Blog #5 It’s Not Just On Us

            For this week’s reading, I chose to read Disciplinary Literacy in English Language Arts by Peter Smagorinsky. Because my passion is to teach ELA (preferably grades 7-8), I thought this article would give me insight on the importance of disciplinary literacy across grade levels, and how it affects teachers/students in ELA. 

            While reading this article, I could not help but question why the pressure to teach English is put strictly on English teachers – “they have no idea how to format references in their history reports, especially when it comes to using Ibidcorrectly. What are you people in English doing over there? Aren’t you supposed to be teaching them how to write?” (p. 141). The English language itself is universal across all subject areas. Yes, English teachers teach students to read, write, speak, etc. but these skills are used in every other content area. And essential to every other subject. Think about it – how could you learn how to construct a science experiment without knowing how to read and write. Or without knowing how to listen. How could you complete a word problem in math when you do not know how to read and comprehend a sentence? How could you read a history textbook without knowing the same skills? My argument, then, is that the skills often taught in English should not be limited to English teachers. English teachers, if responsible to teach students how to read, write, speak, etc. in English, science, social studies, and math would have too much on their plate. And often, they are held responsible for this. Maybe, just maybe, this is why our students aren’t as successful as they could be. Schools are holding one teacher responsible for teaching skills essential to all subjects. How would they have enough time in 9 months? 

            Smagorinsky goes on to discuss the different kinds of writing. Say, hypothetically, a student was assigned to write an argumentative essay in English and an argumentative paper in science. Both argumentative essays, right? So, they’re the same thing? The same skill/format? No. People, and especially teachers, who believe this are ignorant. The format is different, the content is different, the language is different. Yes, they are both arguments, but in order to be effective pieces of writing, they cannot be seen as the same thing. This, I believe, is what a lot of teachers fail to understand. You cannot teach a student how to write an argument and believe it to be universal across all subjects. Students must learn how to write an argument in a certain discipline. And that does not fall on just one teacher. The English teacher is responsible for teaching students to write arguments in ELA, but is not responsible for teaching students to write arguments in science or history. Just because an argument seems to be essential to ELA, does not mean that they should have the pressure to teach how to write arguments across all content areas – plus it isn’t their discipline – “writing is not writing is not writing, but that virtually any act of writing requires specialized knowledge” (p. 142). 

            Writing is not simple. Neither is reading or speaking or even listening. They are SPECIFIC to a certain discipline. We need to teach our students (and not just the English teachers) “how to adjust one’s speech (or writing) to suit the occasion” (p. 143). One’s language coincides with their writing, and as teachers, we need to teach students to see the difference across disciplines. What works in an ELA class, might not work in a science or math class. I think that teachers are so focused on the standards, that they lose sight on what, we, as teachers, are really trying to accomplish with our students. We want our students to be successful in society. We want students to use their background to benefit them in real-life. How many times have you found yourself actually using the content you learned in school? How many times have you had to use the quadratic formula in real-life? School is more than just content. It, in my opinion, should be more focused on teaching students life-long skills like language, reading, writing, and speaking. But this responsibility cannot fall into one single content area. It is the responsibility of all teachers – we want our students to be successful universally. To use the skills (not necessarily the content) they have learned in school and bring those skills into society.