Reading across the great divide: English and math teachers apprentice one another as readers and dis

Donahue, D. (2003). Reading across the great divide: English and math teachers apprentice one another as readers and disciplinary insiders. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(1), 24-37.

In this article, Donahue describes a qualitative study that examines pre-service teachers (PSTs) work in a course titled "Reading and Writing in the Content Areas." Each of the pre-service teachers was completing requirements to teach English and math in secondary schools. They were required to create and maintain a reading apprenticeship portfolio to "reflect on their own development and learning as readers, understand reading as an activity of making meaning and apply that understanding to teaching subject matter, practice strategies for making explicit the ability to read in different subject areas, and appreciate the disciplinary-specific nature of reading while crossing into new reading territories" (p. 26-27). After reflecting and writing about their reading, they exchanged their journals with their partners who then responded in writing. Later, they had "metacognitive conversations" (p. 28) with their partners.

Reiterating Ball and Cohen's (1999) assertions that professional development is often superficial, and lacking opportunities for teachers to learn, Donahue posits that this experience helped his PSTs "learn how to translate and then share their process of understanding as expert readers in a discipline" (p. 36).

Cited: Ball & Cohen, 1999. Developing practice developing practioners: Towar a practice-based theory of professional education. In L. Darling-Hammond & G.Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.