March 28, 2023 • 26 mins
Dr. Shea Kerkhoff talks to us about literacies in the disciplines, an inquiry stance, and authentic learning. She is known for her work in disciplinary literacies, adolescent literacy instruction, and literacies in global contexts. She utilizes mixed methods to investigate critical, digital, and global literacies. Her research centers on integrating inquiry-based global learning with adolescent literacy instruction. She is co-author of Read, write, inquire: Disciplinary literacy in grades 6-12 with Drs. Hiller Spires and Casey Medlock Paul. Her forthcoming book, Critical perspectives on global literacies: Bridging research and practice, co-authored with Dr. Spires is currently in press with Routledge Publishers. Dr. Kerkhoff serves as Going Global, Inc.'s Education Director and affiliated faculty with the Show Me Literacies Collaborative. Dr. Shea Kerkhoff is an Assistant Professor of literacy and secondary education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. You can connect with Shea at https://sheakerkhoff.weebly.com/.
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Mar. 28). A conversation with Shea Kerkhoff. (Season 3, No. 21) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/1E5D-51BF-BA59-2A4B-DDE1-S
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lindsay Persohn (00:10):
Education research has a problem. The work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers. Classroom caffeine is
here to help. In each episode Italk with a top education
researcher or an expert educatorabout what they have learned
(00:31):
from years of research andexperiences. In this episode,
Dr. Shea Kerkhoff talks to usabout literacies in the
disciplines and inquiry stanceand authentic learning. She is
known for her work indisciplinary literacies
adolescent literacy instructionand literacies. In global
(00:51):
context, Dr. Kerkhoff serves asgoing global inks, education
director and affiliated facultywith the Show Me literacies
Collaborative. Dr. Shea Kerkoffis an assistant professor of
literacy and Secondary Educationat the University of Missouri
St. Louis, you can connect withShea at
htt (01:10):
//sheakerkhoff.weebly.com/.
That's SHEAKERKHOFF.weebly.com.
For more information about ourguests, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink. And join me your host
(01:35):
Lindsay Persohn. For classroomcaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice. Sheathank you for joining me,
welcome to the show.
Shea Kerkhoff (01:45):
I'm happy to be here.
Lindsay Persohn (01:46):
So from your own experiences in education,
will you share with us one ortwo moments that inform your
thinking now?
Shea Kerkhoff (01:54):
Yeah, so I think of a moment when I was a PhD
student that really impacted me,because my background was in
English. I was a high schoolEnglish teacher for years. And
so that meant I had a bachelor'sin English from the English
Department. And I had thoughtabout reading and writing and
(02:15):
literacy practices in thatdiscipline of English. That's
how I was trained. And that's,that's how I thought because
that's how I was trained tothink. And so when I was a PhD
student, my advisor was tryingto help me with my writing. And
it was kind of identity crushingto be an English teacher who
(02:36):
taught writing for so long tohave to have a conversation
about my writing. But it wasgood for me. And well, my aha
moment was, this isn't English,this is science, I am no longer
in the English department, I amnow in the College of Education,
which is a social science. I'mnow a scientist. So I need to
(03:00):
learn the literacy practices ofa of a social scientist. And so
while as an English teacher, welike to play with language, and
we like to think creatively andconvey emotion, and through our
writing and make our readersfeel something in science, the
(03:22):
values are to be concise, and tobe clear, and to get to the
point and to leave the emotionout of it. Not not totally as
you learn the nuance, but butthat's the value, the value is
to be objective. And so I had toreorient my literacy practices
(03:42):
into that discipline. And itmade me realize, Oh, when I
taught English, I was teachingmy high school students how to
read and write in the disciplineof English. But that's not the
only discipline they wereexperiencing during their day.
They were experiencing scienceand the different disciplines
(04:02):
within science, physics,chemistry, etc. They were
experiencing social study. Sothey were needing to read, write
and think like a historian. Andas I thought about that, I, I
wondered how we could reachacross disciplines to help each
other, learn more about eachother's disciplinary literacy
(04:24):
practices so that we couldsupport students right then in
there for their classroomexperiences and to be successful
in their classrooms. But morethan that, because they are also
people with lives, and they needto be able to negotiate all of
the information about health andmedicine in order to advocate
(04:47):
for their own health with ourhealth providers. They need to
be able to navigate politicalarguments and distinguish facts
from opinions and rhetoric inorder to be civically engaged
Ah, so that that moment that ahamoment for me having to
experience that dissonance ofthe two different ways of
(05:08):
reading and writing reallypushed me to want to be able to
explicate to describe thedifferences so that teachers
could then describe thosedifferences to their students.
Lindsay Persohn (05:20):
Shea what you're saying, I think is so
very critical, when we'retalking about educating our
students to be full humans inthe world, right, there isn't
just one way of communicating orone way of writing and when we
think about how differentdisciplines use, not just
language or word choice, butalso the structures, and you
(05:41):
know, sort of like cracking thecode of that discipline, writing
in the way that experts in thatdiscipline write, it's just such
an important idea that I feellike, you know, in my teacher
training, I didn't have anyexposure to this way of
thinking. And particularly, youtalk about that dissonance and
realizing that you have toreorient your your style of
(06:03):
teaching and even the whatyou're teaching, to help your
students to really uncover whatthose big ideas are and how they
work within those disciplines. Ijust I think this is so very
important for really everyteacher to know about not just
those who are working indisciplines, but those who want
to support their students to bethis full well rounded human
beings who can take ininformation from multiple
(06:27):
avenues in life and and alsoknow how to communicate there.
So this is just such importantstuff.
Shea Kerkhoff (06:33):
Yeah, well, and there was a reason that we may
not have been trained to thinkin a disciplinary literacy kind
of way, in our training, becauseit's a, it's an emerging concept
in the field. So researchcontinues to evolve, we continue
to know more, we continue tohave knowledge that becomes more
(06:53):
nuanced, and or complex or both.
And so this idea actually camefrom universities. So if you
think about backwards design,where you look at the goal, and
then work backwards, that is oneway that disciplinary literacy
started taking ground in K 12,was looking at the work of
disciplinary literacy, what whatwas called in higher education,
(07:17):
research on reading in thedisciplines. And then looking at
how we could then work backwardsfrom college to then 12th, grade
1110, nine, keep going down. Toprovide students with the
foundation, they would need tobe able to be successful in
college. And as we did thatwork, though, we realized that
(07:40):
college wasn't the only placewhere this would be important. A
lot of our careers right now areliteracy based. So as we
continue to move in thisinformation age, and in an
information economy, people whocan create knowledge, our
knowledge creators throughreading and writing and the
(08:03):
tools of communication, may beable to be more successful in a
career than they would have beenwithout those literacy
abilities. And then also, as wementioned, community life
navigating and negotiatinghealth and civic and community
life right now to
Lindsay Persohn (08:23):
Yeah, that little history lesson of
disciplinary literacy, I thinkis also it's so helpful for
situating this in a reallymeaningful context. And I think
helping us to potentially evensee how it fits into a school
day, right? How do you actuallywork these practices into the
work we're already doing and tomake them more robust and more
explicit, so that our youngpeople can sort of follow that
(08:47):
path forward and and gain accessto to the knowledge of those
disciplines? That's great stuff.
So Shea, what do you wantlisteners to know about your
work?
Shea Kerkhoff (08:58):
Well, one important thing that I would
like listeners to know is thatdisciplinary literacy is about
learning in the disciplines. Soit isn't, knowing the literacy
practices in and of themselvesis that the literacy is used to
(09:19):
understand content in thedisciplines and to construct new
knowledge in the discipline sothey can be a means to an end.
And also that we want to breakthe dichotomous thinking that we
first learn to read and then weread to learn, because we are
(09:42):
always learning more aboutreading. And so thinking about
disciplinary literacy is a wayfor us to think about what the
advanced literacy practices arethat we need to teach students
in secondary school so they knowHow to maybe sound out words,
they have their fluency, theyhave those foundational skills.
(10:06):
But as literacy progresses, itbecomes more advanced and more
complex. And that's why wereally need support throughout
the day. When I told the storyearlier, as an English teacher,
I don't have the expertise ofhow scientists read and write
(10:26):
and construct knowledge throughinquiry. So I need my science
colleagues to provide thatinformation for students. And
I'm happy as an English teacherto support that, but I need
their help. And so it's aboutbringing the knowledge we have,
(10:47):
as teachers, as members of thediscipline in which we're
teaching to the school day isnot about reading a novel and
math class. It's about what arethe practices that
mathematicians use to help themunderstand mathematics and just
making those explicit tostudents.
Lindsay Persohn (11:07):
I think that distinction is so important and
really helpful and understandingwhat disciplinary literacy is,
you're not talking about thesort of cross curricular
connections exactly, like yousaid, reading a novel in math
class, although, you know, kudosto you if you can fit enough. It
particularly, you know,something that relates to your
math topic. But that's not thesame idea that we're talking
(11:29):
about here, right? We're talkingabout practices that are really
specific to the discipline, notnecessarily just bringing what
we would teach in reading andwriting or the English language
arts into other subject areas,we're talking about diving
deeply into those particulardisciplines to understand how
(11:50):
the experts in that field thinkand to give us access to not
only understand that knowledgethat they produce, but also to
potentially become creators ofthat knowledge. Is that about
right? Am I Am I summing that upin a fair way?
Shea Kerkhoff (12:04):
Yes, that is there. So in English language
arts, we typically readnarrative English as part of the
humanities. So we are thinkingabout the human experience, and
how do humans communicate theirstorytelling, and that typically
is a narrative. And so there's anarrative arc. And we've seen in
(12:25):
research on comprehension, thatchildren understand the
narrative arc, they can graspthat pretty quickly at an early
age, because they hear storiesas it's part of their everyday
life, that beginning middle andthat you have the person or the
characters. But in science, wedon't necessarily have a
(12:48):
narrative arc, we might haveproblem solution or caused
effect. And so when students arereading a science text, and
they're trying to find out themain character, and there's no
person there, there's no like,there's a frog, but they don't
seem to be the main character.
It can be confusing unless wetalk about text structure. So
talking about text structure isa practical way that we can
(13:12):
introduce disciplinary literacyinto each of our classes,
talking about how the textswe're reading in our class is
structured,
Lindsay Persohn (13:24):
right? Like the the frogs that we see in science
probably don't look like frogand toad, right, were wearing
pants and talking to each other,and, you know, living in a
little cut out in a treesomewhere, right? So I think
that, particularly for youngchildren, explaining and talking
through those structures, canhelp them to understand the
(13:45):
purpose of each of those texts,and how they convey very
different things to us, I think,you know, from from kind of a
literary angle, you can evenhave conversations about
anthropomorphism, and you know,those kinds of topics that, that
help to distinguish what happensin narrative kinds of ELA
(14:05):
context versus the sciences, or,you know, the hard science kind
of disciplines. Yeah, yeah, forsure. So what else do you want
listeners to know about yourwork?
Shea Kerkhoff (14:14):
I would like listeners to know that I am part
of a team in the state ofMissouri that are working on
comprehensive literacy through afederally funded grant. And the
grant is concerned withcomprehensive literacy. Because
we found that just focusing onearly literacy wasn't enough to
(14:38):
really support our students.
There was a hypothesis that ifwe taught students to be able to
decode words, through phonicsand top vocabulary, what words
mean that that would be enoughthat then they would be able to
read and the more they read, themore their literacy would grow.
And while reading does help usgain content knowledge edge. And
(14:58):
it does help us continue tobuild fluency. It wasn't enough
to really move our fourthgraders fifth, sixth and up to
be able to be prepared for thekinds of reading and writing
that they were going to need todo in college and career. And so
that's when the the big push forthe College and Career Readiness
(15:20):
came out and said, We need tolook at this backward stair step
and say, if this is where weknow we need to be, then how do
we get there, and let's lookbackwards. And so really
thinking about literacycomprehensively as being
Foundational Reading, yes.
(15:41):
Writing Process, yes. And also,the more advanced literacies
that happen in disciplines, theways of thinking and
disciplines, and the academicliteracy and study skills that
are needed across the day, suchas digital literacy, and
(16:01):
critical media literacy,information literacy, speaking
and listening, as well. And sothinking about literacy more
comprehensively is reallyimportant.
Lindsay Persohn (16:13):
So here's something that that you made me
think of shea, as you wereexplaining comprehensive
literacy, that's a word that Iuse a term I use quite
frequently to. And maybe I'm aslightly different way, I think
of comprehensive literacy asincluding not just kind of what
we think of as science ofreading kinds of topics, but
also authentic literatureresponses to literature. And
(16:35):
really, I talk about acomprehensive approach to
literacy instruction thatincludes explicit systematic,
sequential multimodalinstruction, but not to the
exclusion of meaningful textsand authentic experiences and
encounters with that text. Andso I think that's really very
closely aligned with what you'resaying. I don't mean to say that
it isn't. But maybe what I thinkI hear you saying about
(16:57):
comprehensive literacy is it'sreally using all the tools in
the toolbox, right, and teachingall of the tools in the toolbox.
And so I'm wondering if in yourwork, you found a way for
teachers to get to that,particularly if they are in a
place where curriculum isprescribed? Or they're sort of
lockstep into programs? How dowe think outside of those lock
(17:21):
steps? How do we think in a morecomprehensive kind of approach
where we can bring in digitaltools, we can teach foundational
reading, but we can also teachdifferent types of writing, as
well as those more advancedliteracy practices? Do you have
any tips for our listeners abouthow we can make that happen?
Because I truly believe that'sthe key to authentic learning.
Shea Kerkhoff (17:40):
Yes, it's not easy, but it is possible. And
one, one way to approach that iswith an inquiry stance, so think
about science. What doscientists do they inquire about
the world, they get curious.
And, and they look forinformation in order to test
their hypothesis in order tohelp them understand phenomena.
(18:01):
So what do they use? Well, theyread, they read what other
people have discovered, and theyread what other people have been
thinking about. They observe,they use the power of
observation. They createexperiments in labs, they talk
with other scientists, and theythink about what if questions,
(18:23):
what if we change this? What ifwe changed that? What would
happen and they makepredictions? And so some of
those practices we do in otherdisciplines to so we can think
about inquiry. Okay, what doesinquiry look like in social
studies, while in history,maybe, maybe we're talking to
(18:46):
people who experienced it,rather than talking to other
experts, maybe we are gettingthat speaking and listening
through interviewing, we arelooking at photographs and
visual images. And we're tryingto construct an understanding.
And so that I think is, is oneway to approach a more authentic
(19:10):
type of learning in ourclassrooms, is that we aren't
trying to just fill our studentsheads with knowledge, we are not
trying to just fill theirtoolbox with tools. Those are
what we are doing in order tohelp them inquire about the
world and to make informeddecisions to create explanations
(19:34):
that are fact based.
Lindsay Persohn (19:42):
That distinction is so useful, I
think, because it really youknow, the inquiry stance
certainly does help to driveauthentic learning, right. It's
connected to questions. It'sconnected to possibilities,
because, you know, I thinkanytime we teach something that
feels like the sort of isolatedskill that doesn't have a whole
lot of application, right? It'sharder to understand, there's
(20:03):
less motivation to learn it.
Right? So there, there are somereal challenges whenever we're
trying to teach concepts inisolation. But once we frame
them as a question or wonderingabout, you know, the way the
world works, or how about theway the world could work, you
know, it's a whole differentdrive and purpose for learning.
And I think that that can helpto bring a little bit of energy
(20:24):
back into a classroom, whatever,we can approach topics in those
really authentic kinds of ways.
Shea Kerkhoff (20:32):
And those questions can come from our
students.
Lindsay Persohn (20:35):
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, sometimes I
think it's probably better ifthey do, right, it may be a
little harder to plan that way.
But if we, if we put some, Ithink of them as like
guardrails, or like, you know,when you go bowling, and they
they, they put the bumpers upfor you, you know, so I think
there are ways to guidestudents, you know, to the
topics that the standards tellus or the pacing guide tells us
(20:59):
we need to learn about whilestill providing some freedom and
flexibility to ask their ownquestions within that, that
lane, so to speak, right, forsure. So given the challenges of
today's educational climate,what message do you want
teachers to hear?
Shea Kerkhoff (21:17):
I know teachers are doing so much already. They
have so much on their plates,and so much responsibility. And
I want to say thank you, thankyou for taking on those
responsibilities. Thank you foryour work and your passion for
education and for children. Andknow that literacy isn't one
(21:42):
more thing that I'm asking youto do. I want to advocate for
teachers, making explicit whatit is that they're already doing
in their classes with theirstudents. So I'm not asking
science teachers to take upphonics instruction, or
(22:06):
practicing fluency in that way.
What what disciplinary literacyadvocates for is just pulling
back the curtain and helping ourstudents to understand that in
science, this is the way thatscientists think in science,
this is the way that texts areorganized in science. This is
the way we make arguments. Andin history, and in when we're
(22:29):
talking about literature in ourEnglish language arts classes.
And so it's not one more thingis just being more explicit
about what we're already doing.
Lindsay Persohn (22:40):
Right, like making that meta awareness, more
transparent for students. Ithink that's just it's critical
to understanding the way theworld works. Yes, I will say
Shea I thank you so much foryour time today and for sharing
your message with teachers and Ithank you for your contributions
to the field of education.
Shea Kerkhoff (23:00):
Thanks for having me, Lindsay.
Lindsay Persohn (23:02):
Dr. Shea Kerkhoff is known for her work
in disciplinary literaciesadolescent literacy instruction
and literacies and globalcontexts. She utilizes mixed
methods to investigate criticaldigital and global literacies.
Her research centers onintegrating inquiry based global
learning with adolescentliteracy instruction. Her work
(23:23):
has been published in literacyResearch and Instruction,
teaching and teacher education,reading and writing and
Interdisciplinary Journal,reading Research Quarterly
voices from the Middle Englishlanguage quarterly and changing
English as well as other venues.
She is co author of read, write,inquire, disciplinary literacies
in grades six through 12, withDr. Tiller spires, and Casey
(23:45):
Medlocke-Paul, her forthcomingbook critical perspectives on
global literacies bridgingresearch and practice, co
authored with Dr. spires, iscurrently impressed with
Rutledge publishers. She hasbeen awarded over $5 million in
grants as principal investigatorand CO principal investigator.
Dr. Kerkhoff was recentlyawarded co investigator of the
(24:06):
year at the University ofMissouri St. Louis. Shae is a
former assistant editor ofEnglish education, a National
Council of Teachers of Englishjournal. She also serves as
going global incs educationdirector and previously served
as education director for forthe world. In this capacity the
International LiteracyAssociation awarded her the
(24:26):
Constance makalah grant toconduct inquiry based digital
literacy professionaldevelopment and research with
teachers in Khattala, Kenya. Dr.
Kerkhoff is affiliated facultywith the Show Me literacies
collaborative and in 2018, shewas named a long view foundation
global teacher educator fellow.
Shea is passionate aboutliteracy education at home and
(24:48):
abroad. She taught high schoolEnglish for seven years
including in North Carolina andDistrict of Columbia Public
Schools. Dr. Kerkhoff holds aPhD from North Carolina State
University in curriculum andinstruction with a focus on
literacy and language education.
She is an assistant professor ofliteracy and Secondary Education
(25:10):
at the University of MissouriSt. Louis. You can connect with
Dr. Kerkhoff at SheaKerkhoff.weebly.com That's
SHEAKERKHO F f.we BLY dot c o m.
for the good of all studentsclassroom caffeine aims to
(25:34):
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Thanks for joining me
Education research has a problem. The work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers. Classroom caffeine is
here to help. In each episode Italk with a top education
researcher or an expert educatorabout what they have learned
(00:31):
from years of research andexperiences. In this episode,
Dr. Shea Kerkhoff talks to usabout literacies in the
disciplines and inquiry stanceand authentic learning. She is
known for her work indisciplinary literacies
adolescent literacy instructionand literacies. In global
(00:51):
context, Dr. Kerkhoff serves asgoing global inks, education
director and affiliated facultywith the Show Me literacies
Collaborative. Dr. Shea Kerkoffis an assistant professor of
literacy and Secondary Educationat the University of Missouri
St. Louis, you can connect withShea at
htt (01:10):
//sheakerkhoff.weebly.com/.
That's SHEAKERKHOFF.weebly.com.
For more information about ourguests, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink. And join me your host
(01:35):
Lindsay Persohn. For classroomcaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice. Sheathank you for joining me,
welcome to the show.
Shea Kerkhoff (01:45):
I'm happy to be here.
Lindsay Persohn (01:46):
So from your own experiences in education,
will you share with us one ortwo moments that inform your
thinking now?
Shea Kerkhoff (01:54):
Yeah, so I think of a moment when I was a PhD
student that really impacted me,because my background was in
English. I was a high schoolEnglish teacher for years. And
so that meant I had a bachelor'sin English from the English
Department. And I had thoughtabout reading and writing and
(02:15):
literacy practices in thatdiscipline of English. That's
how I was trained. And that's,that's how I thought because
that's how I was trained tothink. And so when I was a PhD
student, my advisor was tryingto help me with my writing. And
it was kind of identity crushingto be an English teacher who
(02:36):
taught writing for so long tohave to have a conversation
about my writing. But it wasgood for me. And well, my aha
moment was, this isn't English,this is science, I am no longer
in the English department, I amnow in the College of Education,
which is a social science. I'mnow a scientist. So I need to
(03:00):
learn the literacy practices ofa of a social scientist. And so
while as an English teacher, welike to play with language, and
we like to think creatively andconvey emotion, and through our
writing and make our readersfeel something in science, the
(03:22):
values are to be concise, and tobe clear, and to get to the
point and to leave the emotionout of it. Not not totally as
you learn the nuance, but butthat's the value, the value is
to be objective. And so I had toreorient my literacy practices
(03:42):
into that discipline. And itmade me realize, Oh, when I
taught English, I was teachingmy high school students how to
read and write in the disciplineof English. But that's not the
only discipline they wereexperiencing during their day.
They were experiencing scienceand the different disciplines
(04:02):
within science, physics,chemistry, etc. They were
experiencing social study. Sothey were needing to read, write
and think like a historian. Andas I thought about that, I, I
wondered how we could reachacross disciplines to help each
other, learn more about eachother's disciplinary literacy
(04:24):
practices so that we couldsupport students right then in
there for their classroomexperiences and to be successful
in their classrooms. But morethan that, because they are also
people with lives, and they needto be able to negotiate all of
the information about health andmedicine in order to advocate
(04:47):
for their own health with ourhealth providers. They need to
be able to navigate politicalarguments and distinguish facts
from opinions and rhetoric inorder to be civically engaged
Ah, so that that moment that ahamoment for me having to
experience that dissonance ofthe two different ways of
(05:08):
reading and writing reallypushed me to want to be able to
explicate to describe thedifferences so that teachers
could then describe thosedifferences to their students.
Lindsay Persohn (05:20):
Shea what you're saying, I think is so
very critical, when we'retalking about educating our
students to be full humans inthe world, right, there isn't
just one way of communicating orone way of writing and when we
think about how differentdisciplines use, not just
language or word choice, butalso the structures, and you
(05:41):
know, sort of like cracking thecode of that discipline, writing
in the way that experts in thatdiscipline write, it's just such
an important idea that I feellike, you know, in my teacher
training, I didn't have anyexposure to this way of
thinking. And particularly, youtalk about that dissonance and
realizing that you have toreorient your your style of
(06:03):
teaching and even the whatyou're teaching, to help your
students to really uncover whatthose big ideas are and how they
work within those disciplines. Ijust I think this is so very
important for really everyteacher to know about not just
those who are working indisciplines, but those who want
to support their students to bethis full well rounded human
beings who can take ininformation from multiple
(06:27):
avenues in life and and alsoknow how to communicate there.
So this is just such importantstuff.
Shea Kerkhoff (06:33):
Yeah, well, and there was a reason that we may
not have been trained to thinkin a disciplinary literacy kind
of way, in our training, becauseit's a, it's an emerging concept
in the field. So researchcontinues to evolve, we continue
to know more, we continue tohave knowledge that becomes more
(06:53):
nuanced, and or complex or both.
And so this idea actually camefrom universities. So if you
think about backwards design,where you look at the goal, and
then work backwards, that is oneway that disciplinary literacy
started taking ground in K 12,was looking at the work of
disciplinary literacy, what whatwas called in higher education,
(07:17):
research on reading in thedisciplines. And then looking at
how we could then work backwardsfrom college to then 12th, grade
1110, nine, keep going down. Toprovide students with the
foundation, they would need tobe able to be successful in
college. And as we did thatwork, though, we realized that
(07:40):
college wasn't the only placewhere this would be important. A
lot of our careers right now areliteracy based. So as we
continue to move in thisinformation age, and in an
information economy, people whocan create knowledge, our
knowledge creators throughreading and writing and the
(08:03):
tools of communication, may beable to be more successful in a
career than they would have beenwithout those literacy
abilities. And then also, as wementioned, community life
navigating and negotiatinghealth and civic and community
life right now to
Lindsay Persohn (08:23):
Yeah, that little history lesson of
disciplinary literacy, I thinkis also it's so helpful for
situating this in a reallymeaningful context. And I think
helping us to potentially evensee how it fits into a school
day, right? How do you actuallywork these practices into the
work we're already doing and tomake them more robust and more
explicit, so that our youngpeople can sort of follow that
(08:47):
path forward and and gain accessto to the knowledge of those
disciplines? That's great stuff.
So Shea, what do you wantlisteners to know about your
work?
Shea Kerkhoff (08:58):
Well, one important thing that I would
like listeners to know is thatdisciplinary literacy is about
learning in the disciplines. Soit isn't, knowing the literacy
practices in and of themselvesis that the literacy is used to
(09:19):
understand content in thedisciplines and to construct new
knowledge in the discipline sothey can be a means to an end.
And also that we want to breakthe dichotomous thinking that we
first learn to read and then weread to learn, because we are
(09:42):
always learning more aboutreading. And so thinking about
disciplinary literacy is a wayfor us to think about what the
advanced literacy practices arethat we need to teach students
in secondary school so they knowHow to maybe sound out words,
they have their fluency, theyhave those foundational skills.
(10:06):
But as literacy progresses, itbecomes more advanced and more
complex. And that's why wereally need support throughout
the day. When I told the storyearlier, as an English teacher,
I don't have the expertise ofhow scientists read and write
(10:26):
and construct knowledge throughinquiry. So I need my science
colleagues to provide thatinformation for students. And
I'm happy as an English teacherto support that, but I need
their help. And so it's aboutbringing the knowledge we have,
(10:47):
as teachers, as members of thediscipline in which we're
teaching to the school day isnot about reading a novel and
math class. It's about what arethe practices that
mathematicians use to help themunderstand mathematics and just
making those explicit tostudents.
Lindsay Persohn (11:07):
I think that distinction is so important and
really helpful and understandingwhat disciplinary literacy is,
you're not talking about thesort of cross curricular
connections exactly, like yousaid, reading a novel in math
class, although, you know, kudosto you if you can fit enough. It
particularly, you know,something that relates to your
math topic. But that's not thesame idea that we're talking
(11:29):
about here, right? We're talkingabout practices that are really
specific to the discipline, notnecessarily just bringing what
we would teach in reading andwriting or the English language
arts into other subject areas,we're talking about diving
deeply into those particulardisciplines to understand how
(11:50):
the experts in that field thinkand to give us access to not
only understand that knowledgethat they produce, but also to
potentially become creators ofthat knowledge. Is that about
right? Am I Am I summing that upin a fair way?
Shea Kerkhoff (12:04):
Yes, that is there. So in English language
arts, we typically readnarrative English as part of the
humanities. So we are thinkingabout the human experience, and
how do humans communicate theirstorytelling, and that typically
is a narrative. And so there's anarrative arc. And we've seen in
(12:25):
research on comprehension, thatchildren understand the
narrative arc, they can graspthat pretty quickly at an early
age, because they hear storiesas it's part of their everyday
life, that beginning middle andthat you have the person or the
characters. But in science, wedon't necessarily have a
(12:48):
narrative arc, we might haveproblem solution or caused
effect. And so when students arereading a science text, and
they're trying to find out themain character, and there's no
person there, there's no like,there's a frog, but they don't
seem to be the main character.
It can be confusing unless wetalk about text structure. So
talking about text structure isa practical way that we can
(13:12):
introduce disciplinary literacyinto each of our classes,
talking about how the textswe're reading in our class is
structured,
Lindsay Persohn (13:24):
right? Like the the frogs that we see in science
probably don't look like frogand toad, right, were wearing
pants and talking to each other,and, you know, living in a
little cut out in a treesomewhere, right? So I think
that, particularly for youngchildren, explaining and talking
through those structures, canhelp them to understand the
(13:45):
purpose of each of those texts,and how they convey very
different things to us, I think,you know, from from kind of a
literary angle, you can evenhave conversations about
anthropomorphism, and you know,those kinds of topics that, that
help to distinguish what happensin narrative kinds of ELA
(14:05):
context versus the sciences, or,you know, the hard science kind
of disciplines. Yeah, yeah, forsure. So what else do you want
listeners to know about yourwork?
Shea Kerkhoff (14:14):
I would like listeners to know that I am part
of a team in the state ofMissouri that are working on
comprehensive literacy through afederally funded grant. And the
grant is concerned withcomprehensive literacy. Because
we found that just focusing onearly literacy wasn't enough to
(14:38):
really support our students.
There was a hypothesis that ifwe taught students to be able to
decode words, through phonicsand top vocabulary, what words
mean that that would be enoughthat then they would be able to
read and the more they read, themore their literacy would grow.
And while reading does help usgain content knowledge edge. And
(14:58):
it does help us continue tobuild fluency. It wasn't enough
to really move our fourthgraders fifth, sixth and up to
be able to be prepared for thekinds of reading and writing
that they were going to need todo in college and career. And so
that's when the the big push forthe College and Career Readiness
(15:20):
came out and said, We need tolook at this backward stair step
and say, if this is where weknow we need to be, then how do
we get there, and let's lookbackwards. And so really
thinking about literacycomprehensively as being
Foundational Reading, yes.
(15:41):
Writing Process, yes. And also,the more advanced literacies
that happen in disciplines, theways of thinking and
disciplines, and the academicliteracy and study skills that
are needed across the day, suchas digital literacy, and
(16:01):
critical media literacy,information literacy, speaking
and listening, as well. And sothinking about literacy more
comprehensively is reallyimportant.
Lindsay Persohn (16:13):
So here's something that that you made me
think of shea, as you wereexplaining comprehensive
literacy, that's a word that Iuse a term I use quite
frequently to. And maybe I'm aslightly different way, I think
of comprehensive literacy asincluding not just kind of what
we think of as science ofreading kinds of topics, but
also authentic literatureresponses to literature. And
(16:35):
really, I talk about acomprehensive approach to
literacy instruction thatincludes explicit systematic,
sequential multimodalinstruction, but not to the
exclusion of meaningful textsand authentic experiences and
encounters with that text. Andso I think that's really very
closely aligned with what you'resaying. I don't mean to say that
it isn't. But maybe what I thinkI hear you saying about
(16:57):
comprehensive literacy is it'sreally using all the tools in
the toolbox, right, and teachingall of the tools in the toolbox.
And so I'm wondering if in yourwork, you found a way for
teachers to get to that,particularly if they are in a
place where curriculum isprescribed? Or they're sort of
lockstep into programs? How dowe think outside of those lock
(17:21):
steps? How do we think in a morecomprehensive kind of approach
where we can bring in digitaltools, we can teach foundational
reading, but we can also teachdifferent types of writing, as
well as those more advancedliteracy practices? Do you have
any tips for our listeners abouthow we can make that happen?
Because I truly believe that'sthe key to authentic learning.
Shea Kerkhoff (17:40):
Yes, it's not easy, but it is possible. And
one, one way to approach that iswith an inquiry stance, so think
about science. What doscientists do they inquire about
the world, they get curious.
And, and they look forinformation in order to test
their hypothesis in order tohelp them understand phenomena.
(18:01):
So what do they use? Well, theyread, they read what other
people have discovered, and theyread what other people have been
thinking about. They observe,they use the power of
observation. They createexperiments in labs, they talk
with other scientists, and theythink about what if questions,
(18:23):
what if we change this? What ifwe changed that? What would
happen and they makepredictions? And so some of
those practices we do in otherdisciplines to so we can think
about inquiry. Okay, what doesinquiry look like in social
studies, while in history,maybe, maybe we're talking to
(18:46):
people who experienced it,rather than talking to other
experts, maybe we are gettingthat speaking and listening
through interviewing, we arelooking at photographs and
visual images. And we're tryingto construct an understanding.
And so that I think is, is oneway to approach a more authentic
(19:10):
type of learning in ourclassrooms, is that we aren't
trying to just fill our studentsheads with knowledge, we are not
trying to just fill theirtoolbox with tools. Those are
what we are doing in order tohelp them inquire about the
world and to make informeddecisions to create explanations
(19:34):
that are fact based.
Lindsay Persohn (19:42):
That distinction is so useful, I
think, because it really youknow, the inquiry stance
certainly does help to driveauthentic learning, right. It's
connected to questions. It'sconnected to possibilities,
because, you know, I thinkanytime we teach something that
feels like the sort of isolatedskill that doesn't have a whole
lot of application, right? It'sharder to understand, there's
(20:03):
less motivation to learn it.
Right? So there, there are somereal challenges whenever we're
trying to teach concepts inisolation. But once we frame
them as a question or wonderingabout, you know, the way the
world works, or how about theway the world could work, you
know, it's a whole differentdrive and purpose for learning.
And I think that that can helpto bring a little bit of energy
(20:24):
back into a classroom, whatever,we can approach topics in those
really authentic kinds of ways.
Shea Kerkhoff (20:32):
And those questions can come from our
students.
Lindsay Persohn (20:35):
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, sometimes I
think it's probably better ifthey do, right, it may be a
little harder to plan that way.
But if we, if we put some, Ithink of them as like
guardrails, or like, you know,when you go bowling, and they
they, they put the bumpers upfor you, you know, so I think
there are ways to guidestudents, you know, to the
topics that the standards tellus or the pacing guide tells us
(20:59):
we need to learn about whilestill providing some freedom and
flexibility to ask their ownquestions within that, that
lane, so to speak, right, forsure. So given the challenges of
today's educational climate,what message do you want
teachers to hear?
Shea Kerkhoff (21:17):
I know teachers are doing so much already. They
have so much on their plates,and so much responsibility. And
I want to say thank you, thankyou for taking on those
responsibilities. Thank you foryour work and your passion for
education and for children. Andknow that literacy isn't one
(21:42):
more thing that I'm asking youto do. I want to advocate for
teachers, making explicit whatit is that they're already doing
in their classes with theirstudents. So I'm not asking
science teachers to take upphonics instruction, or
(22:06):
practicing fluency in that way.
What what disciplinary literacyadvocates for is just pulling
back the curtain and helping ourstudents to understand that in
science, this is the way thatscientists think in science,
this is the way that texts areorganized in science. This is
the way we make arguments. Andin history, and in when we're
(22:29):
talking about literature in ourEnglish language arts classes.
And so it's not one more thingis just being more explicit
about what we're already doing.
Lindsay Persohn (22:40):
Right, like making that meta awareness, more
transparent for students. Ithink that's just it's critical
to understanding the way theworld works. Yes, I will say
Shea I thank you so much foryour time today and for sharing
your message with teachers and Ithank you for your contributions
to the field of education.
Shea Kerkhoff (23:00):
Thanks for having me, Lindsay.
Lindsay Persohn (23:02):
Dr. Shea Kerkhoff is known for her work
in disciplinary literaciesadolescent literacy instruction
and literacies and globalcontexts. She utilizes mixed
methods to investigate criticaldigital and global literacies.
Her research centers onintegrating inquiry based global
learning with adolescentliteracy instruction. Her work
(23:23):
has been published in literacyResearch and Instruction,
teaching and teacher education,reading and writing and
Interdisciplinary Journal,reading Research Quarterly
voices from the Middle Englishlanguage quarterly and changing
English as well as other venues.
She is co author of read, write,inquire, disciplinary literacies
in grades six through 12, withDr. Tiller spires, and Casey
(23:45):
Medlocke-Paul, her forthcomingbook critical perspectives on
global literacies bridgingresearch and practice, co
authored with Dr. spires, iscurrently impressed with
Rutledge publishers. She hasbeen awarded over $5 million in
grants as principal investigatorand CO principal investigator.
Dr. Kerkhoff was recentlyawarded co investigator of the
(24:06):
year at the University ofMissouri St. Louis. Shae is a
former assistant editor ofEnglish education, a National
Council of Teachers of Englishjournal. She also serves as
going global incs educationdirector and previously served
as education director for forthe world. In this capacity the
International LiteracyAssociation awarded her the
(24:26):
Constance makalah grant toconduct inquiry based digital
literacy professionaldevelopment and research with
teachers in Khattala, Kenya. Dr.
Kerkhoff is affiliated facultywith the Show Me literacies
collaborative and in 2018, shewas named a long view foundation
global teacher educator fellow.
Shea is passionate aboutliteracy education at home and
(24:48):
abroad. She taught high schoolEnglish for seven years
including in North Carolina andDistrict of Columbia Public
Schools. Dr. Kerkhoff holds aPhD from North Carolina State
University in curriculum andinstruction with a focus on
literacy and language education.
She is an assistant professor ofliteracy and Secondary Education
(25:10):
at the University of MissouriSt. Louis. You can connect with
Dr. Kerkhoff at SheaKerkhoff.weebly.com That's
SHEAKERKHO F f.we BLY dot c o m.
for the good of all studentsclassroom caffeine aims to
(25:34):
energize education research andpractice. If this show provides
you with things to think about,don't keep it a secret.
Subscribe, like and review thispodcast through your preferred
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(25:56):
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Find transcripts for manyepisodes, explore episode topics
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(26:16):
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Thanks for joining me
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