RUNNING HEAD: DISCIPLINARY LITERACY 1

Disciplinary Literacy

Chris Kasnot

Arizona State University

09/06/20

RDG 323-73086
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The idea of disciplinary literacy is that we go beyond the simple concept of teaching

“what”, but instead give students the tools so that they can explore the “why” and “how” of our

disciplines. It is with this in mind that we reflect on the passage from the Doerr-Stevens video:

“We are no longer teaching students the core ideas of our discipline. Instead, we

are inviting students to engage in the processes and practices of the disciplines,

allowing them to see behind the curtain and to participate in the fascinating,

challenging, and often messy process by which experts continue to generate

knowledge in their fields.” (Doerr-Stevens, 2017)

My own personal philosophy of education revolves around the principle of disciplinary literacy.

One of my favorite books on the education process is “How We Learn” by Knud Illeris. Illeris

follows my own personal philosophy of breaking down the learning process and by

understanding how we learn and how the pursuit of knowledge is gained, we can be more

effective at preparing students for integration into adult society. Illeris (2016) starts by noting

that “Over millions of years human beings have developed fabulous abilities to acquire

possibilities of understanding and acting, which by far surpass what other species are able to – it

is not too much to say that humans are created as learners” (p. 15). Continuing with this thought,

Illeris shows that contemporary society requires a lot of base knowledge and skills for an

individual to function in, and that direct and indirect enforcement and knowledge gathering

processes can make learning problematic. It is by understanding how all roles function in the

education and societal process that we can be effective educators. “We cannot restrict ourselves

to learn what we like or meet by chance.” (Illeris, 2016, p.16). The classroom is such a minor

part of a student's life, and the role of an educator is to prepare their student for the time beyond

their school years. What we know changes with new scientific developments, or new
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perspectives gained with time. As such, understanding that knowledge itself is fluid, the pursuit

of knowledge and the act of learning itself becomes more important than the specific knowledge

being learned. It is up to every student to understand that they all have the ability to learn, but

only if they learn how to learn. My role as an educator is to pass on this knowledge to my

students in order to create a new generation of lifelong learners with the tools they need to

continue this great process.

These tools are different as you move from discipline to discipline; English teachers are

going to teach their students how to read and what information to look for and process much

differently than a Social Studies teacher, like myself, would. Take, for instance, Thomas Paine’s

1775 classic Common Sense, which advocated for the independence of the Thirteen Colonies

from Great Britain. An English teacher may approach this document having their students

examine the word use, sentence structure, and tone, whereas a Social Studies teacher would have

their students identify themes, content, and historical significance (Wilson-Lopez, A. & Bean, T.,

2017, p. 4). Both literacy disciplines are perfectly valid, but each discipline requires its own skill

set that is unique to the subject area and requires guidance from the respective teacher. When

students are able to combine all these different forms of disciplinary literacy together, they

become a well-rounded student that is able to function and thrive in a world where interpreting

data in as many ways as possible is becoming more and more critical. English content area

literacy may give you the skill to write a resume and apply for a job, but disciplinary literacy will

allow you to read and interpret multiple resumes to synthesize the good parts and eliminate the

bad ones. Social studies content area literacy will tell you how the three branches of government

work, but disciplinary literacy will allow you to understand how a current event, such as the
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executive branch attempting to co-opt military funding for a border wall project, will actually

function.

“The social studies are understood to be those whose subject matter relate to the

organization and development of human society, and to man as a member of social groups”

(Saxe, 2004). Social Studies is rife with disciplinary literacy demands that go beyond just the

classic reading and writing definition of Foundational Literacy. With the expanding universe of

adolescent literacy including concepts like Civic, Data, News, Media, Financial, and Ethical

literacy, Social Studies is more of a catch-all subject as it includes history, geography, political

science, philosophy, economics, and sociology (Saxe, 2004). As evidenced in my personal

philosophy of education above, I have been drawn to Social Studies as a discipline due to the

importance of giving students all the tools they need to properly integrate into modern society.

This provides amazing opportunities for the enterprising teacher to help push students to learn

the discipline above the content. The Doerr-Stevens video mentioned using content literacy as a

stepping stone to disciplinary literacy and I have, without formally understanding these concepts,

unwittingly designed many of my lessons plans around this concept. Take, for instance, the

aforementioned example of the three branches of government. I have a mini unit plan where I

spend a day or two teaching the concept (how the branches interact, their duties, their

restrictions, etc.) and then set up the class into proportional three branch groups. From there I

would introduce a few small constitutional crises and have the groups apply their content

knowledge to these scenarios to get them to interpret the new information and apply disciplinary

thought and reasoning to help them gain a better understanding of the real world application of

the lesson and solve the scenario. Just knowing how the three branches of government work

wouldn’t be enough the more complex the issues became, but it required direct interpretation of
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the discipline to get them through it (Author’s note: they also had a blast). This meshes with the

2019 International Literacy Association brief which notes that:

“In order to thrive as literacy learners, students must feel a sense of

collective and individual belonging (Comber, Woods, & Grant, 2017), have

opportunities to contribute to and negotiate the literacy culture, and feel safe to

take risks (McKay & Dean, 2017). Teachers cultivate these learning

environments through providing opportunities for students to engage in

learning.” (International Literacy Association, 2019).

A second example is that of research. Social Studies (and History) provides a fantastic

opportunity to have students apply disciplinary literacy to a research paper. Students will have to

answer several disciplinary level questions to even begin formulating a research assignment:

What counts as evidence? What kinds of texts and media are reliable sources? What kinds of

questions are you asking yourself when reading a source? What is the confidence level of your

sources? Can you access and interpret the primary sources that a secondary source author is

commenting on and do you come to the same conclusions? How many different sources are

arriving at the same conclusions and are there outliers? All these questions engage that

disciplinary level of literacy and also engages other core literacy components like Media, Digital,

Data, and Visual literacy in addition to the Foundational and Civic literacy the research

assignment and topic predisposes. By moving beyond simple content literacy and into the

domain of disciplinary literacy, we can better teach and engage students. By helping our students

understand the process of learning, we can move beyond knowledge retention and mold our

students into knowledge gatherers and interpreters. This core difference will make our students

better prepared for the world ahead and better people for living in it.
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References:

Doerr-Stevens, C. [CDoerrStevens]. (2017, February 7). Content Area Literacy vs Disciplinary

Literacy Minilecture [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH49UMw02Jc

Illeris, K. (2016). How We Learn: Learning and non-learning in school and beyond. London:

Routledge.

International Literacy Association, (2019). Engagement and Adolescent Literacy. International

Literacy Association No. 9448. Retrieved from:

https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-engagement-

and-adolescent-literacy.pdf

Saxe, D. W., (2004). On The Alleged Demise of Social Studies: The Eclectic Curriculum in

Times of Standardization—a Historical Sketch. International Journal of Social

Education, 18(2), p. 93-102.

Wilson-Lopez, A. & Bean, T. (2017). Content Area and Disciplinary Literacy: Strategies and

Frameworks. International Literacy Association No. 9429. Retrieved from:

https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-content-area-

disciplinary-literacy-strategies-frameworks.pdf