Mentoring Preservice Teachers in Disciplinary Literacies: A Model of Content Area Literacy Instruction

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing body of literature emphasizing the specialized literacy practices within the disciplines, the literature concerning how to prepare preservice teachers for disciplinary literacy instruction is less clear. In this article, we present a mentorship model for content area teacher preparation that Steve (first author) developed and that we implemented in a university content literacy course. In this pedagogical framework, university faculty – i.e., historians, mathematicians, and scientists – mentor preservice teachers into modes of thinking, reading, and problem solving that are consistent with their disciplines. We focus here on presenting the model as a pedagogical innovation for literacy teacher educators, underscoring the need to build collaborative relationships across departments, colleges, and faculty to support preservice teacher literacy development.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.