Blog Post Week 3 – Reading on Disciplinary Literacies Across Content Areas
Comments(1) Fang and Shleppegrell’s article demonstrate that it is important for educators to come up with discipline-specific ways of using language in order to help them succeed in the classroom. I am in complete agreement with them. Fang and Schleppegrell discuss how functional language analysis allows students to identify language patterns and associated meanings that are specific to certain disciplines. By doing this, students can gain a more thorough understanding as to how language works in their discipline-specific setting and can help them comprehend and critique texts (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 588).
I think that functional language analysis is important in any classroom setting by giving students a framework for understanding a variety of texts from disciplinary backgrounds. For example, last week in class we discussed the importance of teaching brick and mortar words to our students in order to help them understand the language of a certain discipline. By teaching students the meaning and importance of these words in the classroom, they will have a better concept of why certain words are being used in their teacher’s lesson. Furthermore, demonstrating how language operates across specific disciplines shows adolescents how “content experts use language in characteristic ways to present information, engage in interpretation, and create specialized texts” (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 591).
I also believe that teaching students discipline specific ways of using language will make the discipline seem more approachable. What I mean by this is that students will probably be more interested in their work if they have a strong understanding of the meaning of the words used in that particular discipline. Discipline-specific learning will also help students see connections, patterns and differences between the languages being used in each of their classes which can then be applied to their lives both academically and outside of the school setting. This is extremely valuable for the students because it will help improve their critical thinking skills and ability to make connections when problem solving and learning in society.
I think that the functional language analysis approach will be extremely useful for me to adapt my own classroom when I become a teacher. By assisting students in understanding discipline-specific language in my classroom, they will discover how this language transfers into other areas of their life. It will assist them in having a successful experience in my class by giving them the basic knowledge needed to understand each lesson and the expectations required of them.
By: Erin Milne
I agree with Erin’s idea that the subject areas we teach will inevitably become more approachable by finding effective ways to teach discipline-specific language comprehension. The gain for students will of course be the ability to understand and work within the discipline’s own brick and mortar discourse, but once this has been achieved it creates the possibility for the students to become more engaged with the subject itself. In secondary school, where students are at a crucial stage of discovering their own strengths, skills and interests in particular areas to pursue, it would be a difficult task to accurately analyze their level of interest and skill if they cannot get past the first hurdle of actually understanding the content-specific language. As Fang and Schleppegrell assert, “[b]ecause subject specialists are best positioned to apprentice students into meaning-making in their disciplines, this literacy development work cannot be left to the reading or language arts teacher alone. All teachers need to be able to demonstrate and make visible to students how literacy operates within their disciplines” (Fang and Schleppegrell 591).
We have a responsibility as teachers to develop a system of dissecting the language of our subjects so that our students have the benefit of fully being immersed in the content itself rather than lost in the translation. For myself, that might start with a list of well-defined and exemplified literary devices and asking the English students to start identifying them in our novel study and utilizing them in their assignments. In the drama class, perhaps it looks more like a movement game in which the end goal is for the students to understand the meaning and location of specific stage directions. Whatever means we use, our students will certainly understand more of the subjects and potentially develop further interest in them if they can first comprehend the discipline’s unique language.