Disciplinary (Science) Literacy in a Nutshell
Disciplinary literacy, is literacy (able to read the “text” and write the “words”) in a specialized or academic field. Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) define disciplinary literacy as, “advanced literacy instruction embedded within content-area classes such as math, science, and social studies” (p. 40). These content areas have different ways of writing and the expectations of reading what has been written. Science literacy includes, “the abilities and habits-of-mind required to construct understandings of science, to apply these big ideas to realistic problems and issues involving science, technology, society, and the environment, and to inform and persuade other people to take action based on these science ideas” (as quoted in Klaus-Quinlan and Cazier, 2009, p. 83). General literacy is on a larger scale, music, art, and other interactions between one person or party and those being “spoken” to. To be literate in a discipline, is more finite and focused. Disciplinary literacy is achieved through periods of inquiry and critical thinking, which is groomed by teachers and individuals with the knowledge within the subject.
Literacy has multiple tiers that are developed as individuals mature. The skills are groomed through the classroom and independent interactions in the primary (family) and secondary (social facilities) Discourses. The pyramid that is used in Shanahan and Shanahan (2009) has three tiers, and depicts how the development of literacy progresses (p. 43). The number of people able to be literate in a discipline narrows as the material becomes more difficult, or up the pyramid. The difficulty of higher level skills and texts, becomes challenging because “they are rarely taught” (Shanahan and Shanahan, 2009, p. 45). Teachers should use the resources available to them to help students build up disciplinary literacy from lower tiers through inquiry stimulation. The Carnegie –funded research project is one such resource available to teachers, which identifies high school-appropriate literacy skills and exploring how to prepare teachers to teach the skills.
Disciplinary literacy in science begins with inquiry to generate questions based on observation. The purpose of teaching is to use best practices and subject knowledge to create the best results for the students. “Inquiry refers both to the abilities and understandings students should develop…and it refers to the teaching and learning strategies that enable scientific concepts to be mastered through investigations…Teaching science through inquiry allows students to conceptualize a question and then seek possible explanations that respond to that question” (as quoted in Klaus-Quinlan and Cazier, 2009, p. 85). A teacher in Aurora Colorado helps create inquiry by using a method he calls fire; believe the students will engage to the best of their abilities, engage the students in science, and use best inquiry practices in teaching strategies. He refers to this as “lighting the fire of learning” (Klaus-Quinlan and Cazier, 2009, p. 83). Inquiry is used to give the students a critical question to follow when reading and through the class, but lets them continue to grapple with new information and concepts throughout the class. At the end, he makes sure that their inquiry has led them to a positive understanding and creates a discussion for all the students to express themselves. Inquiry helps stimulate critical thinking, which leads to a subjective understanding of disciplinary literacy.
Critical thinking leads students to be able to learn like a scientist. Critical thinking is defined as using cognitive skills to “evaluate and judge the accuracy and importance of information” (Durwin and Reese-Weber, 2017, p. 494). Overcoming two common barriers to critical thinking, sociocentric and egocentric, should be a focus for all teachers. The student’s idea their culture is right or they already know the material implicitly. Literacy in science is “largely dependent on understanding the practices of science, or the ways of doing, thinking, reading, writing, and talking science” (as quoted by Tang, Tighe, & Moje). Students must be engaged in order to learn this language of science. To proceed through the scientific method, previous research has to be read and analyzed. Critical thinking is essential in this process, due to the necessity of multimodal practices, the ability and “fluency of translating from one mode (of reading) to another”. Students need to be able to read graphs, data, and information, but change that information to a language they can process easily.
Fang (2004) describes literacy in scientific writing as containing, “unique linguistic features that construe special realms of scientific knowledge, values, and beliefs” (335). To be literate in Science, critical thinking is essential to find the meaning in the texts outside the charts, graphs, and symbols. To flow between the pictures and the text, and still maintain the concepts. Inquiry helps fuel the excitement that drives critical thinking. The excitement of discovery and understanding the world around us. To be literate in science, means to use inquiry and critical thinking to arrive at conclusions that others can understand and recreate the same results.
References
Bazerman, C. (1998). Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity of the experimental article in science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. <https://wac.colostate.edu/books/bazerman_shaping/chapter2.pdf>
Durwin, C., & Reese-Weber, M. (2017). Ed Psych Modules. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Fang, Z. (2004). Scientific literacy: A functional linguistic perspective. Science Education, 89, 335–347.
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.20050/epdf>
Klaus-Quinlan, M., & Cazier, Jeff. (2009). The scientist in the classroom: The place of literacy within scientific inquiry. The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools: Creating a Culture of Thinking. 81–95.
Shanahan, C., & Shanahan T. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78, 40–59.
Tang, K. S., Tighe, S. C., & Moje, E. B., Literacy in the Science Classroom. Teaching Dilemmas and Solutions in Content-Area Literacy, Grades 6–12. 53–79.
