Reading and Writing in Science

1. Reading and Writing in Science Atlanta Public Schools May 24, 2013 Jodi Wheeler-Toppen, Author of Once Upon a Life Science Book and Science the Write Way (NSTA Press)

2. Initial Thoughts

3. Agenda • Sample Lesson • Why do students struggle with reading? • Organizing Reading and Writing Lessons as Learning Cycles • Your Turn: Outline a Literacy Learning Cycle • Starting a Conversation with Strategies • Helping students with prewriting

4. Part 1: Sample Lesson Penguin Journeys--Corrections from Chapter 10 of: Once Upon a Life Science Book.

5. Penguin Journeys: Will yours survive? Take a blank penguin (large or small) Right now, it has bare feet. If you are worried that it will need some covering there, draw some feathers. If not, leave them blank or give them a solid color.

6. Travel to a Tropical Island Your flock was caught in a storm and blown off course! You’re almost at the equator! • Is a large penguin or a small penguin better suited to live here? • Are more or less feathers better for warm weather?

7. Travel to a Tropical Island How did the population change over the course of the simulation?

8. We’re going to read an article about how real penguins have adapted to different environments.

9. Before You Read This article involves a number of comparisons and contrasts

10. Before You Read * Sometimes indicate a contrast

11. Contrast Example “Penguins, however, are built for swimming and diving.” • What’s the signal word? • What kind of information probably came before this sentence? After it?

12. Contrast Example Most birds are built for flying, with lightweight, hollow wing bones. Penguins, however, are built for swimming and diving. They have heavy bones that make their wings work like flippers. • What’s the signal word? • What two things are being contrasted? • What makes them different?

13. As you read: • Be watching for the comparison and contrast signal words and be watching for what the comparison or contrast is.

14. Writing Assignment Fennec Fox (smallest of all foxes) Arctic fox, in winter What physical adaptations do these foxes have that make them suited to their environments? What behavioral adaptations might be useful for them to have?

15. Pre-Writing • Should you use everyday language or school/work language? • What science words will you want to include? • What writing words will you want to include? • Make a quick list of some of your ideas. What order will you want to present them in?

16. Part 2: Why do students struggle with reading?

17. The belief that reading is essentially a process of saying the words rather than actively constructing meaning from texts is widespread among many students. For instance, one of the students we interviewed looked surprised when he was asked to describe the topic discussed in a section of text he had just read. “I don’t know what it was about,” he answered, with no sense of irony, “I was busy reading. I wasn’t paying attention.”(Schoenbach, et al.; Reading for Understanding)

18. 3 Impediments to Learning from Text • Students do not expect what they are reading to make sense.

19. Thinking Aloud All Penguins—even those that live in the tropics—have thick waterproof feathers that keep them warm and dry in the water. These feathers are organized in a pattern called countershading. When they swim, the black feathers on their backs help them hide from any predators looking down from above at the dark ocean water. Similarly, the white feathers on their bellies blend into the light of the sky if they are viewed from below.

20. 3 Impediments to Learning from Text • Students do not expect what they are reading to make sense. Try this: Thinking out loud. Start a conversation in your class about how you “figure things out” as you read.

21. Impediment 2 Somerset Draw with Durham Hands Notts the Title After bowling the home side out for 320, Somerset were left needing 181 from 17 overs to guarantee the title. But, at 48-3, the chase was abandoned at Chester-le-Street and a draw agreed. Fired-up Notts then took the three Lancashire wickets they required at Old Trafford to pick up a sixth bonus point and break Somerset hearts. Eventually, Trego had Scott Rushworth caught behind and Benkenstein was caught at slip by skipper Marcus Trescothick off Charl Willoughby to set up the Somerset chase. They went to the crease not knowing if a draw would be good enough to hold off Notts and immediately lost Kieswetter, promoted up the order, when he was bowled by Somerset old boy Blackwell.

22. Impediment 2: They lack background knowledge assumed by the text. • Concepts: “Some people were afraid the condor would soon be gone.” • Non-science Vocabulary: Adequate Contradict Tentative Characteristic Substance Offspring Deposit (All words used in academic writing, but not very often in speech)

23. Try these: • Explore the concept before reading! • Read the text yourself and think about what underlying knowledge they need. • Listen, listen to what they say about the text. • Talk to students about ways to “fill in” background knowledge. • You may want to try reading groups or having students think aloud to each other.

24. Impediment 3 • Ferdie and Niddle gabbled on the plag, plag wert. “Pling,” Ferdie twaddled, “pling apie plee.” Niddle peedled and vang rue sot. • Comprehension Questions: • Where did Ferdie and Niddle gabble? • What did Ferdie twaddle? • What did Niddle do after he peedled? • *Critical Thinking: • 4. Where else might Ferdie and Niddle gabble?

25. 3 Impediments to Learning from Text • Students do not expect what they are reading to make sense. (Try thinking aloud. Talk about how to make sense of reading in your classroom conversations.) • Students lack the background knowledge they need to understand the text. (Do the lab first! Think about what they might need to know before reading.) • They don’t have to read to do their school tasks. (Give them better tasks.)

26. Part 3: Organizing Literacy Lessons as Learning Cycles

27. How many of you are familiar with the idea of “learning cycles” (or “5E” lessons)? • (Engage) • Explore • Explain • Extend/ Apply • (Evaluate)

28. Reading from:

29. As you read: • Be thinking about how the sample lesson we did (on penguins) fits with the model described here.

30. In Small Groups • Take a few minutes to read through the sample lessons described in this table. • Then discuss the questions listed below it.

31. Part 4: Your Turn!

32. Your Turn! • Use the handout to develop a general outline for your lesson, using the 3 parts of a literacy learning cycle. • Use the remaining time to come as close as possible to being ready to walk in and teach that lesson. You may need to— • Rewrite lab sheets so the lab can come first without difficult vocabulary • Identify exactly the page/ sections you want students to read. • Write the exact wording of questions you want students to answer (a “question”, writing assignments, etc.) • Prepare grading rubrics, answer sheets, etc

33. SHARE • Put the basics of your plan into our chart, to be posted at: onceuponasciencebook.com

34. Part 5: Starting the Conversation

35. Pay Attention to your Thoughts as You are Reading • How do you know if you understand what you are reading? • What do you do to process the words as you read them? • If you have trouble understanding, how do you try to solve it?

36. Starting the Conversation: Some Places to Start • You will be given a strategy. Do you use this strategy when you read? How? When? • How could you introduce it to a class? • Prepare a 3 minute (or less) description of it that you could use with students. • Provide an example if it seems appropriate.

37. Strategy: Finding the meaning of new science words

38. Finding the meaning of New Words In short, the meaning of a SCIENCE word is usually found just before or after the word is used for the first time.

39. Strategy: The Interruption Construction Some erosion, such as the movement of glaciers or the force of a tropical storm, is hard to stop. Some erosion, such as the movement of glaciers or the force of a tropical storm, is hard to stop. • The “interruption” adds extra information. Try reading the sentence without the interruption, and then add it back in.

40. Strategy: Signal Words for Examples and Lists

41. Signal phrases for Lists • This may seem very obvious. But the point is, when you see these signals, it should pose a question in your mind: what are the four main differences? Or what are the senses? Then you should be reading to answer that question.

42. Strategy: Picture It In Your Head • When a description is given, with no illustration, try to see if you can picture it in your head. • For example, the idea of countershading was described in the penguin article. To really understand, you would need to picture what the penguin and its environment look like from above and below.

43. Strategy: Building Background Knowledge • Remember how important having enough background is to reading? If you keep encountering sentences you can’t understand, you may not know enough to read that text. • Try to figure out what you need to know and ask someone about it. • Try reading something simpler on the topic (a children’s book or website) and then return to the text.

44. Strategy: Study diagrams and illustrations • In some books, the pictures are just there to be pretty. Not in science! Diagrams and illustrations often have more information than the words, and may show it more clearly. • Look over the diagrams before you read. • When the words talk about a diagram (like when it says “see figure 3.2” stop and study the figure.

45. Strategy: Talk yourself through it • Science books can be complicated. They often have lots of new information in each sentence. After you read a section, say back to yourself what you understood. A good way to start is to say “Ok, so this means that…” • This is a type of thinking aloud, with a focus on what the main ideas are.

46. Part 6: Preparing for Writing

47. Types of Prewriting Questions • Science Ideas • What ideas will you want to include? • What order should you put them in? • What science words will you want to include?

48. Prewriting • Audience: Are you explaining this to the teacher (who really knows what happened) or to an outside audience? • Language: Should you use everyday or school/work language?

49. What writing words will you want to include? • (A good way to follow up on signal words you may have discussed) • Some useful writing words for writing about claims/ evidence: • Because • Therefore • If… Then… • However

50. “Therefore”: connects reasoning to the claim What claim can you make about the movement of water when the egg was in the syrup? Student: The egg was squished [ie, smaller] and we got more syrup than we started with. Teacher adds: Therefore, water moved from the egg into the syrup.