According to edglossary.org, scaffolding, in terms of education, “refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning progress.” As teachers, our goal is to have our students not only possess knowledge, but to grow to understand and eventually produce their own knowledge on an independent level. Because I am currently focusing on teaching science, I chose to read Reading, Writing, and Thinking Like a Scientist by Gina Cervetti and P. David Pearson. Science itself, as taught in schools, consists of reading texts, writing arguments/reports, as well as conducting experiments. But simply reading, writing, and doing does not make you a scientist. It is stated in the article, that when reading a science textbook “there is a great deal of potential for misconceptions about science and that not all texts support involvement in inquiry” (p. 584). So why do we, as science teachers, incorporate the textbook in our class? Is it because it is required? It is easy? Instead, we should focus our instruction on texts that scientists actually read and create – “handbooks, field guides, and graphic representation of data” (p. 584). By students reading texts like these, they will start to read, write, and think like a scientist because they are examining the work of a real scientist. 

So, where is the line? You can’t just take the textbook out of a science class, right? In my opinion, I believe the textbook to be arbitrary. If you know how to read, you can probably decipher a science textbook – it is a simple skill. There are definitions and “facts.” There are pictures and graphs. It is basic reading and is not all that specific to the discipline of science. So, what are students actually getting out of it? Science textbooks are not what scientists write. By reading texts like these, they are simply possessing knowledge and have no gateway to producing it. With this, yes, they might know what a hypothesis is, but do they know how to write one? They might be provided with the structure and an example, but will they be able to recognize one? Write one? What does a real hypothesis, written by a real scientist look like? They would not know. 

This, I believe, is a scream, a cry, a yell, for help in teaching science. How can we, then, move towards that stronger understanding and greater independence? Well, for starters, we should provide our students with science texts that push students to “examine the credibility of the work that lay behind the text” versus texts that students read to possess facts and definitions (p. 583). Science is a natural world, a world of exploratory and creative thinking. It is not a world of facts – what, in science, is a fact, anyway? In my opinion, science should be a more hands-on subject. Students should be pushed to experiment, question, and explain. Of course, this is not to disregard that reading in science is important. All scientists read, and read, and read. And then read some more. But as a student, that reading needs to be valuable – and in my opinion, it will not be found in a science textbook. It should be something that pushes students to be more and think more like scientists– not just knowing the definition of a hypothesis. All too often teachers forget why we are teaching – to prepare our students to be successful. To be a doctor. An engineer. A real-estate agent. Or even a scientist. We cannot expect students to achieve this when all we do is teach out of a text book. 

            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. 

            After fully watching the videos, I saw disciplinary teaching successfully modeled in both. With this being said, I do believe that both of these videos are somewhat out of date. I’m not saying that the teaching strategies themselves are out of date – but instead, I am suggesting that in a modern classroom when teaching disciplinary literacy, we should incorporate some kind of technology to keep the students engaged. I know that teaching can be successful when technology is not incorporated, as seen in the videos, but I believe it to be more effective and more tailored to the students of this generation and generations to come. Instead of having the kids write on a big sheet of paper, teachers could incorporate the use of smartboards or something similar. Kids get excited when technology is involved – and it’s something they are familiar with – so they are more likely to volunteer and participate in the lesson itself.

            As for disciplinary teaching, I saw aspects of it in both videos. For some reason, the first video stuck out more to me – maybe because I want to be an ELA teacher? The teacher started with connecting the lesson to a book they read in class – The Gardener? Because they already read the book (I’m assuming had something to do with gardens), they were able to easily generate words that related to gardeners. After the teacher modeled the strategy in the lesson, and after completing the “gardening” example together as a class, she then made it possible for the students to, on their own, do the same strategy with a different subject – insects. She provided guidance for the children and encouraged them to work together. She had them share their group work and then discussed why the strategy was important. I believe, and so does she in my understanding, that this lesson helps students to develop new vocabulary. One vocabulary word, for example “insects,” can produce a whole new list of words that they can use in their writing. She stresses that learning new vocabulary is important so the students can expand their own writing, as well as their ability to recognize words. They are learning new vocabulary without even realizing it – especially when working in small groups. Maybe one student shared a word that another student had never heard of – they now can add that to their mental list of vocabulary! This, in my opinion, is a perfect display of disciplinary teaching in an English Language Arts classroom.

            As for the second video, I found it less engaging. It was a simple equation on the board that evolved into a long discussion. Although I do believe that the discussion was student based (which is a part of disciplinary learning), she, in my opinion, gave the students a vague understanding of the correct/incorrect answer. By the end of the lesson, the correct answer was clear, but I believe that she could have elaborated on her leading of the discussion – try harder to get her students to think a certain way instead of listening to a wrong answer time and time again and not commenting. I do commemorate her on her use of pictures and examples – the skittles. 

            I see aspects of disciplinary teaching in both lessons and I believe that, for the most part, both lessons were successful. I definitely see more benefit in the first video and would consider teaching a lesson similar to that if I planned on teaching 2^ndgraders. The backbone for disciplinary teaching is there – I just wish the videos were more up to date. 

Disciplinary literacy in elementary school, a controversial subject, in my opinion, should be implemented, or at least introduced. As stated in Shanahan’s article, disciplinary literacy is “the specialized ways of reading, understanding, and thinking used in each academic discipline” (p. 636). In order to prepare children to produce knowledge, I believe it to be essential to introduce this way of critically thinking and teaching. 

            It can be argued that children must first learn basic learning strategies – summarizing, questioning, etc. I do not disagree with this. I believe that children must first be able to learn on a basic level before advancing to a more challenging way of learning. With this being said, once they master these basic skills (in the early elementary levels), I see no harm, but instead benefit, in incorporating disciplinary literacy skills in the higher elementary levels. In my opinion, I see no point in summarizing story after story once the skill has already been introduced and mastered. For me, I see a lot of repetition with these basic skills. Summarization is a basic skill – once you can summarize a basic text, it is quite simple to summarize a longer, more complex text, right? It is the same skill used on a different text – “summaries tend to neglect the nuanced information central to discipline-appropriate understanding” (p. 637). So once learning hits this point of repetition, why not take learning to the next level? 

            It is essential for students to understand that interpreting texts, writing, etc. is not the same across disciplines. Shanahan says that “we should teach students the way reading in various fields differs rather than only expecting students to apply the same general lens across everything they read” (p. 637). History, for example, focuses on interpreting old data, while science focuses on interpreting new data. The reading and understanding of old data is drastically different than that of new data. With this being said, interpretation and reading differs across content areas. This is not something, as teachers, we can ignore if we want our students to be successful in their learning. 

            Being able to read and interpret becomes essential across every discipline – but reading and interpreting is not concrete. For example, like mentioned in the article, vocabulary is a simple way to incorporate disciplinary learning in early grade levels. If you look at a scientific word, most are derived from Greek and Latin words. These Greek and Latin words can often correlate with Greek mythology found in literature texts. There are benefits in connecting Greek vocabulary in science with Greek vocabulary in English, but they are distinctly different – “students need to understand how and why such words are used in various disciplines” (p.638). 

            As a future teacher, I see great importance in teaching disciplinary literacy in grades as early as elementary. Once the basic learning skills are mastered, is becomes imperative to begin to teach students the reading skills necessary for them to think critically. 

Rainey stated that disciplinary literacy teaching “is necessary for advancing goals of college readiness and social justice” (p. 371). In order to prepare students for advanced learning in school/college, as well as in the real world, disciplinary literacy is a crucial teaching strategy across all subject areas that teachers should strive to implement. Disciplinary literacy helps students to learn by pushing learning a step further – so that students can eventually think like a scientist, think like a mathematician, etc. So they can eventually produce knowledge, instead of just memorizing content for a test, a project, etc. and never using it again. As teachers, we want to prepare our students and want them to eventually be successful and intelligent human beings who can go out into the real world and make something of themselves – to become something! Is that not our goal as teachers? 

            After reading both Rainey’s and Houseal’s articles, I came to realize that disciplinary literacy can and should be taught throughout all content areas. Rainey focused on four terms – engaging, engineering, examining, and evaluating (p. 374). Each term or category should be considered to ensure that disciplinary literacy teaching is happening in each classroom. For example, in Mr. Franchi’s history lesson, his goal was to get his students to think like a historian – to not only read texts and answer questions about those texts, but to instead, have his students put themselves in the shoes of a historian. He wanted his students to answer a question the way, say for instance, Ben Franklin would have answered a question. With this approach, students are forced to delve into texts and understand not only what the historical figures said, but to understand how the historical figures thought. This gave his students the chance to build upon their knowledge far beyond the textbook – this “required students to apply historical empathy and historical perspectives” (p. 374). He “positioned students as participants in the discourse community of history while at the same time building their understanding of historical literacy practices” (p. 374). He engineered a lesson that gave him, the teacher, an opportunity to sit back and watch the students perform. They debated with each other and he stressed that the conversation should be between the students. Of course, Mr. Franchi was able to step in at any time, but he pushed for a student based discussion where pure knowledge that they acquired from historical perspectives was shared to one another. 

            As for a physics class, disciplinary literacy was taught once again through the four E’s in Mr. Coupland’s lesson. He engaged his students and like Mr. Franchi, stressed that students should think as if they “were Galileo and [they] were trying to understand the nature of motion” (p. 375). He produced a student based discussion that relied on student notes. He was again, an observer in the classroom, but was able to step in at any point in time. He wanted the students to produce knowledge for themselves and to pay attention and adapt what their classmates were saying. By stating a leading question at the beginning of the lesson, Mr. Coupland gave his students a boundary, but did not limit their knowledge. He wanted them to think like a scientist – and argue like a scientist would. He also made it clear that arguments are different across domains – for example, in science, an argument should have a definitive answer, although it may change, unlike English or other subjects, where you might argue for both sides (p. 375). 

            Although the focus was history and physics, disciplinary literacy can be incorporated in every subject. The same 4 E’s – engaging, engineering, examining, and evaluating should be considered throughout each content area. For example, in English, an English teacher would ideally want their English student to think like a writer, an author, etc. Like said in Houseal, a student could take the concept of plot further by “perceiving patterns in plot, which prompts questions about relationships among characters and the setting. It also includes creating patterns in writing to produce an author’s style” (p. 383). This could include having the students write a piece similar to the style of a certain author’s after thoroughly reading their work and learning their style, etc. and then coming together in small groups to share their pieces and how they are similar to that of the author’s they have read. The limits are endless, but in order to think like a scientist, or to think like a writer, one has to put themselves in a position to where they can understand and comprehend far beyond the words in a textbook. They have to produce meaning to those words, as well as connect those words and knowledge to prior knowledge. As teachers, we must provide content, themes, and processes that give students the opportunity to think in a certain discipline – and eventually produce knowledge. 

            Initially reading the assigned articles, content, content area, and disciplinary literacy were vague terms that seemed to run together as one in my mind. It has now come to my attention that although they are connected, they are, in fact, separate terms, but all in all, essential to learning. Content, in brief, is “what the words are all about” (Wolsey & Lapp, p. 6). Content is “what” you are reading. In every word and paragraph, some type of content is being conveyed to you, the reader. Content area goes a little broader – it incorporates content. It is the different subjects in school like science, mathematics, English, etc. As stated in Wolsey & Lapp’s article, content area is the “’how’ of content as it appears in schools.” Disciplinary literacy incorporates learning specific content, all while enhancing reading and writing strategies to broaden the knowledge and understanding of a subject. As stated in Wolsey & Lapp’s article, “power of knowledge comes from being part of its production, rather than from merely possessing it.” 

            With this, disciplinary literacy encourages people to be “metadiscursive.” Metadiscursivity occurs when “people not only engage in many discourses but also know how and why they are engaging” so these engagements can eventually be used to broaden their knowledge in not only schools, but in every-day-life (Moge, p. 103). As teachers, we must understand that students do not learn in one single manner, but instead, incorporate many different learning strategies. It is stressed that students must be familiarized with a domain in order for them to practice disciplinary literacy. They must be interested in the subject and be able to connect their knowledge with their experiences inside and outside of school. This provides them with an opportunity to eventually think in an “identity,” and therefore, think critically. 

            Disciplinary literacy, as seen by Moje, is how knowledge is produced specific to a certain subject or domain. She believes that you must have background in a certain domain to understand and produce knowledge in a specific subject. She stresses identifying with the subject and relating that identity to every-day-life. She believes that literacy skills should be incorporated in all subjects in order to be successful – writing is crucial to science, although the “language” may differ from that of an English class. Gee, while he agrees that literacy skills are connected to the production of knowledge, stresses that “the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences are always situated, that is, customized to our actual content” (Gee, p. 716). He believes that disciplinary literacy is a social language and that everything you read and learn is through connections to experience.