2012 Award Recipient: Judith A. Langer
"Envisioning Knowledge: Building Literacy in the Academic Disciplines"
This book explores the nature of effective envisionment building (the construction of knowledge through active engagement in reading, writing, and thinking)in the content areas. Langer maintains that students construct understanding differently based upon whether their goal is to gain information or to engage in a literary experience.
One type of thinking focuses on points of reference while the other orientation is concerned with horizons of possibility. Further, Langer argues that academic literacy is best taught and learned within each discipline because of the different skills and strategies students use to gain meaning and build knowledge. Her work is theoretically profound and yet practical at the same time because she gives detailed examples of disciplinary thinking and teaching across the curriculum and at different grade levels.
Especially in light of the Common Core Standards and its emphasis on teachers' shared responsibility for fostering literacy across the curriculum, “Langer's book gives us rich analyses of the kind of instruction that supports students' development as critical and creative thinkers.” Building on Langer's earlier work, Envisioning Literature, it also validates the important role that the teaching of literature plays in the development of academic literacy.
“This thoughtful book provides food for thought for researchers and classroom teachers alike.”