Books

Disciplinary Literacy is about to go from theory to game plan—taking students from superficial understanding to deep content expertise. And guess what? ReLeah Lent’s big secret lies in highlighting each content area’s differences—advancing a discipline-specific model in which literacy is used as a tool for strategic thinking, reading, writing, and doing within each field. That’s right—no more reading strategies used uniformly across the curriculum. Instead, This Is Disciplinary Literacy helps content-area teachers put into action the key literacies of their specialties. Teaching science? Students must evaluate evidence and question as they read. History? Comparing and contrasting sources and interpreting the import of events are key. Writing in Math? Accuracy is favored over elaboration and craft. Reading fiction in ELA? Synthesizing and attuning to voice and figurative language reign supreme. Students fully own knowledge because instruction zeroes in on the academic habits that matter most. 

Investigating Disciplinary Literacy provides practical, research-based guidance for educators 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. Click here for a free book discussion guide.

Disciplinary Literacy doesn't ask all teachers to be general reading teachers; it asks all educators to empower students to adopt and eventually adapt the language, genres, and modalities prized by each discipline—to give students the tools to take on professional identities. By combining the RAND model for reading comprehension with collaborative cycles of inquiry, Ippolito, Dobbs, and Charner-Laird connect effective professional learning to shifts in classroom practice. The resulting framework supports teachers and leaders in designing the disciplinary literacy teaching and learning experiences that students need to succeed within and beyond school. This book provides research-based frameworks, guiding questions and examples, and lots of stories from teachers who have already walked the path of Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry & Instruction—it’s for educators who want to take ownership of their own learning alongside like-minded colleagues and raise the achievement of all their students. 

In this sequel to ReLeah’s bestselling This Is Disciplinary Literacy, the authors provide educators with what they’ve wanted all along: a framework that keeps their subjects at the center and shows them how to pool strengths with colleagues in ongoing communities of professional learning (PL) around content-specific literacy. In each chapter, and with a blend of lively disciplinary literacy teaching ideas and razor-sharp insights on developing teacher efficacy and leadership, ReLeah and Marsha take educators through a powerful PL cycle they can replicate in their schools. The authors know it works not just because the research says so, but also because they have spent years refining the model in schools, districts, and regions.  

This book provides research-based frameworks, guiding questions and examples, and lots of stories from teachers who have already walked the path of Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry and Instruction—it’s for educators, specifically coaches, who want to take ownership of their own learning alongside like-minded colleagues, and raise the achievement of all their students.