Disciplinary Literacy Through the Lens of the Next Generation Science Standards

The current discussion among adolescent literacy researchers describes two positions at either end of a continuum: a generalist content area reading approach and a disciplinary literacy approach. Within the field, there are misunderstandings about the disciplinary literacy approach and claims that adolescents are ill suited to the kinds of thinking advocated by disciplinary literacy scholars. This article explores disciplinary literacy through the lens of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and argues that requirements for discipline‐appropriate literacy abilities are already embedded in national standards for English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. We explore the practices and cross‐cutting concepts described in the NGSS and provide examples of discipline‐appropriate thinking associated with selected practices and concepts.