Supporting Secondary Teachers’ Critical Disciplinary Literacies
The text covers many disciplines through specific secondary-level lesson examples and high-engagement instructional and assessment strategies that can be learned and adapted to a range of lessons in any discipline. Although there is not an index or glossary, terms and strategies are often hyperlinked and each chapter is hyperlinked for ease of access. The author and 17 of her university students (secondary pre-service teacher candidates) contributed to the text, which emphasizes and describes how to 'do' disciplinary literacy with any text, not just discipline-specific textbooks. There is a focus on issues of equity for each discipline-specific secondary lesson. The differences and connections between disciplinary literacy and critical disciplinary literacy (CDL) are described in the text's introductory chapter and then explored through each chapter.
The text is error-free and unbiased; in fact, critical disciplinary literacy (CDL) framework skills are discussed and identified in each chapter's secondary-level lesson. The overview section at the beginning of each chapter highlights useful hyperlinked resources, and scholarly and practical references are included at the end of some chapters.
A wide range of CDL strategies based on research-based best practices are relevant, and the high-engagement strategies used and explained are relevant to any secondary discipline. The text's four primary objectives are achieved through the use of collaborative strategies such as fishbowl discussion, Socratic seminar, poster carousel, Cornell notes and other organizational strategies, and jigsaw.
The text is written clearly, and relevant terms and concepts are described in the introduction and in subsequent chapters. Various references and practical lesson materials created and shared as Google documents are included in each chapter.
Each chapter begins with an overview following the same format: the relevant disciplinary literacy skill aligned to a national standard; one or more critical literacy skills (Lewison, Flint, & Sluys, 2002); and hyperlinked instructional resources needed to implement the secondary lesson described in the chapter.
The Introduction describes the purpose, overview, objectives, and theory relevant to each of the 17 secondary lessons. Each lesson is discipline-specific (i.e., biology, social studies, mathematics, gender studies, and literature). Since multiple hyperlinks and, in some cases, additional references are provided in each chapter -- along with the step-by-step guide to the CDL lesson -- each chapter and lesson is quite modular in nature. Students could be encouraged to apply a specific high engagement strategy or CDL strategy to their discipline or to another discipline, which makes each chapter's example highly useful to any preservice educator in a university educator preparation program.
The topics are discrete since each lesson has a different secondary discipline focus and/or a different high-engagement CDL strategy. The strategies could be described as discussion-based (e.g., fishbowl discussion, collaborative conversation), organizational (e.g., Cornell notes, Venn diagram); or reading-based (i.e., guided close reading or jigsaw). Therefore, the chapters could be organized in that way or in order by discipline (e.g., science, social studies); the nature of the text encourages further exploration and the useful hyperlinks in the table of contents make moving around the text very easy.
The interface is free of issues, making the text easy to follow and navigate.
No grammatical errors were observed.
The range of discipline-specific examples used in the secondary lessons addressed issues of equity, popular media resources, and popular culture. The critical disciplinary literacy (CDL) strategies complemented the lesson topics that included examination of residential segregation, poverty and housing insecurity, current and historical viruses, gender, and literature of various types.