1. Define Disciplinary Literacy (DL):
Disciplinary Literacy is learning how to read, think about, write, communicate, and use information like each discipline’s expert. It involves the tasks and processes of reading, thinking, inquiring, and speaking, required to learn and develop discipline-appropriate content knowledge.
2. Define Content Area Literacy (CL):
Content Area literacy is the ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline. Content literacy is connected to all subject areas, and has the potential to maximize content acquisition:
3. What are the differences between DL and CL?
Content area literacy strategies are the basic set of strategies students use when reading and responding to texts, with little differentiation being made across the content-area subjects. For example, students may learn techniques for determining important information, making inferences, asking questions, and summarizing. They could apply these strategies to multiple content areas such as English, science, history, and/or math.
Discipline Literacy, however, supports students in moving beyond the general reading strategies as they develop specialized practices for making sense of discipline-based texts. Disciplinary Literary is much more in-depth in nature. It includes understanding how information is presented in each discipline, the organization of important information, specialized vocabulary, and the interpretation and evaluation of evidence.