The Potential of Loose Spaces: Operationalizing Critical Disciplinary Literacy for English Language Arts

• In Event: Dual Language Learners, English Learners, and Literacy Knowledge

Abstract

As an instructional approach, disciplinary literacy has the potential to make explicit the taken-for-granted literacy practices of a discipline, but it also perpetuates inequities and oppression by failing to provide opportunities to interrogate how power and privilege are reified through disciplinary texts and curricula. This conceptual paper uses critical disciplinary literacy theory to examine the major heuristics explicated in the research literature defining disciplinary processes in English language arts. Drawing from the field of urban design, the concepts of tight spaces and loose spaces are used to explore potential opportunities for embedding critical disciplinary literacy as a core component of disciplinary processes in ELA. Implications for student access to opportunities for constructing disciplinary identities are discussed.

Authors

• Tierney B Hinman, Auburn University

• Colleen M. Fairbanks, University of North Carolina - Greensboro