• Home
  • ABOUT
  • Knowledge Base
    • About Writing
    • Content-Area Literacy
    • Digital Learning
    • English Learners
    • Equity & Access
    • Leading Professional Learning
    • Program Design
    • Teacher as Writer
    • Teacher Inquiry
  • Blog
    • Events & Opportunities
    • NWP Radio
    • Marginal Syllabus
  • Books
  • Contact
  • NWP.org
  • Home
  • ABOUT
  • Knowledge Base
    • About Writing
    • Content-Area Literacy
    • Digital Learning
    • English Learners
    • Equity & Access
    • Leading Professional Learning
    • Program Design
    • Teacher as Writer
    • Teacher Inquiry
  • Blog
    • Events & Opportunities
    • NWP Radio
    • Marginal Syllabus
  • Books
  • Contact
  • NWP.org

Getting Started with Disciplinary Literacy

315 views 1

Summary: Disciplinary literacy is about the particular focus on reading and writing in a discipline or content area, the unique texts and strategies that constitute a discipline. This collection contains a small set of resources to start to explore disciplinary literacy.


Resources in this Collection
Disciplinary Literacy and Reading Across the Content Areas
This resource introduces the work of Elizabeth Birr Moje and prepares viewers for watching the recording of her keynote to NWP’s Reading Initiative Conference. The keynote introduces the basic concept of disciplinary literacy with a focus on secondary level classrooms. Check it out…
How to Build Better Engineers: A Practical Approach to the Mechanics of Text
These reflections from an engineer on how to improve the writing of engineers is an example of the WID approach in its focus on the actual writing that engineers do in their careers. Check it out…
Composing Science (NWP Radio)
Another tremendously useful resource is this interview with the authors of the NWP book Composing Science. The focus is science, but the lessons learned can be easily translated across disciplines. Check it out…
Students Write Tabloid Tabulations
Math educators have argued that the writing-in-the-disciplines that goes on in math is writing with numbers and mathematical symbols—essentially a new language. As a contrast with WID, this article is about engaging students in math content— more common WAC approach. Check it out…
How Language Minority Students Can Learn in the Content Areas: An Alternative to Silence
Teachers of English learners must consider the particular challenges their students face in trying to learn vocabulary, genre conventions, and stance in a new language. This resource responds to the special concerns these teachers raise. Check it out…
Mike Rose on Integrating Science and Language Arts in First Grade Using a Culturally Relevant Lens
And similar to teachers of language minority students, teachers of very young children may want to stress the habits of mind relevant to a discipline more strongly than disciplinary conventions more appropriate to older students. In this portrait of an expert first-grade teacher at work in inner-city Baltimore, we see a masterful blend of attention to science in the midst of attention to child development and culturally responsive teaching. Check it out…
Aims and Criteria for Collaboration in Content-Area Classrooms
Perhaps you are ready to jump into work with colleagues on disciplinary literacy. If so, this chapter might provide facilitators with useful frameworks and examples to help plan your group’s collaboration. Check it out…

The WAC Clearinghouse, in distinguishing between a focus on writing in the disciplines (WID) and more general uses of writing such as writing to learn (WTL) or writing to engage (WTE), points to the specific disciplinary purposes that content area teachers might attach to their writing assignments and tasks.

“Writing assignments of this sort are designed to introduce or give students practice with the writing conventions of a discipline and to help them gain familiarity and fluency with specific genres and formats typical of a given discipline. For example, the engineering lab report includes much different information in a format quite different from the annual business report.”

Although teachers at different grades are likely to put differing emphases on the degree to which they expect students to follow the formal conventions of writing in their content areas, they are commonly likely to be focused on the habits of mind and intellectual strategies of the discipline. In fact, the WAC Clearinghouse states: “Without doubt, the single most important reason for assigning writing tasks in disciplinary courses is to introduce students to the thinking and writing of that discipline. Even though students read disciplinary texts and learn course material, until they practice the language of the discipline through writing, they are less likely to learn that language thoroughly.”

Given that NWP sites bring teachers together across disciplines to investigate writing, they are ideal communities of practice to think more about WID approaches and WAC approaches, whether through reading/study groups, action research and inquiry projects, or assignment sharing. The resources collected in this pathway may spark your thinking. Each one, of course, links to additional resources at WLL to take you down a learning pathway.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Would you recommend this resource to others?

1 Yes  No
ABOUT

write.learn.lead. is a collection of resources, insights, and reflections from National Writing Project teacher-leaders. You can also find us at nwp.org and Educator Innovator.

SEARCH BY TAG
access advocacy art badge bibliography Building New Pathways to Leadership career technical coaching college/university community connected learning coronavirus cross-disciplinary dual language elementary environmental studies framework grammar/correctness immigrant journalism KB Feature key reading language acquisition math multimodal music online learning out of school literacies parent involvement partnership poetry reading reading/writing connection research revision school-year program social justice standards student samples teacher leadership technology testing urban video writing process
NWP Logo
NWP ON THE WEB
NWP.org
Educator Innovator
The Current
STAY CONNECTED WITH NWP
Get more great resources on teaching and writing delivered to your inbox every month by subscribing to our Write Now Newsletter.
  • © 2020 National Writing Project. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use