Using disciplinary literacy in Biblical, religious, and theological studies

ABSTRACT Disciplinary Literacy (DL) is a pedagogical- and andragogic-centered academic discipline that has entered its third decade. DL seeks to observe and describe how scholars in a particular field cognitively approach and process what they do while those scholars read primary and secondary literary texts, examine material culture, perform experiments, read and write scholarly articles, and teach and evaluate students. Such observations and descriptions are then used to reverse engineer and backward design the curriculum, assessment tools, and strategies to increase students’ success, retention, and graduation rates. Our article seeks to introduce (1) Biblical, Religious, and Theological Studies (BRATS) faculty to DL and (2) DL, post-secondary General Education, and secondary education faculty to BRATS. We will summarize (a) what DL is as opposed to (b) what the disciplines of general academic, developmental, and critical literacies are, (c) why they differ, and (d) what pedagogical and andragogic benefits DL offers. BRATS and General Education faculty can use DL to provide explicit, scaffolded instructional practices to help general education undergraduates interpret the Bible and other ancient, foreign literature critically, rhetorically, and historically more like BRATS faculty do. DL and BRATS faculty would then use the above to reverse engineer and backward design curriculum and strategies for secondary educators to adopt and implement. Suggestions for future research and for overcoming structural obstacles will be presented.