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Running Head: Reflection 1

Reflection 1

Shelby Hemley

Arizona State University

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Running Head: Reflection 1

Disciplinary literacy is when teachers provide discipline-specific techniques and

instruction, as opposed to content-area literacy, which is strategies for literacy that can be used

throughout any content area like math, science, or history. This type of teaching “literacy focuses

on discrete ways reading and writing are used in the specific discipline being studied.” (Chauvin

et al 2015). For example, in an English class, students might learn how to dissect a poem using

the analysis of literary devices such as metaphors and rhyme schemes. According to “Reading in

the Disciplines”, “They need tools to understand such worlds, to be able to map salient features

of these unfamiliar environments to their own prototypical dilemmas as human beings.” (Lee et

al 2010). This approach to reading is very different from how a science teacher would instruct

students on how to write a lab report, how a math teacher would give students lessons on how to

interpret word problems, or how a history teacher might have students analyze political cartoons.

Each of these content areas have different skills necessary to be successful in that discipline,

which content-area literacy does not involve. Another important discipline for learning in the 21st

century is digital literacy: “In light of these rapid, constant advancements that require us to adapt

our existing skills or adopt new communicative skills, literacy as the ability to read and write

traditional, print-based texts needs to be redefined… The ways adolescents use digital tools (e.g.,

smartphones, computers) are examples of how more multimodal, out-of-school literacies differ

from the more dominant, academic literacies that students use in school” (Lewis). This means

that teachers need to adapt to the new technologies that students are using and incorporate them

into the classroom so that students can be more engaged and practice their literacies in different

ways. These distinctions in literacy matter because the times are changing, and literacy is no

longer defined as simply knowing how to read and write. To be successful in and out of the

classroom, students need to understand the distinctions between literacies in technology and in
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Running Head: Reflection 1
various content areas. Throughout their lives, students will have an increasingly difficult time

finding jobs and succeeding in higher education without being able to differentiate between

these. By doing this now, teachers are giving students a greater advantage “and prepares them

for the global world beyond the classroom” (Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age 2019). As of

2020, students are already facing a disconnect between what they are learning in school and what

they are doing at home and out in the world, so it is crucial for teachers to bridge this gap. To do

so, they can start by incorporating technology into the classroom to “achieve deeper and more

authentic contexts. … As learners utilize and enculturate in current and future digital contexts,

they need opportunities to promote, amplify, and encourage differing forms of language”

(Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age 2019). Eventually, the use of disciplinary literacy will

allow students to learn like the experts of that content and will have an advantage over others

without the technology skills to survive in an increasingly necessary digital world.

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Running Head: Reflection 1

References

Chauvin, R., & Theodore, K. (2015, Spring). Teaching Content-Area Literacy and Disciplinary

Literacy. Retrieved from https://sedl.org/insights/3-1/index.html

Lee, C., & Spratley, A. (2010). Reading in the Disciplines: Challenges of Adolescent Literacy.

Retrieved from https://production-

carnegie.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/88/05/880559fd-afb1-49ad-af0e-

e10c8a94d366/ccny_report_2010_tta_lee.pdf

Lewis, E. C. (n.d.). 10. Twenty-First Century Perspectives on Adolescent Literacy and

Instruction. Retrieved from https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/steps-to-

success/chapter/10-twenty-first-century-perspectives-on-adolescent-literacy-and-

instruction/

Unknown. Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age. (2019, November 7). Retrieved from

https://ncte.org/statement/nctes-definition-literacy-digital-age/