"Literacy Could Be a Walk in the Forest": Disciplinary Literacy From the Perspective of Beginning Secondary Teacher Candidates

• In Event: 26.079 - Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: 26.079-11 - Literacy and Language in Context: Stories of Teaching Practices

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards currently emphasize “literacy in all subjects” or disciplinary literacy. As a result, literacy teacher educators have been called upon to shift from teaching the application of generic literacy strategies toward a pedagogy that builds upon more discipline-specific literacies. The purpose of this inquiry project was to explore the development of disciplinary literacy through the experiences of beginning teacher candidates. Data collection, including pre/post surveys and interviews, focused on how teacher candidates’ thinking about the role of literacy in their content areas changed over the course of a semester-long course and field experience. Narratives of three participants from two disciplines (Science and History/Social Studies) reveal distinctive paths related to the pursuit and enactment of disciplinary literacy.

Author

• James R. Carlson, University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse