RM Winter 2016 FLIP

read and write in specific content areas. This work could include analyzing textbooks, discussing specific theories and practices within the designated fields, and talking about goals for student learning outcomes (Johnson, Watson, Delahunty, McSwiggen, & Smith, 2011). They could use this newfound knowledge to streamline the selection and teaching of literacy strategies that will be relevant to individual content areas. This could be a reciprocal process as the content area instructor could concurrently learn about literacy strategies from the literacy teacher educator. The content area instructor could in turn apply literacy strategies in the teaching of his or her designated content. Students would experience a strategy being used across multiple contexts, in the content area literacy course and in the subject area course, which would help them to understand the effective integration of literacy and see what it could look like in the P-12 classroom setting. PRINCIPLE 2: Look for commonalities across content area subjects and group cohorts based on these commonalities. As mentioned previously, there are challenges to offering different content areas literacy courses to students across every discipline. Thus, one of the things that literacy teacher educators could encourage administrators to consider as they plan course schedules is to think about grouping students based on the commonalities across disciplines. Some examples of grouping options could be: • Grouping students based on the emphasis of reading and writing in the disciplines. Subjects such as art, mathematics, music, physical education, and foreign language have not traditionally been considered to be content areas that heavily focus on reading and writing (Ming, 2012). However, there are designated strategies that are appropriate for these subject areas. In a course with this kind of grouping arrangement, the course instructor would have the opportunity to emphasize why literacy is relevant to each of these four content areas and would be able to select and teach about literacy strategies that are not heavily text dependent. On the other hand, subjects such as science, history, English, and geography rely more heavily on students reading and processing large amounts of connected text. Therefore grouping students based on this need would allow the course instructor to introduce literacy strategies that are more text focused. • Grouping students based on the academic level where they are currently teaching or plan to teach. Teaching in an elementary school looks very different than it does in a middle or high school setting. Elementary teachers are responsible for teaching all of the content areas on a daily basis. At the middle and high school levels, teachers typically have one or two content areas of focus. Therefore, in working with preservice and inservice teachers at the elementary level, literacy teacher educators need to focus on sharing literacy strategies that are not only pertinent to specific subjects, but that can be easily adapted across content areas. This will enable teachers in this setting to work smarter as they prepare multidisciplinary lessons, and make learning connections as they work with students. As literacy teacher educators work with preservice and inservice middle and secondary level educators, they can target their strategy selection and use very specific strategies that match the characteristics of the disciplines and the needs of adolescent learners (Dew & Teague, 2015).

615). This being said, the teacher education programs across the state must address the needs of today’s adolescents by preparing our preservice and inservice teachers to deliver the appropriate disciplinary literacy instruction that is unique to each content area. The Delivery of Content Area Literacy Instruction Most content area literacy courses have traditionally been taught using a cross-disciplinary model. That is, students from multiple content areas take the same course, learning about generic strategies that may be adapted to fit any content area subject. However, with the emphasis on disciplinary literacy, institutions are moving towards providing literacy instruction that is intra-disciplinary in nature (Fang, 2014; Lesley, 2014). This kind of content area literacy instruction is ideal as it gives literacy teacher educators the opportunity to tailor the literacy strategies presented to fit the unique characteristics of a specific content area. However, with this kind of a delivery model, logistical matters must be considered to determine whether this method is feasible. First, the size of content area cohorts varies greatly depending on the subject area. For example, within one institution, the number of students majoring in social studies education can be vastly greater than the number of students majoring in music education at a given point in time. Therefore, to have a content area literacy course solely for music education majors would not be practical. Second, the manpower that is needed to teach across a variety of content area courses is sometimes not available in smaller institutions. Oftentimes, smaller schools have a handful of literacy faculty who must teach multiple literacy courses. Therefore, asking for multiple content area literacy courses to be taught could put a strain on faculty schedules. As a result, fully moving away from the cross- disciplinary approach to teaching content area literacy courses may not be possible, and as a result, literacy teacher educators may consider how they can adapt their current practices to ensure that the variety of disciplines represented in their courses are being meaningfully addressed. The five principles below are ideas for literacy teacher educators to consider as they move forward in designing and delivering their content area literacy courses. Five Principles to Consider When Teaching a Content Area Literacy Course across Disciplines PRINCIPLE 1: Collaborate with content area colleagues in designing and delivering instruction. Literacy teacher educators come from a variety of academic backgrounds and may or may not have formal training in content area subjects, especially as it pertains to middle and secondary level courses (Fang & Coatoam, 2013). For example, a literacy teacher educator who has an elementary education undergraduate degree, a master’s and doctoral degree in literacy, and now teaches at the higher education level has training in how to teach content area subjects up to the sixth grade. Unless this individual has sought out opportunities to take courses related to teaching content area subjects to middle level and secondary students, this kind of background knowledge may not be in place. Therefore, literacy teacher educators should work with content area instructors to learn about what it means to

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Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | scira.org | 25 |

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