Disciplinary Literacy and the 4Es: Rigorous and Substantive Responses to Interdisciplinary Standards

Abstract

<jats:p> The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have described discipline-specific literacy skills needed to successfully engage with science concepts, and science assessments ask students to use language in many and varied forms to mediate their science thought and actions and prove mastery of content. Yet many science teachers have not been prepared with skills that help them recognize the ways literacy is integral to the discipline of science, much less integrate it. This research explored the experiences of three classroom science teachers as they worked to enact overlapping English Language Arts and science standards inherent in CCSS and NGSS through inquiry-based instruction. The 4Es’ heuristic framed analysis of classroom observations of instruction, teacher interviews, and surveys. Ways the teachers utilized inquiry-based instruction to Engage their students, Elicit/Engineer their literacies, and Examine and Evaluate discipline-specific language practices are analyzed, with recommendations for specific, interdisciplinary, and ongoing support teachers will need in order to realize the disciplinary literacy goals of the CCSS and NGSS. </jats:p>

Rethinking Undergraduate Computer Science Education: Using the 4Es Heuristic to Center Students in an Introductory Computer Science Course

“…Disciplinary literacy-focused instruction has been used to change curriculum by offering first-hand/hands-on experiences related to scientific content, eliciting personal experiences that support students' learning of disciplinary-specific content, designing activities for students to practice disciplinary literacies such as debate, and examining how arguments are developed and executed during debates [20]. The 4Es heuristic has been examined as a method to support the teaching of disciplinary literacy in mathematics [21][22][23], science [24], and other disciplines.…”

“…Use of the 4Es heuristic in secondary education has also resulted in curricular changes that prompted instructors to merge science and English language arts learning standards, prioritize inquiry and exploration, recognize connections across disciplines, and use student-guided inquiries [19]. Hayden and colleagues [20] found the effects of teaching disciplinary literacy using the 4Es resulted in students' increased abilities to read and analyze science-related literature and to understand main arguments and evidence-based conclusions. Students also improved their abilities to read figures and tables.…”