Apprenticing Third Graders in Disciplinary Literacy in History

ABSTRACT

In this study, I sought to understand the disciplinary nature of an expert third-grade teacher’s practice as she apprenticed students into ways of reading, analyzing, and employing historical evidence. Using a case study methodology, I draw on classroom observation data, teacher interviews, and classroom artifacts to identify instances where the teacher apprenticed the students into practices related to historical thinking concepts. I found the teacher engaged students in disciplinary literacy practices through discussing the constructed nature of historical accounts; allowing students to analyze primary sources using heuristics, tools, and instructional sequence; and engaging students in making claims from evidence over the course of the inquiry. This paper highlights the possibilities for disciplinary literacy instruction in elementary schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Disciplinary literacy
• historical inquiry
• elementary social studies
• history education

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Ms. McKinley and her students for welcoming me into their classroom; Michelle Bellino, Sam Boerboom, Carolyn Giroux, Debi Khasnabis, Chauncey Monte-Sano, Mary Schleppegrell, and Isis Settles for their feedback on this paper; the Teaching History SIG of the American Educational Research Association for the “2018 Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award” given for an earlier draft of this paper; and three anonymous reviewers for helping me to sharpen this final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, University of Michigan [Student Research Grant] and the School of Education, University of Michigan [Spring/Summer Student Research Grant]. The views expressed herein are my own.