Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents: Rethinking Content- Area Literacy

Abstract

In this article, Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan argue that "disciplinary literacy" — advanced literacy instruction embedded within content-area classes such as math, science, and social studies — should be a focus of middle and secondary school settings. Moving beyond the oft-cited "every teacher a teacher of reading" philosophy that has historically frustrated secondary content-area teachers, the Shanahans present data collected during the first two years of a study on disciplinary literacy that reveal how content experts and secondary content teachers read disciplinary texts, make use of comprehension strategies, and subsequently teach those strategies to adolescent readers. Preliminary findings suggest that experts from math, chemistry, and history read their respective texts quite differently; consequently, both the content-area experts and secondary teachers in this study recommend different comprehension strategies for work with adolescents. This study not only has implications for which comprehension strategies might best fit particular disciplinary reading tasks, but also suggests how students may be best prepared for the reading, writing, and thinking required by advanced disciplinary coursework.

Introduction to Languages, Literatures, and Literacies. Re-searching paradoxes and negotiations in Scandinavian L1 subjects. A special issue Paradoxes and Negotiations in Scandinavian L1 Research in Languages, Literatures and Literacies

“…As already indicated in various references, the historical tendencies we are discussing are by no means peculiar to the Scandinavian countries but are also very well known in our globalized world (Kamens, 2013;Ravitch, 2012;Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). Nonetheless, in Scandinavia these changes are actualized in a specific cultural setting as the introduction above has shown.…”

What is so special about mathematical texts? Analyses of common claims in research literature and of properties of textbooks

“…Similar divisions are made by, for example, Behrman and Street (2005). In many research publications it is stated that reading mathematics demands a specific type of reading ability (e.g., Burton & Morgan, 2000;Fuentes, 1998;Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008), that is, that students need to develop content-specific literacy skills in mathematics. Existing empirical studies of students' reading comprehension mainly produce evidence of general literacy skills, in particular through strong or moderate correlations between different tests of reading comprehension: between social studies and general reading comprehension (r=0.79) (Artley, 1943); between reading comprehension in an anatomy course and general reading ability (r=0.72) (Behrman & Street, 2005); and between reading comprehension for a mathematics text and a history text (r=0.47) (Österholm, 2006).…”

A Social Machine for Transdisciplinary Research

“…From this perspective, disciplinary literacy (i.e., approaches to reading, writing, thinking, and reasoning shared by members within academic fields; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008) may inhibit cognitive flexibility (Mulane & Williams, 2014;Smith & Noble, 2014). In a sense, each discipline trains and enculturates its initiates in practices of sanctioned cognitive biases.…”