This document discusses disciplinary literacy and using primary and secondary sources to create authentic academic conversations about difficult topics in history. It provides strategies for annotating and assessing sources, as well as lessons learned about how slavery has impacted lives and still exists today. Generalizable strategies are presented for using inquiry-based learning to engage students in meaningful discussions through close reading, writing, and multimedia projects.

1. Disciplinary Literacy,
Deep Conversations
about Hard Topics,
and Lessons
Learned
Kim Moore
Consultant

2. • Content Literacy or
Disciplinary Literacy
• Importance of Primary and
Secondary Sources
• Inquiry to Create Authentic
Academic Conversations
• Lessons Learned and
Generalizable Strategies
Topics for Discussion
history

3. Content Area Literacy Disciplinary Literacy
study skills that can be used to
help students learn from
subject matter specific texts
emphasis on the knowledge
and abilities possessed by
those who create,
communicate, and use
knowledge within the
disciplines
emphasizes techniques that a
novice might use to make
sense of a disciplinary text
emphasizes the unique tools
that the experts in a discipline
use to engage in the work of
that discipline
prescribes study techniques
and reading approaches that
can help someone to
comprehend or to remember
text better (with little regard
to type of text)
emphasizes the description of
unique uses and implications
of literacy use within the
various disciplines
“What is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does It Matter?”
By Cynthia and Timothy Shanahan

4. Discuss

5. Reading and Writing to Text using
Primary and Secondary Sources
Annotating a Source
1. Read any introductory materials that accompany the source.
2. Summarize and identify any unknown words or phrases.
3. Ask questions. Are there things that leave you wondering
about this source?
4. Make connections. How does this source fit into what you
already know?
5. Make inferences. “Read between the lines”
6. Write down anything else you thought of while reading this
document.

6. Assessing the Reliability of a Source
1. Write down any apparent biases that you see.
2. Compare the primary sources to the secondary sources.
3. Think about the authors. Are there factors that would
cause them to believe one way over the other?
4. Consider the author’s purpose and intent for writing.
5. Consider when the source was written.
Reading and Writing to Text using
Primary and Secondary Sources

7. Reading and Writing to Text using
Primary and Secondary Sources
Determining the Usefulness of a Source
1. Evaluate the overall reliability of the source.
2. Think about how a scholar might use this source.
3. Write or speak about the source.

8. Using Inquiry to Create Authentic
Academic Conversations

9. Using Inquiry to Create Authentic
Academic Conversations
Sharing and listening while collaborating in regards to
something that is meaningful to your students will result
in great conversations and discussions.
Teach students to be critical thinkers through a unique
questioning strategy supporting close reading of complex
texts.
 informational text
 close reading strategies
 writing to sources
 critical thinking
 appropriate text complexity
 text dependent questions and tasks

10. Building Background
Who is Ashley Bryan? What influenced
his art, poetry, storytelling, puppetry, and
life? Why is his message important?
Analyze: Why is freedom and the issue of
slavery important to Ashley Bryan?
(History, Research, Writing,
Reading)

11. Building Background
Compare/ Contrast: What has changed or remained the
same during Ashley Bryan’s lifetime for African-
Americans?

12. Using Inquiry to Create Authentic
Academic Conversations
What is evidence found today that African-Americans have
retained some customs and traditions from their native lands?
Explain.

13. Listen to

16. Students will listen to tribal music, which was influential for A.
Bryan’s life, and create a work of art based on what they are
visualizing. Discuss visualization and how writers and artists are
inspired and use visualization.
• Build a puppet using recyclable items. The puppet must have at least 2 moving
parts. (STEAM)
• Write and perform a play using the puppets that you and your classmates
created. (Writing, ELA, Drama, Speaking and Listening)
• Write a poem in iambic pentameter and illustrate it. (Writing, ELA, Poetry)
• Create your own book online to share with your classmates. Make sure that
there is a “moral to the story” or “a lesson to be learned”. (Technology, ELA,
Writing)
• Choreograph a dance that reflects the feelings that listening to this music
provides. Be able to explain what each set of movements reflect based on your
movements and the music. (Performing Arts, Dance, Drama, Speaking and
Listening)

26. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies
Generalize: How does slavery impact the lives of people
who are slaves? How was the monetary value of a slave
determined? Are people in the world still subjected to
slavery? What is the cost to our society of slavery?
Slaves lives impacted?
Cost of slavery?
Slavery today?
Money for slaves?

27. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies
Synthesize: Have we learned from our past? Why or
Why not? Are people in the world still subjected to
slavery?

28. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies

29. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies

30. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies

31. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies

32. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies

34. Think On Your Own
Advocacy: Is there a class project that you can create
to bring attention to the problem of slavery today? How
can you implement this project in your community?
Free Project
Management Tools
5 Free Project Management Software
Tools to Consider
• Wrike.
• Smartsheet.. ...
• Basecamp. ...
• Asana. ...
• Trello.

35. Lessons Learned and Generalizable
Strategies
Student-run organizations
at the University of Georgia,
Georgia Tech and Georgia
State University are raising
awareness about human
trafficking and working with
local organizations to
combat it.
Human trafficking involves
illegally trading people for
exploitation or commercial
gain. Traffickers use force,
fraud or coercion to lure
their victims and force them
into labor or commercial
sexual exploitation (sex
trafficking).

37. “I've walked a long trail,
a long trail of years
flushed with tears.
Tears of remembrance.
Years of driven labor
have not driven
the ancestral thoughts
out of me.
My memory of teaching—
surrounded by children,
singing songs of our people,
the stories of our history—
lives always with me...
Song shields our hearts from
abuse,
draws us together,
strengthens our lives.”
― Ashley Bryan, Freedom Over
Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives
and Dreams Brought to Life by
Ashley Bryan
Painted by Ashley Bryan, Age 12

38. For additional information, please
contact:
Moore4Education
Kim Moore
678-323-5500
moore4knowledge@gmail.com