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Reading Matters
Teaching Matters
Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | |25|
615). This being said, the teacher education programs across the
state must address the needs of today’s adolescents by preparing
our preservice and inservice teachers to deliver the appropriate
disciplinary literacy instruction that is unique to each content area.
The Delivery of Content Area
Literacy Instruction
Most content area literacy courses have traditionally been
taught using a cross-disciplinary model. That is, students from
multiple content areas take the same course, learning about
generic strategies that may be adapted to fit any content area
subject. However, with the emphasis on disciplinary literacy,
institutions are moving towards providing literacy instruction that
is intra-disciplinary in nature (Fang, 2014; Lesley, 2014). This kind of
content area literacy instruction is ideal as it gives literacy teacher
educators the opportunity to tailor the literacy strategies presented
to fit the unique characteristics of a specific content area. However,
with this kind of a delivery model, logistical matters must be
considered to determine whether this method is feasible. First, the
size of content area cohorts varies greatly depending on the subject
area. For example, within one institution, the number of students
majoring in social studies education can be vastly greater than
the number of students majoring in music education at a given
point in time. Therefore, to have a content area literacy course
solely for music education majors would not be practical. Second,
the manpower that is needed to teach across a variety of content
area courses is sometimes not available in smaller institutions.
Oftentimes, smaller schools have a handful of literacy faculty who
must teach multiple literacy courses. Therefore, asking for multiple
content area literacy courses to be taught could put a strain on
faculty schedules. As a result, fully moving away from the cross-
disciplinary approach to teaching content area literacy courses
may not be possible, and as a result, literacy teacher educators
may consider how they can adapt their current practices to ensure
that the variety of disciplines represented in their courses are
being meaningfully addressed. The five principles below are ideas
for literacy teacher educators to consider as they move forward
in designing and delivering their content area literacy courses.
Five Principles to Consider When
Teaching a Content Area Literacy
Course across Disciplines
PRINCIPLE 1: Collaborate with content area colleagues in
designing and delivering instruction. Literacy teacher educators
come from a variety of academic backgrounds and may or may
not have formal training in content area subjects, especially as it
pertains to middle and secondary level courses (Fang & Coatoam,
2013). For example, a literacy teacher educator who has an
elementary education undergraduate degree, a master’s and
doctoral degree in literacy, and now teaches at the higher education
level has training in how to teach content area subjects up to the
sixth grade. Unless this individual has sought out opportunities to
take courses related to teaching content area subjects to middle
level and secondary students, this kind of background knowledge
may not be in place. Therefore, literacy teacher educators should
work with content area instructors to learn about what it means to
read and write in specific content areas. This work could include
analyzing textbooks, discussing specific theories and practices
within the designated fields, and talking about goals for student
learning outcomes (Johnson, Watson, Delahunty, McSwiggen,
& Smith, 2011). They could use this newfound knowledge to
streamline the selection and teaching of literacy strategies that will
be relevant to individual content areas. This could be a reciprocal
process as the content area instructor could concurrently learn
about literacy strategies from the literacy teacher educator. The
content area instructor could in turn apply literacy strategies in
the teaching of his or her designated content. Students would
experience a strategy being used across multiple contexts, in the
content area literacy course and in the subject area course, which
would help them to understand the effective integration of literacy
and see what it could look like in the P-12 classroom setting.
PRINCIPLE 2: Look for commonalities across content area
subjects and group cohorts based on these commonalities. As
mentioned previously, there are challenges to offering different
content areas literacy courses to students across every discipline.
Thus, one of the things that literacy teacher educators could
encourage administrators to consider as they plan course schedules
is to think about grouping students based on the commonalities
across disciplines. Some examples of grouping options could be:
• Grouping students based on the emphasis of reading and writing
in the disciplines. Subjects such as art, mathematics, music,
physical education, and foreign language have not traditionally
been considered to be content areas that heavily focus on reading
and writing (Ming, 2012). However, there are designated strategies
that are appropriate for these subject areas. In a course with this
kind of grouping arrangement, the course instructor would have
the opportunity to emphasize why literacy is relevant to each of
these four content areas and would be able to select and teach
about literacy strategies that are not heavily text dependent.
On the other hand, subjects such as science, history, English,
and geography rely more heavily on students reading and
processing large amounts of connected text. Therefore grouping
students based on this need would allow the course instructor
to introduce literacy strategies that are more text focused.
• Grouping students based on the academic level where they are
currently teaching or plan to teach. Teaching in an elementary
school looks very different than it does in a middle or high school
setting. Elementary teachers are responsible for teaching all of
the content areas on a daily basis. At the middle and high school
levels, teachers typically have one or two content areas of focus.
Therefore, in working with preservice and inservice teachers at
the elementary level, literacy teacher educators need to focus on
sharing literacy strategies that are not only pertinent to specific
subjects, but that can be easily adapted across content areas.
This will enable teachers in this setting to work smarter as they
prepare multidisciplinary lessons, and make learning connections
as they work with students. As literacy teacher educators work
with preservice and inservice middle and secondary level
educators, they can target their strategy selection and use very
specific strategies that match the characteristics of the disciplines
and the needs of adolescent learners (Dew & Teague, 2015).