Investigating Disciplinary Literacy : A Framework for Collaborative Professional Learning

Investigating Disciplinary Literacy provides practical, research-based guidance for teachers seeking to strengthen students’ reading, writing, and communication skills in subjects from the humanities to the sciences. The authors present a framework for conducting professional development cycles based on disciplinary literacy-related learning and district-based research projects they have conducted over the past five years.
 
The book outlines the steps in the cycle and identifies four “working habits” essential to initiating and sustaining disciplinary literacy projects: balancing content with process; creating a culture of adaptation and invention; attending equally to intermediate and subject-specific literacy skills; and positioning teachers and leaders as learners within projects. The book, written in a reader-friendly voice, shows how educators can collaboratively explore and implement disciplinary literacy-related practices in context-specific, meaningful ways.
 

Christina L. Dobbs is an assistant professor in the English Education program at the Boston University School of Education in Boston, Massachusetts. Christina’s research focuses on disciplinary literacy and academic language, the development of adolescent writing skills, and the professional learning that supports teachers in these areas. Christina is particularly interested in effective disciplinary instruction for students who are diverse along a variety of dimensions and the potential of teachers to enact effective instruction for all students. Her work has been published in journals including Reading Research Quarterly, Written Communication, the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Applied Psycholinguistics. Christina was an editor of the volume Humanizing Education: Critical Alternatives to Reform. She earned her master’s and doctorate degrees at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a literacy coach and reading specialist, and began her teaching career as a high school English teacher in Houston, Texas.

Jacy Ippolito is an associate professor and department chair in the School of Education at Salem State University, Salem, Massachusetts. Jacy’s research, teaching, and consulting focus on the intersection of adolescent and disciplinary literacy, literacy coaching, teacher leadership, and school reform. Jacy is especially interested in the roles that teacher leaders, literacy coaches, and principals play in helping institute and maintain instructional change at middle and high school levels. The results of Jacy’s research and consulting work can be found in a number of journals and books, including the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Professional Development in Education, the Journal of School Leadership, the Journal of Staff Development, and The Elementary School Journal. His recent books include Cultivating Coaching Mindsets (2016), Adolescent Literacy in the Era of the Common Core (2013), and Adolescent Literacy (2012). Jacy completed his master’s degree and doctorate in language and literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior to his work in higher education, Jacy worked as a middle school reading specialist, literacy coach, and drama teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Megin Charner-Laird is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Salem State University, Salem, Massachusetts, where she also serves as the Lead Faculty for Assessment. Megin’s research and teaching focus on the ways that teachers learn and grow as professionals, how they respond to policy enactment, and how teacher leadership can serve as a lever for improvement in classrooms and schools. Megin’s work puts teachers at the center and is premised on the belief that teachers have the capacity to develop and enact the changes necessary to improve teaching and learning for all students. Megin’s research and writing have been published in a number of journals, including Teachers College Record, the Journal of School Leadership, Educational Administration Quarterly, the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Professional Development in Education, and the Journal of Staff Development. She served as an editor of Education Past and Present: Reflections on Research, Policy, and Practice, a volume celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Harvard Educational Review. Megin completed her master’s degree and doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior to her studies there, she taught elementary school in California’s Bay Area.