Disciplinary Literacy, Agency, and Didactical Texts: Findings from a Calculus Textbook Think-Aloud Study

Abstract

Textbooks have been the subject of research within and across disciplines, but have not yet been widely studied from a disciplinary literacy perspective. Readerly agency is also understudied in disciplinary literacy. The present paper aims to illuminate both of these areas by examining facets of agency that readers demonstrated during think-aloud interviews with a college calculus textbook, thus exploring the disciplinary literacies that are involved in reading this didactical text. Authors have drawn on the recently forwarded theory of “didactical disciplinary literacy,” as well as definitions of agency in both literacy and math fields, to reveal how agency was enacted by readers using the textbook to negotiate unknowns in calculus. Findings show participants exhibiting agency in a range of ways, but not always in direct relationship to themselves as agents within the field of mathematics. This study invites college instructors and secondary teachers to consider ways they might foster didactical disciplinary literacy skills to support student learners in mathematics, and other disciplines.