What does it mean to disciplinary literate?

Depending who you ask or what subject it’s in, it can

mean several different things. As the Fall semester of 2020 started, our class was asked this very

question. We were task to create a short essay about what we felt it meant to us and our content. While

I wrote that initial paper, I wasn’t very confident on what disciplinary literacy meant or how it related to

my content. It feels kind of trivial, looking back on what I knew, and what I know now. My answer hasn’t

really changed much, but it has evolved and crystalized into how I define it today. Disciplinary Literacy

simply means to have confidence and knowledge in the content provided to you. It can be in English,

Science, History, or even Art. If you have the knowledge to explain what the content is and the

confidence to back it up, you have disciplinary literacy.

As I said above, Disciplinary Literacy simply means to have confidence and knowledge in the

content provided to you. However, as a teacher, how can we provide this content to our students? I felt

this was the biggest hurdle to cross in the semester. I originally thought if you just taught the content,

threw in some Cornell Notes, and you would be fine. The students would just be able to grasp the

content and run away with it. However, my opinion was very wrong. You need to be able to build and

reinforce your content. First, by accessing prior knowledge. By accessing prior knowledge, it can help

you gage where students are with your content. Also, it gives students a heads up on the content you’re

about to teach. Second, we need to provide some kind of graphic organizer of infographic to the

students. By doing this, they can easily write down concepts, topics, terms, and final thoughts about the

lesson. The graphic organizer can be something you find on the internet or can be something creative

you or your students design. For my classroom, I still like my idea of the modified Cornell Notes I

created. The Cornell Notes allows the students to answer a prior knowledge question, see the terms that

will be covered, and think about the coming up content by reading concept questions provided to them

on the Cornell Notes. Lastly, we need to check for understanding. It can be an exit ticket, quiz, or lesson

opener the following day. Personally, I love the idea of an exit ticket. The exit ticket can be a Jamboard,
Padlet, or Miro. If you don’t have access to technology, you can use sticky notes and your whiteboard. I

believe an exit ticket is needed because it can help tie everything together and make it more cohesive.

By doing all of this, we can make disciplinary literacy easier to obtain in a classroom setting.

As a wrap up my final reflection, I want to take a second to say how important it is to make

everything accessible to our students. Disciplinary Literacy cannot be achieved unless we present it in a

meaningful and accessible way to all students. This is critical since we’re virtual. Moving forward, we

need to make sure that our content is accessible. Now that we’re virtual, it’s easier for use to create and

place our content on the internet. Share ideas, get active, in teacher groups and start creating content

for the digital age. I realized this while we were creating our Digital Learning Experience and how

impactful it can be towards our students. By making a digital lesson, students can create their paths and

engage content on a whole new level. Doing this assignment made me enjoy inquiry-based lessons for

once. I always thought they would be too much world, with little pay off. But my tune has changed when

it comes to inquiry. It’s given me several ideas for new lessons and projects to deliver to my students in

the future.

I want to take a quick second to reflect on my time this semester. It’s been crazy, fast paced,

exciting, stressful, and sad, all in a span of 3 months. Going into it, I knew it was going to be a cluster and

it was a cluster. However, it’s been a really good lesson for me to learn. I’ve never had a true online

experience, when it comes to learning. Now that I have this experience, I can create content that works

for my students and for myself. As someone who struggled their whole academic career, placed in

special education, and grew up with a speech impediment, I know how it feels not learn and be

frustrated with how content is being presented. Even in my college career, during this semester, I felt

this way. Now, I feel confident that I can provide amazing content, that can accessible to all. Content
that can engage a student, that can provide accurate knowledge, and proper reinforcement to help

educate an individual on my discipline’s literacy.