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Philosophy of Disciplinary Literacy

Kayla Guyer

Arizona State University

RDG 323: Literacy Process/Content Areas

Professor Arnett

November 28th, 2020

Math Literacy Paper

During this semester, disciplinary literacy has been discussed, and we have found ways to

use literacy in content areas. When I first started the semester, I felt like this was not going to be

done because Math is something just with numbers. I shortly realized that this was not the case

and ate my words because I found that literacy needs to be in all content areas. Adding literacy in

all contents also helps our students if English is not their first language and finds ways for our

students to connect with the material. In this paper, I will discuss what disciplinary literacy is,

adding literacy into math, and strategies that could work for math.

What is Disciplinary literacy?

Finding the right way to describe what literacy is and why we need to have it. Literacy in

math is not just talking about writing essays; it's talking about how we can build our students up

by teaching them ways to read and write. From his article, Mr. Drew (2012) says that he

recommends that in all our subjects that we have our students learn to do reading, writing,

listening, and having our language standards of ELA in instructions like Math and science for an

example. (pp. 325). As teachers, we need to make sure that we have standards for writing and

reading so that we can help our students if they need help and give them accommodations or

modifications. Sometimes our students will do better in math than other subjects, and finding

something that they can shine on and still work on their ELA is essential for all of our content.

“Students are learning content and practicing literacy as if they were playing a game” (Kingsley,

2015, pp. 52). Having math in a way that allows them to do something that they are used to is a

way to help our students shine in this.

Literacy matters for our students because it helps them better understand what they are

working on. It also builds up critical thinking for our students. Building this for our students will
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help them understand things differently. Communication is crucial for our students to be

successful because they need to know how to do it in the real world. One way for this is talked

about, “First, students are asked to articulate what the problem is asking them to do” (Brozo,

2018, pp. 8). Students can articulate problems in literacy because this is key for our students to

walk them through literacy. I have given the example of if a student can walk through the steps

they need to work through, then a way for them to master is for them to talk it out.

Adding Literacy into Math

In math, we have to help our students keep their literacy up and figure out what works

best to see their math working in the real world. In an article we read during the semester, “The

students are participating in an interdisciplinary, project-based, multimodal (IPM) activity in

which they get the opportunity to apply what they learn to real-life situation while illustrating the

interdisciplinary nature of literacy” (Hill, 2014, pp. 450)- allowing students to see the importance

of why they are learning math. Seeing math in the real world is hard for students, so adding

literacy to math class allows them to see math in the real world.

“Disciplinary literacy, however, refers to the specialized literacy practices of a given

disciplinary domain, such as mathematics or history or visual art” (Moje, 2015, pp. 256).

Meaning that subjects that might be these subjects can be something that instead of saying we

will solve the problems, we will show students how to express themselves. Drawling sometimes

allows students to go where they are reading something and figure out what they ask. When we

do math literacy, we use word problems, and sometimes, our students will get lost. If we break

down our word problems, this might be where our students can see the importance of students.

Since the word problem is written in words, we should also note the answer in a complete

sentence when we answer.

How can we add reading and writing into Math?

During this course, I learned ways to add writing and reading into math, and these were

some of the strategies that I liked the most.

One Strategy that I liked was doing our think-aloud of how we would show our students

how they can solve word problems. I believe that students in math struggle with word problems a

lot. Teaching our students that word problems don't have to be hard is something that we need to

teach our students. Sometimes, we have to find a way for our students to break it down into a

few steps. This allows the students to be able to see a different way of solving the problem.

"Rather, students should be encouraged to think along with their teachers and periodically

contribute to the discussion" (Fisher, 2020). When we work with our students, we encourage

them to have their thought process and dig deep.

The second Strategy that I liked was using a different way for us to give vocabulary. We

are often learning new sections for our students, but our students don’t build their vocabulary.

When we develop our student's language, we can help our students get to something they didn't

know before starting this unit. "Tier three words consists of low-frequency words that occur in

specific domains” (Beck, 2002), which means that these are words that they might have heard

but also learning different ways for the students to see other words or even see how some words

can be the same meaning but different spelling.

The third Strategy that I liked was using the Strategy to take some time and write out

word problems. Our students will often ask for help in their math problems, but they don't show

the work. So finding a way for our students to have time and going to be helping one another see

the whole process of the writing ideas. “Learning mathematics is much more complex than
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memorizing sets of facts and examples” (Kinneavy, 2020, pp. 4). We want our students to learn

math, but we want things to come to them with the knowledge they already know.

Conclusion

As the semester has wrapped up, I have learned a lot in this class. Some of these items

that I have done in this course will help me be a better teacher and have in my back pocket. I had

fun doing a lot of my assignments since I could not interact with my students a lot during this

semester. This course has also opened up many activities for me going into the new way of

teaching technology being forced to use more. I can not wait to share many of these ideas as I go

into my student teaching and my years to come of teaching my middle school students.
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References

Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2002). Tiered Vocabulary: What is it, and why does it

matter. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.litinfocus.com/tiered-vocabulary-what-is-it-and-

why-does-it-matter/

Brozo, W., & Crain, S. (2018). Writing in Math: A Disciplinary Literacy Approach. Clearing

House, 91(1).

Drew, S. V. (2012). Open Up the Ceiling on the Common Core State Standards: Preparing

Students for 21st‐Century Literacy—Now. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(4),

321-330. doi:10.1002/jaal.00145

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2020). Show and tell: Modeling Disciplinary Thinking. Educational

Leadership, 74(5).  http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-

leadership/feb17/vol74/num05/Modeling-Disciplinary-Thinking.aspx

Hill, A. (2014). Using Interdisciplinary, project-based multimodal activities to facilitate literacy

across the content areas. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, (57)6, p. 450-458

Kingsley, T.L., & Grabner-Hagen, M. M. (2015). Gamification. Journal of Adolescent and Adult

Literacy, 59(1), 51-61. doi: 10.1002/jaal.426

Kinneavy, J. L. (2020). Writing Across the Curriculum. Landmark Essays, 65-78.

doi:10.4324/9781003059219-7

Moje, E. (2015). Doing and teaching disciplinary literacy with adolescent learners: A social and

cultural enterprise. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 254-278.