Disciplinary Literacy and the 4Es: Rigorous and Substantive Responses to Interdisciplinary Standards

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have described discipline-specific literacy skills needed to successfully engage with science concepts, and science assessments ask students to use language in many and varied forms to mediate their science thought and actions and prove mastery of content. Yet many science teachers have not been prepared with skills that help them recognize the ways literacy is integral to the discipline of science, much less integrate it. This research explored the experiences of three classroom science teachers as they worked to enact overlapping English Language Arts and science standards inherent in CCSS and NGSS through inquiry-based instruction. The 4Es’ heuristic framed analysis of classroom observations of instruction, teacher interviews, and surveys. Ways the teachers utilized inquiry-based instruction to Engage their students, Elicit/Engineer their literacies, and Examine and Evaluate discipline-specific language practices are analyzed, with recommendations for specific, interdisciplinary, and ongoing support teachers will need in order to realize the disciplinary literacy goals of the CCSS and NGSS.