Disciplinary Literacy in Action: How to Create and Sustain a School-Wide Culture of Deep Reading, Writing, and Thinking (Corwin Literacy)

Reading is indeed, fundamental. And to take it another step, one may look at literacy as community. Educators and founding member of a literacy initiative Releah Cossett Lent and Consultant and literacy coach Marsha McCracken Voigt collaborate to write and share their efforts for “Disciplinary Literacy in Action: How to Create and Sustain a School-Wide Culture of Deep Reading, Writing, and Thinking" the follow-up to their previous “This is Disciplinary Literacy." When first reading the information in the book, one major element may come to mind; it is practical and applicable within a multidisciplinary approach that the authors assert through thinking, creating, and communicating.The book contains nine chapters that focus upon teacher and learner/student to teacher-to-teacher, and overall, the community. And when it comes to does the book pertain to one particular field of study and subject matter, not at all; the appendices offer a glimpse of the interdisciplinary aspects of literacy that crosses disciplines and teachers, Social Studies, Art, World Language, Technology, Physical Education, Health, and Music. However, as one reads the preliminary chapters, Lent and Voigt provide details that may mold into other subjects. In essence, the book definitely, suggests the fundamentals of learning and literacy in a textbook format that include diagrams, testimonials of the effectiveness of the various methods shared in the chapters, and the helpful discussion questions at the end of each chapter; the details show that this approach to learning literacy is a collaborative effort as well as on-hands for all contributors and participants. And only further asserts that knowledge is supported by reading, writing, viewing, reasoning, and communicating. One of the interesting part of the book, teachers that had taught for over 20 years see that, indeed, learning is ongoing with each new student and approach, especially when technology is an important tool.Disciplinary Literacy is an informative book that may be referred to more than once because of the immense amount of helpful and enlightening details to learning and reading.

Disciplinary Literacy in Action this professional education book by Corwin is about 350 pages and is inspiring to try to improve literacy in all content areas. This book focuses on middle school and high school. There are some color photographs in the book showing the projects or ideas being illustrated. This book gives specific hands on and useful ideas for how content area teachers can get students reading, thinking, and discussing. Teachers are encouraged to each have a classroom library. I liked the references to Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher. I ordered this and first read it when I was new to teaching middle school English Language Arts.

My interest in this book comes from being a high school teacher and graduate student nearing the completion of my degree in educational leadership. The premise of Disciplinary Literacy is that ALL content areas need to support students in developing robust literacy skills. As an English teacher, I say AMEN! This topic is probably one you're familiar with if you've ever had to sit in on district-mandated PD. It's always nice when the art teachers roll their eyes at the concept of teaching literacy and then agree to throw in an artist bio or two. That is not what cross-discipline literacy looks like! If you are interested in what teaching literacy across content areas can look like when done correctly, this is the book for you.The book lends itself well to implementation within professional learning committees (or communities depending on which buzzword your school prefers). Each section contains discussion questions and resources to explore for those wanting to go further with the content. The last 20% or so of the book is specifically for administrators and coaches looking for ways to support teachers in creating a culture of literacy while also holding teachers accountable. There is a ton of great information specific to content areas along with website resource suggestions and mentor text suggestions.

good resource for teachers

This book is well-researched with the most recent evidence and best practices. It is very readable so that it would be very appropriate for teachers and academic coaches of every stage in their career from novice to expert, and this would also be very good for administration personnel to help understand the best ways to strive for excellence in reading, writing & critical thinking for all students. There are great ideas for collaboration across the school campus for working together and interacting with students. This is full of ideas.

In these woebegone days of Twitterchat and USATodayspeak, it is no surprise that our students lack skills in verbosity. This much-need tome seeks to correct this culture by using a multi-discipline approach with the school. Well done! Every teacher should read this book.

The book was dirty on the front cover and the edges were bent in. I had to wipe the front and back of the book to clean it. I would have returned the item, but I needed to read the text within a few days, so I decided to keep it.