Much has been written to convince content-area teachers to include literacy instruction as part of their regular content instruction. The purpose of this study was to determine how the messages available in the literature are framed and how they might be viewed by content-area teachers, especially mathematics teachers. The analysis revealed that messages available to content-area teachers about literacy neglect, deemphasize, or misrepresent mathematics and/or mathematics education. These finds may help explain why content-area teachers, particularly mathematics teachers resist ideas related to content-area literacy instruction.

In this essay, Roni Jo Draper reflects upon her professional journey as a content-area literacy teacher educator, describing how she first became a literacy teacher educator and how she later came to collaborate with a group of teacher educators who specialize in disciplines such as music, theater, and mathematics. Drawing upon naturalistic data from the group's participatory action research project, she explains how their collaboration shaped her understanding of her own professional role and expanded her definitions of texts, content-area literacy, and literacy itself. Informed by insights she gained through the project, Draper argues that content-area literacy instruction should promote mastery of the intellectual discourse within a particular discipline. She also suggests ways to increase collaboration between literacy and content-area specialists working in the field of teacher education.