In Praise of Amateurism: A Friendly Critique of Moje's "Call for Change" in Secondary Literacy

In an October 2008 JAAL Commentary, Moje took issue with the teaching of generic reading strategies in the middle and high school content areas. She argued for teachers to provide "disciplinary literacy" instruction, focusing on the specific kinds of reading and writing that go on in content areas. The present article concurs with that argument to a point. However, the author questions Mojes use of the term disciplinary to describe the kinds of instruction that content area teachers provideor should provideat the secondary level. Middle and high school students are better served, the author concludes, by learning to read, write, and argue using relatively nonspecialized language. © 2010 International Reading Association, Inc.