The third in a series of briefs on literacy and social and emotional learning (SEL) addresses the specialized demands of academic disciplinary literacies in middle and high school.
Academic disciplines such as history, mathematics, science, and literature all require fluency relating to important key discipline-specific concepts, methods, terminology, and epistemology. These are new areas middle and high school students must master for the first time. SEL offers an important strategy to help enable this learning, just as these disciplines provide opportunities to practice SEL skills. During adolescence, students also experience a time of changes and challenges in their personal development and social and emotional well-being, which must be navigated alongside new academic challenges.
This brief examines:
- The specialized demands of disciplinary literacies in middle and high school, including history, science, and mathematics
- The developmental dimensions of learning in middle and high school, including cognitive development, physical development, and social development
- The contributions of the Science of Learning and Development (SoLD) to an understanding of the role of emotions in how we can foster deep learning
- The relationships of disciplinary literacies to workforce preparation and civic participation
- The design of literacy instruction
Citation:
Lee, C.D. (2026). Literacy across academic disciplines in adolescence: The integration of social and emotional learning. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.
