Entering the Conversations: Practicing Literacy in the Disciplines

The authors of Entering the Conversations invite us into their classrooms and professional development workshops to see how students at all levels of instruction can learn both the subject matter and the discipline-specific practices for reading and writing about that subject matter.

Yes, the inquiry-based, project method instruction the authors describe helps students meet requirements for literacy and subject matter learning experiences, including those named in the Common Core State Standards. But more important, we see the engagement and enthusiasm of students caught up in their roles as knowledge makers.

As emerging field-based specialists, these students address real-world issues such as the reintroduction of wolves to US ecosystems and how to shape attitudes toward social revolution. In doing so, they demonstrate the value of having students read and write information-rich texts in multiple genres and media. As natural legacies of the Writing Across the Curriculum movement, the authors' approaches to teaching literacies in the disciplines present a portrait of teachers as continual learners for and with their students. These approaches can help change the conversations about best practice in literacy learning and teaching, whether in the English classroom or across the disciplines.

Patricia Lambert Stock is the editor of Composition's Roots in English Education. Professor Emerita of English and Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures at Michigan State University, Patti has served as Associate Director of the Syracuse University Writing Program, as well as Founding Director of Michigan State University’s Writing Center and of two National Writing Project sites. A former president of NCTE and recipient of the council’s Distinguished Service Award, she has written books and articles about literacy teaching and learning, teacher research, the scholarship of teaching, writing programs and centers, and contingent faculty in higher education. Her published work has been recognized with the James Britton, Richard A. Meade, and Janet Emig Awards; with Hofstra University’s National Research Award; and, with Eileen Schell, the CCCC’s Outstanding Book Award.

Trace Schillinger is a secondary educator and the humanities coordinator at Poughkeepsie Day School in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Andrew Stock is a public elementary teacher at Vail Farm Elementary School in LaGrangeville, New York.