Chapter 1
Confronting the Challenges of Leading Literacy
If a school leader seeks to empower teachers to share the inside knowledge of their discipline with their students, it can be helpful to ask them to articulate what they do as readers and writers in their discipline. For example, allow time for a team of science teachers to identify what is unique about reading a scientific text, such as a scientific study or lab report. What skills are unique, and what skills are universal? Once teachers have the capacity to articulate what makes them academic insiders, they may feel better equipped to share that knowledge with their students.
Next Steps for Leaders Most teachers in disciplines other than ELA do not have a background in how to teach reading or writing skills. As you contemplate how to approach the need for all teachers to be literacy teachers, use the following questions to consider your leadership approach to this challenge.
How might you introduce to teachers the need for all teams to include literacy instruction as part of their curricula? What information will you use to make the case for literacybased instruction to be a part of all content areas?
How might you start small, directing teams to integrate literacy-focused instructional changes in incremental, easy-tointroduce ways through professional learning?
Given there is no one-size-fits-all approach to disciplinary literacy instruction, how will you adjust your approach to fit the needs of specific subject-based teams?
How Do Teachers Teach to Both Curriculum and Literacy Standards? In secondary classrooms, there are always more content standards and skills to tackle than there is time for—in even a full school year. So, when teachers hear they will need to introduce literacy instruction into their curricula, it’s understandable if they’re skeptical or feel overwhelmed. In talking with many teachers, we find they
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