Mediating Complex Texts in the Upper Grades

Abstract

Rising expectations for middle grade students to independently read and comprehend complex, discipline‐specific texts have also raised expectations for the ways teachers will teach. Helping all students, despite assessed reading levels, to access grade level texts calls for instructional approaches that not only meet readers where they are, but also integrate three key elements: motivation and engagement, instructional intensity, and cognitive challenge. This article examines how instruction incorporating these elements promotes students’ comprehension and uses a middle school learning scenario to illustrate how teachers might integrate these elements into their own instruction.

Foregrounding Collaboration in Disciplinary Literacy: Implications From JAAL, 2008–2017

“…The articles point out that instruction is enhanced when content teachers, both teams made up of teachers in the same content area (Dobbs et al., ; Moje, ) and cross‐content groups (Ford‐Connors, Dougherty, Robertson, & Paratore, ; Monahan, ), collaborate around processes, instructional goals, tasks, strategies, and assessments even when actual instruction is implemented in different ways in individual classrooms (Dobbs et al., ; Ford‐Connors et al., ). Ford‐Connors et al.…”

“…Ford‐Connors et al. (), for instance, shared an example of professional learning based on their research that began when a principal asked an eighth‐grade ELA teacher to collaborate with an eighth‐grade social studies teacher. Although a strong literature teacher, the ELA teacher lacked experience in teaching disciplinary literacy and working with content area teachers outside her own discipline.…”

“…The articles point out that instruction is enhanced when content teachers, both teams made up of teachers in the same content area Moje, 2008) and cross-content groups (Ford-Connors, Dougherty, Robertson, & Paratore, 2015;Monahan, 2013), collaborate around processes, instructional goals, tasks, strategies, and assessments even when actual instruction is implemented in different ways in individual classrooms Ford-Connors et al, 2015). Ford-Connors et al (2015), for instance, shared an example of professional learning based on their research that began when a principal asked an eighth-grade ELA teacher to collaborate with an eighth-grade social studies teacher. Although a strong literature teacher, the ELA teacher lacked experience in teaching disciplinary literacy and working with content area teachers outside her own discipline.…”

“…I have found that the key to doing this successfully with…teachers is that I value their content expertise and build positive relationships. (p. 652) In contrast, literacy faculty are said to lack knowledge of discipline literacies and pedagogies (Ford-Connors et al, 2015;Wilder & Herro, 2016) and lack the needed experience in teaching for disciplinary literacies to collaborate with content area teachers effectively (Ford-Connors et al, 2015;Goss et al, 2016;Wilder & Herro, 2016). As a result, literacy faculty are viewed as unwelcomed, "marginalized disciplinary outsiders" (e.g., Fang & Coatoam, 2013;Hynd-Shanahan, 2013;Siebert et al, 2016).…”