Implementation of Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts across most of the United States has yielded the rapid creation of new, interconnected literacy assessments, curriculum guidelines, instructional materials, teacher preparation programs, teacher evaluation systems, and professional development. This essay explores two researchers' concerns about instructional recommendations for teaching students how to engage in close reading, a key construct underlying these Standards. Meant to encourage and inform educators' exercise of professional judgment in planning instruction, the essay summarizes explicit and implied shifts in literacy instruction that are suggested by the new standards, examines various competing interpretations of close reading and close reading instruction, and offers research‐based instructional recommendations to enable youth to complete close reading tasks effectively, rather than distancing them further from the literacies needed to fulfill their lives.

S In this multicase study, adolescents at five culturally diverse sites across the United States engaged in face‐to‐face interactions as they reflected and reported on their perceptions of their own and other students' experiences in discussing regularly assigned content area texts. Our decision to consider students' insights into their experiences distinguishes this study from previous work on classroom interaction that has focused primarily on teachers' and researchers' interpretations of student talk. A social constructionist perspective, which provided the framework for the study, enabled us to explore how verbal and nonverbal patterned ways of interacting shape, and are shaped by, social practices inherent in classroom talk about text. Data sources included three rounds of videotaped class discussions followed by three focal group interviews, field notes, theoretical memoranda, narrative vignettes, and samples of students' work. Data collection and analysis, which were ongoing over the course of 1 school year, included a procedure for sharing field notes, transcribed interviews, and videos across sites. This procedure for involving the participants at all five sites in analyzing common sets of data generated findings that suggest students are (a) aware of the conditions they believe to be conducive to good discussions, (b) knowledgeable about the different tasks and topics that influence their participation in discussions, and (c) cognizant of how classroom discussions help them understand what they read. By focusing on students' perceptions of their own actions, thoughts, and motives related to classroom talk about texts, it was possible to make visible their negotiation of different roles and relations, rights and responsibilities, and norms and expectations in peer‐led and whole‐class discussions. Implications for researchers and teachers alike underscore the importance of considering the richness of data to be found in classroom discussions. En este estudio de casos, adolescentes de cinco localidades culturalmente diversas de los Estados Unidos interactuaron cara a cara, reflexionanado e informando sobre sus percepciones y las de otros estudiantes acerca de discutir los textos de áreas de contenidos asignados regularmente. La decisión de incluir las percepciones de los estudiantes sobre sus experiencias distingue a este estudio de trabajos previos sobre la interacción en el aula, en los que se puso el acento fundamentalmente en las interpretaciones de docentes e investigadores sobre las expresiones de los estudiantes. La pespectiva constructivista social, que constituye el marco del estudio, nos permitió explorar cómo los patrones de interacción verbales y no verbales dan forma y son conformados por prácticas sociales inherentes al discurso sobre los textos dentro del aula. Los datos incluyeron tres discusiones en clase video‐grabadas seguidas por tres entrevistas a grupos, notas de campo, informes teóricos, resúmenes narrados y muestras del trabajo de los estudiantes. La recolección de los datos...

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This article argues that for disciplinary literacy to be addressed successfully by subject-area teachers and students, it needs to choose a different path than the one it has been on. It explains how the road disciplinary literacy has traveled to date has been marked by justifiable subject-area teacher resistance to requirements to infuse literacy teaching and learning strategies into their teaching without regard for disciplinary epistemologies or local perspectives. It argues for an alternative approach that immerses literacy experts in the hybridity of classroom disciplinary learning spaces with respect for literacy and disciplinary discourses as well as school and community subcultural beliefs, practices, and resources. It examines the ways such hybridity has been addressed by disciplinary literacy researchers in the Journal of Literacy Research to date, and it offers recommendations for advancing research, practice, and policy.