#contentliteracy

"...[A] strong base of content knowledge makes us blind to the lengthy process of acquiring it. This curse has implications for all teachers... As a result, we end up assuming that our lesson's content is easy, clear, and straightforward. We assume that connections are apparent and will be made effortlessly. Assumptions are the root cause of poor instruction. And acknowledgment is the first step to recovery."

New book and video about using short texts in content-area literacy instructions by Nancy Steineke

"...[I]f we are knowledgeable about the distinct differences among content areas why are we using generic literacy strategies across the content areas? Generic literacy approaches across the content areas have not produced the results we have been looking for in our students’ literacy or content knowledge, skills, and performance."

Advice from Sheila Valencia on how to scaffold content-area textbook reading

A video about the social dimensions of prereading strategies with high-interest texts, but also a good demo of how to introduce think alouds

If you are a math, history, science, or art teacher, where does literacy fit into your classroom instruction? It's common to believe that literacy instruction is solely the charge of language arts teachers, but, frankly, this just is not so.

An anthology from the Reading With Pictures people that "unites the finest creative talents in the comics industry with the nation's leading experts in visual literacy to create a game-changing tool for the classroom and beyond. This full-color volume features more than a dozen short stories (both fiction and nonfiction) that address topics in Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, and Science, while offering an immersive textual and visual experience that kids will enjoy." There is a downloadable teacher's resource on the page.

A great list of questions to consider as a discussion/research guide for what it really means to teach "disciplinary literacy" in your field