Disciplinary literacy, Part 1 - “What _____ Do” Anchor Charts

Pt 1 - “WHAT ___________ DO…” ANCHOR CHARTS

I'm so excited to share this first-in-a-series of strategies you can take back to your classrooms and use.
We’ll focus on disciplinary literacy in this series, which is one of my favorite things to talk about. I think there is tremendous potential for impact in deepening our students' learning by understanding and talking about the ideas of disciplinary literacy.

What is Disciplinary Literacy?

As we begin, let’s make sure that we have a shared understanding and definition of disciplinary literacy:

Disciplinary literacy is where “we teach students to move beyond the use of general literacy strategies and model and help them use specialized literacy practices for making sense of the unique texts found within our discipline.” [1] This is where your expertise and professionalism in your discipline come together with literacy strategies that support learning within your discipline: What does it mean to read, to write, to speak, to listen, to think critically - in mathematics, as a scientist, in an English class? That’s our focus here. What are the strategies? How we can draw them out in our classroom?

The very first strategy I like to utilize with my students at the beginning of the year is a "What ____ Do..." anchor chart. I was an English teacher, so we were looking at what we do as readers and writers within the context of our English course.

Step 1

I would start by giving my students a short text that was indicative of the types of text we were going to encounter during the year in our class. I'd ask them, for this initial read, to focus on identifying the main idea. I would also tell them to note what they were doing as readers as they made their way through this text. Throughout the process, they were encouraged to mark on the text. It was their copy to do with as they needed, however that worked for them.

Step 2

Their initial read would be followed by a time of self-reflection. I would ask them to consider: What did you notice about yourself as a reader? What strategies did you use? What did you notice when something got difficult for you? What did you notice about what made it easy for you?

Step 3

After their time of self-reflection, they were instructed to turn and share with a partner. I wanted them to be able to share their voice, but also to hear other's voices.

Step 4

Our next step was to come together, take their ideas, and start to create this "What Readers Do..." chart.

The very first strategy I like to utilize with my students at the beginning of the year is a "What ____ Do..." anchor chart.

But that’s not the end…

This would become a dynamic document. It wasn't a one-time activity, produced on one particular day in class. We would return to this anchor chart to remind ourselves what strategies and tools we had to draw on. As we learned new strategies or realized we were learning and using different tools than we had called out before, we would add them to the list.

What I learned from interviewing [students who were labeled as “struggling”] - from really listening to them - was they thought they were the only one for whom this was difficult.

Labels & Misconceptions

Part of my rationale for doing this was that I taught students who, for lack of better terms, you hear referred to as “struggling” readers or “unmotivated,” although I don't like those kinds of labels. What I learned from interviewing them - from really listening to them - was they thought they were the only one for whom this was difficult. They thought, as they sat in classes with students who would raise their hand and answer questions or seem to know everything - the ones they would call “good readers” – they thought these other students read from the first word to the last and everything immediately made sense. But we know, as educators and learners ourselves, that this isn’t the case. So I wanted to call that out and make it explicit for all of my readers that we all have strategies and tools when we encounter literature or nonfiction text that we are working on within the classroom. That we can actually add tools to our toolbox. That's how I began to use these anchor charts.

These anchor charts have been used by my colleagues in other content areas as well. If you look at the photo below, you’ll see an example of "What Mathematicians Do..." It’s the same idea.

“What ___________ Do”

anchor charts can be used for

any classroom discipline.

My colleague gave their students a word problem and had them think about what they did to make their way through it. What did they do to solve the problem? Where did they start? How did they decide which information was relevant? Did they get anything wrong along the way and have to restart? And so forth, moving through the steps of self-reflection and group collaboration to begin to create their “What Mathematicians Do” anchor chart.

Through this opportunity for learners to think about themselves, what they're doing, and to reflect, we get to begin together, to create as a community, what it means to think, and to read, and to write, and to speak, and to listen within our content, our discipline.

We empower students, help them overcome obstacles to learning, and create a dynamic learning environment as we go back to this idea of using specialized literacy practices that help us make sense of the text and the learning tools we’re going to use within our classroom, within our discipline.

I'd love to hear if you already use this strategy or a similar strategy. What's worked for you? What have you realized?

If this is new to you and you try this strategy in your classroom, please come back and share your insights and reflection. What did you learn? What questions did it raise for you?

Reach out to me! I’d love to hear your successes, your questions,
your challenges, and your experiences in the classroom.

I hope this is helpful.

I can't wait to hear about all the great learning your students are doing!

Come back next Thursday for Part 2 in our Disciplinary Literacy series!

References:

McConachie, S.M. & Petrosky, Anthony. (2012). Content Matters: A Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Improving Student Learning. Content Matters: A Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Improving Student Learning. 10.1002/9781118269466.

Schoenbach, Ruth. (2012). Reading for understanding : how reading apprenticeship improves disciplinary learning in secondary and college classrooms. San Francisco :Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.