Reading & Writing in your Content Areas

Content teachers do not become reading specialists. Content teachers become teachers who teach their students 'how' to read the specific content of their discipline. This is what we mean by Discipline Literacy-guiding your students in thinking like an athlete, social scientist, historian, mathematician, writer, etc. (Nikki Schrum, 2016). Reading and writing are the ways we 'think' about our content literacy.

Literacy refers to all formats (symbolic, media, digital, audio, visual, graphic, etc.)

EDUC 438*--Teaching Reading and Writing in the Content Field: Course explores issues of literacy development (reading, writing, listening, speaking, visualizing, thinking) across core content areas of secondary school curricula.

In our course, you will learn the Reading Apprenticeship framework for guiding students in understanding literacy reading in your respective discipline in the following ways: 1) In the 21st century, what does it mean to be literate within the disciplines? 2) What does it mean to scaffold understanding or support learning with literacy? 3) What are the specific literacy demands of your subject area and how do they build on being a culturally responsive and responsible teacher?

"As teachers, we have daily opportunities to affirm that our students' lives and language are unique and important. We do that in the selections of literature we read, in the history we choose to teach, and we do it by giving legitimacy to our students' lives as a content worthy of study" (Christensen, 2001, p. 103).

Christensen, L. (2001). Reading, writing, and rising up: Teaching about social justice and the power of the written word. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.