The Disciplinary Agenda

Bill Tucker, Director

The Saturday Series “Literacy Standards for Life” turns toward the literacy of disciplines in 2013. As we did a year ago, we are featuring teachers who are developing content area literacy in their classrooms in science and social studies, as well as English Language Arts.
A Disciplinary Literacy Institute held at EMU last summer brought together college and high school teachers of the natural and social sciences for three days to identify common issues in teaching reading and writing. In one of our sessions on February 2, Co-director Cathy Fleischer, Professor Ann Blakeslee, and Sarah Andrew-Vaughn (TC’00), facilitators of that institute, will present the issues and conclusions of those conversations.

Bill Weidner, Central Academy, presenting on Argumentation  

Concurrently Shari Hales (TC ‘12) and a social studies colleague will demonstrate the writing that addresses real audiences for grades 5-8. Both sessions will identify the kinds of writing that real scientists and historians do.
A panel of college professors will follow-up both presentations by reflecting on what levels and kinds of writing they consider “college ready.”

Doug Baker, EMU, presenting on Argumentation  

Disciplinary literacy will be the focus of the March and April presentations as well, as teachers who received Teacher Leadership grants will share the results of their inquiries in literacy of the social and natural sciences. Julie King (TC ’96) will lead a team from Emerson Middle School, sharing work in science and social studies that has a long tradition at her school. We are still looking for a team of teachers at the high school and/ or college level to present at this session. This would be a great venue for teachers of social studies and science to share their approaches to literacy and the Common Core Standards. Please contact Bill Tucker, if you have a nomination for this session.

In April we will have new teacher consultants sharing their unique work with archival research. Abby Combs (TC ’12) will demonstrate the use of the Library of Congress collection in social studies, and Cynthia Andrews (TC’12) will demonstrate the many uses of the Henry Ford Collection from her work in grades 3-8.

Teacher Research groups will culminate the 2013 series in May. The EMWP’s Teacher Research group will share the work they are pursuing across the grades and disciplines, and the Ann Arbor Learning Community will demonstrate their disciplinary research from the past year, sponsored by a Teacher Leadership grant.

See the attached schedule for dates and times and pre-register, if you can.