English Language Development in the era of Common Core

Spring RESA Session 2013

Disciplinary Literacy

• Content area teachers outside the ELA classroom emphasize literacy experiences in their planning and instruction.

• Students learn through domain-specific texts in science & social studies classrooms

• Rather than referring to the text, students are expected to learn from what they read in the text

Defining Disciplinary Literacy• Disciplinary is anchored in the specifics of individual disciplines.

• Each discipline has its own unique knowledge and its own ways of inquiring, investigating, reasoning, representing, and forming driving questions in the field.

• What do historians consider when they read a text?

• How do scientists write a text to be understood by others in the field?

• How do artists or engineers or musicians read and write within their disciplines?

Why it Matters?

• Literacy is deeper than reading and writing

• Content areas require students to engage with multiple texts in varying ways

• The needs of diverse populations require expanded understandings of the scope of literacy

Why it Matters (cont.)

• There are multiple ways by which a person can be literate

• Different disciplines require different literacy actions

Comparison of Content-area Literacy to Disciplinary Literacy (Shanahan, 2010)

Content-Area Literacy Disciplinary Literacy

Reading experts Wide range of experts

Generalized skills Specialized, discipline specific skills

Use of reading and writing to learning information

Use of literacy skills to make meaning within a discipline

Geared toward remedial students Geared toward all students

Often encourages use of literary texts Focuses only on discipline-specific texts

Graphics are ignored or taught generally Graphics are specific to the discipline

DPI Disciplinary Literacy On-line Module (NC Education)

Introduction to CCSS Literacy in History/Social Studies; Science and Technical Subjects

https://center.ncsu.edu/nc/enrol/index.php?id=1551

Ivanna Mann ThrowerESL/Title III Consultant

NC Department of Public Instruction919-807-3860

ivanna.thrower@dpi.nc.gov

Charlotte “Nadja” Trez ESL/Title III Consultant

NC Department of Public Instruction919-807-3861

nadja.trez@dpi.nc.gov

ESL Website http://esl.ncwiseowl.org/

Contacts