Running Header: Disciplinary Literacy 1

Disciplinary Literacy

Diareli Bustamante Villalobos

Professor Trombley

Arizona State University

RDG 323: Literacy Processes in Content Areas

A common misconception that is prevalent among the world of educators is that

disciplinary literacy and content area literacy are the same thing. This is evident when teachers

use the terms interchangeably, and while they do have overlapping similarities, the two terms

refer to different things. Content area literacy is more focused on the cookie cutter practices of

reading and writing. In other words, these are the generalized literacy strategies that are

transferable across disciplines and are applied in the same way for all subjects. These skills

involve things like paraphrasing the text and identifying the main idea. Disciplinary literacy on

the other hand, can be defined as “the use of reading, reasoning, investigating, speaking, and

writing required to learn and form complex content knowledge appropriate to a particular

discipline” (McConachie & Petrosky, 2010, p. 16). With disciplinary literacy, the focus is on

“unique tools that the experts in a discipline use to participate in the work of that discipline”

(Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012, p. 8). The demand for literacy skills increases as students progress

through the education system and content increases in complexity. As a result, secondary

education teachers can no longer continue to be experts of their content area only. They must

learn to adapt disciplinary literacy practices that can be used to support students’ learning. In this

paper, the focus will be placed on what these disciplinary literacy practices look like particularly

in science. Some of the literacy challenges faced by students in science will be discussed, as well

as recommendations for addressing these challenges.

Science is a broad content area that encompasses a wide array of subdisciplines. If one

examines the complexity of science, one could even go as far as saying that science in a way, is

its own separate language. Walk into any science classroom and you will hear terms like

deoxyribonucleic acid, adenosine triphosphate, and medulla oblongata being used by the teacher.

Along with having to learn an abundant amount of vocabulary, students are also often tasked
Disciplinary Literacy 3

with reading dense scientific literature. These types of readings can be hard for students to

dissect if they do not possess strong literacy skills relevant to this discipline. Science literacy

skills are essential to learning, “failure to restore language and literacy to the central position

they occupy in science will undermine the quality of science education and jeopardize the goal of

preparing students to become critical consumers of science” (Fang, 2013, p. 274). While some

teachers may think that it would be better to avoid using scientific literature in their classroom

because of their students’ underdeveloped literacy skills, doing so would actually be a disservice

to their students.

Disciplinary literacy in the classroom “focuses on how reading, writing, speaking, and

listening are used to develop sense-making in science” (Arizona Department of Education, n.d.,

p. 1). In theory, teachers should be combining disciplinary literacy skills with content area

literacy skills to augment students learning. The joint use of disciplinary literacy practices and

content area practices, however, is easier said than done. Teachers are tasked with meeting

students where they are at, while also providing them with discipline specific skills to help them

further develop their knowledge.

A challenge presented with using science text in the classroom is that it is difficult to get

students to engage with the material. When tasked with reading, students may feel unmotivated

to read what was assigned. One suggestion the literature offers is to use trade books to help

learners develop science literacy. Trade books bring relevant, up-to-date information into the

classroom and expose students to science being applied in the real world. Some of the positive

benefits of using trade books in the classroom are that “they have the potential to motivate and

engage students, broaden and deepen the science curriculum, provide good models of science

writing, cultivate scientific habits of mind, challenge and stimulate thinking, and promote inquiry
Disciplinary Literacy 4

and learning” (Fang, 2013, p. 277). To get students to become invested in their own learning,

teachers need to help students see the relevance and usefulness of what is being taught. Helping

learners discover the real-world connections and applications of science is meaningful because it

helps them see the relevancy and usefulness of the content being taught. It reinforces the idea

that science is not an abstract subject and that it is what helps us understand the world we live in.

Since trade books are more commonly used with students in elementary, teachers at the

secondary level do still have other options “A number of alternatives to textbooks have been

proposed, ranging from high-quality science trade books, to scientific papers rewritten to be

understandable to students, to texts that reflect those that media use to report about science to the

public” (Cervetti & Pearson, 2012, p. 584). One site that teachers can use to find current readings

for students is Newsela.com. This site aligns their content to state and national standards, has a

diverse option of texts that allows teachers to find something that all students can connect with,

and provides different reading levels for all texts so that teachers can meet students where they

are at. Although there are other alternatives to teaching from the textbook, this does not mean

that reading from the textbook should be completely abandoned. A variety of texts should be

used to engage students and help them learn.

In addition to not being able to easily connect with the text, learners also struggle with

interpreting readings. Part of the reason this difficulty exists is that science texts are dense and

are written in a passive voice. As if that was not enough of a challenge, science texts are also

written with implicit connections between concepts “When logical connectives are not present,

students must independently figure out the logical links between textual segments, an aspect that

has been shown to be particularly challenging for English learners, struggling readers, and

students who have little knowledge of the topic being read” (Roman, Jones, Basaraba, &
Disciplinary Literacy 5

Hironaka, 2016, p. 123). One of the things science teachers can do to help students make

meaning of what they are reading is to have students use graphic organizers. This tool helps with

visually depicting the connections between ideas and content presented in the text, “Equipping

students with tools and methods such as these for strategically approaching science texts is

necessary and useful for supporting students’ understanding of the more complex, and often less

familiar, expository texts” (Roman, Jones, Basaraba, & Hironaka, 2016, p.127). Roman et al.

(2016) suggest the following framework for teachers to follow: choose a short scientific text that

covers concepts you want to teach, identify the “juicy segments” of the text that are important in

helping students understand the topic being covered, analyze how the “juicy segments” fit

together with the other pieces in the text, and then, use a graphic organizer to visually depict the

inferences and connections made between the “juicy segments” and other parts of the text. These

“juicy segments” mentioned can be defined as “sentences or clauses within text that contain

critical scientific content and complex linguistic structures” (Roman et al., 2016, p. 128). Since

this disciplinary literacy strategy would be new to students, the teacher would first have to

introduce and model the strategy. From there, the teacher can do some guided practice with the

class, and eventually students can practice the skill on their own. The key here is scaffolding and

showing students how to use these tools they are being provided, “If students are not explicitly

taught how to control the technicality, abstraction, density and logic of scientific language, it can

become a barrier to them learning, understanding and representing scientific knowledge

successfully” (Feez & Quinn, 2017, p. 196). Equipping students with these skills helps them

analyze the text at a deeper level so that they are able to understand it and learn from it.

Another aspect of literacy that students struggle with in science is that writing in this

discipline is mostly passive and formal. Information is presented as facts and claims backed by
Disciplinary Literacy 6

evidence and explained through scientific reasoning. For students to be able to make meaning of

science, they also need to be given opportunities to write, especially in a less formal manner.

That means having students write other things besides lab reports and summaries of literature.

For instance, if a teacher is doing a demonstration on a science phenomenon, one way to build

disciplinary literacy is by having students “Record thoughts, ideas, sketches, or collected data in

science notebooks to be used as evidence or to support reasoning.” (Arizona Department of

Education, n.d., p. 5). After observing the phenomenon, students can do a quick write on their

observations and explain the “how” and “why” of the demonstration observed. Since science

literacy is multimodal, teachers should also have students “Produce texts that include charts,

graphs, timelines, photographs, videos, maps, flowcharts, diagrams, models, or tables to

supplement or support the text.” (Arizona Department of Education, n.d., p. 5). In addition to

doing a quick write, teachers can have students draw a diagram of the demonstration they

observed. When visual representations and textual information are combined, they help students

better construct meaning of science concepts. This can be observed when students conduct

experiments. Initially, quantitative data is collected in numerical form and organized in tables. It

is then transformed into a graph to better see relationships or trends that exist between variables

being studied. When teachers have students transform their data from numbers to charts or vice

versa, it is done to help learners better understand and interpret the data. These strategies are

used by scientists every day and are a big component of disciplinary literacy in science.

As demonstrated in the previous examples, helping adolescents develop disciplinary

literacy skills does not stop at ensuring that they can read and write within a specified content

area, “In science—in any discipline—reading, writing, and language should not be the goals;

instead they should be indispensable tools that students use alongside discipline specific tools.”
Disciplinary Literacy 7

(Cervetti & Pearson, 2012, P. 585). Students need to learn to take on the role of scientists and

build upon the information they are listening to, reading, and writing about. Doing these things

consists of the following: asking compelling questions to investigate new phenomena, gathering

and analyzing information from multiple sources, synthesizing claims and evidence, critically

evaluating and revising work, and sharing publishing and acting upon their products or new

findings (Arizona Department of Education, n.d., p. 2). Disciplinary literacy practices in science

are crucial to learning “As students develop disciplinary literacy in science, they strengthen their

ability to think critically in a way that is meaningful to developing scientific understanding of the

world and scientific habits of mind.” (Arizona Department of Education, n.d., p. 2).

As explained throughout this paper, disciplinary literacy refers to the literacy practices

that are unique to each discipline. The reading, writing, listening, and speaking practices used in

science differ from those used in other subject areas and are needed to make meaning of the

material. Trying to use generalized reading and writing strategies across disciplines is not an

effective pedagogy practice. Teachers need to use a combination of content area literacy

practices and disciplinary literacy practices in order to better support students in their learning.
Disciplinary Literacy 8

References

Arizona Department of Education. (n.d.). Disciplinary Literacy in High School Science.

Retrieved from

https://www.azed.gov/sites/default/files/2017/11/HS%20Science%20Disciplinary%20Lit

eracy.pdf?id=5a0476ae3217e104b0543f32

Cervetti, G., & Pearson, P.D. (2012). Reading, Writing, and Thinking Like a Scientist. Journal

of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(7), 580–586. https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.00069

Fang, Z. (2013). Disciplinary Literacy in Science: Developing Science Literacy Through Trade

Books. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(4), 274–278.

https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.250

Feez, S., & Quinn, F. (2017). Teaching the distinctive language of science: An integrated and

scaffolded approach for pre-service teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 65, 192–

204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.03.019

Roman, J. (2016). Helping Students Bridge Inferences in Science Texts Using Graphic

Organizers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(2), 121–130.

https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.555

McConachie, S. M., & Petrosky, A. R. (2010). Content matters: A disciplinary literacy approach

to improving student learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2012). What is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter?

Topics in Language Disorders, 32(1), 35–50.