Disciplinary Literacy
Why content teaching and disciplinary reading belong in the same lesson
When people talk about teaching reading in social studies, they sometimes mean a generic strategy posted on the board in every class. That is not a reading program. After fourteen years teaching social studies in a Title I high school, including work as an ESL-certified teacher and time spent building district curriculum, that has never felt like enough. History has its own ways of reading, and students need the content in order to do that reading well.
What is disciplinary literacy, and why does it matter in history?
Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) argue that adolescents need disciplinary literacy: advanced reading, writing, and thinking taught inside the content area, not a generic every-teacher-is-a-reading-teacher approach. Their work found that historians, chemists, and mathematicians read their texts differently, so the strategies worth teaching in history are not identical to those in other subjects.
In a history classroom, that often looks like sourcing a document, corroborating accounts, and asking what an author is trying to do. Those are high-level reading moves, and they are also the work of the course. Teaching the required content and practicing high-level reading skills belong in the same lesson.
What happened when a document-based history curriculum was tried in urban high schools?
Reisman (2012) studied 236 eleventh graders in five San Francisco high schools over six months. Students used a Document-Based Lesson, drawing on background knowledge to question and reconcile accounts from multiple texts. The treatment group showed significant effects on historical thinking, transfer to contemporary issues, factual knowledge, and general reading comprehension.
I built the AP U.S. History practice exams, including primary source DBQ work, to put that kind of document-based reading into practice. Students should interrogate documents rather than stop at the main idea. They should not meet their first serious document set on exam day.
What about the Fordham study on social studies time and reading?
Tyner and Kabourek (2020) used Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data from elementary classrooms. Students with more social studies time in grades 1–5 showed greater reading growth by fifth grade. About thirty extra minutes a day, at the 90th percentile, was associated with 15 percent of a standard deviation on the fifth-grade reading assessment.
This report used elementary data. In that dataset, more ELA time was not clearly tied to the same reading growth. I would not copy an elementary schedule into a high school day. I would be careful about pulling content out of the time we already have for reading.
A live product line to look at: AP U.S. History full-course practice exam bundle on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Related pages
Sources cited
- Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101
- Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document-based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30(1), 86–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2011.634081
- Tyner, A., & Kabourek, S. (2020). Social studies instruction and reading comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Thomas B. Fordham Institute. https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/resources/social-studies-instruction-and-reading-comprehension
Frequently asked questions
Does the Fordham report apply to high school?
No. Tyner and Kabourek used elementary data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. In that study, more social studies time in grades 1–5 was associated with greater fifth-grade reading growth. I cite it as evidence that content teaching and reading are connected, including at earlier grades.
Is Reading Like a Historian the same as these AP packs?
No. Reisman studied a six-month, document-based history intervention in urban high schools. I built the AP U.S. History packs as 2027-format practice exams, including primary source DBQ practice, so students can do that kind of document work in the course.