Rooted in Social Justice: Part II

By Dr. Rosalyn Shahid, Wayne RESA, and Melissa Brooks-Yip, Washtenaw ISD

The second in a series telling the history, purpose, and direction of the Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy: Grades 6-12.

Purpose and Process of the Disciplinary Literacy Essentials

Melissa:  What was the first idea of the Essentials and the philosophy behind them? We’re hoping to share the context and history of the Disciplinary Literacy Essentials with educators.

Dr. Moje: We are looking at reading beyond 3rd grade (with the disciplinary literacy essentials).  Nobody thinks you need to do anything with reading beyond third grade!  Why third grade?  We are (with the disciplinary literacy essentials) looking at teaching the necessary dimensions of literacy and expanding beyond K-3 and 4-5. And we want to expand this in every subject, not just ELA as everyone expects. (For more on extending reading instruction beyond 3rd grade, see "Extended--and Extending-- Literacies," 2017)

Dr. Stockdill: We first had to start with supporting ISDs with disciplinary literacy professional development with Institutes for two summers, and the Essentials followed in 2016. And we felt strongly about including the glossary, since there are different interpretations of the different terminology (in disciplinary literacy). It includes our operating definitions when writing this, not the definitions. It was created by a large literature review and is an important foundational piece. 

Dr. Moje: This has been years of my work in disciplinary literacy and this (the Essentials) is the most exciting development! We have traction on the disciplinary literacy work. 

Dr. Stockdill: A driving principle is that the Essentials are for all students not just AP [Advanced Placement]. So one of the challenges is to support teachers developing models that support students who may have a specific learning or processing disability. They (students) can do this work. We just have to figure out how to best support teachers and students. 

Dr. Moje: The print dominance in schools disables students in some ways. If we want to think about disabilities, instead of putting the disability in the child, think about how some practices disable. If we use multiple forms of representation, then an English language learner or someone who processes text differently will have access to meaning that will bolster them. We can pull videos, images, audio, virtual reality tools and all sorts of things to provide access to so many more children. Using multiple modes will also help us deepen understanding of really abstract concepts.  

Rosalyn: I really appreciate your framing - disabilities don’t reside in people, it resides in practice. That is the perfect segue into our next question: Why was an interdisciplinary structure important to the design of the 6-12 Essentials? 

Dr. Stockdill: One of the clearest differentiators between what happens in classrooms in elementary schools and what happens in secondary schools is moving into specific content area study. At the secondary level, texts become differentiated by their language, their vocabulary, and the thinking practices begin to vary across the academic disciplines. As students move up through the grades, the reading and disciplinary demands become more challenging. Oftentimes as these demands become more challenging for students and instruction begins to drop off. This is what Dr. Moje calls the “wide mouth gap.” What was foregrounded in our minds was that these Essentials had to recognize disciplinary differences. We recognized how discourse communities privilege certain ways of reading, thinking, and processing, so it was important to help teachers understand that teaching content (i.e., math, science, and etc.) is based on interpretation and analysis of encoded information. Knowledge is passed on when teachers are able to make their thinking visible to students. 

Dr. Moje: For me, disciplinary literacy is all about navigating. Entering the disciplines is like entering a new culture, and teachers are the cultural brokers for their disciplines.We know that when we travel or enter a new cultural practice, it helps us if we have cultural brokers who provide insight about the cultural norms and practices. If teachers surface the “hidden” cultures of their disciplines, it helps the process of navigating. Teachers know the discourse practices of their discipline; therefore, when they make that knowledge explicit, students understand that they’re entering a different set of discourse practices in each content. It’s about access, but it’s also about the child making sense of the experience they are having. And that is why I believe it’s critical to have the English language arts essentials, science essentials, mathematics essentials, and social studies essentials because all the teachers need to do this work. 

For more on the purpose, process and content of the Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy: Grades 6-12, check out the on-demand webinar featuring Dr. Elizabeth Moje, Dr. Darin Stockdill, and members of the 6-12 Disciplinary Literacy Task Force.