Literacy Matters - Winter 2020

UsingWriting as a Tool for Investigation and Instruction in the Elementary Science Classroom

by Hayley Hoover, Clemson University

ABSTRACT — Elementary teachers are increasingly expected to integrate literacy into content area instruction. While benefits of integrating literacy into content area instruction are often shared with teachers, specific unit ideas or teaching tools teachers can use to do this are not always provided. The teaching tools and strategies that are typically emphasized often relate more to reading than to writing. This article will describe several ways that teachers might incorporate writing and hands-on activities in their science planning and instruction. The implementation of the Common Core State Standards created an increased amount of attention on disciplinary literacy in both research and practice (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014). The term disciplinary literacy evolved from the popular and widely-used term content area literacy . Content area literacy teaches students specific skills and strategies for reading and understanding informational texts from specific subject areas, such as science or history (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). Content area reading“aims not so much to help students to read history as a historian might but rather to read history with a grasp of the information, using a set of generic or study tools that may be implemented in any subject” (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012, p. 12). Disciplinary literacy takes content area literacy a step further. Students are not just being asked to use strategies to understand subject area texts, but are being asked to think, read, and interpret these texts from the lens of that particular subject area. Disciplinary literacy“refers to the idea that we should teach the specialized ways of reading, understanding, and thinking used in each academic discipline, such as science, history, or literature. Each field has its own ways of using text to create and communicate meaning”(Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014, p. 636). Disciplinary literacy’s focus in both research and practice has primarily been on middle and high school classrooms and students. Although disciplinary literacy is not typically pushed in elementary classrooms, there are strategies and skills elementary teachers can implement to prepare students. Reading a wide range of informational texts beginning in the primary grades can help (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014). As students move into upper elementary classrooms, these informational texts may begin to have features that distinguish them from fiction books, such as graphics, organization, or vocabulary (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014). Through these texts, teachers can prepare students for the differences between informational texts and fiction books, and help students to begin thinking like scientists, mathematicians, or historians when reading informational texts. Writing and Disciplinary Literacy So how does disciplinary literacy address writing? Just as in reading, where students are taught to read like someone within

the field, students are asked to write like someone within the field as well. Ray (2006) states that students should not only using writing to learn subject matter and communicate what they have learned, but to learn about writing itself. With this approach, “writers are immersed in close readings of a selected genre. With teacher guidance, students begin to recognize the structure and discourse particular to the genre. By reading and deconstructing quality pieces, students learn to question and notice how writing is constructed” (Pytash, 2012, p. 529). Rather than using writing as a form of assessment where students demonstrate what they know, as many traditional writing assignments do, writing can be used instead as a tool for instruction. Writing to learn assignments “promote in-depth conceptual learning” and “allow students to explore their understanding of a topic” (Halim, Finkenstaedt-Quinn, Olsen, Gere, & Shultz, 2018). Writing to learn in science is often thought of as a skill for secondary students, but students in the primary grades can also benefit from writing to learn in science (Klein, 2000; Moss, 2005; Rosasen, 1990). Using writing in science instruction “contributes to greater critical thinking, thoughtful consideration of ideas, and better concept learning” (Miller & Calfee, 2004). These benefits are even more powerful when writing is combined with reading or with additional hands-on learning experiences (Miller & Calfee, 2004). This article will describe several ways that teachers might incorporate writing and hands-on activities in their science planning and instruction. Elementary Science Standards Elementary school teachers are increasingly expected to infuse literacy into content areas. Moss (2005) attributes this to a rise in standards-based education and an emphasis on standardized-test performance. While benefits of integrating literacy into content area instruction are often shared with teachers, specific unit ideas or teaching tools that teachers can use to do this are not always provided. The teaching tools and strategies that are usually emphasized relate more to reading than to writing, such as prereading, activating prior knowledge, asking questions, and making predictions and inferences. The Next Generation Science Standards, which were first published in 2010 and last edited in 2017, contain “three distinct and equally important dimensions to learning science” (National Academy of Sciences, 2017) including crosscutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and disciplinary core ideas. On the webpage for the Next Generation Science Standards, connections to the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts are detailed (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, 2010), and can be found here. The Next Generation

Reading Matters Writing Matters

Literacy Matters | Volume 20 • Winter 2020 | scira.org | 29

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