For this assignment, you should analyze and adapt an existing lesson or short unit so that it will support students’ disciplinary literacy learning in your current (or anticipated) professional context. You will need to select a specific lesson or short unit on which to focus. The starting materials can be ones that you have designed/taught, or they can come from a curricular source or publisher.
Part A: Select a focal lesson/unit. Attach it (scanned pages are fine).
Part B: Analyze the lesson or unit to determine the extent to which it already supports disciplinary purposes and practices. What will be most important to change in order to use this plan for disciplinary literacy teaching? Why? Connect your analysis to class readings. Length: 1.5-2 pages.
Part C: Adapt your focal materials to create a new lesson or short unit for disciplinary literacy teaching. Incorporate:
- Ways to engage students in disciplinary inquiry
- What will students be investigating?
- How will they investigate it?
- What texts will they read and write?
- Ways to support students’ success
- How will you support students’ disciplinary reading and writing?
- How will you support their disciplinary talk?
- Ways of assessing students’ learning
- How will you gather information about what students are learning?
- How will you gather information about how their disciplinary reading, writing, and reasoning is developing?
Part D: Justify your changes. Why have you made the specific decisions that you’ve made? How did you draw from and adapt the ideas in the class readings? What would you want to do next after this lesson/unit? Length: 2 pages.
Part E: Works cited
Total paper length will vary based on the length of the original materials selected.
Total possible points: 100
| Exceeds (20 pts) | Meets (16 pts) | Approaching (12 pts) | Needs improvement (0 pts) | |
| Analysis of Original Lesson (Part B) | Project thoroughly analyzes an existing lesson or lesson set from a clear disciplinary literacy perspective. Analysis includes nuanced discussion of multiple ways that the lesson does and does not reflect disciplinary literacy goals and principles. | Project analyzes lesson from a clear disciplinary literacy perspective. Analysis includes some discussion of ways that the lesson does and does not reflect disciplinary literacy goals and principles. | Project analyzes lesson from a disciplinary literacy perspective, but the perspective may be unclear in some places. Analysis misses and/or confuses key aspects of disciplinary literacy. | Project does not analyze lesson from disciplinary literacy perspective. |
| Lesson Revision (Part C) | New lesson includes opportunities for students to engage students in disciplinary inquiry with texts. It includes ways that the teacher will support students’ disciplinary reading, writing, and talk and assess their learning. It is clear that all aspects of the lesson are aligned with one another and in the service of disciplinary literacy. | New lesson includes opportunities for students to engage students in disciplinary inquiry with texts. It includes ways that the teacher will support students’ disciplinary reading, writing, and talk and assess their learning. Most aspects of the lesson are aligned with one another and in the service of disciplinary literacy. | New lesson includes some opportunity for students to learn aspects of disciplinary literacy. A strong inquiry frame may be absent, or there may be major areas of misalignment (e.g., the texts are not suitable for answering the disciplinary question). | Project does not include new lesson, or there are not visible disciplinary literacy aspects embedded in the new lesson. |
| Lesson Justification (Part D) | Project thoroughly justifies why the changes have been made to the lesson based on disciplinary literacy goals and principles. | Project offers some justification of the changes that have been made based on disciplinary literacy goals and principles. Most claims are warranted and clear. | Project offers some justification for the changes that have been made. Some claims are warranted and clear, while others are vague, incomplete, or unwarranted. | Project does not justify major decisions about the new lesson design. |
| Use of Course Readings (throughout) | Project draws deeply on course readings and course themes to analyze existing lesson and to justify changes to the lesson. It is clear that the writer is using the course readings in a substantive way. | Paper draws on multiple course readings to analyze existing lesson and justify changes to the lesson. Sometimes there are missed opportunities to draw on course readings or imprecisions in the way the readings are used. | Paper draws on multiple course readings to analyze existing lesson and justify changes to the lesson. The majority of the citations are superficial (i.e., they read as if they are “tagged on” rather than as if they are driving the thinking) | Paper does not draw on specific course readings or only uses course readings superficially |
| APA Format (throughout) | Paper lists all in-text and end references in APA format | Paper lists all references; there may be minor errors in APA or the works cited list at the end may be incomplete | Paper does not consistently use APA | Paper does not include references |
Content Area Reading 2019 