Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry and Instruction

What do you get when a high school English teacher, a middle school literacy coach, and an elementary school teacher realize that the old adage of "every teacher is a teacher of reading" misses the bigger picture? 

Jacy Ippolito, Christina Dobbs, and Megin Charner-Laird have spent the last decade trying to answer that question, working with teachers across grade levels, conducting studies, and analyzing research in order to build a more comprehensive instructional framework that engages students in every content area. The answer they came to is disciplinary literacy.

Disciplinary Literacy doesn't ask all teachers to be general reading teachers; it asks all educators to empower students to adopt and eventually adapt the language, genres, and modalities prized by each discipline -- to give students the tools to take on professional identities. By combining the RAND model for reading comprehension with collaborative cycles of inquiry, Ippolito, Dobbs, and Charner-Laird connect effective professional learning to shifts in classroom practice. The resulting framework supports teachers and leaders in designing the disciplinary literacy teaching and learning experiences that students need to succeed within and beyond school.

This book provides research-based frameworks, guiding questions and examples, and lots of stories from teachers who have already walked the path of Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry and Instruction -- it's for educators who want to take ownership of their own learning alongside like-minded colleagues, and raise the achievement of all their students.

• Jacy Ippolito is an associate professor and department chair of the Secondary and Higher Education Department for the School of Education at Salem State University, Salem MA. His research and teaching focus on the intersection of adolescent literacy, literacy coaching, teacher leadership, and school reform.
• Christina L. Dobbs is a program director and assistant professor of English education at Boston University. Her research focuses on the academic language writing of secondary students and the disciplinary literacy training and professional development of teachers.
• Megin Charner-Laird is an associate professor in the School of Education at Salem State University where she also serves as the Lead Faculty for Assessment. Her research focuses on teachers' school-based professional learning experiences, teacher leadership, and teachers' on-the-ground experiences of policy reforms.