Video footage from two science and history classrooms illustrate key features of effective Reading Apprenticeship classrooms, where diverse populations of adolescents are re-envisioning and re-making their identities as readers and students:

frequent opportunities for supported reading of multiple and varied discipline-based texts in class;
abundant and explicit coaching in effective, discipline-based, strategic reading and thinking processes;
a collaborative, inquiry-oriented learning environment;
teacher modeling and support for metacognitive awareness and metacognitive conversation; and
fostering of student engagement in worthy, discipline-based tasks.

Will Brown’s Introduction to Chemistry, Grade 11

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The students you see in this video are enrolled in Will Brown’s Introduction to Chemistry class at Skyline High School in Oakland. Introduction to Chemistry is the least demanding science class that counts towards admission to community and state college. Nearly half the students in Will’s class scored below the 10th percentile on standardized reading tests. Only two students scored above the 25th percentile in reading comprehension.

This lesson was filmed in early January, during the first week of a two-month unit on acids and bases. The unit was organized around an Acid and Base Exploration lab, in which students discovered the properties of acids and bases by determining the pH of 12 household chemicals.

During this unit, Will also engaged students in reading a variety of discipline-based texts in class, from a supplementary text on acids and bases to lab procedures to numerical equations to data tables.

While reading, students monitored their comprehension and practiced three cognitive strategies—clarifying, questioning and summarizing. Will engaged students in ongoing small group and whole class conversations about their reading and thinking processes, and modeled his own strategies for making sense of science materials. Through this cycle of reading and talk, Will’s students practiced discipline-based reading and thinking skills and gained stamina for challenging reading as well as knowledge of the chemistry content.

Gayle Cribb’s Honors US History, Grade 11

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The students in this video are enrolled in Gayle Cribb's Honors US History class at Dixon High School, an ethnically, linguistically and economically diverse school in a high immigrant, rural community in California's Central Valley.

Since she started teaching Honors US History in 2002, Gayle has worked to increase the diversity of the class. As a result of her efforts, enrollment of Latino students has increased dramatically; one-fourth of the students in this video are former English learners. And while most students in the class score at the two highest levels on the California Standards Test of English Language Arts, scores range from Basic to Advanced.

The lesson you see here was filmed in late March, during a week-long unit on the Japanese American internment. Focusing on the question of the Constitutionality of the internment, students read several primary source documents, including the US Constitution; opinions from Korematsu Vs United States, a 1944 Supreme Court case challenging the internment; and Department of Justice memos.

As they read, Gayle engaged students in ongoing small group and whole class conversations about their reading and thinking processes. Through these discourse routines, Gayle’s students practiced historical reading and thinking skills and gained stamina for challenging reading as well as deep knowledge of the history content.

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