Literacy in the Disciplines: A Teacher's Guide for Grades 5-12

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Diane Lapp

This book gives all teachers in grades 5-12 practical strategies for building the unique literacy skills that students need for success in their respective subject areas. Drawing from interviews with leading educators and professionals in science, mathematics, history, the arts, and other disciplines, the authors explain what disciplinary literacy is and discuss ways to teach close reading of complex texts, discipline-specific argumentation skills, academic vocabulary, the use of multimodal tools and graphic organizers, and more. User-friendly features include classroom materials, lesson plans, practice activities, and recommended online teaching videos. Purchasers get access to a webpage where they can download and print the book's 20 reproducible forms in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size.

Genres: Education

230 pages, Paperback

Published October 29, 2016

About the author

Dr. Thomas DeVere Wolsey teaches and supervises graduate courses related to literacy, assessment, and technology. He worked in public schools for more than twenty years, teaching English, social studies, and other elective classes. He earned his doctorate at the University of San Diego/San Diego State University, and he also holds a masters degree in educational administration from California State University at San Bernardino. His articles on literacy and technology have appeared in The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Action in Teacher Education, The California Reader, The Journal of Educational Administration, The International Journal on e-Learning, The Journal of Education, and The Journal of Literacy Research and Instruction. He serves on the review boards of several journals, including The Reading Teacher and The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. His recent books include Learning to Predict and Learning from Predictions: How Thinking about What Might Happen Next Helps Students Learn, Literacy Growth for Every Child, and Transforming Writing Instruction in the Digital Age: Techniques for Grades 5-12. Second edition in progress: Teaching the Language Arts: Forward Thinking in Today's Classrooms

Wolsey is interested in how literacy intersects with online and physical learning spaces, writing as a feature of learning about disciplines (e.g., mathematics, social studies), and reading in digital environments.

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-DeVere-W...

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the best book available to address literacy in the disciplines; it actually does acknowledge non-core courses such as PE and related arts, but the focus on these areas is still thin. This text still privileges the main four core contents: English, science, math, and social studies.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read as part of my Reading Across the Content Area class. I really loved the way that the author included examples across all disciplines so that we could see how each of the methods could be used.

[Adrienne B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has spelling and grammatical errors - in a literacy textbook. Also the language was very base level and not really academically challenging.