Supporting MLs Through Disciplinary Literacy: A Practical Guide for Teachers

by Carrie Rieder

You’ve learned about disciplinary literacy and are convinced that this is the best path of success for your students. You’ve been to professional development, read books, found this blog…you are all in!

Or perhaps you are an administrator, embarking upon a school-wide plan to focus on disciplinary literacy. The first day of school arrives, and you greet students as they come through the door. As you smile and say hello, inwardly you realize that you might have forgotten about one not-so-small thing: several of your students are new to the country and have only just begun learning English.

Your anxiety increases when you have a conversation with your ESOL teacher and she explains that one of the students only attended school sporadically, and had no formal education for the past two years during the family’s transition to the United States.

What now? You’ve planned so many exciting, challenging lessons centered around the specific characteristics of your content language. Can the students even learn that? Should you just give them something else? Do nothing at all?

I’m here to tell you that not only is it possible, but it is beneficial and necessary to teach disciplinary literacy to your newcomer multilingual learners (MLs)

I’ve been working with and living beside multilingual learners of all ages and language levels for 20 years. For the past four years at Carolina High School, I have focused on newcomer MLs and SLIFE (Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education). As a co-teacher, and now a sheltered class teacher, I’ve used many strategies that teach and expose my students to the disciplinary literacy required in English Language Arts.

Accommodating for these students doesn’t have to be time-consuming or daunting. I can give you insight into the best mindset and strategies to use in general education classes to ensure that every student in the room can access what is taught.

Accommodation is not “dumbing-down”

As educators, we know that we are expected to teach with rigor and high expectations. Accommodating lower-level MLs in your classroom does not remove rigor or high expectations. MLs are still expected to do challenging work, achieve success, and grow academically. The only thing you are lowering is the language load.

You might be familiar with cognitive load theory. The application of cognitive load theory to teaching means that teachers need to design lessons that reduce confusion and overwhelm so that students can focus on actually understanding and learning content.

For MLs, this means reducing the amount and complexity of the language so that students can focus their energy on learning new concepts or practicing skills. We are not changing the destination—-we are simply paving the road.

Accommodations—-often outlined in ML language acquisition plans—-are guidelines for engaging MLs in disciplinary literacy at their level of English language proficiency. They are not a rigid set of rules. These supports allow the MLs to reach the same standards as English-proficient students. Many states even include “best practice” strategies that work for all students—-because good teaching is good teaching.

Accommodating for your MLs can feel overwhelming. Language acquisition plans can seem lengthy or vague. I encourage you to start your mindset shift by reading an ML language acquisition plan, start to finish—-not just the list of accommodations. Doing this will open your mind to what it really means to support MLs in your classroom.

Accommodation is not an afterthought

Planning a unit takes time and attention to detail. I often see teachers get to the end of a unit plan and realize that they must accommodate for their MLs. After investing so much energy into the core content, there’s little left to adapt it. The result? A translated test or reliance on digital translation tools.

But if your goal is to teach the language of your discipline, translation won’t be enough. It won’t help students develop the academic language needed to access the content. Not to mention—-this assumes a high level of native language literacy, that students may not have. There is a better way.

The best way to accommodate is to start from the beginning—-by pairing each standards-based learning target with a language target.

Learning targets focus on the knowledge or skills that students must master.

Language targets focus on the language students need to access and express that knowledge.

Together, they tell students what they are learning and how they’ll use language to show it. This is a key step in making disciplinary literacy accessible at any level of English proficiency.

Step 1: Accommodate Input

Students receive new information through instruction and texts. As you plan your unit, ask:

Where will ML students struggle with language?

How complex are the texts?

Which lessons or texts are essential for content mastery?

Feeling overwhelmed? Take a breath. Like riding a bike, the best way to learn to accommodate is to start—and keep trying.

Step 2: Accommodate Output

Once you have thought about how to scaffold input, turn to output —-how students will demonstrate understanding. This includes assessments, writing, and projects. Begin by:

Accommodating instructions.

Modeling expectations.

Using an adjusted grading rubric based on language level.

Accommodation does not have to be difficult

Creating Language Targets

My favorite way to create language targets is by using AI tools such as MagicSchool or Chat GPT. The key is crafting a simple prompt. Here’s an example:

“Create a language target from this learning target [insert target] for a WIDA Level 2 English language learner. Include sentence frames.”

You may need to revise the AI output to best suit your needs—-but it’s a great place to start..

Accommodate Input: Lessons

Pre-teach vocabulary:

Use your language and learning targets to create a list of 8-12 vocabulary words per unit. Avoid trying to teach too many at once. Use a pretest to narrow your list.

Create a word wall (physical or digital)

Create a glossary with native-language translations and student-friendly definitions

Refer to the word wall throughout lessons

Encourage students to use the word wall or glossary during class and assessments.

Add visuals:

Use pictures, charts, icons, or illustrations to emphasize meaning. AI tools can generate custom images.

Reduce cognitive load:

Give students a copy of your notes/slides (paper, digital, or both)

Encourage two language note-taking using resources like Read&Write or bilingual dictionaries

For higher level students, create fill-in the blank guided notes

Accommodate Input: Texts

Using grade-level texts is essential to ensure equitable access to rigorous content. When scaffolded appropriately, these texts allow MLs to develop the skills necessary to long-term success. Do not limit students with simplified or below-level texts.

Translanguaging:

Translanguaging harnesses the power of all of the student’s languages to make learning more meaningful.

Allow students to annotate and summarize text in their own language.

Pair students with their native-language peers to discuss key points before sharing in English.

Encourage native-language drafting or brainstorming.

Provide a native-language copy of side-by-side with English text (use a two-column table for display)

Offer native-language summaries (AI tools can generate these)

Accommodate Output: Assessments, projects, and writing

Instructions:

For lower level students, translate instructions yourself—-don’t rely on students to do it

Paste translations onto worksheets, post them in Google Classroom, or project them on your board

Review instructions—in English—before modeling

Modeling:

Always model tasks or show examples

Think-aloud while modeling

Show completed examples of writing or projects

Rubrics:

Use student-friendly rubrics aligned to their proficiency level

Include native-language translations of the criteria along with English

Use single-point rubrics for clarity

Sentence Frames and Stems:

Provide word or phrase banks for sentence frames

Use AI to generate frames and stems based on your learning and language targets

Multiple-Choice Tests:

For written response items, provide sentence frames with a wordbank.

Remove one incorrect answer choice

Repeat familiar vocabulary, language patterns, and visuals

Open-note tests

Accommodation is not a smooth road

This list will jump-start your dive into supporting disciplinary literacy for MLs. The first time you try something, it might not work perfectly. You may still see students struggle, even after accommodation. That’s okay.

Struggle is expected. You are lightening their cognitive load—-you cannot remove it entirely. The goal is to bring the content closer, so they can reach out and touch it, not jump and miss it altogether.

Sometimes a scaffold works like a charm—fantastic! But often, you will need to adjust.

Keep trying, keep tweaking, keep going.

You, and your students, will get there.

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4
Hakuta, K., Butler, Y. G., & Witt, D. (2000). How long does it take English learners to attain proficiency? University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute.

Carrie Rieder holds a Master’s in TESOL from Furman University and has over a decade of experience supporting multilingual learners. A certified Literacy Teacher and member of the Greenville County Impact Leadership cohort, she brings both academic and personal insight into language acquisition, shaped by raising bilingual children and living abroad. At Carolina High School, she teaches ESOL and sheltered English classes, working closely with colleagues to support the school’s high population of multilingual students.

Webinar: Multilingual Voices, Disciplinary Spaces: Literacy Practices for Equity and Inclusion

Webinar

Missed the live webinar? You can now access the recording of “Multilingual Voices, Disciplinary Spaces: Literacy Practices for Equity and Inclusion”! Held on June 17, panelists Shari Revels-Davis, Jasmine Lauer, Diana Vargas Hager, and Carrie Rieder discussed proper resources for MLLs, how to navigate linguistic & cultural diversity, centering MLLs’ identities, and leveraging multilingualism as an asset.

Webinar: Showcasing Teachers’ Literacy Expertise

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Missed the live webinar? You can now access the recording of “Showcasing Teachers’ Literacy Expertise”! Held on May 29, 2025, this insightful session members were Nikki Upchurch and Haleigh Jo Baker. Discover how Nikki, a middle grade teacher, and Haleigh, a high school math teacher, engage in creative and effective literacy practices that support classroom learning.

Showcasing Teachers’ Literacy Expertise

Unlocking Literacy Across the Curriculum: Coaching Disciplinary Literacy

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Literacy extends beyond English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms—it’s essential in every subject, from science to history, math, and the arts. Disciplinary literacy focuses on equipping students to read, write, and think like experts in each field. By integrating discipline-specific literacy strategies, we enhance student learning across all subjects. To support this, we can leverage Diane Sweeney’s Student-Centered Coaching Model, which shifts the focus from simply delivering content to achieving specific student outcomes.

But how can instructional coaches effectively guide teachers in incorporating disciplinary literacy strategies? By blending Student-Centered Coaching with co-planning, co-teaching, and insights from experts like Jim Knight and Elena Aguilar, we can create a powerful framework for elevating literacy instruction across disciplines.

What is Disciplinary Literacy?

Stephen Sawchuk in Education Week (2024) suggests that the concept of disciplinary literacy extends beyond simply reading and understanding the vocabulary associated with each content area. Implementing disciplinary literacy practices equips students with the skills needed to navigate and interpret the texts and concepts unique to each academic discipline. In an interview with Sawchuk, Tim Shanahan described disciplinary literacy as “the recognition that each field has a different body of text and different types of text that readers have to read, and that readers really have to have a different stance,” highlighting the need for specialized approaches to literacy. This goes beyond general reading comprehension; it’s about empowering students to approach science like scientists, history like historians, math like mathematicians, and art like artists. Each discipline has its own language, ways of thinking, and methods for analyzing and communicating ideas.

For example, scientists prioritize precision and evidence, historians emphasize sourcing and perspective, mathematicians focus on logical reasoning, and artists explore symbolism and creative interpretation. In ELA, students dive into analyzing themes, character development, and literary devices.

To effectively implement disciplinary literacy, educators must adopt approaches that prioritize student learning and mastery of discipline-specific skills. This is where good instructional coaching models become invaluable in driving meaningful progress.

Using Student-Centered Coaching to Drive Disciplinary Literacy

Diane Sweeney’s Student-Centered Coaching Model focuses on student learning rather than teacher performance. In this model, coaching centers on student work, using it to inform and guide the instruction provided by the teacher. It emphasizes setting student-centered goals, utilizing data to drive instruction, and measuring progress based on student outcomes. When applying this approach to disciplinary literacy, the question shifts from “What strategies can we teach?” to “How can we ensure students master the literacy skills specific to each discipline?”

To make this model actionable, we can draw on the coaching stances, dispositions, and stems from Jim Knight and Elena Aguilar to guide our work. This approach allows us to blend these frameworks in a way that supports teachers in integrating disciplinary literacy across content areas. This link provides steps for Instructional Coaches to co-plan and co-teach with student-centered disciplinary literacy goals and various coaching approaches and dispositions in mind. This link provides possible Disciplinary Literacy coaching questions organized by discipline.

In his interview with Sawchuk, Tim Shanahan shared his experience co-teaching with a laboratory science teacher, highlighting the overwhelmingly positive response from students. To create similar positive learning moments, let us now explore specific examples of how disciplinary literacy can be applied across different content areas to enhance student learning through the Student-Centered Coaching Model.

Disciplinary Literacy Lessons Across Content Areas

1. English Language Arts (ELA): Analyzing Themes and Literary Devices

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will analyze how authors use literary devices to develop themes.”

Lesson Idea: Use Ray Bradbury’s The Pedestrian to explore symbolism. Co-plan a close reading where students annotate for the various literary devices and discuss their impact on the theme of isolation.

Coaching Tip: Co-teach by modeling a think-aloud on identifying literary devices, then observe students as they practice the skill. Co-teach by modeling a think-aloud on word choice and its impact on theme then observe students as they practice using the assigned text.

2. History: Evaluating Primary Sources

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will analyze primary sources for bias and perspective.”

Lesson Idea: During a unit on the American Revolution, co-plan a lesson where students compare the Declaration of Independence with Loyalist responses.

Coaching Tip: Use a “One Teach, One Coach” approach. While the teacher leads a primary source analysis, the coach observes how students identify bias while progressing toward the learning target.

3. Science: Reading Technical Texts

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will extract key information from scientific articles.”

Lesson Idea: Co-plan a jigsaw activity where students read and summarize sections of a text on ecosystems, becoming “experts” on different parts. The students will then use a Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning graphic organizer to show their understanding of ecosystems.

Coaching Tip: Team-teach to model strategies for decoding complex vocabulary and text features and model how to write high-quality, scientific claims.

4. Math: Using Academic Vocabulary

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will use precise mathematical language in their explanations.”

Lesson Idea: Co-plan a lesson where students write about their problem-solving process using specific vocabulary.

Coaching Tip: Model how to incorporate academic language in explanations, then provide feedback as students practice.

Final Thoughts

By centering our coaching on the Student-Centered Coaching Model and incorporating insights from Jim Knight and Elena Aguilar, we can create a collaborative and empowering approach to disciplinary literacy. Knight (2019) emphasizes that, while collaborating with a coach, teachers should maintain significant autonomy over their learning. This allows teachers to engage meaningfully with their curricular goals. Additionally, Aguilar (2016) asserts that coaches should prioritize listening and allow teachers to drive the conversation. Through co-planning, co-teaching, and focusing on student outcomes, we ensure that literacy skills are integrated across disciplines, fostering deeper learning and student success.

Let’s continue to unlock the power of literacy across all classrooms—one co-planned lesson at a time. Happy coaching! If you would like to see a sample coaching cycle rooted in disciplinary literacy, click here. If you would like to see ways coaches can reflect on coaching practices that best support teachers in “making it stick,” read this blog.

Sources

Aguilar, E. (2016, September 27). 20 tips for new instructional coaches. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-new-instructional-coaches-elena-aguilar

Education Week. (2024, October). What is disciplinary literacy? Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/what-is-disciplinary-literacy/2024/10

Harris, Leanna. “How to Make Sure Coaching Sticks.” Student-Centered Coaching, 19 Nov. 2024, www.dianesweeney.com/how-to-make-sure-coaching-sticks/.

Knight, J. (2019, November 1). Why teacher autonomy is central to coaching success. Volume 77, Issue 3. Retrieved from https://ascd.org/el/articles/why-teacher-autonomy-is-central-to-coaching-success

Sweeney, D. (2011). Student Centered Coaching: A Guide for K-8 Coaches and Principals. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press

About the Authors

Dr. Wanda Littlejohn has 24 years of experience in the field of education. Currently, she is an Instructional Specialist at Carolina High School where she provides ongoing support and professional development for teachers.

Dr. Fran Rogers is an experienced educator in Greenville, SC with a diverse middle and high school background. She has served in various instructional positions at the school and district levels, including classroom teacher, instructional coach, and Secondary Academic Instructional Specialist.

Performing Poetry: How Music Shapes Poetic Analysis

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Missed the live webinar? You can now access the recording of “Performing Poetry: How Music Shapes Poetic Analysis”! Held on April 24, 2025, this insightful session led by Catheryn Cofield explored the powerful connection between musical literacy and deeper poetic analysis for grades 6-12 educators. Discover practical strategies to illuminate complex elements of spoken word and poetry, such as cadence and structure, using the universal language of music. Learn how to reinforce key reading skills and enhance student engagement, as presented by music educator Catheryn Cofield. Click the link below to watch the recording and unlock new ways to connect your students with poetry!

About the Author

Ms. Colfield is a first-year teacher serving at Chester Middle School in Chester, SC. She graduated from Anderson University in 2024 with her bachelor’s in Vocal Music education and is currently serving as both a general music teacher and choir director at her school. She believes musical literacy is a key component of any competent music program and one of the greatest tools that a developing reader can have.

Reconnecting to the Disciplines of Disciplinary Literacy

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Disciplinary Literacy (DL) is an orientation to the work of teaching that (re)claims a focus on action: knowing how to do, to use, to apply, to act, to verb. This requires an instructional focus on process and application over receiving and demonstrating knowledge. It is therefore a form of resistance to the version of schooling that is ruled by accountability metrics – where tests, credits, and other metrics have become a school’s reason for being rather than tools to measure and improve it. In this way, it is radical: it affects the fundamental nature of what teachers imagine can and should happen in class with students. And, its absence is a signal of the slow creep of oppressive policies that can become naturalized as how we ‘do school’ in the US.

In too many middle and high school classrooms, content knowledge has been divorced from the communities that produce, apply, and critique it outside of classroom settings. In that divorce, we have lost the connection to the purpose that motivates and the audience that gives meaning to the structure of the text and task (See Figure 1).

Figure 1. An expanded purpose-audience-format triangle

A DL orientation is essentially a suit for custody – for deeper connection – to each of these. Otherwise, it requires educators to work against the grain of typical curricula and related tasks (e.g. testing and test preparation, data collection, and classroom sorting). We have to pause business as usual to do a standalone project that brings authentic context into focus. We have to look up from representations of knowledge and re-present or re-frame them in ways that allude to their purpose in the world.

In my experience, instruction that is oriented towards application and use exists as the exception rather than the rule in core academic classes. However, it is more likely to be found in the courses that do not count for graduation or in the enrichment opportunities that are reserved for those who do well: a choir that performs, an auto shop that repairs, a science elective that grows or conserves, or a language class that visits another culture. I suspect that this is because these areas are the least tested and the most likely to have educators or curricula directly connected to the doing: playing music for performance rather than for a quiz on what it includes; fixing a car to make it run again, rather than for a matching test on the names of engine parts. The more academic and abstract knowledge is, the less likely it is to stay connected to use. These tenuous marriages of knowing and doing exist on the margins of academic experiences as reminders that specialized literacies are not necessarily harder than general literacy.

Texts reflect the particularities of their purposes, processes, and the conditions in which they were produced. For example, jazz musicians are likely to play off of a lead sheet rather than a full score showing every detail of every instrument’s parts. They need a text that shares a basic structure across collaborators so that they can improvise within it. Conductors need a detailed account of every part so that they can understand how all parts contribute to the whole and understand everything that might be happening simultaneously. The texts match the tasks. Though a conductor’s score might seem infinitely more challenging than a single part or a simplified lead sheet, their use of it may actually be quite simple. Unlike a lead sheet where each symbol contains a lot of information that might be highly consequential, conductors are really only following patterns across pages and parts – not reading every symbol of every line.

This is similar to the way that an actor might do a close reading of a single part of a single scene with lots of repetition of their own lines but would never try to read 30 pages of a play that way for homework. A director might likewise review a scene to visualize blocking. This process may not prepare them to do the kind of activity that might be found in an English classroom divorced from the text’s uses (e.g. a quiz question on a vocabulary word found on one of the pages they skimmed), but it will prepare them for the work they are doing with the text. Their purpose for reading influences their process for reading, and the amount or type of text with which they engage. The way we orient ourselves to the task of reading a text assigned for English class sets and limits students’ access to the context, meaning, and motivation. The literate process (e.g. reading for blocking, close reading, skimming for patterns, extrapolating from summary) may actually be a simpler cognitive task if it is specified instead of general. And, specialized tasks are more likely to resonate with a set of purposes and meaningful contexts. When texts are connected to a discipline – communities that produce, critique, and interpret them – students have the benefit of the sense of purpose and meaning to support their motivation and guide their inferences.

Disciplinary connection is not a feature of the text itself, but of the framing or relationship between the text and what students are doing with it: is their activity connected to a purpose and process that align with the particularities of some use? Or are they reading a text for a generic reason that is divorced from any specific purpose and process? This divorce makes the reading inherently harder because we use the larger context to predict and confirm meaning, and the larger purpose to ignite and sustain motivation.

About the Author

Dr. Gabriel is Professor of Literacy Education at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. She is author of more than fifty refereed articles, and author or editor of seven books for literacy teachers, leaders, and education researchers. Rachael currently teaches courses for educators and doctoral students pursuing specialization in literacy, and is Editor in Chief of The Reading Teacher. A former teacher and reading specialist, Rachael’s research is focused on: literacy instruction, leadership, and intervention, as well as policies related to teacher development and evaluation. Her current projects investigate how educators and school leaders build collective capacity, state literacy policies, and discipline-specific literacy instruction.

Growing Knowledge: A 7th Grade Teacher in Cleveland, Mississippi is Cultivating Agriculture Skills and Tackling Food Insecurity

Blog, Student Contribution, Teaching, Uncategorized

Stephanie: As a literacy teacher educator whose scholarship has primarily focused on agricultural literacy development in K-12 classrooms over the last 5 years, I have been fortunate to meet many dedicated, amazing K-12 Mississippi classroom teachers. Through four United States Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA) grants on professional development in agricultural literacy, I’ve been able to work with a wide range of teachers including gifted education, social studies, all elementary subjects, mathematics, welding, library, college-and-career readiness, science, and agriculture education. One of those rock star teachers is Mrs. Tammie Marlow, a 7^th grade science teacher at Cleveland Central Middle School, in Cleveland, MS located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Tammie is an award-winning science teacher; she recently was awarded the Rural Teacher of the Year for her congressional district in Mississippi (an award given from the Program for Research and Evaluation for Public Schools housed at William Carey University). She participated in two of my USDA/NIFA grants in summer 2022/academic year 2022-2023 and summer 2023/academic year 2023-2024. The Agricultural Science Professional Development [ACRE] program focused on animal science, with a heavy emphasis on livestock, plant science, meat science, literacy instruction, and teacher leadership. The Agricultural Science Professional Development 2.0 [ACRE 2.0] program focused on poultry and food science, socio-emotional learning, and literacy instruction. Over those two years, Tammie took many of the ideas presented in these professional developments and incorporated them into her 7th-grade science class, expanding the curriculum to include a large focus on hands-on agricultural education. Below, I interview Tammie about her work at Cleveland Central Middle School in order to share with you many of the ways she has incorporated agriculture lessons into her classroom instruction.

Tammie, can you please share with readers your reasoning behind starting the Home-Garden-Science Club?

Tammie: The district that I teach in is the last district to consolidate in Mississippi. This brought many challenges, especially combined with the timing of the Covid epidemic. We are the only middle school in our district, and we serve as a bottle-neck transition to 6 local elementary schools plus students that move in from outside areas. Students were placed in this new environment and did not know their peers in this educational transition time in their lives. They didn’t have any time at school for downtime to visit and get to know each other. With this realization, my family and I decided to start an after-school program that would give them a safe place to meet, make new friends, and learn practical skills that will make their lives better. We called it Home-Garden-Science Club because we did everything including experiments, planting gardens, teaching students how to sew, holding cooking classes, and doing crafts together.

Picture: A student in the Cleveland Central Middle School Home-Garden-Science Club

This after school program has grown into an outdoor learning space that encompasses an outdoor classroom with electricity, a plowed field, an orchard, a tractor with attachments, multiple gardening tools, a three-door tractor shed with electricity and water, new fencing, and a greenhouse. This is a testament that people want to help, and when they see things happening, they will help. When we first started, we had students stand in line waiting their turn to use a hoe and shovel. We had to teach students how to use a water hose to water plants. You cannot assume that students know how to do what you know. It still amazes me to think that this all started from letting kids meet after school one day a week to have a safe place to have fun together and learn.

Picture: Students working in the garden at Cleveland Central Middle School

Stephanie: That sounds wonderful, Tammie. I know the students have enjoyed working in the garden and seeing the fruits of their labor with the produce it has yielded. Can you share with me some in-class, hands-on agriculture labs you have done with your students that have made an positive impact on their agricultural literacy development?

Tammie: Most students really enjoy lessons that they are involved in and take active parts in leading the learning activity, especially the labs that include food. I facilitate student-lead lessons in as many classes as I can. I believe students learn better when they have fun, can relate information to their personal lives in the real-world, and are physically active in the lesson with hands-on activities, literacy activities, maps, collections of specimens to explore/investigate, Guest Speaker interaction, field trips (actual and virtual) and labs that reinforce the standards. Project-based learning works well for all of my classes. Hydroponics, Micro-Green Farming, and Earth Cycles are 3 project-based lessons that we completed this year. Students really enjoyed constructing wildlife habitats. MSU Extension officers taught my 7th grade students how to use both power tools and hand tools in order to build the habitats.

For example, one of our state standards in 7th Grade Science is: “Explain how disruptions in cycles (e.g., water, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen) affect biodiversity and ecosystem services (e.g., water, food, and medications) which are needed to sustain human life on Earth.” Together with an Ag student from MDCC, a USDA specialist, and my co- 7th Grade Science Teacher collected soybeans while at their prime and planned a Legume Lab for our students. Students were first given a pretest on soybeans and other legumes. The need was clear; they needed hands-on experience with soybeans or other legumes. Soybeans make up the number 1 top-row crop in Mississippi and come just behind poultry on the list of agricultural commodities. Most students didn’t know what soybean plants looked like even though they live in a rural area surrounded by large soybean farms. We held the Legume Lab outside and the USDA specialist showed us how they use toothpicks as a tool in the soybean programs. Students were given toothpicks to dissect the soybean plants which are legumes. They were to locate and dissect the nodules that house Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria that are responsible for Nitrogen Cycling into usable forms for living things. This was probably one of the most valuable labs conducted by our 7th Grade Science students. They completed lab sheets, and we took lots of pictures to serve as evidence of their findings. These students now know what soybeans are and how important they are as a food source along with information they learned about Nutrient Cycling. We now grow soybeans, with the other plants, in our school garden and the Home-Garden-Science after school club cares for them. This is a much-needed lab for not just rural students but for every student. Students need to be educated about the importance of nutrient cycling, our land. and where our food comes from.

Picture: Students engage in the Legume Lab in class.

Further, I was so shocked to learn during ACRE that the Mississippi Delta is in the middle of a food desert. According to Uproot Mississippi (2024), Mississippi has been considered the most food insecure state for the last decade. Bolivar County, where Cleveland resides, had a population of over 6,500 individuals who experience food insecurities as of 2022, and an annual food budget shortfall of over $4,000 (Feeding America, 2025). Food insecurity is prevalent in this area where people don’t know when they’ll get their next nutritious meal that they can afford. This is the area where I was raised, and I never thought about food insecurity.

Stephanie: I was shocked to learn about food deserts and their prevalence in Mississippi as well. I know this has become an important topic to you. Can you describe ways in which your students have learned more about food deserts?

Picture: Students engage in the Legume Lab in class.

Tammie: I was raised on a 5-generation farm and we always had large gardens that we called “patches”. We had a “pea patch”, a “pumpkin patch”, a “green patch”, a “corn patch”, and other mini fields where we grew food for our families and the community. I have learned in my adult years that most people don’t live where they can grow their own food. After learning about the food deserts, I developed a research project for my students on food deserts and solutions that each student can be a part of. Because of this realization from the ACRE influenced project my 7th grade students are working with our community to plant a student-community food forest to help fight against food insecurity in the food desert in which we live.

Picture: Students presentation on overcoming community food insecurity.

As part of the solution students want to plant this food forest in a place where everyone could harvest fresh free food anytime they want to. The place they decided to do this was our local park because it has the land to plant the food-plants on and plenty of parking that would be safe for everyone. Students also learned that planting more trees can help with climate change by removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which will lessen the greenhouse effect. This can in turn keep our weather from having great fluctuations, decreasing droughts and floods. I am so proud of what my students have learned and their desire to help others. Students learn about problems, but they also need to learn how to be part of the solutions.

Picture: Garden beds at Cleveland Central Middle School

Stephanie: Last question Tammie. Can you provide me with an example of how you have intentionally provided opportunities for your students to reflect as a demonstration of their learning?

Tammie: Finally, as I introduce my students to real-world science problems, and they play a role in forming solutions, I have incorporated more literacy instruction teaching it with “more zest” in my classes after the training that I received in ACRE and ACRE 2.0. For example, to get students to write and learn more deeply about vocabulary, I use strategies such as journaling, ABC brainstorming sheets and Frayer models. In teaching my science vocabulary, I have put a greater emphasis on teaching my students morphology–affixes (prefixes and suffixes and root words).

Students also write lab reports after engaging in real world labs. We engage in close reading of various sources. I also have implemented a talking ball in class to help facilitate class discussions. Students have engaged in oral presentations and poster projects as well. This focus on literacy, coupled with the extensive hands-on learning in my science classroom (both indoors and outside) has provided my students with opportunities to deeply learn scientific and agricultural content as well as be able to communicate effectively about that content because I’ve prioritized the importance of reading, writing, and speaking like a scientist or agriculturalist in my classroom as well. Ultimately, I believe as teachers, we need to make sure that we aren’t just teaching content but how to be good stewards of our world. We only have these precious students for just a little time, we need to make sure we make the most of teaching them and giving them opportunities to be good stewards. I want to challenge every teacher to take part with their students in planting a food forest to help feed our world… one plant at a time.

References

Feeding America. (2025). Hunger and poverty in Mississippi. Food insecurity among the overall population in Bolivar County. https://map.feedingamerica.org/county/2022/overall/mississippi/county/bolivar

Uproot Mississippi. (2024). Addressing food insecurity in the nations ‘hungriest state’. https://uprootms.org/addressing-food-insecurity-in-the-nations-hungriest-state/

About the Authors

Stephanie M. Lemley is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education in the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership in the College of Education at Mississippi State University. Her research agenda focuses on increasing agricultural literacy, through hands-on learning and instruction with agricultural texts, in the K-16 population. She can be reached at smb748@msstate.edu.

Mrs. Tammie Marlow is an award-winning science teacher at Cleveland Central Middle School in Cleveland, MS. She has taught for 25 years in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and North Carolina. In North Carolina, she was a parent liaison that tutored students after school, helped students in classes, and filled in for teachers. In Louisiana, she taught HeadStart in Plaquemine Parish and used the Pacing System in a Christian Outreach School for students that lived in the Marsh (we had a School-Boat instead of a School-Bus to transport our students). Tammie has taught US History, 8th grade science, Biology, Biology II, Aquatic Science, Science Skills, Environmental Science, and Forensics. She can be reached at tmarlow@cleveland.k12.ms.us.

Disciplinary Literacy: How it Started…How it’s Going

Uncategorized

How it Started

Once upon a time, there was an educational concept called disciplinary literacy. It changed and grew over time, experienced some setbacks, yet still offered hope for a better educational future for adolescent learners. Since this is a blog post about literacy, we may as well use story structure to our advantage–setting, characters, events, and even a little bit of conflict along the way. Like many stories (but certainly not all), it will be told in time order and according to the narrator’s understanding. For this reason, I hope that you will forgive any errors of fact or omissions.

While our story begins in 2008, it is only possible due to previous efforts of a wide cast of characters focused on researching literacy across many, many decades. For our purposes, however, we will only rewind to 2008. Prior to 2008, literacy was commonly understood as the ability to read and write in varied contexts, with an emphasis on the ability to decode texts and use information effectively. Efforts to support and extend students’ literacy abilities focused on reading and writing across the content areas, with slogans such as “all teachers are teachers of reading and writing.” While this understanding of literacy is certainly accurate, it is also incomplete. Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan published “Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents: Rethinking Content-Area Literacy” in 2008, seeking to articulate the idea of a literacy progression from basic literacy to intermediate literacy and finally to disciplinary literacy. In this work, they highlighted distinct literacy practices required in disciplines such as history, science, and mathematics. For example, scientific fields value precision, technical vocabulary, and the interpretation of data and visual representations. History involves sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating documents to construct narratives about the past. In mathematics, experts rely on symbolic representations, concise explanations, and logical reasoning. Within the field of literature studies, there is an emphasis on exploring multiple representations, figurative language, and themes. Their article called for teachers to explicitly model and scaffold the reading and writing practices of their disciplines.

However, literacy exists within interactions among the learner, task, and context. Enter the work of Elizabeth Birr Moje, who co-authored “The Complex World of Adolescent Literacy: Myths, Motivations, and Mysteries” in 2008 with Melanie Overby, Nicole Tysvaer, and Karen Morris. This work dispelled the myth that adolescents were not engaging in reading outside of school and articulated the need to connect students’ interests with academic literacy tasks by naming that youth are motivated to read texts that resonate with their personal interests, social identities, and cultural background. Building upon this work, Moje published “Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change,” which advocated for developing disciplinary literacy instructional programs. This call emphasized that disciplinary literacy can provide all students with access to the specialized knowledge, skills, and practices of various fields, thus promoting educational equity.

As energy grew around the new concept of disciplinary literacy, additional researchers entered the scene. Instead of providing a broad definition of disciplinary literacy, some researchers offered explorations of particular components of disciplinary literacy. For example, Zhihui Fang and Mary J. Schleppegrell introduced the role of functional language analysis as a tool for educators to help students navigate complex disciplinary texts in 2010 with “Disciplinary Literacies Across Content Areas: Supporting Secondary Reading Through Functional Language Analysis” in 2010. Suggestions for application in various content areas include the following:

Science: Functional language analysis can help students unpack dense noun phrases and technical terms in order to understand complex concepts.
History: Analyzing the use of passive voice and nominalizations can reveal how historical events are presented and interpreted.
Mathematics: Understanding the precise language and symbolic representation aids in comprehending mathematical reasoning.

Also published in 2010, “Reading in the Disciplines: The Challenges of Adolescent Literacy” provided further insight into the specific literacy demands across various academic disciplines, contrasting content-area and disciplinary literacy examples. Additional ideas explored in the report include naming the difficulty that many students face as they transition from foundational and intermediate literacy skills to the advanced literacy demands in secondary schools; this difficulty is often compounded by increasing text complexity and assumptions that students already possess the skills needed to engage with complex texts. Researchers Carol D. Lee and Anika Spratley contributed to this publication and other research over time.

While many researchers were engaged in research and publication regarding disciplinary literacy over the next five years, the field was still lacking in a unifying framework that offered the promise of shifting educators’ overall approach to instruction in pedagogy. In 2015, Moje published “Doing and Teaching Disciplinary Literacy with Adolescent Learners: A Social and Cultural Enterprise.” This article provided the unifying structure that was sorely needed in the field–a teaching heuristic characterized by the 4Es: engage (engage students’ interest), elicit/engineer (identify existing skills), examine (guide students to critically examine texts, problems, or data), and evaluate (help students assess the quality of their work and thinking). This heuristic articulated not only the role of engaging adolescents in meaningful work aligned to their lives and community needs, but also the role of educators in planning for intentional instructional practices that apprentice students into the types of cognitive practices valued in various discourse communities.

Research continued after 2015, with many researchers digging deeper into the specific ways of not only reading and writing, but also speaking, listening, viewing, and thinking in various academic disciplines. While Sam Wineburg began researching the role of literacy within the field of history well before 2015, his work continues to be considered essential for educators in the field. As previously mentioned, the work of Fang and Schleppegrell focused on the literacies in scientific fields, along with Annemarie Palinscar and others. Deborah Ball, Judit Moschkovich, and Beth Herbel-Eisenmann provided insights into the intersection of language, literacy, and mathematics as well. Across the wide body of research into the concept of disciplinary, several key elements emerged:

Focusing on the language and literacy demands valued in various academic disciplines and professions, with a goal of making such literacy expectations visible to students through modeling.
Shifting toward student-centered learning for authentic purposes and audiences, with the teacher serving as the knowledgeable other, scaffolding and facilitating students’ learning.
Developing content knowledge alongside epistemological knowledge (understanding the ways disciplines construct and validate knowledge).

With such valiant research efforts, a reader might expect widespread implementation of disciplinary literacy. However, this was not the case. In many middle- and high-school settings, teaching content without attending to the literacy demands continued to be the status quo. Why was this the case? Perhaps it was due to the misunderstanding that disciplinary literacy was the “pinnacle” of literacy development, and therefore, not within the purview of “typical” or “struggling” learners. Perhaps it was the belief that disciplinary literacy approaches were simply a newly-branded version of content-area literacy approaches. Possibly educators were still struggling to identify what it might look like to align secondary settings to better support disciplinary literacy.

And, of course, there was a crisis called the COVID-19 pandemic that most certainly played a key role in this story. Nevertheless, the work continued.

How it’s Going

It is not a secret that, historically, key players in academia have tended to identify as White, upper-middle-class scholars. Unfortunately, this has prevented society from having a nuanced understanding of areas of study. Thankfully, we are starting to see broader representation in academic research of disciplinary literacy, both in terms of the students and educators serving as the primary focus of research efforts, as well as in terms of the researchers themselves. Since our story is a short story, we will only introduce a few such researchers here.

In “Culturally Sustaining Disciplinary Literacy for Bi/Multilingual Learners: Creating a Translanguaging Social Studies Classroom,” Garcia and Schleppegrell (2021) explore the intersections among disciplinary literacy approaches and culturally sustaining pedagogy; specifically, high-quality disciplinary literacy learning opportunities across subject areas that engage students in critically examining the world around them, interrogating accepted knowledge, contributing their own perspectives to shape that knowledge, and sustaining and developing the literacies needed to do this work.

Published in 2022 by Susan Watts-Taffe and colleagues, “Disciplinary Literacy in Action: High School Students Doing Research for Change” describes how disciplinary literacy practices were enacted among youth within the context of Youth Built Change, a science based program incorporating principles of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Highlighting two YPAR projects, one conducted in a predominantly Black and Latino/a suburban school and one conducted in a predominantly White rural school, specific examples of the disciplinary literacy practices of Believing, Knowing, Doing, and Communicating are illustrated.

Rachael Gabriel, a professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut, has made significant contributions to the field of disciplinary literacy through her research and publications. Her 2023 book, Doing Disciplinary Literacy: Teaching Reading and Writing Across the Content Areas, emphasized the importance of engaging students as active participants in the authentic activities of each content area, such as conducting experiments in science, analyzing primary sources in history, or solving real-world problems in mathematics. In addition to offering practical suggestions for educators on implementing disciplinary literacy, Gabriel’s body of work integrates culturally sustaining pedagogies and neurodiversity inclusion within literacy approaches.

What’s Next

Our story doesn’t end here. Longstanding researchers in the area of disciplinary literacy, Christina L. Dobbs, Megin Charner-Laird, Jacy Ippolito, and Christine Montecillo Leider, recently published Critical Disciplinary Literacy: An Equity-Driven and Culturally Responsive Approach to Disciplinary Learning and Teaching. This book introduces a new theory of CDL that combines critical and disciplinary literacy approaches into a cohesive framework. It remains to be seen what sort of impact this work might have on the widespread implementation of disciplinary literacy.

All stories are certainly affected by the events that do happen, but they are equally affected by the events that did not happen. Our story is no different. There has not yet been a deep focus on defining disciplinary literacy in English language arts beyond literary analysis up to this point. Perhaps a new cast of characters will enter the field in the coming years, providing rich nuance to our current understanding. Research into the impact of COVID-19 on learners’ cognition and motivation and disciplinary literacy approaches might also add to our story.

Regardless, our story of disciplinary literacy is far from finished. What started in 2008 with the goal of articulating literacy practices beyond generic, content-area approaches has progressed to a varied field of study seeking to provide a deep understanding of specific sub-categories of disciplinary literacy study. To Be Continued…

References

Moje, E. B., Overby, M., Tysvaer, N., & Morris, K. (2008). The complex world of adolescent literacy: Myths, motivations, and mysteries. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 107–154. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.54468j6204x24157

Dobbs, C. L., Leider, C. M., Ippolito, J., & Charner-Laird, M. (2024). Critical disciplinary literacy: An equity-driven and culturally responsive approach to disciplinary learning and teaching. Routledge.

Fang, Z., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2010). Disciplinary literacies across content areas: Supporting secondary reading through functional language analysis. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 587–597. https://doi.org/10.1598/jaal.53.7.6

Gabriel, R. (2023). Doing disciplinary literacy: Teaching reading and writing across the content areas. Teachers College Press.

Garcia, M. H., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2021). Culturally sustaining disciplinary literacy for bi/multilingual learners: Creating a translanguaging social studies classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(4), 449–454. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jaal.1129

Lee, C. D., Spratley, A. (2010). Reading in the disciplines: The challenges of adolescent literacy. Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Moje, E. B. (2008). Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96–107. https://doi.org/10.1598/jaal.52.2.1

Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101

Watts-Taffe, S., Vaughn, L. M., & Jacquez, F. (2022). Disciplinary literacy in action: High school students doing research for change. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 65(4), 331–341. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jaal.1211

About the Author

Jenelle Williams is a Literacy Consultant within the Leadership and Continuous Improvement unit at Oakland Schools, an intermediate school district supporting the 28 districts in Oakland County, Michigan. She joined the organization in 2017 following 18 years of experience in public schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. She has served as a classroom teacher, IB Middle Years Programme Coordinator, teacher leader, and educational technology coach. An IB Educator and Examiner since 2013, Jenelle leads professional learning workshops and marks e-assessments for the International Baccalaureate Organization. She holds an Education Specialist in Leadership degree and a Master’s degree in Reading and Language Arts through Oakland University. In addition, Jenelle serves as an Adjunct Professor in Grand Valley State University’s Graduate Program and a co-editor of The Michigan Reading Journal, a publication from the Michigan Reading Association. Jenelle is passionate about supporting teachers, building leaders, and central office administrators in the area of secondary literacy, and she is especially excited to be able to support Michigan’s work around disciplinary literacy through her role as Co-Chair of the statewide Disciplinary Literacy Task Force. She can be reached at jenelle.williams@oakland.k12.mi.us, and on Twitter at @JenelleWilliam6 and @GELN612Literacy.

Unlocking Literacy Across the Curriculum: Coaching Disciplinary Literacy

Blog, Teaching

Dr. Fran Rogers and Dr. Wanda Littlejohn

What is Disciplinary Literacy?

Using Student-Centered Coaching to Drive Disciplinary Literacy

Disciplinary Literacy Lessons Across Content Areas

1. English Language Arts (ELA): Analyzing Themes and Literary Devices

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will analyze how authors use literary devices to develop themes.”

2. History: Evaluating Primary Sources

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will analyze primary sources for bias and perspective.”

Lesson Idea: During a unit on the American Revolution, co-plan a lesson where students compare the Declaration of Independence with Loyalist responses.

Coaching Tip: Use a “One Teach, One Coach” approach. While the teacher leads a primary source analysis, the coach observes how students identify bias while progressing toward the learning target.

3. Science: Reading Technical Texts

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will extract key information from scientific articles.”

Coaching Tip: Team-teach to model strategies for decoding complex vocabulary and text features and model how to write high-quality, scientific claims.

4. Math: Using Academic Vocabulary

Student-Centered Goal Example: “Students will use precise mathematical language in their explanations.”

Lesson Idea: Co-plan a lesson where students write about their problem-solving process using specific vocabulary.

Coaching Tip: Model how to incorporate academic language in explanations, then provide feedback as students practice.

Final Thoughts

Sources

Aguilar, E. (2016, September 27). 20 tips for new instructional coaches. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-new-instructional-coaches-elena-aguilar

Education Week. (2024, October). What is disciplinary literacy? Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/what-is-disciplinary-literacy/2024/10

Harris, Leanna. “How to Make Sure Coaching Sticks.” Student-Centered Coaching, 19 Nov. 2024, www.dianesweeney.com/how-to-make-sure-coaching-sticks/.

Sweeney, D. (2011). Student Centered Coaching: A Guide for K-8 Coaches and Principals. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press

About the authors:

Dr. Fran Rogers is an experienced educator in Greenville, SC with a diverse background in middle school and high school education. She has served in various instructional positions at the school and district levels, including classroom teacher, instructional coach, and Secondary Academic Instructional Specialist.

Webinar: Financial Literacy is Financial Behavior

Teaching

We welcome Dr. Derrick Shepard to our conversation on Financial Literacy! In this webinar, he empowers teachers to explore financial literacy as a social means of communication, co-constructed through the lens of their other identities. Read more about Dr. Shepard below.

Financial Literacy is Financial Behavior

Dr. Derrick Shepard is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, Martin. His research interests include multiculturalism in counseling, social class awareness, skills related to counselor preparation and pedagogical practices in counselor education and supervision.

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