author’s claims. Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources. Synthesize ideas and data presented graphically and determine their relationship to the rest of a print or digital text, noting discrepancies between the graphics and other information in the text. Evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other sources of information. Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

What It Means to Teach Disciplinary Literacy
Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago

What It Means to Teach Disciplinary Literacy

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