D805: Secondary Disciplinary Literacy

Secondary Disciplinary Literacy extends the same discipline-specific literacy lens from Elementary Education into the secondary classroom — required across every SCED (Secondary Content Education) program.

What D805 covers

The course is designed for candidates seeking to enhance their literacy skills within specific secondary academic disciplines, examining the distinct literacy needs of various secondary content areas and how reading, writing, speaking, and listening function differently in each discipline.

Candidates explore specialized language structures and text features relevant to each field and develop strategies to help students master these complexities, integrating the science of reading and incorporating technology and digital literacy. This course is a required component in SCED programs and is assessed through a performance assessment task for both undergraduate and graduate versions.

The D805 performance assessment

Expect a performance assessment requiring you to design a disciplinary-literacy lesson for your specific secondary content area (e.g., chemistry, physics, or math texts), addressing that discipline's specific text demands.

Key topics in D805

• Discipline-specific literacy demands (secondary)
• Specialized language structures and text features
• Science of reading applied to secondary content

Writing tips for D805

Follow the task instructions and rubric line by line

WGU performance assessments for D805 are graded against a fixed rubric — every rubric line has to be visibly addressed, usually with a labeled heading that mirrors the rubric language. Skipping a rubric point because it seems minor is the single most common reason a competent submission comes back "Not Yet Competent" for revision.

Ground every claim in a specific secondary grade level and science content

Secondary Science Education courses like D805 typically ask you to apply content knowledge and pedagogy to a specific grade level and science topic rather than write about teaching in the abstract. Evaluators are checking whether your reasoning fits that concrete classroom situation — vague, generic statements about "good science teaching" usually lose rubric points for lacking that specificity.

Because WGU is self-paced, don't let "no deadline pressure" become no submission

There's no weekly due date forcing progress, which means procrastination costs more at WGU than at a traditional term-based school — a stalled task can quietly eat weeks of a term. Treat your own target date for each D805 assessment as a real deadline.

Why students seek help with D805

Candidates sometimes apply generic reading strategies without addressing the specific text features of their own content area (e.g., a lab report's structure vs. a primary-source history document) — the rubric typically wants strategies matched to the specific discipline, not generic ones.

How GradeEssays helps with D805

Share your content area and rubric, and your writer will build a lesson with literacy strategies genuinely matched to that discipline's specific text demands.

Prerequisites and program context

D805 has no listed additional prerequisites. Note: it exists in parallel undergraduate and graduate versions, both assessed via performance assessment. Part of WGU's undergraduate Science Education (Secondary) teacher-licensure curriculum.

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