Disciplinary Literacy Task Force

Welcome to the April edition of the Disciplinary Literacy Task Force newsletter. We are delighted you are here! This edition explores possibilities, including a story of one middle school's initial implementation of disciplinary literacy, information on free online courses to support educators in teaching disciplinary reading practices, and helpful websites to assist in offering students a broad array of disciplinary texts.

This work may not be easy, but it is definitely possible. In the words of a high school mathematics teacher, “Disciplinary Literacy is more than just one-off ideas or strategies to implement occasionally in your teaching or when you have time. It is a culture and expectation in your classroom that when students come in they know they will be expected to DO to learn. They will be expected to problem solve, ask questions, think critically, and discuss in order to show their learning. They won’t come in and just passively receive the information before regurgitating on a test. It doesn’t actually require a whole lot of time, simply small 1% changes slowly, day by day, and an attitude to make yourself and your teaching practice better.”

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Happy Reading!

By Amy Gurney, Assistant Principal of Seitz Middle School, Riverview Community Schools

Our journey with disciplinary literacy started with a data trend that our ELA team was not happy about, so we reached out to Laura Gabrion and Jeff Austin, Literacy Consultants at Wayne RESA. Then I went to MASSP EdCon in June 2024; Jenelle Williams presented a session for administrators on Disciplinary Literacy. As a result of that session, I knew that disciplinary literacy was the next actionable step for my team. Laura and Jeff coordinated with me to put a professional learning plan in place. With Laura and Jeff, we built in a 3-cycle learning experience with ELA teachers in grades 6-8. Each cycle consisted of one day of learning within the Essential Instructional Practices in Disciplinary Literacy, one day of Instructional Rounds with coaching conversations, and a debrief conversation. Throughout these cycles, we chose to focus on Essential Practice 2 (diverse texts and reading opportunities) and Essential Practice 3 (intentional and standards-aligned reading instruction). This ELA team also attended the professional learning sessions on Disciplinary Literacy presented by Wayne RESA staff.

To grow teacher practice across our school, representatives from our Guiding Coalition (1 social studies teacher, 1 ELA teacher, and 1 science teacher) attended the RESA professional learning session on the Essential School-Wide Practices in Disciplinary Literacy in November of 2024. We have been using our Guiding Coalition to open up further conversation about Disciplinary Literacy practices throughout our school.

The most helpful element to the learning this year was the yearlong calendar that we built with our Literacy Consultants. It was also highly beneficial for this calendar to include instructional rounds because it allowed teachers to practice the elements they were learning about and it allowed the consultants to truly get to know the teachers and make learning plans based on these relationships. Teachers say that it was nice to realize that they were already doing a lot of the things in the Essential Practices document. Now that they recognize the importance of continuing to grow these Essential Practices, they can be more purposeful about attending to these practices within classrooms and in conversations with colleagues. As we continue this work, we will be educating our families, involving our community, and seeking feedback from students.

The online, fully-narrated courses linked below guide educators through effective disciplinary reading instruction examples and resources.

EduPaths Course 5.1: https://edupaths.org/catalog/1820/details

EduPaths Course 5.2: https://edupaths.org/catalog/1824/details

Explore recommended resources to increase the variety of disciplinary texts students read:

All Courses: Achievethecore.org :: Text Set Project: Building Knowledge and Vocabulary and

https://kentuckytextsets.weebly.com/middle-grades.html

Math & Science: https://scienceandliteracy.missouri.edu/about/

Social Studies: https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news

Science: https://datanuggets.org/

Click on our professional learning flyer to find more information and registration links for these upcoming professional learning events:

• Michigan Assessment Consortium Assessment Learning Network (registration opening soon for the 2025-2026 series)
• EduPaths online courses (they're free!)
• Disciplinary Literacy for Secondary Leaders online course

We are always interested to hear how educators are taking up the work of disciplinary literacy. Take a few moments to share your story here: https://forms.gle/Rbuqa6wZCkhy5bnT9.

The Disciplinary Literacy Task Force is comprised of consultants from across the state of Michigan, each of whom brings their own disciplinary expertise. We meet monthly, and our most pressing goal is to continue to scale this work statewide. We also prioritize equity in the delivery of our services as well as building and leveraging partnerships across the state in an effort to promote this important work. Our ongoing work includes planning for, creating, and implementing professional learning for secondary educators and using this newsletter, our blog, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other publications to broaden awareness about this approach and its benefits to our secondary students. Click here to access an interactive map with Task Force member contact information. We look forward to increased opportunities to work with you!