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SPECIAL SECTION THEMED ISSUE
This article comes at a pivotal time when many literacy advocates know the key ingredients needed for students to be successful and support collective efforts around Children’s Rights to Read (International Literacy Association, 2018), but addressing gaps in students’ literacy achievement remains a challenge for many schools across the United States and beyond. According to the International Literacy Association (2018), five areas are currently in the spotlight for their importance when it comes to literacy development: early literacy, equity in literacy education, teacher preparation, strategies for differentiating instruction, and access to books and content. In this article, we build on these important elements and discuss ways in which literacy can be integrated across the content areas. We assert that three key ingredients can make literacy instruction more comprehensive in interdisciplinary settings: intention, joy, and an eye for social justice and equity.
Intention: Purposely Breaking through the Language Arts Block
It is pleasing to note that teacher preparation is included among the top five most important topics in literacy. Our collaboration began about four years ago at Bloomfield College, a private institution in the New Jersey-New York metropolitan area designated as a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI). Working together in a literacy methods course, we recognized that having high expectations for all learners across all grade levels and content areas reaps great outcomes for learners. The research is simple: teachers who have high expectations for students realize greater gains in student achievement than those who do not. In Breaking through the Language Arts Block: Organizing and Managing the Exemplary Literacy Day (Morrow and Kunz, 2018), ten identifiers are described for what it means to be an exemplary literacy teacher.
This text highlights the importance of intentionally making literacy a part of the entire school day by breaking through the traditional “block” and places literacy learning as a school-wide focus across content areas.