Leading the Literacy ChargeAt Agora, our mission is to ensure every student is prepared to meet the challenge of mastering high expectations. We are only able to achieve this mission through a collaborative effort and by emphasizing the skills that will yield positive results. Literacy is certainly one of the skills that will help set our learners up for success as students, but also for their post-secondary goals, as we all believe that every student is a lifelong learner. In order to achieve our literacy goal of 50% of students scoring at least half of the possible points on constructed response questions on the ELA and Science Keystone assessments, all teachers at Agora must dedicate themselves to incorporating content area and disciplinary literacy approaches in the classroom.
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Matthew Lynch summarized it nicely in his 2019 article, teaching literacy across the curriculum, when he said: Because literacy is essential for success in any subject, students need additional literacy instruction and support from all of their teachers, not just their Language Arts or reading teachers. By committing to a collaborative process, where teachers and coaches share best practices and feedback, we can make this goal a reality. We hope this website serves as a resource for the high school team, inspiring you to implement new strategies into your lessons, and ultimately benefiting your learners by helping them to achieve their highest potentia
Disciplinary Literacy
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Learning is messy, but whoever is doing the thinking, reading, writing, and discussing is the one getting smarter. We hear about disciplinary literacy a lot these days, primarily because our Common Core Standards address the teaching of DL within our content classes. But do we really know what it is?
Disciplinary literacy is defined as the confluence of content knowledge, experiences, and skills merged with the ability to read, write, listen, speak, think critically and perform in a way that is meaningful within the context of a given field. These abilities are important in ALL courses and subjects. Learn more about the basics of disciplinary literacy by clicking here. |
How is disciplinary literacy different from the content area literacy approach? Is your head spinning thinking "oh great, something new for me to learn"? Don't worry, you're already closer than you think! Both content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are overarching "umbrella terms" for strategies that embed literacy instruction into different subjects. Many of the strategies that you are already using fall under one of these umbrellas, but it's important to know the difference between them.
Content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are not mutually exclusive, and at Agora, we believe that our students benefit from a combination of these two approaches. By engaging in the Literacy In Your Classroom strategies below, you will see both CAL and DL ideas. Throughout the year we encourage you to share your successes with us as we work with you to build a virtual library of literacy standards in the virtual classroom.
As with any approach that you bring to your classroom, remember the greatest determining factor for success is you! Literacy instruction works best when teachers connect educational standards with their students' interests, backgrounds, and families. Share your passion for learning and literacy and your students will thrive as a result!
Wilson-Lopez, A., Bean, T. Content Area and Disciplinary Literacy: Strategies and Frameworks International Literacy Association, 2017
- Under a content area literacy approach, students learn reading and writing processes that are common across disciplines, such as the Frayer model, KWL charts, and vocabulary charts. Here, we see teachers explicitly modeling the use of these tools and resources and provide students with opportunities to practice them independently and in small groups. Think overarching reading and writing strategies that can be applied in a similar way regardless of content area.
- Under a disciplinary literacy approach, students engage in literacy through authentic tasks specific to each content area. A physical education student may study exercise instruction charts, engineering students may create detailed guides on how to assemble a water filter.
Content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are not mutually exclusive, and at Agora, we believe that our students benefit from a combination of these two approaches. By engaging in the Literacy In Your Classroom strategies below, you will see both CAL and DL ideas. Throughout the year we encourage you to share your successes with us as we work with you to build a virtual library of literacy standards in the virtual classroom.
As with any approach that you bring to your classroom, remember the greatest determining factor for success is you! Literacy instruction works best when teachers connect educational standards with their students' interests, backgrounds, and families. Share your passion for learning and literacy and your students will thrive as a result!
Wilson-Lopez, A., Bean, T. Content Area and Disciplinary Literacy: Strategies and Frameworks International Literacy Association, 2017
Literacy In Your Classroom
Explore the links below for ways that you can incorporate vocabulary strategies, writing strategies and comprehension strategies in your content area classrooms.
Vocabulary"Vocabulary enables us to interpret and to express. If you have a limited vocabulary, you will also have a limited vision and a limited future."
~Jim Rohn |
Writing"The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words." ~William H. Gass |
Comprehension"There exists a passion for comprehension. Without this passion, there would be neither mathematics nor natural science."
~ Albert Eistein |