Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines

Book excerpt: Being literate in an academic discipline means more than simply being able to read and comprehend text; it means you can think, speak, and write as a historian, scientist, mathematician, or artist. Doug Buehl strips away the one-size-fits-all approach to content area literacy and presents a much-needed instructional model for disciplinary literacy, showing how to mentor middle and high school learners to become "academic insiders" who are college and career ready. This thoroughly revised second edition of Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines shows how to help students adjust their thinking to comprehend a range of complex texts that fall outside their reading comfort zones. This book --a natural companion to Buehl's Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, which has been bolstering student comprehension for almost three decades--provides the following supports for teachers: Instructional tools that adapt generic literacy practices to discipline-specific variations Strategies for frontloading instruction to activate and build background knowledge New approaches for encouraging inquiry around disciplinary texts In-depth exploration of the role of argumentation in informational text Numerous examples from science, mathematics, history and social studies, English/language arts, and related arts to show you what vibrant learning looks like in various classroom settings Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines introduces teachers from all disciplines to new kinds of thinking and, ultimately, teaching that helps students achieve new levels of understanding.