Historical Literacy

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Historical Literacy

Ainsley Leavitt

Arizona State University

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Importance of Adolescent Literacy Instruction

Teaching adolescents how to be fully literate in the classroom and just in life in general is

a very important task for all teachers. Due to the importance of literacy, it is becoming an

increasingly hard task to accomplish. Specifically a lot of teachers are unprepared to start

teaching and are using ineffective methods to teach that have, “turned history into the driest of

school subjects,” (Bain pg.513). This unpreparedness that is being seen has caused teaching

programs to see that there needs to be a change made in the methods that teachers are using to

teach. One solution would be to, “devote more attention to their pedagogical work,” that they use

in schools (Bain pg.514). Many people believe that by being intentional about the methods used

in classrooms, they will be able to grab the attention of their students and keep them engaged in

the content.

Another reason why it is important for educators to focus on what methods they are using

when teaching is because these methods can help prepare students for higher education and for

life in general. A lot of high school graduates are not prepared for post secondary work. This can

be seen because, “more than eight million adolescent students read below grade level, while

fewer than a third meet National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) standards for

reaching ‘proficiency’ and less than five percent can read at an advanced level,” (Bain

pg.515-516). This lack of proficiency in reading is just one example of how not using effective

methods in the classroom can affect a students education and preparedness for the future. Due to

the fact that a lot of students now find themselves behind where they should be in school, a lot of

universities, “increase the number of remedial courses'' they off so that way they can be prepared

for all of these students who arrive to school, “unprepared for the quantity and quality of the

work required in college,” (Bain pg.516). Another effect of having students not prepared for life
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outside of secondary school is that businesses are now having to spend a lot of money to

strengthen the writing skills of their entry-level workers. All of this is linked to the fact that

literacy is not the main focus of a lot of schools or their methods of teaching literacy are no

longer effective. It is important that teachers start to focus on more than just the content while

teaching and also work on teaching literacy skills.

Explanation of Historical Literacy

Historical literacy is something that a lot of history teachers have a hard time

understanding. It is a relatively new idea that started in the early 1990s. Content area reading had

been around for a century before disciplinary literacy came around (Hynd-Shanahan pg. 93). The

most common misconception is that teaching students to read and write is not the job of a high

school history teacher (Bain pg. 527). Most teachers assume responsibility for the English

department and do not focus on this aspect of historical skills at all. This mindset is slowly being

replaced by noticing the importance of literacy in a history classroom, but it is a slow process.

Many teachers are now developing ways to incorporate literacy in the classroom to support the

history content. These include, “framing problems, making time to understand and use students'

pre-instructional knowledge and interests, giving attention to selecting texts that support, extend,

or challenge students’ thinking, understanding, and even their interests,” (Bain pg.529). These

methods allow teachers to “see” the literacy in their classroom and understand better how

literacy can support the content. Another important aspect of using these methods is making sure

that everything has a purpose. This allows for momentum and motivation while teaching which

can help the students immensely.

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Disciplinary Literacy in a history classroom is different than in other content areas.

Research says that, “the differences lie in what is important to pay attention to, what counts as

evidence for an argument, what level of confidence the field has in the knowledge it produces,

how texts are organized, how sentences are constructed, and so on,” (Hynd-Shanahan pg. 93).

These differences are important in how a history classroom is run and how readings are

implemented in the classroom. Students must learn how to engage with the disciplinary texts as a

way of showing their understanding of the content readings. For example, “a reader might make

a timeline to understand the relationship among events in history if the text being read afforded

it, but would not make a timeline to learn an explanation of a scientific principle,”

(Hynd-Shanahan pg. 93). This is just one example of how each discipline is a little bit different

when it comes to literacy.

Supporting Students in the Discipline

Despite all efforts, historical literacy can be very difficult for students due to the

complexity of a lot of the texts. There is also the idea that there is more to learning content than

just reading, the students also have to have the tools to understand what they are learning. “In

disciplinary literacy, there is a distinction between content knowledge, which is knowledge about

particular topics of study, such as WWII … and discipline knowledge, which is knowledge about

the way knowledge is created, communicated, and shared with a discipline,” (Hynd-Shanahan

pg. 94). It is important for teachers to understand this difference and make sure that literacy is an

important part of their classroom. They must come up with strategies in order to integrate

discipline, knowledge and literacy into their history classroom. This will give the students the

best support possible.

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There are a few questions that teachers can ask themselves to make sure that their

strategies are supporting their students to the best of their ability. These questions are, “Does this

strategy help my students understand the subject matter discussed in the text? … Is this strategy

one that a disciplinary expert would find reasonable? … How is the strategy helping students

meet the aims of a particular discipline?” (Hynd-Shanahan pg. 95). These questions will allow

the teacher to really consider how they can help their students. The first question allows teachers

to make sure that they are teaching important content standards. The second question allows

teachers to reflect on whether or not other teachers in their content area would use or approve of

their strategy. They can ask colleagues for help as well to make sure that they are getting

multiple perspectives and opinions. The last question is to allow teachers to make sure that they

are meeting all the requirements that they need to in order to meet content standards and to make

sure they are preparing their students in the best way possible.

There are a couple strategies that teachers can use in order to decipher literary texts so

that students may better understand, especially the complex texts that often exist in a history

classroom. One strategy is a process diagram or compare/contrast chart. This allows students to

compare different texts and get multiple perspectives on one subject. This can allow students to

be open minded about different topics and give them extra information that can help them

understand a concept better. Another variation of this would be to give students a particular

source and have them find other sources that agree with and back up what the original source is

saying. This can help them come to their own conclusions about whether a source is reliable or

not and what parts of history are plausible. Coming up with a strategy can feel daunting, but one

thing that can help a teacher decide what strategy to use would be to lead with the text rather

than lead with a strategy and try to impose it on a text. If a teacher is able to think, “through what
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students need to get out of the text” it will lead them “to a discipline-specific process that

wouldn’t be used in another context,” (Hynd-Shanahan pg. 95). Using this idea, it will help the

teachers to pick the best strategy for what they need to get across to the students. In order to

determine this, paying close attention to what standards need to be taught will help them.

In conclusion, the importance of disciplinary literacy cannot be overstated. Though a lot

of teachers are unprepared to teach disciplinary literacy, it is something that teachers need to be

trained on. The skills acquired from being taught disciplinary literacy are a great advantage for

students in their academic and non academic future. Historical literary is a challenge all on its

own. Historical texts tend to be a bit more complicated and hard to understand. This is why

teachers must come up with strategies in order to make sure students are able to understand the

texts and analyze them to the best of their ability.

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Works Cited

Bain, R. B. (2012, August). Using disciplinary literacy to develop coherence in ... Using

Disciplinary Literacy to Develop Coherence in History Teacher Education: The Clinical

Rounds Project. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23265943.

Hinchman, K., & Sheridan-Thomas, H. (2014). In Best practices in adolescent literacy

instruction (Second Edition). story, The Guilford Press. Retrieved November 4, 2021,

fromhttps://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FbxaAwAAQBAJ&

oi=fnd&pg=PA232&dq=teaching+history+and+literacy+shanahan+t&ots=

uGM45CO7mc&sig=GaJtfCeYa3d4VJjkoat2gMphOVY#v=onepage&q&

f=false.

Hynd-Shanahan, C. (2013). What does it take? . Project Readi. Retrieved November 4, 2021,

from http://www.projectreadi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Shanahan-2013.pdf.