Disciplinary Literacy: Why it Matters and What We Should Do About It Elizabeth Birr Moje National Writing Project Conference What’s Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area Learning March 6, 2010
May 16, 2015
Disciplinary Literacy: Why it Matters and
What We Should Do About It
Elizabeth Birr MojeNational Writing Project
ConferenceWhat’s Next: Possibilities for Literacy
and Content Area LearningMarch 6, 2010
HELPING YOUTH NAVIGATE FROM EVERYDAY TO DISCIPLINARY LITERACY PRACTICES
. . . Or . . .
WHAT IS DISCIPLINARY LITERACY?
A Prior Question
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
Discipline-Specific Literacy Teaching
Practices/Strategies How 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?
Discipline-Specific Literacy Teaching
Practices/Strategies What 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?
HIST PRAC For example, historians:
•Frame historical problems
•Locate and use residues/evidence from past
•Analyze and use evidence through interconnected practices of "sourcing, corroborating and contextualizing“
•Determine significance of evidence and events
•Look for patterns in welter of facts and events and "colligate" these to create a concept or periodization scheme that imposes sense on that welter of events, e.g. "renaissance" is a colligated term
•Periodize and/or use the periodization schemes of others
•Read others’ historical accounts
•Produce historical accounts
•Present/publish historical accounts
(adapted from R. B. Bain, 2007)
MATH PRAC For example, mathematicians:
•Ask “Natural Questions” in a given mathematical context
•Explore and experiment with the context
•Represent the context and examine the representation
•Look for organizing Structure or Pattern
•Consult with colleagues orally or in the literature
•Look for Connections as a result of consultation
•Seek Proofs or disproofs
•Follow Opportunities
•Write finished exposition of a proof
•Analyze Proofs (proof analysis)
•Present/publish proofs
•Use appropriate conventions to produce Aesthetically pleasing results
(Adapted from H. Bass, 2007)
WHY DISCIPLINARY LITERACY MATTERS?
Question 1
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 production
Reification of disciplinary differences
Challenges to coherence for the learner
Access and Opportunity
Explicit attention to navigation across multiple discourse communities provides greater access to more young people
In the service of enhancing subject-matter learning (i.e., to develop deep subject-matter proficiency)
Builds critical literacy skills for an educated citizenry
What is the relationship between disciplinary and
generic literacy? Key “Generic” Literacy
Skills/Strategies Predicting Previewing Questioning Monitoring Visualizing Summarizing
Most “strategy instruction” attempts to develop these strategies/skills in readers
Discipline-Specific Literacy Teaching
Practices/Strategies Previewing like a historian
Who is the author? When was this written? What is the context?
Previewing like a biologist What is the problem/phenomenon I’m
studying? What do I know about this phenomenon? What do I predict/hypothesize about the
phenomenon?
History Previewing Example:
A Nation of Immigrants If 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?
Now it’s your turn . . .
Previewing like a mathematician? ?? ??
Previewing like a literary theorist or textual critic? ?? ??
Differences across Content Areas:
The Persuasive EssayLetter to the Editor
Essay or Poem for English Class
Social Science Essay
Personal opinion or personal experience; may include argumentation; clear stance; language used to indicate personal opinion
Personal opinion or experiences AND logical reasoning or illustrative imagery; language used to argue a point or to convey images and experiences
Distanced stance, evidence to support stance, logical reasoning to tie evidence to claim; language used to convey distance and objectivity
WHAT TO DO ABOUT DISCIPLINARY LITERACY?
Question 2
The Work to Be Done
Disciplinary Reading Disciplinary Writing
Disciplinary Reading Reading like an X Drawing from and developing
“necessary knowledge” Talking about texts Synthesizing across texts (or
“coming back around”) Teachers taking on texts
NECESSARY KNOWLEDGEDrawing from and Developing . . .
Country/Region 1890 1910 1920
Great Britain 1,251,402 1,221,283 1,135,489
Ireland 1,871,509 1,352,251 1,037,234
Germany 2,784,894 2,311,237 1,686,108
Italy 1,887 1,343,125 1,610,113
Romania NA 937,884 1,139,979
Poland 48,557 65,923 102,823
Foreign-Born Residents by Country of Origin, 1890-1920
Country of Origin
Year Total Entering U.S.
Great Britain
Eastern Europe
Italy
1920 430,001 38,471 3,913 95,145
1921 805,228 51,142 32,793 222,260
1922 309,556 25,153 12,244 40,319
1923 522,919 45,759 16,082 46,674
1924 706,896 59,490 13,173 56,246
1925 294,314 27,172 1,566 6,203
304,488 25,528 1,596 8,253
Immigration Statistics, 1920-1926
TALKING ABOUT TEXTSEmphasis on TEXT
TAKING ON TEXTSAnalyzing the texts of instruction
Text Analysis
Analysis of Nature of the Text: Structure and tone of this text?
Syntactic (i.e., sentence structure, organization) complexity
Semantic complexity Cohesion
Organization and flow of ideas Density of ideas Key ideas or concepts Key words or technical terms Density of vocabulary Texts within text? Role of images, charts, or graphs
Coh-Metrix (Graesser & McNamara)
Text Analysis
Analysis of Relationship between Text and Reader:
Assumed knowledge Challenges to an adult reader with relatively
deep knowledge of this subject Challenges to adolescent readers of this text Necessary scaffolding
Scaffolding necessary for STRUGGLING readers? Cultural, racial/ethnic, or gendered connections
Text Analysis
Analyzing 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?
What do you need to address in the text and
with your students? Vocabulary?
Conceptual defining Vocabulary concept cards Concept of Definition maps
Distinguishing Semantic Feature Analysis Morphological analysis
Simple defining! Text Structure?
Text structuring strategies Graphic or relational
organizing Prior Knowledge?
Brainstorming Previewing
Preview Guides Advance Organizers
Predicting POE Anticipation/Reaction Guides
Visualizing
Lack of coherence? Purpose setting Graphic organizers Comprehension monitoring Notetaking
Disciplinary reading strategies?
Problem framing Evaluating data warrant Critiquing Synthesizing Applying to investigations or
activities
SYNTHESIZING ACROSS TEXTS
Helping youth read across texts
Synthesis Journals
Primary Source 1
Primary Source 3
Primary Source 2
Primary Source 4
Analysis across texts (i.e., a
history)
Summarizing From and Synthesizing Across Texts:
Questions Into Paragraphs
Sub-Questions Source 1 Source 2 Source 3 SUMMARY
Adapted from:
McLaughlin, E. M. (1986). QuIP: A writing strategy to improve comprehension of expository structure. The Reading Teacher.
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:
Driving Question: What affects the quality of air in my community?Learning Set Question: Is material X a pollutant?
Disciplinary Writing
Exposure to and opportunities to write multiple genres and registers
Learning to write the valued genres and register of the discipline . . . really well
OPPORTUNITIES TO WRITEExposure to Writing . . .
Student writing in English classDetroit
Motor city of the worldAutomaker and designer
A player of cars and casinosA city of violence
They 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 with
My friends who have passed away.For the people who want to show me the
Good 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 hides
This terrible everyday dilema we have to go through.Underneath the streets of Detroit hides its people
And underneath those peopleTheir solidarity toward society.
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.
LEARNING TO WRITE WELL
Valued Genres and Registers
Scientific Explanation Writing: An Iterative
Practice Examination 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 investigations Writing to explain one’s own investigations Peer review (e.g., poster displays, museum
walks) Revision of explanations New investigations, new explanations, more
peer review And the cycle continues . . . .
IN AN AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Dilemmas of Literacy Instruction . . . .
Dilemmas of Instruction
Writing to a rubric (i.e., “rules”) Writing to a problematic rubric
State Social Studies Writing Rubric
State 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.
Dilemmas of Instruction
Writing mixed genres Writing “objective” pieces about
highly personal or social issues
TEACHING PRACTICESTo Address the Dilemmas . . .
Teaching Practices: Task Analysis
What 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?
A Few More Teaching Practices
Writing multiple versions Teaching students to “go to” or
abstract the larger issue Explicitly critiquing the rubric with
and for students
DISCIPLINARY LITERACYThe Dangers of . . .
Reifying Practices
HIST PRAC For example, historians:
•Frame historical problems
•Locate and use residues/evidence from past
•Analyze and use evidence through interconnected practices of "sourcing, corroborating and contextualizing“
•Determine significance of evidence and events
•Look for patterns in welter of facts and events and "colligate" these to create a concept or periodization scheme that imposes sense on that welter of events, e.g. "renaissance" is a colligated term
•Periodize and/or use the periodization schemes of others
•Read others’ historical accounts
•Produce historical accounts
•Present/publish historical accounts
(adapted from R. B. Bain, 2007)
MATH PRAC For example, mathematicians:
•Ask “Natural Questions” in a given mathematical context
•Explore and experiment with the context
•Represent the context and examine the representation
•Look for organizing Structure or Pattern
•Consult with colleagues orally or in the literature
•Look for Connections as a result of consultation
•Seek Proofs or disproofs
•Follow Opportunities
•Write finished exposition of a proof
•Analyze Proofs (proof analysis)
•Present/publish proofs
•Use appropriate conventions to produce Aesthetically pleasing results
(Adapted from H. Bass, 2007)