What happens when middle and high school teachers who know their content very well are told they should be teaching reading and writing too? Is there a bit of resistance? A decrease in self-efficacy? An overturning of curricula? In Disciplinary Literacy in Action, ReLeah Cossett Lent and Marsha Voigt show us a better way.
In this sequel to ReLeah’s bestselling This Is Disciplinary Literacy, the authors provide educators with what they’ve wanted all along: a framework that keeps their subjects at the center and shows them how to pool strengths with colleagues in ongoing communities of professional learning (PL) around content-specific literacy.
In each chapter, and with a blend of lively disciplinary literacy teaching ideas and razor-sharp insights on developing teacher efficacy and leadership, ReLeah and Marsha take educators through a powerful PL cycle they can replicate in their school. The authors know it works not just because the research says so, but also because they have spent years refining the model in schools, districts, and regions. With this book, you will be ready for:
- Collaborative learning that preserves discipline-specific content yet keeps innovative daily practices of reading, writing, thinking, and doing at the forefront
- Planning by autonomous literacy leadership teams with administrative support
- Implementation augmented by peer and disciplinary literacy coaching
- Reflection that leads to ongoing collective problem solving
In the end, it all comes back to how content teachers can best help students use literacy in all its forms to learn more deeply. With Disciplinary Literacy in Action, you have a proven framework for doing just that. This is the resource to lean on as you work to ensure all students use literacy as a tool to think, create, and communicate in any endeavor.
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Author Bio
ReLeah Cossett Lent was a secondary teacher before becoming a founding member of a statewide literacy project at the University of Central Florida. She is now an international consultant speaking on topics that range from literacy to leadership. She has authored ten books, including This is Disciplinary Literacy: Reading, Writing, Thinking and Doing. . .Content Area by Content Area (Corwin), Common Core CPR: What about the Adolescents Who Struggle. . .or Just Don’t Care? with Barry Gilmore (Corwin) and Overcoming Textbook Fatigue (ASCD). ReLeah is past chair of NCTE’s Committee against Censorship and the recipient of both NCTE and ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Award.
Marsha Voigt has 30 years of experience as a diagnostician and teacher, working with kindergarten through college-age students who struggled with literacy. She now focuses on professional development and serves as a consultant and literacy coach. In their article, “Growing Leaders from Within,” she and ReLeah describe their first year of working together to facilitate a truly collaborative literacy learning community.