What happens when writing is incorporated into the science curriculum?
When planning my phase two teaching activities design I wanted to build on my findings from phase one and incorporate this into a successful experience for my students. The goal of phase two is to actually write like "Real Scientists", and learn the process more in depth for writing an expository/opinion piece. In doing so this will give me a more complete idea of what a scientifically literate fifth grader would look like. I want to surround my students with real non-fiction expository and opinion writing that scientists in the field today use. The following activities of phase two incorporate these aspects more in depth.
Phase two: 1st activity (Tuesday Dec. 3rd) Solar System National Geographic article activity: In the Solar System Lesson students engaged in reading a National Geographic article on the solar system. The specific article talked about how an asteroid on Mars may show scientists the missing link to common asteroids found on Earth and how we are using scientific evidence to make claims about space. Scientists are examining the asteroids for evidence that can answer questions on the solar system.
When planning my phase two teaching activities design I wanted to build on my findings from phase one and incorporate this into a successful experience for my students. The goal of phase two is to actually write like "Real Scientists", and learn the process more in depth for writing an expository/opinion piece. In doing so this will give me a more complete idea of what a scientifically literate fifth grader would look like. I want to surround my students with real non-fiction expository and opinion writing that scientists in the field today use. The following activities of phase two incorporate these aspects more in depth.
Phase two: 1st activity (Tuesday Dec. 3rd) Solar System National Geographic article activity: In the Solar System Lesson students engaged in reading a National Geographic article on the solar system. The specific article talked about how an asteroid on Mars may show scientists the missing link to common asteroids found on Earth and how we are using scientific evidence to make claims about space. Scientists are examining the asteroids for evidence that can answer questions on the solar system.
Students were engaged in reading scientific writing that is real world non-fiction. Students had a chance to experience and talk about scientific non-fiction writing that is fact based and engaging to them through discussions I facilitated. One students response that stood out to me from my journal was, "Mr. Brown do you have more about this topic I love it!". The students loved reading the article and could not wait to ask questions afterwards. Most students had a lot of fun reading the articles and I made an effort to be really excited about the material for my students. Students were engaged and learned what non-fiction expository/opinion writing looks like and this was a major goal of the lesson.
I also found the material to be a little difficult for some students, and a student said, "I don't understand the article" at one point. I scaffolded and strived to have students engaged in the article. Before we read the article together we talked about what things are found in scientific expository writing that we know. Students answered, "facts", "ideas", "experiments", etc. to this question I asked about what things are found in scientific expository writing. The goal and learning outcome was for students to inquiry and think like a "scientist" for this lesson. While the material was found to be a little challenging to my students we focused on reading specific examples in the text. I explained that as we read lets look at claims, and scientific evidence that the author uses to support a claim. I explained that we will be doing this in our opinion/expository writing and that this article is a great example of expository writing. I used a large piece of white board to make a K-W-L chart (What we know, What we want to know, and what we learned about the asteroid and solar system). We read the article through three times with me facilitating the reading group with probing questions. Afterwards we filled out the K-W-L chart and discussed the article. Students engaged in brainstorming ideas for the K-W-L chart and learned how to critically examine an article.
The students learning outcome was to gain more experience in expository/opinion writing. This lesson was a great way to expose students to the expository/opinion scientific writing that they have not seen before in the classroom and scaffold for my students expository writing pieces. Activity two will build on activity one by exploring non-fiction writing that scientists write in more depth. I also specifically choose the Time for Kids article because I found the activity one article on asteroids to be somewhat difficult for some students, and the Time for Kids article is written more clearly for students. I want to have the learning outcome for students in activity two to be grasping the information from the article and understanding how the author expresses claims in the expository piece.
I also found the material to be a little difficult for some students, and a student said, "I don't understand the article" at one point. I scaffolded and strived to have students engaged in the article. Before we read the article together we talked about what things are found in scientific expository writing that we know. Students answered, "facts", "ideas", "experiments", etc. to this question I asked about what things are found in scientific expository writing. The goal and learning outcome was for students to inquiry and think like a "scientist" for this lesson. While the material was found to be a little challenging to my students we focused on reading specific examples in the text. I explained that as we read lets look at claims, and scientific evidence that the author uses to support a claim. I explained that we will be doing this in our opinion/expository writing and that this article is a great example of expository writing. I used a large piece of white board to make a K-W-L chart (What we know, What we want to know, and what we learned about the asteroid and solar system). We read the article through three times with me facilitating the reading group with probing questions. Afterwards we filled out the K-W-L chart and discussed the article. Students engaged in brainstorming ideas for the K-W-L chart and learned how to critically examine an article.
The students learning outcome was to gain more experience in expository/opinion writing. This lesson was a great way to expose students to the expository/opinion scientific writing that they have not seen before in the classroom and scaffold for my students expository writing pieces. Activity two will build on activity one by exploring non-fiction writing that scientists write in more depth. I also specifically choose the Time for Kids article because I found the activity one article on asteroids to be somewhat difficult for some students, and the Time for Kids article is written more clearly for students. I want to have the learning outcome for students in activity two to be grasping the information from the article and understanding how the author expresses claims in the expository piece.
Phase 2: 2nd activity (Thursday Dec. 5th) Time for Kids articles, how to write like a scientist making non-fiction writing fun! Non-fiction and how scientists write lesson: Students in groups read a Time for Kids article on science to see how non-fiction writing can be fun! Students looked in depth at how real scientists write and how non-fiction is interesting and fun! I really found students to be engaged in non-fiction expository writing because I made it as fun as the creative writing lessons in phase one. I was worried that phase two writing in expository/opinion pieces would be less engaging. I felt that if I was engaged and excited that my students would be as well, and I found this to be true with most students in my class. Some students were not as engaged as I would have liked but they were on task. I still found the text and concept of what exactly the author is writing to be difficult for some students. A student said, "Can we write about this article today because I like reading facts on starfish to use when writing!". I thought this was great that most students were engaged in the activity.
I handed out the graphic organizer to help students organize their thoughts and they filled it out as we read the article. I choose a graphic organizer that was more personalized than the K-W-L graphic organizer in activity one because students were more engaged when having their own personal graphic organizer. On the graphic organizer I had sections for students to fill in Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, Write your own comments, and also a section to illustrate the main ideas for the text. We then went over the individual sections as a group in a discussion. The Time for Kids article below titled Falling Stars is about a disease killing starfish and how scientists are looking into cures. I choose this article for the expository non-fiction writing that incorporates claims with evidence. I am looking to encourage students to support their ideas with scientific evidence like real scientists. I facilitated small group readings and discussions on the readings. Students learned about facts and how they can support a claim. Great ideas were shared from students about specific claims the author made.
Students were very engaged and interested in the outcome of the article about finding a cure for the disease. The pictures and comments on the article in their graphic organizer was very eye-opening to me because students were really engaged in the article. They were able to find the main parts of the article and comprehend what the author was saying. The material was easier to grasp and students shared more ideas then in activity one. We discussed what evidence was used to show the disease the starfish were fighting and the possible cures. I feel this lesson was a wonderful way to make non-fiction reading fun and expose students to scientific writing that they can model in their writing pieces. Below is the graphic organizer and the article we read:
I handed out the graphic organizer to help students organize their thoughts and they filled it out as we read the article. I choose a graphic organizer that was more personalized than the K-W-L graphic organizer in activity one because students were more engaged when having their own personal graphic organizer. On the graphic organizer I had sections for students to fill in Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, Write your own comments, and also a section to illustrate the main ideas for the text. We then went over the individual sections as a group in a discussion. The Time for Kids article below titled Falling Stars is about a disease killing starfish and how scientists are looking into cures. I choose this article for the expository non-fiction writing that incorporates claims with evidence. I am looking to encourage students to support their ideas with scientific evidence like real scientists. I facilitated small group readings and discussions on the readings. Students learned about facts and how they can support a claim. Great ideas were shared from students about specific claims the author made.
Students were very engaged and interested in the outcome of the article about finding a cure for the disease. The pictures and comments on the article in their graphic organizer was very eye-opening to me because students were really engaged in the article. They were able to find the main parts of the article and comprehend what the author was saying. The material was easier to grasp and students shared more ideas then in activity one. We discussed what evidence was used to show the disease the starfish were fighting and the possible cures. I feel this lesson was a wonderful way to make non-fiction reading fun and expose students to scientific writing that they can model in their writing pieces. Below is the graphic organizer and the article we read:
Now is the time leading into the third activity were I want to have student start writing expository writing. Activity three builds on activity one and two because we looked at articles that are non-fiction expository/opinion pieces, reviewed what needs to be included in expository/opinion writing, how to support claims like "scientists", etc. This covers the expository/opinion rubric and students have a good grasp on the concept of a expository/opinion writing piece. Activity three allows for actual student writing because I want to give students as much practice as possible.
Phase two: 3rd activity (Tuesday Dec. 10) Experiment expository writing: Expository Writing on Earth's air and water lesson: I had students have water bottles at their desks in groups, one will be cold and one warm, then they put food coloring in the bottles. We made scientific hypothesis's as a class about why water is on the outside of the bottle and what color it would be. Some student hypotheses were, "The color of the water on the outside will be blue", and "The water on the outside will just be clear". I thought these hypothesis were great and students were very engaged in thinking like scientists!
We brainstormed things that are included in opinion/expository writing from our past readings. Students then wrote an expository piece using the data/inquiry on why water is on the outside? What color? I explained to students that they should write using scientific evidence that they see to support their claims and use vocabulary from our science lesson on Earth's water and air. I had students read text in Chapter four on Earth's air and water and highlight facts that can be observed versus things that cannot be observed. I explained to students what facts can be observed in real world situations and what facts cannot be observed. We then had a class discussion on this were students shared their facts they highlighted from the text. Students performed the data gathering inquiry experiment with the water bottles, then used the results to write a expository/opinion argument writing piece using scientific evidence from the experiment. I focused on performing data/inquiry based science experiments during my science lessons on the unit Earth's air and water, then had students write expository writing pieces following the literacy common core standards.
I scaffolded to students examples of scientific writing and brainstormed what was in the pieces that scientists wrote. I used the opinion/expository writing in science rubric below as a model to students as well. We went over the rubric as a class before and after the expository writing on the water bottle experiment. An example of things that I stressed to my students were organization, scientific content, and scientific evidence. Students found things that they could improve upon in their next writing. Students listed three things to work on for next time. Students really enjoyed getting to be creative in using the observable evidence from the water bottle experiment to make claims in their writing about why there was water on the outside of the bottle and what color it was. Students were really striving to prove their points In my observation notes I wrote:
"Today students performed the water bottle experiment and used evidence to support claims. I am really impressed how students are striving to support their claims, students are saying their point is right because... and my claim is right because... and this is great to hear. The students hypothesis are being proved or disproved by their evidence and this is very important." This directly related to the chapter we were reading in class on Earth's air and water so I hoped to see the continued improvement in their writing on the final opinion/expository writing lesson.
Activity four is our capstone project on expository/opinion writing that builds on activities one, two, and three by students writing a full expository/opinion writing piece of their own.
Phase two: 3rd activity (Tuesday Dec. 10) Experiment expository writing: Expository Writing on Earth's air and water lesson: I had students have water bottles at their desks in groups, one will be cold and one warm, then they put food coloring in the bottles. We made scientific hypothesis's as a class about why water is on the outside of the bottle and what color it would be. Some student hypotheses were, "The color of the water on the outside will be blue", and "The water on the outside will just be clear". I thought these hypothesis were great and students were very engaged in thinking like scientists!
We brainstormed things that are included in opinion/expository writing from our past readings. Students then wrote an expository piece using the data/inquiry on why water is on the outside? What color? I explained to students that they should write using scientific evidence that they see to support their claims and use vocabulary from our science lesson on Earth's water and air. I had students read text in Chapter four on Earth's air and water and highlight facts that can be observed versus things that cannot be observed. I explained to students what facts can be observed in real world situations and what facts cannot be observed. We then had a class discussion on this were students shared their facts they highlighted from the text. Students performed the data gathering inquiry experiment with the water bottles, then used the results to write a expository/opinion argument writing piece using scientific evidence from the experiment. I focused on performing data/inquiry based science experiments during my science lessons on the unit Earth's air and water, then had students write expository writing pieces following the literacy common core standards.
I scaffolded to students examples of scientific writing and brainstormed what was in the pieces that scientists wrote. I used the opinion/expository writing in science rubric below as a model to students as well. We went over the rubric as a class before and after the expository writing on the water bottle experiment. An example of things that I stressed to my students were organization, scientific content, and scientific evidence. Students found things that they could improve upon in their next writing. Students listed three things to work on for next time. Students really enjoyed getting to be creative in using the observable evidence from the water bottle experiment to make claims in their writing about why there was water on the outside of the bottle and what color it was. Students were really striving to prove their points In my observation notes I wrote:
"Today students performed the water bottle experiment and used evidence to support claims. I am really impressed how students are striving to support their claims, students are saying their point is right because... and my claim is right because... and this is great to hear. The students hypothesis are being proved or disproved by their evidence and this is very important." This directly related to the chapter we were reading in class on Earth's air and water so I hoped to see the continued improvement in their writing on the final opinion/expository writing lesson.
Activity four is our capstone project on expository/opinion writing that builds on activities one, two, and three by students writing a full expository/opinion writing piece of their own.
Phase two: 4th writing activity (Thursday Dec. 12th) Opinion/Expository writing on Global Warming: Earth Lesson: Students completed an opinion/expository writing on the prompt, "Do you think the recent measurements of Earth's temperatures are really evidence of global warming? Writing a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper, requesting that your point of view be printed, and including evidence." This activity was the final project students have been working towards.
As a class I handed out the opinion/expository writing in science rubric and we discussed the rubric together answering any questions along with the writing prompt. We reviewed what we had learned about how real scientists write and what should be included in the writing piece by brainstorming on the board. We discussed how this writing piece is the same and different to the creative writing we did in phase one. I read the writing prompt to the students, "Do you think the recent measurements of Earth's atmosphere are really evidence of global warming? Write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper, requesting that your point of view be printed, be sure to include evidence." I explained that the rubric will be used to grade their writing on this topic. Below is the opinion/expository writing in science rubric used:
As a class I handed out the opinion/expository writing in science rubric and we discussed the rubric together answering any questions along with the writing prompt. We reviewed what we had learned about how real scientists write and what should be included in the writing piece by brainstorming on the board. We discussed how this writing piece is the same and different to the creative writing we did in phase one. I read the writing prompt to the students, "Do you think the recent measurements of Earth's atmosphere are really evidence of global warming? Write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper, requesting that your point of view be printed, be sure to include evidence." I explained that the rubric will be used to grade their writing on this topic. Below is the opinion/expository writing in science rubric used:
I read my teacher example to the class and students clapped afterwards! I wanted to model to students and discuss what was included in my writing piece that they could model in their own writing. Students discussed in pairs ideas for writing opinion/expository pieces that they learned in the articles on the solar system and starfish. I allowed plenty of time for writing with no distractions. Below is an example of a student who received a 5 Strong on their writing piece and I choose this students work because the student used scientific evidence to support his claims and the paper was well organized.
While the above paper was indicative of most students work their was also a wide range of writing. I choose the following students work below to show that not all students were as strong in the writing.
Example Student Work:
"Dear Editor,
I think there are some facts that people should know. The greenhouse effect is going on now and is showing the difference in temperatures! CO2 is increasing and should stop soon! Please accept this letter."
Example Student Work:
"Dear Editor,
I think there are some facts that people should know. The greenhouse effect is going on now and is showing the difference in temperatures! CO2 is increasing and should stop soon! Please accept this letter."
I after grading the students work the student received a 2 emerging based on the rubric. There was a lack of support with evidence, the writing piece itself was too short, and there was no organization. The wide range of grades in opinion/expository writing phase two versus the more closely grouped grades in the creative writing pieces of phase one was interesting. This could be due to engagement in the actual writing prompts? Below is a breakdown of the class grades on the opinion/expository writing in phase two versus the creative writing scores from phase one:
It was very interesting to see the final class scores with relation to students effort and engagement. I feel overall students did great and scaffolding the opinion/expository writing with students in the three lessons leading up to the final writing really was helpful with 9 students receiving a 5 score, 5 receiving a 4 score, and 7 receiving a 3 score. I feel that expository writing is very difficult for students because they have not been exposed to this type of writing before and I will examine this concept in the findings below in further detail.
Findings
1). Accomplishment
I feel that everyone of my students accomplished learning to write like a real scientist in phase two in one way or another. Every student started at the same point, in up to this point not having done an expository writing piece only narrative writing. I feel this has been a great finding I found in that expository/opinion writing is more difficult than I had original thought, and students had difficulty reflected in their scores on the expository/opinion writing scores graph above.
Having this starting point of not ever having been exposed to expository/opinion writing and then creating an authentic opinion/expository writing piece based on scientific content and evidence they learn in science is a huge accomplishment for my students. I told them they should all be proud of the progress they made regardless of the final rubric score. While many students can make even more progress they all completed the writing process. Every one of my twenty-nine students completed the writing piece and wrote like a scientifically literate 5th grader. This is what a scientifically literate fifth grader looks like to me when reading the writing pieces and examining my original action research sub-questions to the data. The student work, quotes/observations from my journal, and expository/opinion writing scores directly reflect this finding of student accomplishment.
Another data result showing student accomplishment is the most recent science test scores from the class on January 6th, 2014. Below is a graph showing the scores in relation to the previous science test scores. I feel that this may be due to the writing in science activities increasing student comprehension of the material but this is not conclusive, just a finding. However, students are accomplishing higher scores then ever before in my fifth grade science class as reflected in the data graph of scores below:
Findings
1). Accomplishment
I feel that everyone of my students accomplished learning to write like a real scientist in phase two in one way or another. Every student started at the same point, in up to this point not having done an expository writing piece only narrative writing. I feel this has been a great finding I found in that expository/opinion writing is more difficult than I had original thought, and students had difficulty reflected in their scores on the expository/opinion writing scores graph above.
Having this starting point of not ever having been exposed to expository/opinion writing and then creating an authentic opinion/expository writing piece based on scientific content and evidence they learn in science is a huge accomplishment for my students. I told them they should all be proud of the progress they made regardless of the final rubric score. While many students can make even more progress they all completed the writing process. Every one of my twenty-nine students completed the writing piece and wrote like a scientifically literate 5th grader. This is what a scientifically literate fifth grader looks like to me when reading the writing pieces and examining my original action research sub-questions to the data. The student work, quotes/observations from my journal, and expository/opinion writing scores directly reflect this finding of student accomplishment.
Another data result showing student accomplishment is the most recent science test scores from the class on January 6th, 2014. Below is a graph showing the scores in relation to the previous science test scores. I feel that this may be due to the writing in science activities increasing student comprehension of the material but this is not conclusive, just a finding. However, students are accomplishing higher scores then ever before in my fifth grade science class as reflected in the data graph of scores below:
2). Engagement/Achievement/Fun Factor
When completing phase two I noticed the opinion/expository writing was just not as much fun for my students as the creative writing in phase one. Observations that support this are in reading groups of the first two lessons students were just not as engaged as when we wrote the creative writing prompts and this could be because the material was more difficult. In the creative writing we shared our writing to the class and students couldn't wait to share. Students also could use their imagination more in the creative writing and take the writing to places in their minds the expository writing can't go. To counter this I made a concerned effort to be ethusiastic, engaged, and excited about the non-fiction readings and writing prompts. For example, in my teacher example I read with expression and was very animated on my claims. I also would engage students with fun, thought provoking questions during the article readings. I used charts and graphic organizers as well to help relay to students that non-fiction writing can be fun!
When completing phase two I noticed the opinion/expository writing was just not as much fun for my students as the creative writing in phase one. Observations that support this are in reading groups of the first two lessons students were just not as engaged as when we wrote the creative writing prompts and this could be because the material was more difficult. In the creative writing we shared our writing to the class and students couldn't wait to share. Students also could use their imagination more in the creative writing and take the writing to places in their minds the expository writing can't go. To counter this I made a concerned effort to be ethusiastic, engaged, and excited about the non-fiction readings and writing prompts. For example, in my teacher example I read with expression and was very animated on my claims. I also would engage students with fun, thought provoking questions during the article readings. I used charts and graphic organizers as well to help relay to students that non-fiction writing can be fun!
While most of my students were engaged and excited, however, direct notes from my surveys and my journal of observations shows I needed to make more of an effort to sustain engagement from my students. This is because I found expository/opinion writing to be harder to teach because my students had never been exposed to this type of writing before. This is also reflected in the scores on the writing pieces in opinion/expository versus the scores in creative writing showing in the data score graph above. There was a larger range of scores in opinion/expository writing versus more clustered scores in creative writing. Scores for expository writing: (score/number of students receiving score) 1/3, 2/5, 3/7, 4/5, 5/9, 6/0 ,versus, creative writing: 1/2, 2/5, 3/12, 4/7, 5/3, 6/0. These scores reflect the engagement level and how hard expository writing is in relation to achievement level. In the creative writing there were more median scores of three's (12 students) and four's (7 students) showing the engagement level of the class and more students achieving a passing score. In the opinion/expository writing their was a lot more range in scores with the engagement level at different levels for students showing different achievement scores on the final writing.
3). Revisit scientific writing in future with creative + expository as next step
In the future, learning from phase one and two, I would combine the engagement and fun of creative writing with the real world scientific writing of expository writing for my class. As a teacher going forward I would like to incorporate both of these together to facilitate the best writing in science environment for my students. This is based on the observations from phase one, phase two, and the final scores. I can imagine a science unit using the "Magic School Bus"series in which students create an episode on a expository experiment (like the human body), then incorporating creative writing in how the magic school bus enters the heart and explores scientific content from the chapter creatively. This is an example of using both the expository and creative writing processes from phase one and two together in the classroom. This is a direct observation from completing phase one and two that could be used in future lessons.
4). Narrative vs. Expository/scores = room for improvement as a next step
I feel that an important observation is that students have not been exposed to expository writing before. Up until introducing expository writing in phase two students only have experience with narrative writing. I feel that this shows in the final scores and the learning process leading to the final writing. There is still room for practicing opinion/expository writing, but as an introduction students were really receptive to learning the process. The scores could improve with more practice and reading more example articles of expository writing in the classroom. Phase two accomplished the goals of learning real scientific writing, writing their own opinion/expository pieces using scientific evidence/content, becoming scientifically literate 5th graders, and writing like a real scientist.
3). Revisit scientific writing in future with creative + expository as next step
In the future, learning from phase one and two, I would combine the engagement and fun of creative writing with the real world scientific writing of expository writing for my class. As a teacher going forward I would like to incorporate both of these together to facilitate the best writing in science environment for my students. This is based on the observations from phase one, phase two, and the final scores. I can imagine a science unit using the "Magic School Bus"series in which students create an episode on a expository experiment (like the human body), then incorporating creative writing in how the magic school bus enters the heart and explores scientific content from the chapter creatively. This is an example of using both the expository and creative writing processes from phase one and two together in the classroom. This is a direct observation from completing phase one and two that could be used in future lessons.
4). Narrative vs. Expository/scores = room for improvement as a next step
I feel that an important observation is that students have not been exposed to expository writing before. Up until introducing expository writing in phase two students only have experience with narrative writing. I feel that this shows in the final scores and the learning process leading to the final writing. There is still room for practicing opinion/expository writing, but as an introduction students were really receptive to learning the process. The scores could improve with more practice and reading more example articles of expository writing in the classroom. Phase two accomplished the goals of learning real scientific writing, writing their own opinion/expository pieces using scientific evidence/content, becoming scientifically literate 5th graders, and writing like a real scientist.