Reading Matters Winter 2019

them what the numbers indicated. Her instinct as a scientist, however, wondered about the connection between pH levels and nitrates leading her to model her scientific reasoning. A little later, when Ms. Washington revisited Sabra’s group, students desired to create a scatterplot from the data, but were unsure if the pH level or nitrates should go on the x-axis prompting her to give a mini-lesson about independent and dependent variables. Reading authentic texts help students learn the language and discourse practices of that discipline, but these texts are finished products and do not easily reveal the thought processes of the expert who made that product. Without an understanding of the habits of mind in the discipline, students will struggle with reading these texts. Habits of mind represent the norms for how proficient participants in the discipline reason, read, and communicate. In science classes, for example, teachers can support how students habitually ask questions and define problems, plan and carry out investigations, analyze and interpret data, use computational thinking, construct explanations, design solutions, and engage in constructing arguments using collected evidence. Over time, and with appropriate scaffolding, students can develop these scientific habits of mind, using these habits to participate proficiently in constructing and critiquing scientific knowledge. Scaffolding learning experiences and using strategies like think-alouds enable teachers to apprentice students to these habits of mind (Grueber & Chuby, 2010; Hillman, 2014). Traditionally, teaching followed an “I do, you do”model; the teacher demonstrated a few examples on the board then told the students to do the rest on their own. To engage students in complex texts, however, teachers need to gradually release responsibility to the students based on their needs (Fisher & Frey, 2014). This gradual release still includes teacher modeling (“I do”) and student independence (“you do”), but between these two extremes are times when the teacher works with the student by asking probing questions (“we do”) and times when the student collaborates with peers (“you do together”). These intermediary steps allow students to practice what they have learned with immediate feedback. What and when to model, and how in-depth the modeling should be, depends on where the “bottlenecks” occur. Bottlenecks are points where learning is disrupted and can impede the development of conceptual knowledge and habits of mind (Pace & Middendorf, 2004). For example, students who struggle with arithmetic may fail to recognize the data suggest exponential growth. When a bottleneck occurs, the teacher needs to determine how the students are struggling with the text and model thinking accordingly, which guides students in getting “unstuck” in their thinking. This appropriate modeling could provide a mini-lesson to a group of students on reading or reasoning practices in that discipline or reading a portion of the text aloud and pausing to expose her own thinking. Teacher disciplinary literate thinking becomes a gift demonstrating how experts in that field approach texts and make sense of problems. Yet, modeling how to recognize the exponential growth in data may not be appropriate for all students in a class. What evidence does a teacher have to suggest which students are experiencing the same bottleneck? If formative

assessments reveal only four students in a class need this modeling, the modeling is not appropriate for the rest of the class and guided practice or collaborative practice or independent practice are more appropriate. Thus, appropriate modeling must scaffold thinking for the students who have demonstrated a need for further modeling based upon the thinking required for the disciplinary task. Given the necessity of formative assessment, collaborative formative assessment with students can allow teachers and students to determine when further modeling and scaffolding is appropriate. Responsive teaching, then, requires teachers and students to collaborative identify bottlenecks as a daily classroom practice. Conclusion Disciplinary reading has the potential to bore and frustrate or engage and empower. As governmental policies foreground the close reading of texts in middle and secondary school classrooms and background the context (and purpose) surrounding the reading of texts, it is imperative disciplinary teachers strike a balance, creating the motivation to use disciplinary texts in the first place. Using issues valued in the discipline and which directly influence the lives of students, teachers can design inquiry and tasks providing appropriate reasons to engage with disciplinary texts and discourses so students may gain the content knowledge and habits of mind valued by that discipline. Only within this context can the literate thinking of teachers be used to intentionally and appropriately address the observed bottlenecks in student disciplinary thinking. Responsive design of the reading purpose and appropriate modeling of disciplinary thinking can provide students like Sabra vital opportunities to develop deep conceptual knowledge and habits of mind in those specific disciplines. References Billman, A., & Pearson, P. (2013). Literacy in the disciplines. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 21 (1), 5-33.

Reading Matters Place Matters

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Scaffolded reading instruction of content-area texts. The Reading Teacher, 67(5), 347-351.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2012). Text complexity: Raising rigor in reading . Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Grueber, D., & Chuby, C. (2010). Smelling the chocolate: The perks of modeling habits of mind. Science Scope, 33(8), 57.

Hillman, A. M. (2014). A literature review on disciplinary literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 57 (5), 397-406.

Houseal, A., Gillis, V., Helmsing, M. & Hutchison, L. (2016). Disciplinary literacy through the

lens of the Next Generation Science Standards. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy , 59(4), 377-384.

Knutson, E. M. (1997). Reading with a purpose: Communicative reading tasks for the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals , 30 (1), 49-57.

| 28 | Reading Matters | Volume 19 • Winter 2019 | scira.org

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS