What Is Disciplinary Literacy and How Does It Apply to Writing in Science, Social Studies, and Math?

While writing touches almost all areas of our lives, in schools it is often confined to the English Language Arts classroom. However, decades of literacy research suggest that writing is a powerful cognitive tool that supports learning across all disciplines, not just in language arts, but in science, math, social studies, and beyond.

In fact, when students write to explain a scientific process, justify a mathematical solution, or analyze historical sources, they are not just demonstrating what they know, they are constructing deeper understanding. Writing allows learners to slow down, organize their thinking, and make sense of complex ideas in discipline-specific ways.

So what does it mean to incorporate literacy — especially writing — across subjects, and what are the benefits of doing so?

In this blog, we’ll explore the differences between content literacy and disciplinary literacy, the role of writing within disciplinary literacy, what writing can look like in non-ELA classrooms, and how professional development can help non-ELA teachers confidently incorporate writing.

Content Area Literacy vs. Disciplinary Literacy

When discussing disciplinary literacy and its benefits, it’s important to first distinguish it from content area literacy. These two terms are often used interchangeably and get confused with one another, even though they are very different approaches with very different outcomes for student learning.

Over the years, content area literacy has been a more common approach to incorporating literacy practices into disciplines other than ELA, but research shows that disciplinary literacy is more effective in helping students achieve a deeper learning of those disciplines.

So, what do these terms really mean, and what is the difference?

What Is Content Area Literacy?

Content area literacy is a teaching approach that uses general reading and writing strategies, such as summarizing or making inferences across subjects.

For example, in the social studies classroom, you might task students to write a 20-word summary capturing the main idea of a text they read about the construction of the Great Wall of China. This approach builds content area literacy by helping students identify key ideas and summarize complex information concisely.

While incorporating these strategies may be helpful for surface-level understanding in the non-ELA classroom, they often aren’t enough to help students tackle the complex texts and specialized thinking required in each discipline. If students aren’t explicitly taught to read, write, and think like experts in these fields, they miss opportunities for both deeper understanding and engagement.

What Is Disciplinary Literacy?

Disciplinary literacy is a teaching approach that emphasizes the unique ways professionals within each subject area use language to build and communicate knowledge. Draper and Siebert (2010) define disciplinary literacy as:

Researchers suggest that disciplinary literacy instructional practices better prepare students for the unique demands of subjects like history, science, and math because they help them think like historians, scientists, and mathematicians.

For example, in a social studies classroom, you might task students with writing a historical argument about whether or not Julius Caesar’s rule was good or bad for Rome and ask them to use evidence to support their answer. This disciplinary literacy task builds students’ skills in crafting arguments with evidence, just like historians do.

Now that we have a better understanding of what disciplinary literacy is, let’s look at what the research says about its effectiveness in enhancing and deepening learning across disciplines.

The Role of Writing in Disciplinary Literacy: What the Research Says

Research consistently shows that writing is a powerful tool for learning. When students write to explain, justify, or reflect on what they’re learning, they organize their thinking, make sense of complex ideas, and deepen their understanding of academic content (Graham & Hebert, 2010). Writing helps clarify thought, expose gaps in understanding, and reinforce new knowledge.

Steve Graham’s 2020 meta-analysis adds to this evidence, showing that writing about content (particularly when students are asked to explain or summarize) has a positive and significant effect on learning in science, social studies, and math. Writing helps students make their thinking visible and supports long-term retention of content knowledge.

Researcher and Savvas literacy author Young-Suk Kim also emphasizes that writing is not a standalone skill but an integrated process that involves transcription, syntax, text structure, and executive function (Kim & Zagata, 2024). These components are especially critical in disciplinary writing, where students must use content-specific vocabulary, text structure, and reasoning.

In disciplinary literacy, writing becomes more than just a way to share information; it mirrors how experts in a discipline think, construct knowledge, and communicate their ideas.

Historians write to build arguments grounded in evidence and an understanding of historical context. Scientists explain the natural world and support conclusions with data. Mathematicians justify solutions and communicate reasoning through symbols and precise language (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; Moje, 2011). This type of writing is not generic but deeply tied to the ways knowledge is constructed and communicated in each discipline.

What Writing Looks Like Across Disciplines

Integrating writing into content instruction becomes a way for students to engage in disciplinary thinking. In the sections below, we explore how writing can support learning in social studies, science, and math, with practical examples and research-based strategies for each content area.

Social Studies: Writing to Analyze and Argue

In social studies, writing helps students think critically about the past and make sense of complex issues. It’s not just about recalling facts; it’s about analyzing multiple perspectives, building arguments from evidence, and learning to question and interpret history like a historian.

One powerful instructional tool teachers can utilize in social studies is the DBQ, or Document-Based Question. A DBQ asks students to read and analyze a set of historical documents (e.g., speeches, letters, images, or data) and then write an essay that answers a central question using evidence from those sources. These tasks teach students to gather and evaluate evidence, form a claim, and explain their reasoning clearly.

Research by Susan De La Paz and David Wissinger (2015) shows that when teachers provide explicit instruction in argument writing, including modeling, scaffolding, and structured peer feedback, students make significant gains in both their content understanding and historical reasoning.

To apply these skills in the classroom, teachers can engage students in writing activities that mirror the work of historians. These activities might include opinion essays that ask students to take a stance on historical events or annotated primary source documents that require students to analyze and respond to evidence.

Science: Writing to Explain and Justify

In science, writing is more than just a report of what happened in a lab; it’s a way for students to explore real things they see or experience, make claims based on evidence, and engage in scientific reasoning. Whether they’re summarizing an experiment or drawing conclusions from a data set, students learn to communicate like scientists by using specific vocabulary and writing styles.

Frameworks like CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning), developed by Katherine McNeill and Joseph Krajcik (2012), help structure student thinking by guiding them to make a claim, back it up with data, and connect that data to a scientific principle. Sentence starters such as, This supports the hypothesis because… or The evidence shows… give students practice thinking and writing the way scientists do: clearly and with evidence.

Writing tasks might include creating short constructed responses, lab reports with data tables, or science notebook reflections, each designed to make thinking visible. When teachers model how to write in these formats and provide targeted feedback, students develop not only stronger writing skills but also a deeper grasp of scientific concepts. Writing in science becomes a bridge between hands-on investigation and deeper understanding.

Math: Writing to Make Thinking Visible

Writing might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of math instruction, but it plays a powerful role in helping students make sense of what they're learning. When students write about how they solved a problem, why they chose a certain strategy, or what mistake they made and how they’d fix it, they’re making their thinking visible.

This kind of writing helps students better understand the math behind the steps. Instead of rushing to the answer, students are encouraged to explain their process. It also gives teachers a window into student thinking and makes misconceptions easier to catch.

Mary C. Enderson and Jamie Colwell (2021) emphasize that writing in math doesn’t need to be long or complicated. A quick exit ticket asking, Why does this strategy work? or a math journal entry reflecting on a problem-set can be enough. Even writing explanations with a partner after solving a problem can help students talk through the reasoning and learn from each other.

Vocabulary and Spelling Across All Content Areas

In order to write like a historian, a mathematician, or a scientist, students need to have a strong understanding of what vocabulary words to use, and then, in order to incorporate those words into their writing, they need to know how to spell them.

Teachers in all content areas can use morphology to support students’ vocabulary and spelling development. This doesn’t mean content area teachers need to give spelling tests; rather, it’s about helping students understand how words are built so they can use them more confidently and accurately in reading and writing.

When students learn the meanings and structures of key academic terms, they’re better able to spell those words correctly and incorporate them into their own writing. This not only improves communication but also deepens content understanding. Over time, this morphological awareness expands students’ vocabulary and makes it easier to learn new terms and draw connections across disciplines.

Supporting Teachers in Disciplinary Literacy

Despite wide agreement on the benefits of disciplinary writing, many teachers feel unequipped to teach it. Kiuhara, Graham, and Hawken (2009) reported that while most subject-area teachers value writing, few receive training in how to embed it in their instruction.

Moje (2011) argues that to improve reading and writing in non-ELA subjects, professional development should go beyond general literacy strategies. These strategies often don’t translate effectively to the specific needs of content classrooms. Teaching a generic strategy like making connections doesn’t equip a science teacher to help students write evidence-based explanations or a history teacher to teach students how to navigate primary resources or evaluate historical context.

Instead, she suggests the most effective way to support non-ELA teachers is through professional development that includes collaborative lesson planning with other teachers within the same subject area and coaching with subject-area experts or instructional leaders who understand both the content and literacy demands required.

Additionally, many secondary teachers argue that they simply don’t have the time to teach writing alongside the demands of their core content. This concern is valid: pressure to cover an extensive list of standards often leaves little room for anything that feels “extra.” As Gillis (2014) argues, secondary teachers should be allowed to adapt general writing strategies to fit the unique demands of their discipline rather than adopt generic literacy ones that feel disconnected or a time-consuming "add-on."

Writing instruction doesn’t need to be a separate task; it can be integrated meaningfully into content instruction in ways that enhance, rather than interrupt, core learning. When teachers use writing to help students think like scientists, historians, or mathematicians, they deepen both literacy and content understanding without sacrificing instructional time.

Writing Builds Disciplinary Understanding

Ultimately, writing is a cognitive tool for learning in all subject areas, not just ELA. When students write to explain, argue, or reflect within a subject, they internalize not only content knowledge but also the ways experts construct and communicate ideas effectively.

By moving beyond general content area literacy to embrace disciplinary literacy, educators empower students to think, communicate, and engage with knowledge in ways that mirror the experts in fields like science, social studies, and math. This specialized approach to literacy, particularly writing, allows students to clarify their thinking, expose misconceptions, and retain information more effectively.

This deep engagement fosters understanding and equips them with critical thinking and problem-solving skills for academic and real-world success.

References

• De La Paz, S., & Wissinger, D. (2015). Effects of genre instruction on students' writing and learning in social studies: A review of the literature. Reading Research Quarterly, 50(1), 5–27.
• Draper, R. J., & Siebert, D. (2010). Different disciplines, different goals: The role of academic discipline in shaping classroom discussion. In R. J. Draper et al. (Eds.), (Re)Imagining Content Area Literacy Instruction (pp. 20–40). Teachers College Press.
• Enderson, M. C., & Colwell, J. (2021). Considering Possibilities to Promote Disciplinary Literacy Instruction in Mathematics. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(5), 589–598.
• Gillis, V. (2014). Disciplinary literacy: Adapt, not adopt. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(8), 614–623.
• Graham, S., Kiuhara, S., & MacKay, M. (2020). The effects of writing on learning in science, social studies, and mathematics: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 90(2), 179–226.
• Kim, Y.-S.G. and Zagata, E. (2024), Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills through Systematically Integrated Instruction. Reading Teacher, 77: 787-799. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2307
• Kiuhara, S. A., Graham, S., & Hawken, L. S. (2009). Teaching Writing to High School Students: A National Survey. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(1), 136–160.
• McNeill, K. L., & Krajcik, J. (2012). Supporting Grade 5–8 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science: The Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning Framework for Talk and Writing. Pearson.
• Moje, E. B. (2011). Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96–107.
• Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents: Rethinking Content Area Literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59.