9781315108391

TEACHING AND RESEARCHING
ELLS’ DISCIPLINARY LITERACIES
Written from a critical perspective, this volume provides teachers, teacher
educators, and classroom researchers with a conceptual framework and practical
methods for teaching and researching the disciplinary literacy development of
English language learners (ELLs). Grounded in a nuanced critique of current
social, economic, and political changes shaping public education, Gebhard offers a
comprehensive framework for designing curriculum, instruction, and assessments
that build on students’ linguistic and cultural resources and that are aligned with
high-stakes state and national standards using the tools of systemic functional
linguistics (SFL). By providing concrete examples of how teachers have used SFL
in their work with students in urban schools, this book provides pre-service and
in-service teachers, as well as literacy researchers and policy makers, with new
insights into how they can support the disciplinary literacy development of ELLs
and the professional practices of their teachers in the context of current school
reforms. Key features of this book include the voices of teachers, examples of
curriculum, sample analyses of student writing, and guiding questions to support
readers in conducting action-oriented research in the schools where they work.
Meg Gebhard is Professor of Applied Linguistics and co-director of the Secondary
English Education Program at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

Language, Culture, and Teaching
Sonia Nieto, Series Editor
Doing Youth Participatory Action Research
Transforming Inquiry with Researchers, Educators, and Students
Nicole Mirra, Antero Garcia, Ernest Morrell
Language and Power in Post-Colonial Schooling
Ideologies in Practice
Carolyn McKinney
Dialoguing across Cultures, Identities, and Learning
Crosscurrents and Complexities in Literacy Classrooms
Bob Fecho, Jennifer Clifton
Language, Culture, and Teaching
Critical Perspectives, 3rd Edition
Sonia Nieto
Teaching Culturally Sustaining and Inclusive Young Adult Literature
Critical Perspectives and Conversations
R. Joseph Rodríguez
Teacher Evaluation as Cultural Practice
A Framework for Equity and Excellent
Maria del Carmen Salazar, Jessica Lerner
Teaching and Researching ELLs’ Disciplinary Literacies
Systemic Functional Linguistics in Action in the Context of U.S. School Reform
Meg Gebhard
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Language-Culture-and-Teaching-Series/book-series/LEALCTS

TEACHING AND
RESEARCHING
ELLS’ DISCIPLINARY
LITERACIES
Systemic Functional Linguistics
in Action in the Context of U.S.
School Reform
Meg Gebhard

First published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Meg Gebhard to be identifi ed as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without
intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-09089-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-09090-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-10839-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC