LITERACY ACROSS ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES IN ADOLESCENCE - THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Kyle

This brief examines how social and emotional learning (SEL) supports adolescents’ development of disciplinary literacies in middle and high school. It explains that specialized literacy in domains like literature, history/social studies, science, and mathematics requires mastery of discipline-specific concepts, genres, comprehension strategies, and reasoning. It also addresses adolescence as a period of cognitive, emotional, and relational change, highlighting how emotions and relationship management become central to learning. By integrating insights from neurosciences, the Science of Learning and Development, and SEL, educators can align academic instruction with SEL for mutually productive outcomes for students and teachers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Foreword

Key Insights

Introduction

Disciplinary Literacies and Knowledge Construction

LITERACY ACROSS ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES IN ADOLESCENCE: THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING AUTHOR CAROL D. LEE, PH. D. EDWINA S. TARRY PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION AND SOCIAL POLICY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MAY 2026 FOREWORD This brief is the third in a series on social and emotional learning (SEL) and literacy. The series kicked off with Bridging Sciences: An Integrated Approach to Supporting Student Literacy Development, which urged policymakers to consider the full breadth of research on literacy to support strong reading development and rigorous instruction. It was followed by How Social and Emotional Learning Supports Literacy Pre K – Grade 5. In this brief, the author addresses the specialized demands of academic disciplinary literacies in middle and high school, the developmental demands of adolescence, and the important role of SEL in navigating all these challenges—for students as well as for educators. It also explores the opportunities of middle and high school academic disciplinary literacies to support the holistic development of youth and the role of SEL and well-being. KEY INSIGHTS • 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, and SEL offers an important strategy to help enable this learning, even while these disciplines provide opportunities to practice SEL skills. • In middle school and high school, students also experience adolescence, a time of changes and challenges in their personal development and social and emotional well-being, which must be navigated alongside new academic challenges related to the greater demands of these core academic disciplines in these grade bands. • As the work of the Science of Learning and Development (SoLD) field has found, effective teaching for these disciplines entails the engagement of academic, intellectual, social, and emotional development. • By bringing together the findings and insights from the neurosciences, SoLD, and SEL, educators will be better equipped to support students during adolescence and find ways to integrate academic instruction and SEL in ways that are mutually productive. INTRODUCTION Social and emotional learning (SEL) has a crucial role to play in supporting adolescents’ development of disciplinary literacies. As students move into middle and high school, literacy instruction becomes much more specialized, focusing on the demands of reading and writing within and across the core academic domains: literature, history/ social studies, science and mathematics (C. D. Lee & Spratley, 2010) . These specialized academic domains each have particular text genres, strategies for comprehension, and modes of reasoning that are taken up in texts students both read and write, particularly with regard to argumentation. At the same time, teaching literacy in these domains takes place during a period of development—early and late adolescence—when young people are also wrestling with substantive changes in their bodies and their social relationships. There are also significant changes in cognition, the brain, and affective development (Steinberg, 2005; Immordino-Yang et al., 2019). These dual demands of specialized disciplinary literacies in tandem with the complex developmental demands of adolescence pose significant challenges for both students and teachers that entail the exercise of emotions and the management of relationships. This brief addresses the specialized demands of disciplinary literacies in middle and high school, the developmental demands of adolescence, and the important role of SEL in navigating such challenges—for students as well as for teachers. In addition, it will explore the opportunities of middle and high school disciplinary literacies to support the holistic development of you

FAQs

Why is SEL important for adolescents’ disciplinary literacies?

SEL helps adolescents navigate the combined demands of specialized reading and writing tasks and the developmental changes of early and late adolescence, including emotional and relational challenges.

What kinds of skills do students need for disciplinary literacies in middle and high school?

Students must develop fluency with discipline-specific concepts, terminology, and epistemology, along with strategies for comprehension and reasoning embedded in different text genres.

How can educators integrate SEL with academic instruction?

By combining findings from neurosciences, the Science of Learning and Development, and SEL, educators can better support students during adolescence and design instruction where academic learning and SEL reinforce each other.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Kyle