LLED 360

I like how this chapter discusses important thinking skills within each of the four disciplines. I also like how it informs teachers on how to help their students build on these skills by providing lots of excerpts of how other teachers scaffold their student’s learning. By examining the four disciplines in detail, the author allows teachers to get a glimpse on the variation of academic language that students face every day in other classrooms. Hopefully by realizing this, teachers may avoid stepping into their “expert blind spots” (69) and learn to take the extra time in developing lesson plans that will go over all necessary information in order for novices within their field to succeed. I agree with Zwiers when he claims teachers need to “[know] how novices think and struggle as they are learning the content” (70). Just as a history teacher would develop their students’ abilities in taking on different perspectives by being “able to think ‘in the shoes’ of another person” (83), it is just as important for teachers to place themselves inside their students’ shoes in order to figure out what they’re struggling with. Once teachers understand this, the process of devising a way of helping their students won’t be too difficult.