Developing disciplinary literacy in a multilingual history classroom

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Linguistics and Education 23 (2012) 262– 276

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Linguistics and Education

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Developing disciplinary literacy in a multilingual history classroom

Mariana Achugara,∗, Brian D. Carpenterb

a Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Modern Languages, Baker Hall 160, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United Statesb University of Pittsburgh, English Language Institute, Department of Linguistics, 2816 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Keywords:Disciplinary literacyFunctional approach to literacyMultilingual learning contexts

a b s t r a c t

This paper reports on a design experiment (Brown, 1992) where we explored how providinga linguistic support for understanding historical documents affected students comprehen-sion of historical documents and their disciplinary literacy. The functional approach todisciplinary literacy parallels historians’ reading practices while supporting language devel-opment. This language development is assisted through the discussion of difficult texts andcomplex issues using linguistic tools that support the development of metalinguistic aware-ness (see e.g. Schleppegrell, Achugar, & Oteíza, 2004). We collected data documenting theintervention (disciplinary literacy lessons) and students’ performance (pre and post test ofreading comprehension tasks) from five multilingual history classrooms taught by the sameteacher. The data were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods to determinethe characteristics of the disciplinary literacy lessons and students’ learning. The analysis ofthe data shows students expanded their linguistic resources and had a deeper understand-ing of historical texts at the end of the semester. The case studies presented also show thegreat diversity in a population that is homogeneously labeled (i.e. being English learners),but which has different linguistic resources and experiences to work with. The detailedfunctional analysis of their textual production revealed how they attempt to construct adisciplinary gaze.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Classrooms throughout the world are made up of multicultural and multilingual students (UNESCO, 2004). Globaliza-tion and immigration have affected the educational landscape and have posed new demands on educational systems. Asresults from the PISA study have shown, immigrant students in many countries are not performing well in basic areas oflearning (OECD, 2005). “The PISA study has revealed that the effectiveness of school curricula depends not only on the bestperformances of a few students but also on the ability of a learning program to keep all students in the classroom ‘on board’,keeping individuals who face specific learning challenges (such as linguistic or cultural) from falling behind.” (Süssmuth,2007, p. 202). This new situation in today’s schools offers the possibility to rethink the teaching and learning of disciplinaryliteracy in mainstreams classrooms while addressing language minority students’ needs.

In the U.S., the proportion of students who are English language learners (ELLs) has grown markedly and created anew linguistic landscape in public school classrooms (Batalova, Fix, & Murray, 2006). The ongoing needs of these linguisticminority students become invisible after they are reclassified as fluent English speakers (Gándara & Rumberger, 2008), sincethey do not receive any language-focused instruction. Subsequently, large numbers of these students become high schoolstudents who have higher drop out rates and lower reading achievement than mainstream students (Fry, 2007). The focus

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 412 268 1895; fax: +1 412 268 1328.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Achugar), [email protected] (B.D. Carpenter).

0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2012.05.003


M. Achugar, B.D. Carpenter / Linguistics and Education 23 (2012) 262– 276 263

of our study is the development of disciplinary literacy of secondary school level language minority students in mainstreamhistory classrooms.

Learning disciplinary literacy, in this case history literacy, implies learning how to understand and produce knowledgewith language that constructs content and perspective typical of a field of study. History is about what happened in the pastand also about how to evaluate what happened (Martin, Maton, & Matruglio, 2010). Other work on disciplinary literacy ineducational research has also shown the value of looking at academic language not only as jargon and technical vocabulary,but as meaning making practices of specialized communities (Moje, 2007; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). This approachallows us to understand the unique features of reading and writing in subject matter courses. In this paper, we show howstudents developed a more historical perspective to evaluate those events that occurred in the past while simultaneouslyexpanding their academic language resources.

1.1. Developing historical literacy in a multilingual class

To learn history implies learning a way of knowing and seeing the world. Learning to have a historical perspective or gaze(Bernstein, 2000) implies having a sense of what happened as well as the values to assess its significance.

History is not simply about telling stories but rather about interpreting the past in uncommonsense ways whichinvolve packaging up sequences of actions by individuals into episodes, explaining these packages causally inside theclause and valuing them appropriately. This puts tremendous pressure on being able to read and write grammaticalmetaphors, making the discourse relatively abstract. (Martin et al., 2010, p. 7)

This implies that learning history requires a great amount of linguistic work.History is a language-based discipline (Schleppegrell, Achugar, & Oteíza, 2004; Short, 2002). There is not only a particular

way of using language in history, but also a number of language-based activities that characterize history. Historical writingeffaces people, transforms actions into things and replaces time sequence by frozen time settings (Eggins, Wignell, & Martin,1993); and the language of primary sources is often unfamiliar (e.g. genres, old English, technical terms) (Coffin, 2006).There are also a series of language based practices that are typical of the discipline, such as: working with primary sources,doing multiple readings (information, perspective, context), constructing multilayered explanations, reading across texts,constructing arguments to support interpretations (Leinhardt & Young, 1996; Wineburg, 1994, 1998). The national standardsin history call for students to learn the practices of historical analysis and use of primary sources. So one of the main challengesthat students encounter is reading to learn. They have to work with texts with unfamiliar language and they also have to relymore on text information to understand them because they do not yet have enough background knowledge. To read deeply,they not only need to decode, but also to make inferences and connections with other relevant knowledge. This impliesthese learners need to double the work because their linguistic resources are limited and the inferences and connectionswith other knowledge they can make may not be those expected by the academic community.

Research on historian’s reading practices (Leinhardt & Young, 1996; Wineburg, 1998) has revealed they engage in closereadings that include word level and rhetorical analysis. They analyze what a text says and how it says it. Expert readers inhistory classify, corroborate, source and contextualize documents (Leinhardt & Young, 1996). Historians reading practicesinvolve also a deeper level that includes making connections and interpreting texts in relation to disciplinary dialogues andtheoretical purposes. They evaluate sources, organize information in terms of causality perspective and chronology, creatinga historical reading.

Second language reading research has also shown that vocabulary, syntactic and text structure knowledge are significantfactors affecting L2 reading comprehension (Grabe, 2000; Koda, 2005). L2 readers rely more on the textual linguistic dataand their L2 linguistic competence than L1 readers do (Horiba, 1996, 2000; Nassaji, 2002). Since L2 readers are less efficientin decoding linguistic data that causes delays in high-level interpretation processes (Koda, 1994). For these reasons, suc-cessful L2 readers use strategies such as contextualizing, using prior knowledge, inferencing and monitoring comprehension(Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian, 2006).

To learn from documents readers need tools to think about language and history in more abstract ways (Achugar, 2009).Our assumption was that making explicit the way historians read, and teaching some text analysis strategies could contributeto students’ understanding of historical documents and develop their disciplinary literacy. Based on previous researchon language-focused instruction in history (Schleppegrell, Gargani, Berman, de Oliveira, & McTygue, 2006), we expectedstudents’ disciplinary literacy and historical understanding both to be enhanced by an intervention with language awarenessfocused lessons.

This paper reports on a design experiment where we explored, among other things, how providing a linguistic supportfor understanding historical documents affected students comprehension of historical documents and their disciplinaryliteracy. The following section provides a description of the theoretical framework and background information about theproject.

1.2. Functional approach to disciplinary literacy

We adopted a functional perspective on disciplinary literacy (Achugar & Stainton, 2010; Schleppegrell, 2001, 2004).This means we consider that language users make choices from options available in the system and that these choices are


264 M. Achugar, B.D. Carpenter / Linguistics and Education 23 (2012) 262– 276

meaningful. However, in the case of disciplinary discourse, the choices that are functional for this community are recontex-tualized when translated to the school context. The recontextualization of professional discourse in school curricula modifiesthe discourse and its social meaning (Bernstein, 2000). Teachers scaffold students’ learning by moving from common senseunderstandings and wordings of events and social actors to more uncommon sense ones. This move requires a high degreeof linguistic awareness and an expansion of the linguistic repertoire to include technical terms and wordings that are notusually deployed in everyday ways of talking about the past.

The functional approach to disciplinary literacy parallels historians’ reading practices while supporting language devel-opment. This language development is assisted through the discussion of difficult texts and complex issues using linguistictools that assist in developing metalinguistic awareness (see e.g. Achugar, 2009; Achugar & Stainton, 2010; Schleppegrellet al., 2004). These skills can later be transferred to approaching other similar texts. The close text analysis enables deeperunderstanding of multilayered reading of documents to grasp their complexity and relevance. These practices contribute tothe development of critical language awareness (Fairclough, 1992), systematically linking features of texts with those of thesocio-cultural context where they were produced and received to understand and critique the socially motivated nature ofdiscourses.

Functional approaches to disciplinary literacy highlight learning through language, learning about language and learninglanguage simultaneously (Halliday, 1999). The following section describes the case study and presents the methodologyused to collect and analyze data.

2. Case study: participants, method, and findings

This study investigates the role of critical language awareness in developing students’ historical understanding andacademic language. Our work was to develop instructional models designed to improve the teaching and learning of history,while integrating the scientific study of history and language learning. The study used a design experiment methodology(Brown, 1992; Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc, 2004) to explore the usage and effects of metalinguistic explanations about theway language functions in historical documents (primary sources). One of the cores of a language-focused instructionalexplanation necessitates the close reading of texts using linguistic tools to create historically relevant questions relevant tothe content.

The phases of the design experiment included the following: (1) professional development sessions for participant teach-ers; (2) collaborative design with the two participating teachers of three focal lessons with metalinguistic explanations ofhistorical texts; (3) implementing and observing these lessons; (4) documenting the teachers’ experience conducting them;and (5) assessing (pre and post tests) of students’ critical language awareness learning and reading comprehension afterbeing exposed to the intervention during a whole semester.

Our project investigated the following questions (among others): What are the defining characteristics of the history literacylessons designed? What effect does this type of metalinguistic explanation and close text analysis have on teachers and students’understanding of history?

In this paper, we report on our collaboration with one of the teachers that participated in the study.1 He was in hisfourth year of teaching and had a specialization in history. He designed language-focused lessons with our support duringthe summer to implement during the academic year in his American history classes. The teacher taught five courses of theacademic track, a euphemism for lower level courses. His classes included ELL labeled students and mainstream students.Chart one describes the language background of the students in each of the sections (see Table 1).

The students in these groups were designated by the district according to their language background and ethnicity as:ELLs, African American, Other. There were a total of 94 students included, 15% designated as ELLs. All of the students wereplaced in the academic track for their lower achievement in statewide content standardized tests.

The teacher participated in a summer workshop introducing him to the functional approach to disciplinary literacy (seeabove), and then worked over the summer developing three language-focused lessons to integrate to the regular curriculum.The teacher engaged in conversations and received feedback from the first author during the summer. Before and after eachof the lessons was taught the teacher had an interview with the first author to discuss plans and expectations, as wellas, outcomes and reflections on what had happened. During the fall semester, the second author observed the class everyother week and kept a journal of ethnographic observation. These observations registered the teacher’s questions, use ofmetalinguistic explanations, students’ participation patterns and implementation of the lesson. We measured students’learning by giving them a reading task before and at the end of the interventions (see appendix). These tasks were designedby us to assess the type of work and knowledge that students would be practicing in the language focused lessons. The taskswere designed to fit into the regular class curriculum and took about 20 minutes to complete. The identity of all participantswas protected by using a code that would not enable anyone to identify them personally. These codes were provided by theschool district and written in the document by the teacher before we received the materials.

The in-depth study of this pedagogical intervention in a naturalistic setting enabled us to derive evidence-based claimsabout the role of linguistics-informed language instruction in learning history in multilingual classrooms. We conducted

1 We do not report on the other teacher because the data set from that participant’s classes was incomplete.



Table 1Students’ aggregated data characteristics per class.

Period 1 Period 4 Period 6 Period 7 Period 8

Teacher 1Total number of students 24 30 28 24 23Number of ELL students 3 7 2 2 6Grades 21 in 10 1 in 10th 3 in 10th 2 in 10th 1 in 10th

2 in 11th 28 in 11th 25 in 11th 21 in 11th 21 in 11th1 in 12th 1 in 12th 1 in 12th 1 in 12th

Gender 13 females 19 females 12 females 11 females 10 females11 males 11 males 16 males 13 males 13 males

Age 18 sixteen 19 sixteen 1 fifteen 1 fifteen 18 sixteen5 seventeen 9 seventeen 22 sixteen 19 sixteen 5 seventeen1 fifteen 2 eighteen 5 seventeen 4 seventeen

TAKS social studies All met minimumstandards

3 did not meetminimum




No score for 4 sts No score for 9 sts No score for 4 sts No score for 6 sts No score for 4 stsEthnicity 6 Hispanic 9 Hispanic 9 Hispanic 7 Hispanic 6 Hispanic

11 White 17 White 15 White 15 White 11 White5 Black 1 Black 4 Black 1 Black 5 Black2 Asian 3 Asian 1 Native American 1 Asian

quantitative and qualitative analysis of data that yielded interesting findings and confirmed some established knowledgeabout learning language in history classrooms. Below we present the findings and evidence to support them.

2.1. Language focused lesson in history: what are the defining characteristics of the history literacy lessons designed?

The analysis of observation notes, lesson plans, and documents allowed us to identify a set of characteristics common tothe three intervention lessons. The lessons were designed with two parts. The first one required selecting a primary source,and the second creating activities to scaffold students’ reading comprehension of the text. The teachers were charged withselecting a text, contextualizing it, explaining its historical significance, and giving reasons why it is worth spending anextended amount of time on. Additionally, the teachers had to recognize potential difficulties students could encounterwhen working with the text. For the lesson design work, they had to write a lesson plan including: goals (what students weregoing to learn), background knowledge diagnosis (how they would find out what students know about the topic or potentialconnections they can make to things they already know), the challenges the students could encounter (what are generalobstacles or difficulties they foresee and how they were going to address them in the lesson, what particular strategies theywould use), the actions they would take in the lesson (what activities they planned in particular language analysis activitiesand timing of them), materials and visual aids, and assessment of student learning (how would they know if students hadlearned?). These guiding principles were devised to help teachers think about how to incorporate the text analysis intoa regular history lesson and presented a common framework. The lessons constructed by the teachers had the followingcommon features: (1) working with excerpts of primary sources not whole documents; (2) looking closely at wording andspecific choices at the sentence level to explore representation and orientation to events/participants; (3) attempting touse metalanguage (linguistic terms and historical terms); (4) providing students with guided practice and opportunities toengage in text analysis themselves; and (5) finished by linking the text analysis to larger historical issues. Below we presentsome examples of the type of language analysis teacher’s engaged in during a focal lesson. For an extended discussion andmore detailed description of an example lesson see Carpenter, Earhart, and Achugar (submitted for publication).

2.1.1. Detailed overview/snapshot of lessonsThe following paragraphs set out a detailed description of one of the intervention lessons (of the three conducted through-

out the semester) from the focus classes. We observed 5 different classes where this lesson was implemented. We chose tohighlight this lesson, as the lesson represented was typical of the five lessons he presented this particular day. In other words,the pacing, questions, and interactions shown here were more or less replicated throughout the day. We chose to highlightthis lesson as it had the most time on task, and the fewest time on behavioral management. This description is based onethnographic notes from class observations, documents collected from the lesson and interviews with the teacher (beforeand after the lesson). The classroom’s physical layout had the desks in rows facing the white board and projector screen.The teacher’s desk and work area, which were facing the whiteboard and screen, were at the back of the room behind thedesks. The students had a clear unobstructed view of the work, which was projected on the screen. The teacher had placedtwo floor lamps at either end of the room to provide the lighting for the classroom, instead of using the fluorescent lightsmounted in the ceiling. The teacher’s manner with the students was engaged yet firm. They addressed him respectfully, andhe had to spend very little energy on behavior management. He outlined what his plans were for the day both orally andvisually by writing the lesson’s agenda on the board. There were 24 students in the class, 13 of these were female and 7 ELLs.

After taking roll, the teacher began the forty-five minute lesson on examining the language of a small part of the Decla-ration of Independence. The excerpt began with the clause, “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and ended with the



phrase “by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” The excerpt had been broken up into three different groups(see text parts 1, 2, and 3). This delineation was decided on by the teacher and was not part of the original document.

Text part 1We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with

certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights,Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Text part 2That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to

abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Text part 3Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;

and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than toright themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The teacher turned on the projector and began by explaining that: “we are going to be talking about the Declarationtoday”, and then he asked the students to notice that the worksheet “has verbs highlighted”.2 The verbs from part 1 werehighlighted in magenta. He instructed the class that they were going “to look at the text closely”. He prefaced the closereading by asking contextualizing questions such as who was the text written by, when was it written, and why was itwritten. The students responded by noting Jefferson as a main author, and that the document was written a year before warbroke out, and that it was written so “we can have liberty and freedom.” After this contextualizing talk the teacher stated,“what we’re gonna do is identify verbs, the message, and the participants in this section of the Declaration of Independence.”

The teacher read the first clause and the following interchange took place.T What is the verb in ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident’?S HoldT Who is ‘we’?S Homo sapiensT What is the message here?S These truths to be self-evident

At this point there was some clarifying talk about what “self-evident” meant. And then the class moved to the next clause,“that all men are created equal”.T What is our next verb?S Are createdT What is the message here? What is TJ trying to say? Who are men, do you think in this capacity? Rich white farmers? Humans? Why did

he say all men? Why didn’t he say mankind?S All men are created equal.S A black man born is not the same as a white manS There’s a black man running for president

It should be noted here that this style of IRF from this teacher was common to all the lessons we observed. His questioningof the choice difference between men and mankind was also typical of the type of questions he was asking the students.This initiation and response pattern continued for part one of the text, and lasted about twenty-five minutes.

After taking the students clause by clause through part one, he asked the students: “to go through the next part andidentify the verbs, the participants, and the message.” As the students began to work with their classmates, the teacherbegan circling the room checking that they were on task, and he also took time to answer questions or address the work theywere doing. Most of his talk with the students was in the form of questions, “what is the verb here” or “what is the messageafter the verb?” With about five minutes of class time remaining the teacher called the group’s attention, and asked themto think about who the intended audience was for this text. He also explained that they would pick up the lesson and finishpart three tomorrow.

The lesson was organized around the primary source text and focused on making students aware of how meaningsare made by particular linguistic choices. In this case the focus was on pointing out how the document constructed arepresentation of reality where certain people were defined as being free and having certain rights and then stating howthis is justified. The basic pedagogical principle is to make explicit the fact that linguistic choices are meaningful and thatauthors choose from the language meaning making potential to construct particular representations of events. The meaningof one choice emerges when we contrast it to all the other possible choices that could have been made in that particularcontext. Historically it is meaningful to explore why this particular wording was chosen, what effects it had and what otherchoices were available at the time.

The follow up lesson used the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason in 1776, as the text to design thelesson around. The teacher selected this document to explore how the ideas of the Declaration of Independence emerged. Thepoint of the lesson was for students to learn that “ideas do not just emerge from thin air” (teacher1). After having examinedthe Declaration of Independence in the previous class, in this lesson students investigated where these ideas came from and

2 Here we put those verbs highlighted in the original in bold and underlined the nouns that were blue in the original.



Table 2Descriptive statistics on students’ performance in pre and post tasks (without outliers).

Group Pre task mean Pre task SD N Post task mean Post task SD N

ALL 9.84 2.88 89 12.52 1.97 89ELLs 10.14 1.185 11 12.05 1.274 11

had a second pass at identifying verbs and participants to analyze the representation of events in texts. The lesson began witha brief discussion about “what is freedom?”. Students were asked to provide their definition of freedom and compare it totheir parents’ definition. Then, students received a copy of the VA Declaration of Rights. The instructor read the introductoryparagraph to the class and asked: “What do we know about the VA Declaration of Rights?” Students identified the author,George Mason and they mentioned that it was used by Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. Theinstructor presented a list of bullet points using power point situating the document’s production and historical setting. Theinstructor then proceeded to read the first section of the VA Declaration of rights that was being projected using an overheadon the board. The class identified together each verb and participant to point out how freedom was defined in this text.

Text“That all men are by nature equally free and independent and [they] have certain inherent rights, of which, when they

enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of lifeand liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The teacher discussed the representation of ideas and participants in the document and asked students to compare themto those discussed in the previous class when they read the Declaration of Independence.

Students then worked in small groups identifying the verbs and participants, each group got a different section of thedocument (Sections 13 and 16), and then compared their sections to the Bill of Rights trying to find similarities and differ-ences in the presentation of ideas between the documents. The sections selected contained fairly obvious similarities anddifferences (Section 13 correlates to the 2nd and 3rd amendments and section 16 correlates to the 1st amendment). Theresults were shared with the larger group asking students to read out loud the text and then pointed to particular languagethat provided evidence for similarities and differences between the ideas presented in these three primary source texts.

This description of the focal lesson and its follow up shows how the learning from one lesson is part of a series of lessons.Every lesson has a specific focus, purpose, and limitations. Thus, it is important analyze them longitudinally, since learningto use the habits of thinking needed to comprehend, interpret, and analyze historical texts takes place over time.

2.2. Students’ learning: what effect does this type of metalinguistic explanation and close text analysis have on students’understanding of history?

Previous work on language-focused instruction in the history classroom history (Schleppegrell et al., 2006), showedthe potential this type of intervention has in enhancing both disciplinary literacy and historical understanding. Our pre-intervention student assessment results hint that in terms of learning, using metalinguistic awareness to better understandhistorical documents started at different levels for English Language Learners (ELL) and non-ELL students. At baseline, ELLstudents performed slightly better than non ELL students on the reading task. This might be explained by the fact thatELLs have a more developed metalinguistic awareness due to their bilingual or multilingual experience. Their bilingualreservoir (Genesee et al., 2006) can be a fund of previous knowledge, which they can draw from to understand texts. Inthe post-test all students showed gains. This suggests that the intervention potentially had an effect on all students, eventhough it was minimal (only three focal lessons). For non-ELL students, the focus on metalinguistic awareness facilitatedthe development of a new strategic resource in reading comprehension. On the other hand for ELLs, who already had somemetalinguistic awareness, the intervention did not generate as large of a change in their reading comprehension at thatlevel; most of their improvement occurred at the inference level. Which highlights the importance of contextualization andknowledge building at the disciplinary level. Having more information about the historical topic and experience connectingand comparing different historical sources may have enabled them to develop their inferential skills to make meaning oftexts.

Another possible explanation for this behavior difference is the importance of language proficiency in the reading process.Reading comprehension is a multidimensional process where metalinguistic strategies and language proficiency both playan important role in understanding texts. So this may have been another factor that could explain the variation, but thiscannot be answered with the data we have.

The descriptive statistical analysis revealed that students’ understanding of history as expressed through their readingcomprehension skills developed for all students. Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics for all students and the ELL group.

These results demonstrate there was at least some improvement in the performance of all students.Creating opportunities to look closely at texts and analyze how meanings are constructed made visible the strategies

expert readers use when approaching historical texts and started to provide a metalanguage to develop strategies to learnfrom text. For ELLs, this type of approach to reading primary sources offered an opportunity to use strategies they already had,using their awareness of how grammar constructs meanings, and to slow down the reading process and making questionsabout language a valid form of learning in the history classroom.



The qualitative analysis of students written responses allowed us to explore academic language development. The analysispresented below focuses only on their responses to the question that required them to explain what the text’s author positionon the topic was by summarizing his point of view on the historical issue. This was the question where they provided thelonger answers in the test and had to demonstrate their understanding of the source text providing evidence to support it.Even though the amount of language produced by students is at the paragraph and sentence level mostly, these are examplesof what students are able to do. We found that there was an increase in the number of words used by students from pretest to post test. Since the focus of the study was on reading comprehension and historical understanding we did not askstudents to engage in extended writing (i.e. essay length responses) which was not regularly done as part of their historycurriculum.

We looked at linguistic indicators to document academic language development, based on previous work done withinthis functional framework (e.g. Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Schleppegrell, 2006). The linguistic resources we tracked were:lexical density, grammatical intricacy, grammatical metaphor, clause-combining resources and metadiscourse choices (i.e.attitude, engagement and graduation). Lexical density (Halliday, 1994) refers to the number of content words (i.e. nouns,adjectives, adverbs and verbs) per number of ranking clauses.3 Written language typically becomes more complex, thatis more lexically dense packing more lexical items into a clause (Halliday, 1994, p. 350). Grammatical intricacy refers tothe number of clauses (main, paratactic or hypotactic) as a proportion of clause complexes.4 Written language becomescomplex by building less clause complexes and using more embedding and dense nominal groups. The relationships that areexpressed clausally in spoken language (i.e. parataxis and hypotaxis) are instead expressed nominally (Halliday, 1994, p. 351).Grammatical metaphor is one of the resources by which written complexity is achieved. Grammatical metaphor involvesa type of metaphorical movement from one grammatical form to another. For example, transforming the meaning that istypically expressed through a full clause in a nominal group, “Jefferson’s ideas in the document surprised me”. Grammaticalmetaphor is an index of advanced literacy and language development.

The other indicators of language development we looked at were the functional semantic relations that constitute thelogic of the text in two dimensions: interdependency and logico-semantic relations. Looking at the type of relationshipbetween clauses enables us to explore in more depth clause complexes and capture the multivariate structure of sen-tences and the range of functional configurations participants are deploying to construct meanings with limited resources.When students develop the potential to make meanings through multi-clausal complex structures they can expand theirmeaning making potential to establish logico semantic relations (expansion or projection) between ideas and constructhierarchies among the information using the tactic system (interdependence of clauses: parataxis and hypotaxis). Finally,we investigated the metadiscursive choices they made to position themselves with regards to the information presented(attitudes/evaluation, modality), other discourses available (mental and verbal processes, projections and pronouns), andpoint of view (presentation of self, author, audience).

All texts were transcribed verbatim and divided into clauses. Then we coded for lexical density, grammatical intricacy, useof technical vocabulary, and features that construct a presentation of self-as-authority (i.e. mental and saying verbs, modality,use of personal pronouns, evaluation, graduation). We also coded the types of clauses (parataxis, hypotaxis, embedding) andlogico semantic relations (projection and expansion).5 We had a 91% rate of inter-coder reliability.

We found there were improvements from task 1 to task 2 across groups (ELLs and Others) in number of words pro-duced, lexical density, and grammatical intricacy. They all produced more language, more technical vocabulary and a widerrange of clause types. There was an overall expansion of students’ linguistic repertoire; however, there were differencesbetween groups and individual differences within groups. The analysis of interpersonal meanings (i.e. presentation of self-as-authority) showed there was some change in the use of reference where all students moved from using more exophoricreference (one that assumes the reader already knows the subject the pronoun is substituting for by making links to refer-ences outside the text) to using more endophoric reference making explicit who the referent is by naming it for the reader.This is a clear indication of assuming a more academic perspective that distances author from reader and assumes there isno shared knowledge with the reader. Even though the intervention provided more explicit language explanations of howhistory is constructed through linguistic choices, there was not enough time or emphasis on developing their productiveoutput, so these changes cannot be causally attributed to the intervention itself (nor did we do a controlled experiment toisolate variables). For a more detailed analysis of students’ writing see Achugar and Carpenter (submitted for publication).

We will now present evidence from 6 focal ELL cases to illustrate students’ language and content development.

2.3. ELL focal cases: language development and content learning

These cases were chosen to represent the diversity within the group in terms of their language background and per-formance in the tasks. Table 3 shows a detailed description of their characteristics in terms of gender, age, grade, Englishlanguage program status, and social studies background knowledge (i.e. scores in state standardized test).

3 Ranking clauses are non-embedded elements.4 A clause complex is a head clause together with other clauses that modify it (Halliday, 1994, p. 215).5 Notations: ///, between clause complexes; //, paratactic; /, hypotactic; [[]], embedding (clause); [], embedding (group).



Table 3ELL students’ focal cases: general characteristics.

Case Grade level Gender Ethnicity Age LEP status Social studiesstandardized test score

Student ID# 1025 11th grade Male Hispanic 16 years old LEP status exited program TAKS score 2225Student ID# 1052 11th grade Female Hispanic 18 years old LEP status current student TAKS score 2147Student ID# 1041 11th grade Male Hispanic 18 years old LEP status current student TAKS not availableStudent ID# 1142 12th grade Male Asian 17 years old LEP status current student TAKS scores not availableStudent ID# 1019 11th grade Female White 16 years old LEP status current student TAKS scores 2177Student ID #1102 11th grade Female Hispanic 15 years old LEP status current student TAKS scores 2066 (below

acceptable level)

The group represents the diversity of students’ background in terms of educational attainment and language profile. Someof these students are a little bit older than the average in these courses and most of them were still taking language supportcourses. This implies that even though they are all placed in the same course their language trajectory and experiences werevery different. As a result, the learning trajectory for these students is non-linear and is affected by the type of experiencesthey had before with disciplinary literacy and academic language in general, not just by their participation in this study.

2.3.1. Case 1: student ID# 1025The overall score for this student on the reading tasks were: pre 8/post 12. He improved mainly in the section that required

him to provide evidence from the text, and in the inference section where they had to connect this text to other texts anddiscussions in the field. The Summary section, which we analyze below, did not change in score. However, looking closelyat his word choices allows us to see movement in terms of the linguistic resources he deploys to construct a more academicvoice. In example 1, we see his production in response to a question that required them to summarize the author’s opinionabout a topic.

Example 1:Task 1 Question 4The author’s opinion about equality among people are that [[all people should be created equal]].Total number of words 15Lexical density 9/1 = 9Grammatical intricacy 1/1Technical vocabulary author, equality among people(nominalization), participant introduced in terms of his functionalrole “author”Colloquial vocabulary “people” (repetition)Tactic system no dependency, embedding 1/1Presentation of self no reference to self, use of modality to insert evaluation “should”.Task 2The author is trying to explain /that the immigrants coming into the U.S. should not go againsts the U.S. government orfederal law [[in order to teach //or believe in communism]].Total number of words 31Lexical density 15/2 = 7.5Grammatical intricacy 2/1 = 2Technical vocabulary author immigrants, government, federal law, communismColloquial vocabularyTactic system dependency (hypotaxis) and embedding 1/2Presentation of self modulation through use of periphrastic verbs “trying to” diminishes the force of the statement“explains” use of modals “should”, identification of author in functional role (the author).

A comparison of the logical and tactic relation between clauses allows us to see how this student moves from usingprojection (reported speech) citing directly the words of the author, to paraphrasing it in a way that allows him to includean evaluation and enhancement of the author’s position. The first production in task 1 includes modality, should, as part ofthe direct quotation. However, in task 2 this resource is used by the student to evaluate the degree of force of the author’sopinion (should not go) and to hedge his own statement (trying to explain). He also uses an embedded clause to integrate thecausal link to explain the other’s idea. At the clause level, there is a great move that expands the students meaning makingpossibilities and allows him to display and make visible to others his understanding of the historical situation.

2.3.2. Case 2: student ID# 1052This student’s performance on the tasks did not vary as much; it went from pre12/post14. The sections where there

was more change were summary and inference. Her summary received a lower score in the second instance (pre:3/post:2).Example 2 shows her response.



Example 2:Task 1 Question 4He sees /that there is not equality //& that it should be equality among men //but because of the government & the sold ofslaves & the injustices commited /it should came equality.///Total number of words 33Lexical density 13/5 = 2.6Grammatical intricacy 5/1 = 5Technical vocabulary equality, men, government, “sold of slaves” (nominalization), “injustices commited” (nominaliza-tion).Colloquial vocabulary use of pronoun with exophoric referenceTactic system use of dependency (hypotaxis and parataxis) no embeddingPresentation of self use of modals “should” to express the degree of necessity of the information. Use of attitudinal lexisto construct evaluation (Injustices). No explicit reference to self. Exophoric reference to author (he)Task 2They related the anarchists & the immigrant in a same group /by putting some too stricts measures to deal with anarchists//but at the same time including the immigrants./// The author only talks about [[what would happened if they foundout that they where anarchists]]/but they don’t explain [[what measures are they gonna take for Americans [that wantcommunism]]].Total number of words 60Lexical density 30/5 = 6Grammatical intricacy 5/2 = 2.5Technical vocabulary anarchists, immigrants, measures, deal, immigrants, author, communism. Introduction of partici-pants according to functional role “author” (although there is use of pronouns at the beginning “they” and lack of agreement“author-they”)Colloquial vocabulary “talks” (verbal process to refer to the written text), gonnaTactic system use of dependency (hypotaxis, parataxis) and embedding 3/5Presentation of self no explicit reference about self. Use of verbal and mental processes (talk, explain) to project other’sinformation. Graduation use of adjectives and comparison to evaluate information. (too, only)

This example shows how the student moves from exophoric (He) to endophoric reference (the author) to position theideas in relation to a defined other. There is also a clear expansion of linguistic resources in terms of the types of clausestructure used to connect ideas. In the first task, the student mostly resorts to chaining in order to list a series of ideas. Thecausal link to explain the author’s position appears clearly introduced through causal connectors (because). There is highuse of modality to inscribe the degree of force of the other’s ideas. In task 2 the student uses subordination again to insertthe causes introducing them with the preposition (by). Then she clearly evaluates the author’s position by using graduation(only) modifying the statement and mentioning what is not done. The use of polarity (negation) to explain the meaningof the other’s position reveals a clear understanding of the topics discussed in the text and the possible responses to thehistorical issue.

2.3.3. Case 3: student ID# 1041This starts with a high score pre 10/post 12. He mainly shows improvement in the summary and inference sections of

the tasks. Example 3 shows his production.

Example 3:Task 1 Question 4I subgest /he thinks /that was the time [[to protest about the equality of people]]/// he refers to equality /in the way to saythe same laws or no slavery anymore,/// he thinks //he can do something with this document.Total number of words 40Lexical density 19/7 = 2.7Grammatical intricacy 7/3 = 2.3Technical vocabulary protest, equality, refers, laws, slavery, documentColloquial vocabulary the same, use of pronouns with exophoric reference, in the way to say. . ., somethingTactic system hypotaxis, parataxis, embeddingPresentation of self explicit subjective positioning “I suggest”, use of mental and verbal processes to project other’s ideas(think, refer, thing). Use of modals “can” to show degree of possibility and use of interpersonal grammatical metaphors totone down the force of statement.Task 2The author think/ that those imigrants with bad behavior or those imigrants [[who did something wrong to United States]]deserve [[to be deported]]. //And after be deported/ they decide to come again to United States/ must be punish //and afterthat must be deported again.///Total number of words 45



Lexical density 28/6 = 4.66Grammatical intricacy 6/1 = 6Technical vocabulary author, immigrant, deported, punish.Colloquial vocabulary bad behavior, did something wrongTactic system hypotaxis, parataxis and embedding 2/5Presentation of self no explicit reference to self, use of modals to indicate degree of force and necessity. Identification ofparticipants in terms of their functional role “author”

This example shows how the student moved from exophoric reference and positioning his reading with hesitance (Isuggest he thinks), to more endophoric reference (The author thinks) and being more certain about the interpretation using abare declarative to present his opinion directly. The evaluation is inserted indirectly through resources like evaluative wordchoices (deserve, punish) and through a high degree of modalization (must).

2.3.4. Case 4: student ID# 1142This student is still receiving ESL support and there were no scores available to know about his knowledge of history

because he is a recent arrival. This case provides an idea of what students are able to do when they are placed in a mainstreamcontent classroom when they have limited academic English resources. He received a low score in the pre task and was ableto show great improvement during the semester, pre task 9–post 13. In the first task, at the beginning of the semester thestudent left the summary and inference questions blank. The responses for the second task at the end of the semester showsome understanding of the text, but restricted understanding of the requirements of this academic situation in terms oflanguage expression.

Example 4:Task 1 Question 4

BlankTask 2For being paranoid about foreigners’ positions on anarchy & communism;/ deport them.///Total number of words 12Lexical density 7/2 = 3.5Grammatical intricacy 2/1 = 2Technical vocabulary paranoid, foreigner, anarchy, communism, deportColloquial vocabulary not clear statement about whose views they are summarizingTactic system hypotaxisPresentation of self as authority impersonal, no explicit reference to authors. Attitudinal lexis (paranoid). Command (orderto act) enacts the relationship that is described in the text. Presentation of information is unusual (marked theme).

The example shows how he is able to provide a reason through a prepositional phrase that inserts the cause that motivatesthe legislators’ actions. The action taken by the legislators is reported as a command, what needs to be done. The range orresources exploited to convey attitude and perspective include: clause type (mood), and evaluative language (paranoid). Itis note worthy the high number of technical words and the organization of the information, by which the author’s positionis presented first and then what this entails in terms of actions. This student is able to use the limited amount of resourcesavailable to display his understanding of the text relying mainly on textual resources that include: order of information(theme/rheme), clause combining resources (preposition and subordination) and evaluative lexis (paranoid).

2.3.5. Case 5: student ID# 1019This student is one of the youngest in the ELL group, 16 years old, and has a high score in reading according to the

district wide assessment for ELLs. This student is still receiving ELL support. The scores on the task were one of the highest:pre10/post 14. She improved mostly in the inference section of the tasks.

Example 5:Task 1 Question 4It seems like/ he believes /that the King of Great Britain is using his power in a wrong way./ Punishing the people [[that didnothing to him]].//Selling them as slaves./// He thinks/that slavery is wrong.///Total number of words 36Lexical density 20/7 = 2.8Grammatical intricacy 7/2 = 3.5Technical vocabulary: power, slavery, Colloquial vocabulary use: “using power in a wrong way”Tactic system; use of subordination and embedding



Presentation of self: “it seems like” interpersonal grammatical metaphor to tone down the assertion constructs a lowdegree of certainty. Impersonal forms. Use of mental verbs to project author’s ideas (believe, think). introduces author withpronoun using exophoric reference (he).Task 2The author of this document obviously believes /that “aliens” (immigrants) came here [[to over throw the US government,//kill government officials //and teach things [[that are not organized by the government]].]/// If they found an immigrant,/that person would be taken into custody //and deported.///Total number of words 45Lexical density 27/5 = 5.4Grammatical intricacy 5/2 = 2.5Technical vocabulary document, author, immigrants, government, officials, custody, deported, introduces participant interms of its functional role “author”Colloquial vocabulary “aliens”, “came here”Tactic system: longer sentences with more embedding 2/2.Presentation of self: impersonal construction. Evaluation appears through use of the adverb “obviously” that expresses thehigh degree of certainty of the assertion. Projection through mental verbs (believes), mood hypothetical situation “wouldbe taken” degree of possibility, identification of author in functional role (the author)

The example shows a clear shift in the positioning of the student in reference to the text. She is able to move to beinghesitant about her interpretation of the text (it seems like) and not identifying explicitly the source of the opinions beingreported (he); to a strong position of certitude (obviously) and direct identification of the source (the author). This shift inpositioning also reveals her ability to incorporate her evaluation of the text to the reporting. The use of scare quotes tointroduce a commentary and question the position of the others in the debate reveals how she is aware of indirect waysto mark her evaluation. There is also an expansion of clause complex types and logical relations to connect ideas. In thefirst task, she relies mostly on projection and the use of non-finite verbs (embedding) to integrate information to the mainclause. The second task shows a wider range of resources to establish relations between ideas including: subordination (ifclause), parataxis, embedding. Projection and expansion are both deployed to fulfill the summary requirements: report andevaluation.

2.3.6. Case 6: student ID# 1102This student is still receiving ELL support and has a below acceptable score on the social studies standardized test. She

showed some improvement in her performance on the tasks (pre score 9–post11), changes happening mainly in the inferencesection.

Example 6:Task 1 Question 4

I think/he feels/every one is equal //and that is really cruel [[how George III King of Britian treats people]].///Total number of words 21Lexical density 15/4 = 3.75Grammatical intricacy 4/1 = 4Technical vocabulary equal, cruel, king George III of BritainColloquial vocabulary feels, everyone, really, treats, people, use of pronouns with exophoric referenceTactic system hypotaxis, parataxis, embeddingPresentation of self as authority personal voice “I think”, interpersonal metaphor to tone down force of assertion, use ofmental/feeling verbs to project other’s opinions, evaluative vocabulary (judgment “cruel”) force “really”Task 2They wanted to deport them/because the were afraid of [[communism coming to the U.S.]]///Total number of words 15Lexical density 8/2 = 4Grammatical intricacy 2/1 = 2Technical vocabulary deport, communism,USColloquial vocabularyTactic system hypotaxis, embeddingPresentation of self as authority Impersonal voice, use of mental verbs as modals (wanted to) to hedge force, exophoricreference to author (they). Evaluation of affect (afraid)

The example shows there was not much change in her use of language between the tasks. We cannot observe any cleardifferences in her deployment of linguistic resources. She continues using exophoric reference, clause combining strategies(subordination, coordination), and affective evaluations. However, there is an interesting move in terms of positioning thatreveals some understanding of what the academic context expects from her in terms of constructing an authoritative voice.In the first task, the focus of the message is her feelings and views in connection to the text, a reaction. The ideas of the text



emerge in connection to her understanding of affective and moral responses. There is a chaining of ideas without explicitcausal or explanatory connections. The second task shows a shift in the focus of the message to the other. The second textpresents the ideas of the other (even though it is still not identified explicitly), and a motivation for them. There is an attemptto explain those events not just report them.

2.4. Summary

These students show some incipient understanding of the importance of sourcing texts in history and how all historyis authored, not only a neutral account of events. The display of different linguistic resources to position the source andthemselves in relation to a particular content allows us to see a deeper understanding of disciplinary literacy in terms ofways of using language to construct knowledge from a particular epistemological perspective.

The previous cases show how a detailed analysis of students’ linguistic choices in functional terms can provide a betterpicture of what they are attempting to do. Counting structural items in students’ texts or focusing only on certain features asemblematic of academic discourse hides some of the developmental moves in students’ learning trajectories. These examplesalso show the great diversity present in a population that is labeled as sharing a similar trait (i.e. being English learners),but which has very different linguistic resources and experiences to work with. In the mainstream classroom, students withvery different needs and experiences are asked to work with and around texts without much guidance.

As we show above their position as ELLs shaped their development of disciplinary literacy in a variety of ways (i.e.metalinguistic awareness, content knowledge), depending on their background and type of support they receive.

The type of inferences they made to connect the readings to other historical information also provides evidence of howthey are constructing an epistemological perspective, not only developing the linguistic resources of academic language.For example, when Case 5 responds to the question asking them to reconsider their understanding of Jefferson’s positionregarding slavery in relation to a new piece of information (i.e. the fact that he was a slave owner), the student evaluates theauthor as “hypocritical” and then considers an alternative scenario to explain the contradiction between these two historicalsources. She states: “But if he isn’t the one that has slaves. If his wife does, then it could be different”. The working out ofcontradictory accounts for understanding a social actor’s position is part of learning to think like a historian and is realizedin particular practices (comparing sources to arrive at an interpretation). In the second task, Case 5 is able to engage in thishistorical practice, when trying to make sense of the 1920 Immigration act in connection to the First Amendment in theConstitution. She states, “why did the government write this document if the first Amendment clearly states the oppiste?”This time she explores the motivations that may explain the differences between the documents searching for a historicalexplanation in terms of causes, instead of taking it a as an isolated problem to be solved.

Another similar situation occurs with Case 3, the student responds to the inference question in task 1 by stating thatthere must be something wrong with the documents; thus demonstrating he has not been able to develop a disciplinarystrategy to work out contradictory sources. While in task 2, his inference response shows how he is able to come up with aquestion to investigate the contradiction between the documents. “So how congress is respecting the freedom of speech ofall those immigrants?”, here Case 3 is able to grapple with the historical problem that this document is addressing in order toestablish its historical relevance and find the reasons to explain it. ELLs development of disciplinary literacy is then revealedin their movement to more academic uses of English and also in their adoption of some disciplinary reading practices.

As the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data has shown students were able to expand their linguistic resourcesand have a deeper understanding of historical texts. The design of our study does not allow us to make causal inferences inreference to the role the intervention played in this development. But the results seem positive enough to encourage us tocontinue looking at the potential impact of a functional approach to disciplinary literacy.

3. Discussion

From a functional perspective disciplinary literacy and academic language development are intrinsically related. Whilelearning new knowledge, we learn new ways of using language to construct that knowledge. From this perspective focusingon disciplinary literacy entails learning about the uses and learning to use language in the construction of knowledgein particular fields of study. This focus also considers that a critical awareness of language in the disciplines allows foropportunities to question and critique that knowledge, being reflective literacy (Hasan, 1996).

The same text can be read differently by different disciplines. For example, a historical novel like John Sinclair’s The Jungleis read for its composition qualities in an English literature class, but as a historical document exemplifying the Muckrackersand its impact in Teddy Roosevelt’s policy in a history class. The same text has different meanings for different communitiesand is associated to different themes, while deploying the same linguistic and rhetorical resources. This type of reading thatgoes beyond decoding entails understanding the culture of the discipline and the gaze from where things are looked at. AsMoje (2007) puts it,

Moreover, the acts of reading and writing—even in the most generic sense (i.e., apart from the unique work of readingand writing within disciplines)—involve complex cognitive processes that are mediated by largely taken-for-grantedcultural practices. Reading, for example, is more than the simple process of decoding words and assigning meaning;reading involves decoding, to be sure, but also requires knowledge of semantics, syntax, text structures, linguistic



features, purposes for reading, and rhetorical devices. Reading depends heavily on the content knowledge one bringsto a text. Reading depends on one’s motivation, and the outcomes of reading include more than just comprehensionor extraction of information but also interpretation, analysis, critique, and application. The intricacies of learning toencode and decode, interpret and apply, and comprehend and critique specialized symbol systems demand particularattention in subject-matter instruction. (p. 9)

In learning to read like a historian, students are not trying to become historians themselves, but positioning themselvesin their perspective and trying out their practices to learn to see the world from a particular epistemological position. Whenstudents are apprenticed into these uncommon sense ways of approaching texts, they are able to develop flexibility inunderstanding and expand their meaning making resources that allow them to see how all knowledge is constructed andsituated.

As we have shown above, disciplinary literacy development for ELLs entails more than developing the linguistic resourcesassociated with academic registers. The language used to construct and understand history, is part of a particular wayof making meaning within the discipline. Reading historically means understanding how perspective, representation andorganization of documents contribute to particular explanations of events. And it also means reading one document inrelation to others and not taking them at face value.

The Cultural Navigation perspective (e.g. Godley, Carpenter, & Werner, 2007; Lee, 1995; Moje, 2007) on disciplinaryliteracy highlights the importance of knowing and valuing students’ everyday literacy practices, to bridge common senseknowledge and uncommon sense knowledge. This is a very important issue that needs to be considered in functionalapproaches to disciplinary literacy in light of the results presented here. The idea of expanding one’s linguistic repertoireand knowledge without diminishing or devaluing what one already knows has been well argued for (e.g. Heath, 1983). As aresult, knowing our students and their background is always necessary to understand the type of work that needs to be done.But since students’ experience with language and subject matter knowledge differ greatly, even when labeled as membersof the same group (i.e. ELLs) or placed in the same course (i.e. academic history), how can we start from what they knowand use it to learn new ways of making meaning? As the profiles of the ELLs participating in our study show, it would bevery difficult for a teacher to select historical sources of comparison to address cultural differences in the class. However,looking at it from a more critical perspective instead of looking for the Other culture to compare with, the alternative mightas well be to explore the constructed nature of “this culture” and historical account.

In contexts where diversity is the single most common characteristic shared by a group, we cannot talk about everyday experience or home language as a reified trait. Globalization and immigration have affected the characteristics of theclassroom and learning programs. In multilingual classrooms, students’ common experience is mostly the one they share inthe classroom. They come from different types of homes, with different home languages, and different previous experiences.So recognizing the diversity of discourses and positions, as well as focusing on making explicit the ways in which discourseand knowledge are produced, seems to be a key ingredient in developing educational interventions for multilingual settings.

The focus on metadiscourse and making explicit the language games by which meanings and rhetorical effects areconstructed, can allow students to make the most of whatever resources they had. For researchers, learning to see what isthere and valuing what students are doing can serve as a first step to inform future pedagogical interventions.

4. Conclusions

The development of a “cultivated gaze” (Martin et al., 2010, p. 459) is a key aspect of academic language development thathas not been yet been explored. Understanding disciplinary literacy not only as certain content or area specific genre, butalso as a position from which to look and speak from enables us to identify other indexes of development. The move of theindividual into or toward the disciplinary culture one is gazing upon, requires understanding that one is seeing a culture tolearn the values of the culture. Students need to be explicitly acculturated into the culture of the discipline and understandhow certain linguistic choices construct certain roles and perspectives to think, speak, and write like a historian.

Students need scaffolding to those disciplinary epistemologies and gaze by making them explicit and engaging in thosepractices with guidance over time. Teachers need to recognize the variety of backgrounds and experiences learners bring tothe classroom to work with the production of knowledge as a way of thinking, making and using texts as part of a specificdiscourse community. This study showed this type of approach to disciplinary literacy benefits all students, not only languageminorities and could aid keeping students on board in the classroom. A socially just and social justice subject matter literacy(Moje, 2007, p. 34) entails developing instruction that focuses on the linguistic choices, the evaluative choices, and theinterpretive processes involved in reading and writing disciplinary texts.

Developing disciplinary literacy in the classroom entails paying equal attention to the epistemological and culturalresources as well as “assisting in the development of the linguistic resources that enable students to talk, read, and writeabout that knowledge” (Hammond & Macken-Horarik, 1999, p. 221). At the same time, to ensure disciplinary literacy istaught in a socially just manner, there needs to be a meta-discussion about the ways in which knowledge is producedand used to serve certain purposes. This triple process of developing content, language and critical awareness can providestudents with the resources and opportunities to participate and change the society they live in.

Thinking about learning and teaching from this functional perspective provides non-immigrants with the challenge andopportunity to learn from others. Valuing the explicit discussion of language use and critical reflections on cultural practices



promotes a change in the traditional way of conceptualizing learning and society. By positioning language minorities assources of knowledge and equal partners in the task of learning to think and use language as members of a particulardiscipline, immigrants and language minority students’ bilingual reservoir and multicultural experiences become assetsand not problems in the classroom.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the history teachers and the students that participated in this study for their time and collabora-tion. Joan Mohr, Anita Ravi, Catherine Stainton, and Gaea Leinhardt for their collaboration in the development and realizationof this project. This project was funded by a Spencer Foundation Small Research Grant to the first author titled “Teachingand learning history in a multilingual classroom” #200800158. We would also like to show gratitude to the colleaguesthat assisted us in the statistical analysis, Joel Greenhouse and Naoko Taguchi. In addition, we benefited from discussionsabout our work with Linda Kucan, Keiko Koda, and Dick Tucker. The mistakes and problems with the work are our soleresponsibility.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2012.05.003.

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Developing disciplinary literacy in a multilingual history classroom

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