Instructional Planning: Literacy Across Subjects

Interdisciplinary instruction was top of mind as educators debated the importance of incorporating literacy into all subjects.

  • “I’m developing a professional development for high school teachers about reading and writing in EVERY class EVERY DAY. We have block scheduling, so it’s absolutely possible. Any best practices? Any ideas for how to incorporate reading and writing in math, science, art, and PE?” —High School English Teacher in Texas
    • “When teaching math I didn’t have time daily for writing. Too many mandatory concepts to try to get to in one year. I did have kids write at the end of units : sometimes step by step directions on how they solved a problem, or notes for a presentation.” —Educator, N/A
  • “This weeks debate on Teacher Twitter: someone had the AUDACITY to basically say ‘all teachers are teachers of literacy’ and people had a FULL BLOWN MELTDOWN” —ELA Teacher, N/A
    • “And my former principal once asked me why I don’t trust that content area teachers will teach literacy within their content… Um. Seems like the staff meeting smiles & the ‘right answer’ is a pack of lies. Twitter gives them anonymity for truth telling…” —Teacher in Seattle
    • “Here’s me trying to demonstrate to my staff/admin/super that I teach literacy in music, and don’t need more PD to do it, and them not believing me, and then there are music teachers on Twitter saying they don’t teach literacy, and they TOTALLY DO.” —Music Teacher, N/A
    • “We’re actually having a shift this coming year because too much of ELA was put on us interventionists post-pandemic, so this year we’re putting more Tier 1 back on the classroom teachers – which is how it should be! But, it’s going to cause some growing pains.” —Teacher, N/A
  • “Hey. It’s me. Your friendly high school librarian reiterating what [a fellow educator] said: literacy is important across ALL contents. And please lean on your librarian for support. Okay. Thanks for your time.” —Educator in Missouri
  • “Literacy across the curriculum is necessary. It doesn’t have to look how reading & writing in an ELA classroom does. We say ‘media LITERACY’ because it is being able to decipher whether something is credible & accurate. Music LITERACY is reading, writing, playing MUSIC.” —Educator in Louisiana 
  • “Every teacher is a literacy teacher.This will be the hill I die on. Nobody is asking non-ELA teachers to teach novels and write critical analysis essays.” —Educator in New York
    • “Um…yeah. Totally agree. I teach social studies and it is a huge part of my class.” —Social Studies Teacher, N/A
  • “If #teachertwitter is any indication of the state of education right now we’re all in deep trouble. People are really arguing about whose responsibility it is to create literate children & debating about greeting students at the door. School hasn’t even started yet.” —Teacher in Nevada