Disciplinary Literacy in Action: How to Create and Sustain a School-Wide Culture of Deep Reading, Writing, and Thinking
About this ebook
—Doug Buehl, Author of Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines
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.
About the author
ReLeah Cossett Lent is an international consultant known for speaking, writing, and providing workshops on various topics ranging from literacy to leadership teams. She was previously a middle and high school English, Social Studies, and Journalism teacher before becoming a founding member of a state-wide literacy project at the University of Central Florida. There, she contributed to developing Florida′s Reading Endorsement courses and coordinated literacy leadership teams statewide. Her most impactful work stems from multi-day residencies in schools, districts, and consortiums, where she has created numerous professional learning initiatives with positive results in student achievement and teacher leadership. An advocate for student ownership and active learning, ReLeah emphasizes powerful collective efficacy as teacher teams engage in problem solving. She has been recognized with several awards, including intellectual freedom awards from the National Council of Teachers of English and The American Library Association, the PEN First Amendment Award, and the Florida Council of Teachers of English (FCTE) President′s Award for her "significant contributions to the teachings of English in State of Florida."
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.
