Christina L. Dobbs, Jacy Ippolito, and Megan Charner-Laird

BRINGING DISCIPLINARY LITERACY INTO STEM CLASSROOMS:

Findings from a Collaborative Inquiry-Focused Professional Learning Initiative

CHRISTINA L. DOBBS, JACY IPPOLITO, and MEGIN CHARNER-LAIRD

Advanced literacy skills across various disciplines are key to student success in secondary school, college, and the workplace (CCSS, 2010; Lee & Spratley, 2010). Recently, attention is being paid to the differences in how experts in various disciplines interact around literacy within their fields (Shanahan, 2012; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). Increasingly, secondary students may need to develop disciplinary literacy skills in high school, to experience an initial induction into various disciplinary communities. Furthermore, secondary teachers must support students as they use both intermediate and disciplinary literacy skills as a foundation for becoming more expert.

This increased focus on adolescent literacy has meant an increased focus on disciplinary literacy practices in secondary schools, with a renewed interest in the roles that teachers play in helping to prepare students (Greenleaf et al., 2010; Heller & Greenleaf, 2007; Lee & Spratley, 2010; Moje, 2008; Moje et al., 2010; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). For decades, literacy professional learning initiatives have focused primarily on helping teachers implement general literacy strategies in their content-area classes. However, these initiatives have had minimal success in raising student achievement, and they were not widely accepted by teachers (Conley, 2008; Jacobs, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). The recent push for instructional changes that are more disciplinary in nature theorizes that these practices are more relevant to classroom teachers in various disciplines, as they apprentice students into the various ways that disciplinary experts communicate. The idea is that a focus on the discipline-specific aspects of communication and resulting strategies will be more effective than general ones at improving students’ literacy skills within disciplines (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014).

Research is only beginning to understand how these disciplinary literacy instructional practices can be enacted, and we have much more to learn about which combinations of professional learning structures best support teachers in doing this work (Charner-Laird et al., 2016; Dobbs et al., 2016a, 2016b; Ippolito et al., 2019).

Background

As recent standards have increasingly emphasized the importance of disciplinary literacy (CCSS, 2010; Houseal et al., 2016; Lee & Spratley, 2010; National Research Council, 2012), mathematics and science teachers have greater reason to focus on disciplinary habits of mind and literacy instructional strategies than ever before. Because science and math classrooms are rich with language and literacy means of interacting with content, and yet have sometimes struggled to become intentional sites of literacy, they are fascinating sites in which to study how disciplinary literacy professional learning and resulting new practices unfold. Before describing a case in which professional learning influenced a group of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) teachers’ practices related to disciplinary literacy, we first briefly discuss the literature on teaching literacy in mathematics and science settings and review the tools of effective teacher professional learning.

Literacy in Science and Math Classrooms Because science and math classrooms are rich with language and literacy means of interacting with content, and yet have sometimes struggled to become intentional sites of literacy, they are fascinating sites in which to study how disciplinary literacy professional learning and resulting new practices unfold.

Science is a broad discourse community with its own particular conventions that operate differently across an array of varied specializations, and this large discourse community includes a variety of expositional and argumentative tasks (Halliday & Martin, 1993; Hand et al., 2003). The learning of science involves being able to use reading, writing, and reasoning to learn scientific content (Fang, 2014; Fang & Coatoam, 2013; Ippolito et al., 2017a; Lee & Buxton, 2013; Moje et al., 2004; Moje & Speyer, 2008; Shanahan et al., 2011). However, text in science classrooms is often underused (Fang, 2013/2014), despite the centrality of literacy skills to science learning.

Osborne (2002) describes a lack of focus on the central role of language in science classrooms. The process of deciding whether data support a particular interpretation of a phenomena is a key activity in scientific thinking and work, and researchers note that scientific theory does not exist without some sort of text (Norris & Phillips, 2003). Frameworks for teaching about science and literacy have been proposed, with many focusing on argument- and inquiry-driven pedagogies (Cavagnetto, 2010; Draper & Adair, 2010; Rainey et al., 2018; Spires et al., 2016; Washburn & Cavagnetto, 2013).

Historically, less has been written about literacy in mathematics, although increasing attention has recently been paid to language-rich and disciplinary literacy instruction in math classes (Croce & McCormick, 2020; Enderson & Colwell, 2021; Hillman, 2014; Ippolito et al., 2017b; Siebert & Hendrickson, 2010). Thompson and Rubinstein (2014) describe the process of developing mathematical literacy as one in which students complete tasks to “build networks of meanings around critical concepts” (p. 106). There is also a rich vein of research about how discussion can foster math learning (Chapin et al., 2009; Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2013), though the literacy skills necessary for success in math extend beyond discussion. Students in math are asked to grapple with vocabulary, justify their decision-making, and read descriptions and problems in textbooks (Thompson & Rubinstein, 2014).

Teacher Beliefs and the Tools of Effective Professional Learning

The ways that individuals teach within and across disciplines often reflect the beliefs that teachers hold about content (Lederman, 1992; Southerland et al., 2003). For teachers to incorporate new practices into instruction, they sometimes have to change beliefs and overcome resistance (Draper, 2008; O’Brien & Stewart, 1990). The work of adopting a disciplinary literacy stance often requires that teachers shift their identities in relation to literacy learning, a process that Spitler (2011/2012) terms teacherliteracyidentity transformation, and one that can be supported by communities focused on practice (Phillips et al., 2009).

Instruction shifts to incorporate new practices when teachers believe in the importance of the shift and see it as connected to their domains (Alsup, 2006; Johnson & Watson, 2011; Massey & Riley, 2013). Yet the complex relationship between teacher practice and belief has been debated extensively, with some researchers arguing convincingly that teachers must tiptoe into small instructional changes first, then analyze results with students, in order for deeper changes in their belief systems to take place (Guskey, 1985, 2000). Ultimately, we have found in our own professional learning work that for teachers to change practice, they require time to explore together how literacy fits into their own work and to try out new practices to then shift beliefs and practices long-term. These collaborative professional learning spaces require a combination of intentional effective professional learning supports, several of which we briefly discuss below.

Professional Learning Communities. Many schools have implemented teacher teams, often called professional learning communities (PLCs), to provide teachers with ongoing professional learning (Parise & Spillane, 2010; Servage, 2008; Talbert, 2010). PLCs create opportunities for teachers to learn together and to draw on each other’s expertise or develop new ideas. Some commonalities of effective teams emerge across the literature: trust and respect, openness to improvement, reflective dialogue, collective focus on student learning, shared norms and values, and regular time to meet (Charner-Laird, et al., 2016; Dana & Yendol-

Hoppey, 2008; Kruse et al., 1994; Louis & Kruse, 1995).

Collaborative Inquiry. Over the past 20 years, many scholars have placed collaborative inquiry at the center of teacher learning, asserting that inquiry-based approaches are likely to lead to changes in practice more than traditional approaches (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Crockett, 2004; Gallimore et al., 2009, Ermeling et al., 2009; Garet et al., 2001). While a few studies document changes in student or teacher learning based on learning through inquiry (e.g., Ermeling, 2010; Saunders et al., 2009), many scholars make theoretical assertions about the possibilities inherent for teachers in inquiry-based learning (e.g., Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009).

The Current Study

In this study, we consider how a group of six math and six science teachers from one high school collaborated to incorporate disciplinary literacy practices into their instruction. We followed the two STEM-focused teams of teachers from an initial, summer weeklong professional learning institute through their subsequent year of designing and implementing inquiry cycles around various domains of literacy. Our prior work analyzing teams in the humanities informs our understanding of how teams develop disciplinary literacy instructional practices (Charner-Laird et al., 2014; Dobbs et al., 2016a, 2017; Ippolito et al., 2014, 2019).

Research Questions

1. What domains of disciplinary literacy instruction did math and science participants choose as focal points of their inquiry cycles? 2. How did teacher participants describe their instruction around disciplinary literacy practices?

Study Context and Methodology

While data were being collected, over 140 teachers at Boddington High School (pseudonym) served roughly 1,800 students. At the time of this study, 28% of students were English language learners, and 15% received free or reduced-price lunch. Racially, the students were 9% African American, 14% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 5% multi-ethnic, and 61% White. While Boddington consistently achieved (and continues to achieve) at high levels on measures such as state tests, it is a school that is becoming more diverse. The Content-area Reading Initiative (CRI) was developed as teachers were thinking carefully about whether all students were achieving at high levels, including increasing numbers of students learning English.

The project was co-designed by Boddington personnel and us as university consultants. The planners used several structural elements including teams—who would use protocols,

video, and student work to guide reflection—as well as teacher leaders to guide the work, and inquiry cycles to select literacy sub-domains to explore. The initiative included professional learning workshops led by university consultants during the summers, professional learning days across the year, and weekly team meetings led by teacher leaders.

CRI focused on six content-area teams across the four-year project: English, social studies, and Spanish in the first two-year cycle, and math, science, and an interdisciplinary special education team in the second cycle. Our analyses in this study are focused on the math and science teams across their first year of inquiry work, situated within the larger study of the four-year professional learning initiative.

Data Sources

This specific study analyzes data from the ten teachers and two teacher leaders who comprised the math and science teams. All the teachers voluntarily applied to participate in the project. This case study describes how the two teams from math and science formed and worked to study and adapt disciplinary literacy practices for their own classrooms.

Qualitative data collected include interviews, focus groups, narrative reflections, and participant observation notes from team meetings, teacher leader planning sessions, professional development days, and meetings with administrators. Analyses include open and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) of interview and focus group data and observation notes with member checks to ensure accuracy. We focused on themes related to how participants negotiated the relationship between literacy and content and their successes and tensions in attempting disciplinary literacy practices.

Addressing Validity

Given that the paper’s first two authors played dual roles as consultants and researchers throughout the project, we established several validity checks. First, the third author collected all interview and written narrative data from participants, to ensure that they felt free to discuss the project openly. Furthermore, data were analyzed by each author individually, and then the team came together to corroborate findings. Throughout this case study, we have reduced bias as much as possible, by attending to our own positionality in collecting data and drawing conclusions. However, we recognize that we were involved with the project on the ground in a variety of ways and therefore, must name this position throughout our work and our analysis of that work.

Findings

RQ1: The selection and study of literacy instructional domains in math and science

Across the first year of the project, the math and science teams studied new practices around a variety of literacy domains, including: vocabulary, multiple representations in math, discussion, writing in science, and reading. It was not clear early in the project, though, which areas would be chosen for further team inquiry. Data revealed that during the first summer, teachers expressed a lack of certainty that they would find relevant literacy domains on which to focus. The math team leader described early learning as particularly impactful:

[In the institute] we talked about what is literacy, and how it is literally everything. It’s communication, it’s discussion, it’s looking at graphs. It’s like so many things, and how pervasive it is, how it really is in our curriculum, and how we can focus on it . . . It’s not English we’re talking about, it’s literacy. I think that in the math and sciences, we confused those two. It’s not English—we’re not reading a novel about math. It’s these common basic communication skills.

She described the work later in an administrative meeting, saying that despite initial doubts, at the end of the first summer, the team had 40 instructional areas that they hoped to explore.

Interestingly, in contrast to their humanities-focused colleagues who focused early on reading, the science and math teams spent early inquiry time focused on productive literacy areas, rather than receptive ones. The math team elected to begin with inquiry cycles around discussion and academic vocabulary, and the science team collected assessment data that pointed them toward writing and expressive vocabulary. This focus on language use by students became central throughout the project. A science teacher described the vocabulary cycle as follows:

I think we all, as science teachers, want them to be able to be scientifically literate, which has a lot of meanings. At least to the extent that they can use vocabulary in a meaningful way to describe scientific concepts. [It] has to be part of our mission as science teachers.

The math team determined that they would focus on discussion, on urging students to frequently use the language of math to explain their thinking. Following the literature on effective discussions, the team began with activities to set initial norms around discussing math effectively and respectfully in class. One teacher described her key learnings as a process of learning to pose questions, saying the cycle taught her “how much thought really has to go into just asking questions, just the right way, and how hard that is to do on the fly.”

Another math teacher described the elements of the process they developed for class discussions as particularly important, saying “I think the norms we set during our discussion cycle are really what I’m using the most.” Several team members collected video footage of class discussions and found that students sometimes revealed imprecise or developing

understandings of terms. Consequently, the team decided to study how students acquire mathematical vocabulary, as vocabulary was proving a challenge to effective discussions.

Meanwhile the science team initially had also decided to focus on vocabulary. Team members described deciding to undertake a shared math/science inquiry cycle about instructional practices to foster use of vocabulary. Teachers identified and piloted science- and math- specific vocabulary strategies. For example, teachers described focusing on common words such as bond in a chemistry class or force in physics, or they explicitly brainstormed with students the ways in which words such as express and expression are related.

Across our data, teachers discussed the vocabulary cycle as particularly meaningful to their instruction. A science teacher described this result of the cycle:

The science group has looked closely at how we use, or don’t use vocabulary, how we introduce terms, and how to connect terms . . . It’s made me really explicitly emphasize, when I’m introducing new terms, what the term means . . . . I think I see the kids are having conversations now using the vocabulary, which allows me to think maybe they’re just a little bit more literate in science.

A second science teacher described a similar experience:

I’m just much more aware of vocabulary—[it] has been my biggest and first focus this year. Just breaking down words and realizing the new things that students didn’t know. I use the word medium to talk about material, like sound needs a medium to travel through. In the past, I would have never stopped at that word. [When] I asked my students, ‘What does it mean?’ It’s amazing, many of them thought [of] medium like the math term.

This growing awareness resulted in instructional changes that varied in scope. Several team members elected to teach vocabulary using vocabulary journals, which were large changes to routines, and the teams spent time together reflecting on the costs and benefits in terms of the broader curriculum. One team member described the intensive journaling, and she mused aloud, “I wonder if there is a way to streamline this a bit so that we could do the same thing, but with less time?” As teachers refined their practices, they found ways to streamline.

But not all teachers made large-scale changes teaching vocabulary. One math teacher described the small changes she made as follows:

My lesson plans are pretty much the same, but I’m not just glossing over the vocabulary. We were doing trinomial, monomial, and binomial today, those definitions of terms. In the past, I would have just done a very quick check . . . . I would have mentioned

those names and then moved on. Today, we talked about what tri- means, what bimeans, what mono- means . . . . The emphasis was there, as opposed to just multiplying binomials.

A science teacher shared a video of a lesson and described how he tried over the course of a typical discussion to be more explicit in breaking apart academic vocabulary. For example, he tried over the course of one thermodynamics lesson to highlight the relationship between the terms entropy and enthalpy, as well as to call attention to the word system. These subtle shifts, which were studied with his team, were evident in his honors course, and, ultimately, he cited his students’ growing awareness of science-specific language, as resulting in more precise word use—an important habit of mind in science.

The math team also named their cycle on multiple representations as important in developing clear conceptual understandings for students, and several members described learning to see the symbolic and graphic representations differently after their cycle. A math team member described this process:

I think we really talked a lot this year about multiple representations of being able to visualize a diagram and see the same thing in a word problem, just in text. Approaching literacy from thinking of it just as symbols, not just strictly words and instructions and things like that, . . . multiple representations has been a really eye-opening thing—this is literacy, having a kid be able to draw a Venn diagram or sketch out a word problem is a literacy skill.

Several other team members also described this changing definition of how literacy skills impact student performance.

At the close of the first year of collaboration, the teams had robust agendas for the second year of the project, drawing from the foundation they had built.

RQ2: Reframing literacy and collaboration

The work of the first year was also about collaborating and understanding each other’s content more deeply. One honors physics teacher went into the project expecting differences in other science content areas, but he found this not to be the case. He said:

CRI allows us to realize that we share the same frustrations. We share the same challenges, whether it’s teaching chemistry, physics, biology. Whether it’s teaching honors, standard, AP—that there are a lot of challenges that by sharing them with others, we can share and use and suggest strategies that might work for me, for my colleagues, and vice versa.

Over the first year of the project, many teacher participants began to view the role of literacy as a key lever in encouraging high achievement in STEM. The science team leader described her learning:

It really hit me—a lot of kids have weaknesses in academic literacy and their ability to read or write in an academic way. That kind of speaking speaking, writing, reading, is different than our normal, everyday conversation and leaves a lot of kids at a significant disadvantage. There’s a huge equity piece to that for me.

A physics teacher expressed a similar perspective:

This has been eye-opening to understand about literacy and writing. As a science teacher, it’s not something that we focus on to the degree that say English or maybe social studies would, but learning about how to approach literacy and writing in the science curriculum has been great so far in doing CRI, and it’s made me, as a teacher, much more mindful in each class about the vocabulary that I use.

Across these data, a shift became clear, as teachers transitioned from thinking of literacy as a set of strategies for “English or maybe social studies” teachers or an extra during instructional blocks. As a result of their explorations, all the interviewed teachers came to see their work differently. Whether their rationale was one of equal access to the language of science or a focus on improvement in students’ output, the STEM teachers were increasingly convinced that explicit focus on disciplinary literacy increased student engagement and achievement.

While many teachers described that they were aware of literacy instructional practices before the project, they said that they sometimes avoided those practices. One math teacher who worked primarily with students with disabilities talked about it this way:

I tended to avoid literacy stuff in my classroom because my kids struggle. I would organize my problems so that they could often anticipate what I was asking and maybe not have to do as much writing . . . . It seemed like a reasonable accommodation. And now, over the course of my work, I’m realizing that that’s not really helpful to my kids.

A biology teacher shared a similar sentiment:

I tended to avoid literacy stuff in my classroom because my kids struggle. I would organize my problems so that they could often anticipate what I was asking and maybe not have to do as much writing . . . . It seemed like a reasonable accommodation. And now, over the course of my work, I’m realizing that that’s not really helpful to my kids.

We’ve done a lot of passive stuff like, ‘Oh, I want you to write in complete sentences here on this assignment and answer these questions.’ You’re like, ‘Well, they didn’t do it—why not?’ Well, we haven’t spent any time going over what that really means within a science construct. That was a big thing for me.

Disciplinary literacy explorations across the year solidified the notion that the literacies inherent in STEM discourses were important to teach, particularly, if they were expecting students to communicate in sophisticated ways. Importantly, these shifts in thinking seem to have arisen directly from the structured team collaboration.

Teacher participants began to view collaboration as critical to their investigations of disciplinary literacy. The two STEM teams chose different methods for collaborating, including lesson study, collaboratively piloting discipline-specific assessments, observing each other’s teaching, and reading research and jigsawing findings. As some collaborative learning structures were new to the teams, at first, they spent time figuring out how to collaborate smoothly. But, as the teachers experienced successes, they became more confident in their collaborative practices.

Across data sources, teachers repeatedly discussed support from their collaboration structures, and they appreciated working with others to refine new practices. One science team member described her school as, “structured so that we’re all isolated.” She went on to describe the shared challenges across team members:

We share the same challenges, whether it’s teaching chemistry, physics, and or biology, whether it’s teaching honors, standard, AP—there are a lot of challenges. By sharing them with others, we can share, and use, suggest strategies that might work for me, for my colleagues, and vice versa.

A math teacher described the importance of having structured time to work together. She described it like this:

I think having the opportunity to set aside time to just kind of stop and reflect, to talk to colleagues, in a way that’s not just passing each other in the conference room and mentioning that this thing really works. Being able to really bounce ideas off people and come up with tangible things that we can try in our classrooms and then compare—that was very impactful for me.

As team members began to collaborate more efficiently within teams, they also began collaborating across the STEM teams. By December of year one, it became possible for participants to compare across teams how math and science teachers were teaching

vocabulary. Hearing the perspective of others was useful as teachers learned to approximate the thinking of those unfamiliar with the tasks they designed. The science team leader described it this way:

What does it mean for me to try to teach reading, writing, or academic discussion? I need to remember what it’s like to be a beginner, right? What I assume [my students] know because it’s just become second nature to me, it’s like the air that I breathe.

These collaborations were important as teachers observed vocabulary instruction in another discipline. As they continued to debrief their observations, this became a driver for changing practices, pushing the teams to begin collecting informal data about the efficacy of various new strategies. Through their attention on learning to collaborate, the project STEM teachers shared and revised a wide range of instructional practices.

Discussion and Implications

Initiatives that support STEM teachers in implementing disciplinary literacy might benefit from supporting teachers in choosing their own instructional focal points, as the inquiry portion of the project was particularly impactful for participants. Participants benefited from ongoing, structured time to use for collaborations, as these structures enabled learning, while increasing capacity to tackle challenging dilemmas of practice. And finally, collaborating with one another helped teachers to find ways to make new practices fit into an already demanding curriculum. Below we explore these ideas in more detail.

Freedom to Choose Inquiry Topics

The first year of work with these teams revealed patterns in how teachers made sense of how literacy fits into STEM instruction. Because the initial weeklong institute introduced a number of literacy domains, without pushing toward any particular domain, we were interested in where teams would begin. This choice allowed teams to zoom in on aspects of the work that they felt would be most aligned to their own content goals. By choosing productive domains, the teams were able to make clear connections to why these literacy skills were important in the mastery of new content. It built a strong foundation for the teams to then learn together for the remainder of the project and illuminated what was most important and impactful to them as they first delved into the idea of disciplinary literacy.

Acknowledging the Pressure STEM Teachers Face about Curricular Coverage

Teachers tried a number of instructional practices as they inquired, and they worked to balance the tensions of full curricula and increased focus on literacy. As teachers of contentrich curricula, including advanced placement curricula with associated tests and pressures,

many STEM teachers rightly felt concern for fitting new literacy practices into a curriculum already crowded with content learning. This was especially true when the teachers initially viewed literacy as an add-on instead of seeing it through an integrated disciplinary literacy lens. Negotiating these tensions collaboratively was one key focus of the teams. Together they were able to iteratively pilot new practices, including sometimes time-consuming ones, and then reflect on the degree to which they could sustain new practices or to streamline.

Participants were able to find ways to hone literacy instruction in their classrooms in ways that honored and deepened their content knowledge presentation to students. As teachers learned to collaborate more, they were increasingly able to find ways to effectively implement new practices that became routines. Ultimately, this iterative and collaborative work allowed the teachers to find ways that made sense to them to spend time on explicit disciplinary literacy instruction.

Conclusion

There remains much to be learned about when, why, and how STEM content area teachers determine that literacy instructional practices can support their teaching. This study begins to document some of the ways that high school math and science teachers implemented disciplinary literacy practices suited to their disciplines. These detailed insights into how the teachers made sense of their own learning and enactment of disciplinary literacy gives us new information about how and why STEM teachers might determine that disciplinary literacy practices are relevant and important to their content area teaching. Furthermore, this study suggests several professional learning structures that might support the development of those practices and inquiry structures. If we are to genuinely support the next generation of STEM professionals through strong secondary instruction, then we need to continue learning with STEM teachers who are engaging in disciplinary literacy professional learning.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Christina L. Dobbs is an assistant professor and director of the English Education for Equity and Justice program at Boston University. Her research interests include language diversity and the language of schools and disciplinary communities, the argumentative writing of students, teachers’ beliefs about language, and professional learning for secondary teachers. Additionally, she writes about being a woman of color in the academy. She is a former high school English language arts teacher, as well as a literacy coach, reading specialist, creative writer, and native Texan.

Jacy Ippolito is a professor of literacy and leadership in the McKeown School of Education at Salem State University (Salem, MA), where he currently co-directs the graduate programs in Educational Leadership and is the co-founder and co-leader of the Center for Educational Leadership at the University (CEL@SSU). Jacy has worked as a reading specialist and literacy coach, and his research, teaching, and consulting focus on the intersection of coaching, leadership, adolescent literacy, and school reform. For more about Jacy’s books and articles, or to connect with him, visit www.visualcv.com/jacyippolito or www.twitter.com/Jippolito.

Megin Charner-Laird is a professor of elementary education and educational leadership in the McKeown School of Education at Salem State University (Salem, MA). She currently codirects the graduate programs in Educational Leadership and is the co-founder and co-leader of the Center for Educational Leadership at the University (CEL@SSU). Megin worked primarily as a fifth-grade teacher, and she carries those experiences into her teaching, which focuses on teachers’ professional learning, teacher leadership, formal school leadership, and school change. To connect with Megin, please find her at www.twitter.com/drcharnerlaird.