Christina L. Dobbs

Investigating Disciplinary Literacy provides practical, research-based guidance for teachers seeking to strengthen students’ reading, writing, and communication skills in subjects from the humanities to the sciences. The authors present a framework for conducting professional development cycles based on disciplinary literacy-related learning and district-based research projects they have conducted over the past five years.The book outlines the steps in the cycle and identifies four “working habits” essential to initiating and sustaining disciplinary literacy projects: balancing content with process; creating a culture of adaptation and invention; attending equally to intermediate and subject-specific literacy skills; and positioning teachers and leaders as learners within projects. The book, written in a reader-friendly voice, shows how educators can collaboratively explore and implement disciplinary literacy-related practices in context-specific, meaningful ways.

Investigating Disciplinary Literacy provides practical, research-based guidance for teachers seeking to strengthen students’ reading, writing, and communication skills in subjects from the humanities to the sciences. The authors present a framework for conducting professional development cycles based on disciplinary literacy-related learning and district-based research projects they have conducted over the past five years.The book outlines the steps in the cycle and identifies four “working habits” essential to initiating and sustaining disciplinary literacy projects: balancing content with process; creating a culture of adaptation and invention; attending equally to intermediate and subject-specific literacy skills; and positioning teachers and leaders as learners within projects. The book, written in a reader-friendly voice, shows how educators can collaboratively explore and implement disciplinary literacy-related practices in context-specific, meaningful ways.

An accessible, research-backed guidebook for teaching culturally sustaining disciplinary literacy (CSDL) in the classroom Too often, disciplinary literacy and equity-focused instruction are treated as separate endeavors, leaving teachers unsure how to integrate rigorous content learning with practices that honor students' diverse identities. Many educators want to make their instruction more inclusive but lack models that show what this looks like across subjects. In Engaging Learners with Culturally Sustaining Disciplinary Literacy, Jenelle E. Williams and Rachelle S. Savitz provide a new, proven framework designed to equip teachers to engage students in rigorous literacy practices through authentic disciplinary learning while affirming who students are and what they need to thrive. Featuring authentic classroom examples drawn from a network of teachers across the disciplines, this resource provides strategies applicable to all 6th–12th grade disciplinary educators, including ELA, social studies, math, science, art, music, and PE teachers. Each chapter highlights actionable approaches that identify how to support student motivation, voice, and agency while meeting curricular goals. Chapter 7 pulls it all together with a complete instructional unit that shows how literacy, content learning, and cultural relevance can be woven together in the classroom. Within these pages, readers will find concrete tools—such as layered text sets, discussion protocols, and authentic assessment approaches—that empower teachers to build learning environments where students' cultural and linguistic identities are recognized as assets for learning.

This accessible book introduces a new theory of critical disciplinary literacy (CDL) that merges criticality and disciplinary literacy approaches in a cohesive and inclusive framework. There are unique hurdles in integrating critical and culturally sustaining approaches to literacy into specialized content area classrooms, but this book provides clear, research-grounded strategies and methods that will appeal to teachers and help them foster equitable literacy learning opportunities for all students. Using a critical lens, chapters deconstruct and reconstruct pathways for new practices that push back on familiar, normative literacy approaches in the disciplines. Authors provide a framework for designing new approaches to disciplinary literacy both for and with students, and they present innovative and practical strategies for implementation. With real-world examples from the field, this book will be essential reading for preservice teachers and in courses on literacy and disciplinary instruction.With vignettes and classroom examples from educators who have been enacting elements of CDL practices for years, this book will be essential reading for preservice educators in courses on both literacy and content instruction. Furthermore, current and seasoned educators and educational leaders will find this book to be an invaluable resource as they wrestle with how to teach disciplinary literacy in ways that move away from approaches that have historically marginalized many voices to approaches that include and center students’ languages, histories, and cultures.

This accessible book introduces a new theory of critical disciplinary literacy (CDL) that merges criticality and disciplinary literacy approaches in a cohesive and inclusive framework. There are unique hurdles in integrating critical and culturally sustaining approaches to literacy into specialized content area classrooms, but this book provides clear, research-grounded strategies and methods that will appeal to teachers and help them foster equitable literacy learning opportunities for all students. Using a critical lens, chapters deconstruct and reconstruct pathways for new practices that push back on familiar, normative literacy approaches in the disciplines. Authors provide a framework for designing new approaches to disciplinary literacy both for and with students, and they present innovative and practical strategies for implementation. With real-world examples from the field, this book will be essential reading for preservice teachers and in courses on literacy and disciplinary instruction.With vignettes and classroom examples from educators who have been enacting elements of CDL practices for years, this book will be essential reading for preservice educators in courses on both literacy and content instruction. Furthermore, current and seasoned educators and educational leaders will find this book to be an invaluable resource as they wrestle with how to teach disciplinary literacy in ways that move away from approaches that have historically marginalized many voices to approaches that include and center students’ languages, histories, and cultures.

A revised and expanded edition that promotes inquiry and teaching practices to help students gain the discipline-specific literacy skills they need to succeed in college, the workplace, and the society of tomorrow. In this second edition of Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry and Instruction, Jacy Ippolito, Christina L. Dobbs, and Megin Charner-Laird update their framework for guiding discipline-specific teaching and learning in K–12 classrooms. With new and revised chapters, the book outlines disciplinary literacy professional learning that not only supports the development of new instructional skills but also inspires hope, authentic engagement, and collaboration among teachers and educational teams. Ippolito, Dobbs, and Charner-Laird show how their adaptable framework, which is based on the RAND model of reading comprehension, allows educators across grade levels to embrace the language, genre, and modality of their particular subject areas while attuning specifically to texts, tasks, students, and classroom cultures. Offering research-based best practices, guiding questions, and concrete real-world examples, they prepare teachers to meet the demands of today’s educational climate. This useful resource for professional learning demonstrates how the disciplinary literacy framework can guide both larger-scale and hyperlocal implementation. It maintains a special focus on critical disciplinary literacy work, which interweaves the ideas of disciplinary literacy with critical, culturally sustaining, and antiracist pedagogies. It also prepares educators to serve diverse student populations with specific literacy-learning needs, including neurodivergent students, deaf students, and multilingual learners. This book gives teachers and school leaders the tools to equip a more technically proficient, informed, and creative citizenry.

Use this unique volume to transform the learning and teaching of language so that all students are empowered to succeed. This book offers insight into how to teach language—a core component of developing skilled readers and writers across all content areas—in ways that value the rich and diverse language assets students bring to the classroom. The authors offer guidance to help K–12 teachers move beyond current approaches to teaching language in the classroom to support equitable student outcomes in both linguistically diverse and linguistically homogenous classrooms. The text provides a step-by-step process to uncover conceptions of language and its instruction that undercut opportunities to learn. Readers will gain new strategies for teaching the language of school tasks while integrating students' distinctive language experiences as resources for learning. School leaders will learn how to implement a schoolwide exploration into teaching language that promotes equity, all while building collaboration among administrators, teachers, and students. Book Features:Promotes linguistic equity by providing teaching strategies and whole-school practices critical for optimizing student success and access to instruction, assessment, and reading.Provides classroom examples that show readers how to engage in the core practices described in the book across developmental levels and academic disciplines.Includes reader-friendly and user-supportive features, such as text boxes that describe the principles that undergird the approaches. Offers classroom vignettes depicting common instructional challenges and tensions to show how teachers can engage in equitable, evidence-based practices for student success.Uses reflection questions to help readers track their developing understanding of ideas and to reflect on their own values and teaching goals.

Use this unique volume to transform the learning and teaching of language so that all students are empowered to succeed. This book offers insight into how to teach language—a core component of developing skilled readers and writers across all content areas—in ways that value the rich and diverse language assets students bring to the classroom. The authors offer guidance to help K–12 teachers move beyond current approaches to teaching language in the classroom to support equitable student outcomes in both linguistically diverse and linguistically homogenous classrooms. The text provides a step-by-step process to uncover conceptions of language and its instruction that undercut opportunities to learn. Readers will gain new strategies for teaching the language of school tasks while integrating students' distinctive language experiences as resources for learning. School leaders will learn how to implement a schoolwide exploration into teaching language that promotes equity, all while building collaboration among administrators, teachers, and students. Book Features:Promotes linguistic equity by providing teaching strategies and whole-school practices critical for optimizing student success and access to instruction, assessment, and reading.Provides classroom examples that show readers how to engage in the core practices described in the book across developmental levels and academic disciplines.Includes reader-friendly and user-supportive features, such as text boxes that describe the principles that undergird the approaches. Offers classroom vignettes depicting common instructional challenges and tensions to show how teachers can engage in equitable, evidence-based practices for student success.Uses reflection questions to help readers track their developing understanding of ideas and to reflect on their own values and teaching goals.