Disciplinary Literacy: From Infusion to Hybridity

Abstract

This article argues that for disciplinary literacy to be addressed successfully by subject-area teachers and students, it needs to choose a different path than the one it has been on. It explains how the road disciplinary literacy has traveled to date has been marked by justifiable subject-area teacher resistance to requirements to infuse literacy teaching and learning strategies into their teaching without regard for disciplinary epistemologies or local perspectives. It argues for an alternative approach that immerses literacy experts in the hybridity of classroom disciplinary learning spaces with respect for literacy and disciplinary discourses as well as school and community subcultural beliefs, practices, and resources. It examines the ways such hybridity has been addressed by disciplinary literacy researchers in the Journal of Literacy Research to date, and it offers recommendations for advancing research, practice, and policy.