Real-World Literacies: Disciplinary Teaching in the High School Classroom

Our highly technological and increasingly connected world needs more people capable of creative, innovative, and imaginative thinking that crosses disciplines. Why, then, are so many educators pressured to fall back on a standardized, test-driven, single-subject approach to instruction? How can secondary school educators across the disciplines build teaching and learning practices that respond to the complex literacy demands of the twenty-first century?

Heather Lattimer draws on Literacies of Disciplines: An NCTE Policy Research Brief and stories from high school classrooms to illustrate how we can learn to recognize the unique languages and literacy structures represented by various disciplines and then help our students both navigate within individual disciplines and travel among them. Lattimer explores instructional practices grounded in real-world contexts that provide students with opportunities to approximate the kinds of reading, writing, listening, and speaking that occur in the world beyond school.

Through a range of rich classroom examples, explanations of theory and practice in teacher-friendly language, guiding questions to support discussion and classroom application, and annotated lists of resources, Lattimer reframes the conversation away from generalized strategy instruction and toward true disciplinary literacy. This book proves that “we can find opportunities to create meaningful learning experiences that concurrently nurture content understanding, literacy skill development, and twenty-first-century skills."

Heather Lattimer is an associate professor of education and chair of the Department of Learning and Teaching in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego. A former middle and high school teacher, she holds credentials in three content areas: history/social science, mathematics, and English language arts. Lattimer has previously published four books, including Thinking through Genre: Units of Study in Reading and Writing Workshops 4-12 (2003) and Reading for Learning: Using Discipline-Based Texts to Build Content Knowledge (2010). A nationally recognized speaker and consultant, her scholarly work focuses on secondary literacy, disciplinary literacy, teacher education, and international education. Lattimer has earned degrees from Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of California, San Diego.