Disciplinary Literacy

People read things everyday. From restaurant menus to subtitles of a movie and everything else they may encounter that has words. One of the first things children do in school is learn to read. They begin learning letter sounds and the meanings of words. While students are learning how to do these things, they may not realize that it will be used in all aspects of their education down the road.

Students learn different subject material such as mathematics, science, social studies and so on. They need to have the ability to read texts in the different content area subjects in order to obtain information. Disciplinary literacy is the way students read and understand information within readings/texts from the different subject areas. As stated in “What is disciplinary literacy?” written by Wolsey & Lapp, “Disciplinary thinking and the associated literacies may start and be fostered quite early in a child’s life. At the same time, the basic literacy skills (alphabetic principle, letter-sound correspondences, sight words, and so on) are of particular importance early in life” (8). It seems as though the earlier that students learn these important skills, the better they will become at reading within each subject. The article also states, “Experts and students working in the disciplines often use language and other symbol systems in ways that are unique to that discipline…experts and students know how to produce knowledge and communicate that knowledge in ways that are distinctive to that discipline” (10). This is a good example of showing how concepts that are used to understand reading are also important to learn content knowledge.

The article “Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change” written by Elizabeth Moje, digs deeper into how literacy effects the understanding within subject areas. The text states, “Young people do not need to go to school to learn what they already know; content literacy instruction can help youth gain access to the accepted knowledge of the disciplines, thereby allowing them to also critique and change that knowledge” (97). Students are provided with tools that help with reading and decoding, which also helps with breaking down an understanding of texts. The article goes on to state, “Disciplinary literacy then becomes a matter of teaching students how the disciplines are different from one another, how acts of inquiry produce knowledge and multiple representational forms (such as texts written in particular ways or with different symbolic systems or semiotic tools), as well as how those disciplinary differences are socially constructed” (103). By having the ability to read disciplinary texts and form and understanding of the information, students will gain valuable knowledge. They will be able to learn new information and retain it rather than just memorize and forget. They will be able to think critically and question information based on their own beliefs.

Both of the articles have mentioned that students view texts differently based on the context they are in. Students understand words based on the way they were taught them. “What is disciplinary literacy?” states, “The same word can be used in different ways depending on who speaks or writes the word and what the context is for its use” (6). This idea was also present in the article we read by Gee. Gee argued that students will understand things they learn differently than their peers due to the fact that they all learned how to read and interpret understanding differently. Students will have differing opinions that may be helpful in discussions and pushing students to further their knowledge. Disciplinary literacy is used all throughout learning and begins to be incorporated when students obtain the skill of reading more fluently. Content area knowledge and disciplinary information play hand and hand in helping students further their knowledge and grow throughout schooling.