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Writing Like a Scientist: Exploring ElementaryTeachers’ Understandings and Practicesof Writing in Science

Nicole J. Glen • Sharon Dotger

� The Association for Science Teacher Education, USA 2013

Abstract This qualitative study examined the connections between elementary

teachers’ conceptions of how scientists use writing and how the teachers used

writing during science lessons. Data collected included lesson observations, inter-

views, handouts to students, and curriculum resources. The findings revealed that

teachers in this study thought scientists write for several purposes: the presentation

of data, observations, experiences, procedures, and facts. The teachers used writing

tasks that mirrored this with their students. The teachers also had a limited definition

of creativity in writing, and when they had students write creatively in science it was

to add in fictional elements. Implications of this study include providing teachers

with better models for how and why scientists write, including these models in more

inquiry-based science lessons, and directly relating concepts of nature of science to

elementary science writing.

Keywords Writing � Teacher beliefs � Elementary education

Writing during science lessons is one important way for elementary teachers to

support students’ learning. Writing while doing and learning science is important for

conceptual learning and for learning about the scientific discipline (Prain and Hand

1996). Writing can allow teachers to portray to students the excitement, personal

investment, and problem solving that is inherent in science. Teachers can also

N. J. Glen (&)

Elementary and Early Childhood Education Department, Bridgewater State University,

Bridgewater, MA 02325, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

S. Dotger

Department of Science Teaching, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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J Sci Teacher Educ

DOI 10.1007/s10972-013-9348-x

integrate writing and science in ways that are authentic to science and literacy, such

that students use writing like practicing scientists and authors might, thereby leading

to learning in both subjects (McQuitty et al. 2010; Purcell-Gates et al. 2007).

Scientists use writing for documenting and presenting data and inferences;

making new ideas permanent; allowing reflection, analysis, and evaluation of

thoughts and discoveries; and informing and persuading others about science (Hand

et al. 2003; Norris and Phillips 2003; Yore 2004; Yore et al. 2003). In science

education then, writing can be used for many of these same purposes, resulting in

students communicating ideas and knowledge to themselves and others, under-

standing science content and science as a discipline, and creating knowledge

(Rivard 1994; Saul 2004; Yore et al. 2003). Science education reform documents,

like A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council [NRC]

2012), also support the use of writing in science by explaining that writing should be

used for clearly and accurately communicating scientific ideas, constructing and

evaluating scientific explanations, and posing and evaluating arguments and

conclusions based on evidence.

Purpose of This Study

A weakness of many studies about writing in science is that they do not investigate

teachers’ understandings about how to use writing in science: ‘‘Research on the

usefulness of [writing] strategies is incomplete until we better understand how andwhy strategies are actually used, or are not used, in [science] classrooms’’ (Moje

1996, p. 191). Teachers’ understandings and uses of writing during science

instruction, including the factors that influence teachers’ pedagogical decisions, are

missing from much of the writing-to-learn research. For example, Keys (1999a)

conducted a study with middle school students to find out what information they

included in their science writing when they were not instructed on how to write

scientific reports. Interestingly, many presented factual information, and only a few

included inferences and new hypotheses. Keys explained that one reason this may

have occurred is because the traditional forms of writing that students are often

exposed to in science class (e.g., fill in the blank, short-answer questions, factual

reports) may have resulted in students not considering the use of personal

interpretations, hypotheses, or explanations in their science writing. Yet, Keys made

this claim knowing that ‘‘we have little information on the degree to which teachers

use scientific genres, their goals and purposes for using these genres, their

expectations for student products, or the way they integrate science writing with

other instructional strategies’’ (Keys 1999b, p. 128).

Only one study (Rowell 1991) determined that a third grade teacher regularly

used some form of procedural writing in science because it fit with the teacher’s

understanding about how science was supposed to be conducted and written about.

Rowell’s study, however, featured only one science unit conducted by one teacher

deemed exceptional by the district science consultant at integrating language arts

and science. The study presented here adds to what Rowell found, but examined

more teachers with varied expertise and science backgrounds over a longer period of

N. J. Glen, S. Dotger

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time. This study examined the ways in which four elementary teachers from one

school understood how scientists use writing and how this translated into science

writing practices for their students. The following research questions guided this

study:

1. How do elementary teachers understand the ways in which scientists use

writing?

2. How do elementary teachers’ understandings about how scientists use writing

influence how the teachers design science writing tasks?

Conceptual Background and Literature Review

Conceptual Background

This study used the idea that writing can help students learn any subject. In science,

this learning can also include an understanding of how the scientific discipline

works. It is necessary, though, to think about what ‘learning’ entails. Historically,

learning has been described as a process where the learner constructs: (1)

understanding by looking for meaning in the events of his or her world; (2)

relationships based on his or her understandings about the world that are organized

into existing schemata and can be used to interpret familiar and new situations; and

(3) relationships based on his or her established schemata (prior knowledge)

(Resnick 1983).

The implications of this for writing are that the writer’s schemata, or ‘‘complex

structures of information that represent the individual’s past encounters with the

world…contain[ing] the language user’s knowledge of objects, situations, and

events, as well as knowledge of procedures for interpreting, retrieving, and

organizing information’’ (p. 321), are used to produce and connect relevant data for

expression through writing (Kucer 1985). This, in turn, leads to new knowledge

formation because relationships among concepts are located, activated, explored,

and analyzed as the learner is writing. Olson (1977) pointed out that written

language must be explicit, is permanent and subject to scrutiny, criticism, and

reflection, and helps formulate abstract statements into factual knowledge. Thus,

writing is ‘‘an instrument for the exploration of new ideas’’ (Olson 1977, p. 16) and

a ‘‘specialized tool of analytic thinking’’ (p. 18) since meaning must be formed

through explicit explanations that use logical structure. At the same time, the writer

must also have knowledge of and experience with the concepts about which he or

she writes in order to successfully convey information and ideas to others. It is these

aspects of writing that are important for enhancing a writer’s cognitive processes.

Writing-to-learn is one way students can use writing as a cognitive tool to develop

conceptual understanding of science (Fulwiler 1987; Gere 1985; Zinsser 1988).

Writing-to-learn causes the learner to synthesize ideas, many of which never existed

until he or she thinks and writes them, thus allowing the learner to become aware of

these connections and thereby knowing more than before writing it (Van Nostrand

1979).

Writing Like a Scientist

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More recently, research about writing has also turned to sociocultural theories to

explain how context plays a role in students’ writing processes (Prior 2006). Genres

are both cognitive and social tools that enable students to learn discipline-based

ways of thinking, representing, and communicating ideas (Chapman 2006). In this

way, writing-to-learn can provide students with an understanding of how

‘‘knowledge production…[in science] operates according to particular norms

for…practice, conventions for communicating and representing knowledge and

ideas, and ways of interacting, defending ideas, and challenging the deeply held

ideas of others in the discipline’’ (Moje 2007, p. 28). These norms are created and

practiced based on social and cultural interactions among scientists and the general

public’s knowledge of science.

Science education positions writing as an important way for students to build

conceptual knowledge of science (Prain and Hand 1996; Yore et al. 2003).

However, writing during science also aligns with sociocultural theories of writing

such that writing can be used to learn about the nature of science. Teachers can

‘‘select language tasks that encompass the range of genre, information sources, and

communication technologies encountered by practicing scientists and science-

literate adults’’ (Yore 2004, p. 86). Although some theorists argue that this means

students should ‘‘learn to write (and read) the traditional, ‘impersonal’ report in the

appropriate technical language,’’ (p. 609), others note that in order for science to

remain accessible to a wide variety of students, then additional genres, such as the

personal and speculative writing of scientists, can also be used by students

(McQuitty et al. 2010; Prain and Hand 1996).

Similarly, literacy educators like Purcell-Gates et al. (2007) recommend that

authentic literacy activities take place in content areas. Authentic literacy activities

include writing texts that help students understand real-world, social processes of

writing and are not solely to help students write for evaluative school purposes. This

can be accomplished with teachers modeling scientific language and writing (Honig

2010) and using mentor texts. Mentor texts are books and other print resources that are

read and reread for different purposes to help students see relevance to their own lives

(Dorfman and Cappelli 2009). Mentor texts can serve as an authentic literacy model

for the types of writing done in real-world science. Therefore, science and literacy

education have common goals about one of the purposes for writing—to teach

students how to write in ways similar to how and what practicing scientists write.

This study utilized Applebee’s (1982) broad definition of writing from his large-

scale study of secondary school teachers, as well as Bereiter and Scardamalia’s

(1987) and Tolchinsky’s (2006) theoretical definitions of writing. Therefore, writing

included ‘‘any task in which information or experiences were being written down

for later reference’’ (Applebee 1982, p. 370) for oneself and someone other than

oneself (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1987; Tolchinsky 2006). This definition

incorporated all of the writing seen during this study.

Literature Review

Many elementary teachers see themselves and texts as dispensers of scientific

knowledge (King et al. 2001; Levitt 2001; Tilgner 1990) and structure their science


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lessons to ensure that students learn a set of scientific facts (Water-Adams 2006)

from a text-dominated curriculum (Baker and Saul 1994). As a result, these teachers

tend to use writing for knowledge telling, where students recall information for the

purpose of telling the teacher what they know through simple writing tasks

(Holliday et al. 1994). This type of writing does not allow for students to write for

real-world purposes. Thus, although students in these classrooms may write a lot in

science, it is rarely to enhance learning (Rivard 1994). Contrary to this, writing-to-

learn is the minds-on component to hands-on science because it helps students to

build knowledge, construct understanding, and engage in the reasoning and

problem-solving processes of scientists (Glynn and Muth 1994; Gunel et al. 2007;

Yore et al. 2003).

Learning science through inquiry, where students devise hypotheses, procedures,

data collection techniques, scientific explanations, and communication methods

(American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS] 1990; NRC 2012),

can allow for more authentic science writing activities to take place in the

elementary classroom. Then, as students participate in these activities, opportunities

to develop writing skills (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and punctuation), to

create arguments and persuade others of scientific claims, and to learn the technical

writing of science are also present (Rivard 1994; Yore et al. 2003). Writing can also

enable students to transition from their own descriptions of science phenomena to

more technical science vocabulary by providing opportunities for drafting and

revising ideas and writing for varying audiences (Prain and Hand 1996; Sutton

1993).

An example of learning technical science writing is when students collect

observations and data about a phenomenon and record them during inquiry. As a

result, they are learning that scientists use observations. Observations are statements

about nature that are accessible through the human senses (Lederman 2007). Several

studies have found that when teachers ask students to write in science notebooks,

observations (including data) are the most often recorded type of information

(Alonzo 2001, 2008; Ruiz-Primo et al. 2010). It is important that students write

observations during science lessons because the act of writing about them, and not

just making the observations, allows students to think more thoroughly and notice

what they are seeing, hearing, touching, and smelling (Sutton 1993). Then, this

record of information is accessible to students in order to find patterns and create

explanations about nature.

The observations students record can eventually be used to write inferences,

another example of technical science writing. Inferences are the scientific

explanations that scientists create from their observations (Lederman 2007). There

is some debate about what constitutes an ‘‘explanation’’ in science education and

how it compares to argumentation (e.g. McNeill 2011; Osborne and Patterson

2011). The goal of this paper is not to enter the debate but to explain how teachers’

understandings of scientific writing may influence if and how they have students

write their own inferences, regardless if they are labeled as explanations or

arguments. This is important to consider because by writing aspects of a scientific

explanation or argument, students can learn how to use the language of science

while making meaning of science concepts at the same time (Mortimer and Scott


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2003; Zembal-Saul 2009). Unfortunately, when teachers ask students to write in

science, they often do not ask them to include inferences (Alonzo 2001, 2008;

Applebee and Langer 2011; Keys 1999a; Ruiz-Primo et al. 2010). Previous research

has found that teachers and students at all levels have difficulty constructing

arguments in science (Zeidler 1997; Zembal-Saul et al. 2002; Zohar 2004). Teachers

often lack the pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of the nature of science to

effectively teach science using argumentation (Driver et al. 2000). As a result,

students are often using writing for procedures, observations, and facts, a small part

of the full process of inquiry and knowledge development in science. Nevertheless,

learning how to construct scientific explanations or arguments is a skill that can be

enhanced with practice and intervention (Driver et al. 2000), even in the elementary

classroom (e.g. Norton-Meier et al. 2008; Zembal-Saul et al. 2013).

Finally, elementary teachers sometimes know little about expository text

structures and the unique discourse of science, and tend to favor narrative books

and writing styles over scientific forms of writing (Shymansky et al. 1991; Yopp and

Yopp 2006). In fact, many teachers are unaware that the language of science uses

elements of vocabulary, syntax, and discourse differently from other academic

disciplines (Gee 2001). As Yager (2004) noted:

A common misconception in modern society is that the contents of science

[books] are, in fact, science….Most written materials offered to students in the

course of science instruction are but descriptions of past science explora-

tions… What students encounter are but declarations of ‘fact’ – the

explanations of the natural world that are generally accepted by the current

academy of scientists… Although many [books] and other materials may be

fine records of what scientists have come to know, they do not represent the

heart and soul of the scientific enterprise. (p. 95)

From a writing perspective, this is troublesome because many texts are ‘‘poor

models of writing and thinking within the disciplines they represented’’ (Langer and

Applebee 1987, p. 148). If teachers hold the same view about science texts as Yager

(2004) noted, then science writing that models and compliments scientific discourse

may be unfamiliar to them.

Methodology and Procedures

The findings presented here were part of a larger qualitative case study of four

elementary teachers from one suburban elementary school, Lakeview Elementary

(pseudonym), in New York (Glen 2008). A case study was used to understand

teachers’ uses of writing in science in a contemporary, real-life context where the

events were not manipulated by a researcher (Yin 2003). Case studies are useful for

gaining ‘‘an in-depth understanding of the situation and meaning for those

involved,’’ and they are defined as a setting, context, or unit around which there are

boundaries (Creswell 2007; Merriam 1998, p. 19). This study’s attention to teachers

in one elementary school constitutes a bounded unit as there were a finite number of

people and situations involved.


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In order to paint a well-rounded picture of Lakeview Elementary, we sought

participants that represented the range of grade levels in the school (K-5). For

example, obtaining one teacher at the kindergarten or first grade level, one at the

second or third grade level, and one at the fourth or fifth grade level was ideal to

represent the range of grades; the school had only three or four classrooms per grade

level. Subsequently, Lakeview’s principal found four teachers who volunteered to

participate—one each in kindergarten, first, second, and fourth grade. We

purposefully chose to work with only these four teachers so that an information-

rich case study of the school could be created and so that ample time could be spent

with each of teachers for both writing and science lessons (Coyne 1997).

Additionally, we needed participants who taught both science and writing several

days of the week, and these teachers fulfilled that expectation.

For this case study, a small sample of teachers was selected because we wished to

understand the research questions in depth, not to find out what is true of many

teachers and schools (Merriam 1998). The findings described in this study may not

be applicable to all or even most other elementary schools and teachers. However,

some of the findings described in this study held true across the teachers in this

study and were similar to findings of other studies. As anticipated, many of the

themes that resulted from the study emerged from teachers working in the same

school, under the same administration, and with the same student population. Many

of the factors that influenced writing in science that arose during data analysis were

similar among the teachers, possibly due to them working with the same science

curriculum expectations and the same writing program called 6 ? 1 Trait� Writing(Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory [NWREL] 2007). Therefore, a case

study design was suitable for this study because it examined a situation (writing in

science) whose variables and events were often hard to separate from its context

(Yin 2003).

The district science curriculum was a series of topics designated each month for

each grade level and was created by teachers and administrators in the district so

that it correlated closely with the New York State science standards. However,

teachers often moved these topics to other times of the year depending on how they

saw them fitting with the rest of their curriculum, seasons, or holidays. The math/

science curriculum coordinator for the district commented that ‘‘there is a lot of

flexibility in the program, teachers can use their creativity’’ (interview: 2/13/08)

when planning their science lessons. Every teacher had a binder which consisted of

a compilation of worksheets, websites, names of videos, and lists of books that

could be used to teach each topic. There were few or no explanations of experiments

or hands-on/inquiry activities in the binders. However, for some units, the teachers

received a science kit from a local professional development institute that contained

materials and additional resources, including experiments and hands-on activities.

The writing curriculum consisted of required genres for student writing.

Students’ work was placed in each student’s portfolio, and passed along to the

next year’s teacher. For example, in first grade the required genres included ‘‘A

Story About Me,’’ how-to report, descriptive writing, persuasive letter, and research

report. Similar to science, there were months during the year that were suggested as

the appropriate time to teach each of the genres. To help teachers evaluate their


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students’ writing for each required genre, teams of district teachers and adminis-

trators created rubrics. The rubrics were based on 6 ? 1 Trait� Writing (NWREL

2007), the writing program that was used in the district. The traits that were assessed

for each genre included: (1) focus on the main idea, (2) organization and paragraph

structure, (3) voice, (4) word choice, (5) sentence fluency, (6) conventions and

grammar rules, and (7) presentation. Neither the required genres nor the traits of

writing that were assessed were specific to science.

The participants were Leslie (all names are pseudonyms), a kindergarten teacher,

Evan, a first grade teacher, Nora, a second grade teacher, and Anita, a fourth grade

teacher. The teachers ranged from having 2 years (Evan), to 5 years (Nora), to over

20 years (Leslie and Anita) of experience. All of them held a bachelor’s and/or a

master’s degree in elementary education. None of them had a formal background in

science beyond the content and teaching methodology courses required during teacher

preparation. In fact, Anita and Nora commented that they lacked content knowledge

and felt uncomfortable teaching science. Evan, however, participated every summer

in teaching a science camp to local elementary students, and claimed that this sparked

his interest and helped him feel excited and comfortable teaching science.

The study took place from November through February of the 2007–2008 school

year, during which the first author spent three to 4 days per week in the school. For

each teacher, an average of 15 lessons were formally observed, three 1-h interviews

were conducted, and numerous artifacts of lesson plans, assignments, and curriculum

guides were collected to understand how these teachers used writing during their

science instruction. As part of this study, the teachers were interviewed at least three

different times. The first interview was structured in order to gain common

information from the teachers about their teaching of science and writing and views

about learning. The second and third interviews were semi-structured and sought

more specific information about what occurred during classroom observations, along

with information about the teachers’ views of writing in science, including questions

to learn what they understood about how scientists used writing. Observations of

science and writing lessons provided information about the degree to which the

teachers used writing in the ways they described during the interviews and focused

on the ways the teachers presented and discussed writing tasks with students.

The purpose of a case study is to report descriptions, explain themes (Creswell

2007), and develop inferences and hypotheses (Merriam 1998). To do this, we used

Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) constant comparative method of analysis. During data

collection, open and axial coding was used to develop categories and interconnect the

categories to further inform future data collection (Strauss and Corbin 1990). For

example, early in the study conversations and interviews with the teachers were being

consistently categorized as teachers’ ideas about writing and science, and writing as

assessment opportunities, rather than how students’ abilities influenced the writing

that was done in the classrooms, which had been a predicted topic. The prominence of

these topics caused the researchers to focus more in-depth on them during subsequent

interviews and observations, leading to the comparison of incidents and behavior

patterns of the different teachers in relation to these categories. Selective coding

highlighted the most common categories and connected them, creating a hypothesis of

links among codes (Creswell 2007; Merriam 1998; Strauss and Corbin 1990). The


123

computer software QSR NVivo7 was used to help create appropriate categories and

codes and to store the data. The co-authors worked together to discuss the data, the

codes, and their relationships to the research questions.

Open coding was used to group conceptually similar events, actions, and

interactions to form categories and subcategories (Corbin and Strauss 1990). Then

axial coding was used to further the development of the categories and note

indications of them (e.g., what they were, and how, when, where, and why they

occurred) (Corbin and Strauss 1990). Table 1 shows the axial coding categories

from the interviews and observations with Evan in response to the open codes of

‘‘talk and feelings about science’’ and ‘‘talk and feelings about writing.’’

The categories in Table 1 include a demonstration where Evan placed raisins in

clear soda. The students watched the raisins rise and sink in the soda, described

properties of the materials used, and stated their observations (science = making

detailed observations). The next day, students wrote a step-by-step description of

the demonstration (writing in science = procedures). In a subsequent interview,

Evan noted that the science curriculum was filled with descriptions and step-by-step

procedures, and these were common in real-world science (science = procedures to

follow). The interviews and observations with the other participating teachers

resulted in similar categories, allowing the researchers to develop the assertions

described below.

Findings

Teachers’ Views of How Scientists Use Writing

When the participants were first asked how they thought scientists used writing,

each teacher paused for a long time. Evan and Nora originally responded with ‘‘I

Table 1 Axial coding categories for Evan

For Evan, science is/means For Evan, writing in science is/means

Working with others

Making detailed observations

Having different perspectives

Sharing ideas

Creating analogies

The doing (experimenting, handling materials)

But not the writing

Procedures to follow

When everything works out fine

Learning facts

Creating models (e.g. simulating events in nature)

Procedures

Specific details (e.g. facts, specific words for

describing)

Recording observations during science

Recording procedures after science

Brainstorming facts

Creating analogies

Like any other writing they do

Different from other writing they do

Not creative, because creativity is writing things that

are make believe

This table shows the categories created during axial coding from the interviews and observations with

first grade teacher Evan


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don’t know’’ (Evan, 1/17/08; Nora, 2/5/08), and Nora seemed flustered she did not

know and defended herself by stating scientists ‘‘wouldn’t know what teachers do

[either]’’ (2/5/08). Eventually, all of the teachers gave descriptions of how they

thought scientists used writing and what they thought writing in real-world science

was like. All of the teachers believed writing was an important skill for scientists to

have in order to communicate. Leslie noted that scientists write to convey

information to those who do not know about the topic. Evan explained that written

communication is essential for scientists because if they cannot convey their

message or information to others, including ‘‘non-scientists’’ (1/17/08), then it

cannot be used by others.

The teachers explained that scientists’ purposes for writing were to communicate

factual information, including observations, procedures, findings, and conclusions.

Evan thinks of scientists’ writing as ‘‘… more literal, like fact-based, observational

type of writing’’ (3/12/08). Other teachers agreed. Leslie noted scientists write about

‘‘a lot of data, a lot of observation’’ (3/5/08). Nora believed scientists mainly write

reports about their findings, typically following the scientific method of hypothesis,

experiment, and conclusion. Anita described scientists’ writing as including

description, results, conclusions, and ‘‘cause and effect’’ (3/6/08).

The teachers believed the writing that scientists do, as described above, is

different from how others write. For example, Anita noted how the voice, use of

language, and structure of science writing is different from other writing. She

explained that science writing needed an authoritative tone of voice, ‘‘compared to

flowery and what a narrative would have in it’’ (3/6/08). She added when scientists

choose their words, the use of adjectives was different:

the adjectives have more of a job to do, they’re more to help the [scientist] be

specific, different than enhancing. I mean [scientists] don’t want to add the

kind of worthless words in [their writing]…word choice here is more for

clarity…where[as] in a narrative it would definitely be to get that picture in

your mind…it wouldn’t [just be] ‘a winter night’ but a frosty, white, you know

just adding a few descriptive words. (3/6/08)

Anita stated the language difference in science and narrative writing was also due to

the vocabulary, because writing in science ‘‘has different vocabulary… bigvocabulary’’ (3/6/08).

Anita’s sense that scientists’ writing is more straightforward than other forms of

writing may have been similar to Evan and Nora’s idea that the writing that

scientists produce could not be ‘‘creative.’’ For example, Evan felt bad that he had to

describe scientists’ writing as uncreative, but he seemed unable to put other words

to it: ‘‘I don’t really think of it as, I hate to say the word creative but I think

of realistic type of things, fact based type of stuff, that’s just what I think of it’’

(3/12/08). He explained that he was ‘‘partial to’’ (3/12/08) creative writing because

he liked to write fantasy and make-believe stories, and to him these were not what

scientists would write. During an observation in Nora’s classroom, she explained to

her students that the science writing they were about to do could ‘‘be creative’’ and

that it did not have to be ‘‘a report’’ (1/30/08). The students could write fantasy,


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realistic fiction, or a report. Nora did not seem to think that science writing could be

interesting or creative without fiction infused.

In summary, the teachers eventually explained that scientists wrote to convey

factual information to other scientists and the general population. This factual

information included descriptions of factual knowledge, observations, procedures,

and conclusions. The teachers also considered scientists’ writing to be straightfor-

ward and less creative than other forms of writing.

Connections Between Science Writing Assignments and Teachers’ Conceptions

of How Scientists Use Writing

These teachers’ ideas that scientists use writing to communicate factual information

were reflective of the ways many of them asked their students to write. Leslie, Evan,

and Nora all said they occasionally had students write in the same way that

scientists do; Anita claimed she did not. For example, Leslie’s science lessons often

involved students simulating nature to learn more about life cycles and other natural

processes, such as pretending they were penguins protecting an egg or using

flashlights and shapes to make shadows. Leslie noted that a lot of the writing she

had her kindergarten students do was ‘‘experience writing’’ (3/5/08) where they

wrote about what they knew, what they did, or what they observed. It was through

their ‘‘experiences’’ in science that Leslie said her students produced writing similar

to what scientists produce because they had to explain their observations or convey

information about the topic.

Evan explained that his students wrote like scientists when they wrote notes

about their observations of nature, took measurements, and recorded procedures like

how to plant a seed or make raisins float and sink in soda. He also thought that grade

level would make a difference for how he might ask students to write like scientists:

‘‘I mean scientific writing when you’re talking about first grade could be as simple

as tell me what the weather is’’ (3/12/08), whereas in higher grades writing like

scientists might mean writing about experiments that students conducted.

During certain science units, like magnets and buoyancy, Nora had her students

follow ‘‘the scientific method’’, and in these cases Nora said they wrote like

scientists to explain their hypotheses, procedures, and conclusions. However, she

also felt that any time students explained something by writing about scientific facts

and information, they were also writing like scientists. Nora described an example

of how her students’ science writing was not ‘‘that much different from other

writing in other subjects’’ (3/4/08). She read a magazine article about teacher

retention rate, and the author had called himself a scientific writer. It seemed that to

Nora any type of writer who is presenting factual information could be considered a

scientific writer, and because she often had her students do the same then they were

writing like scientists as well.

Anita believed students’ science writing was different from writing she had

students create in other subjects. She claimed she did not often have students write

like scientists. She felt her students would have trouble writing in a scientific way

due to the differences described earlier, such as complex vocabulary words,

authoritative voice, and specific purposes for adjectives. She noted that scientists’


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writing ‘‘doesn’t flow, [it doesn’t] have the typical characters, setting, plot, that

[students] are so use to writing about. [Scientists’ writing] is set up different’’ (email

3/20/08) than most of the other types of writing students created.

As explained earlier, many of the teachers perceived the factual writing scientists

produced could not be or was not ‘‘creative.’’ In this way, writing like a scientist was

unlike the other types of writing teachers said they had their students produce. For

all of the teachers, this feeling that the writing that scientists do is not creative was

implicit in how they talked about writing during interviews and to their students.

Leslie and Nora often referred to writing in science as ‘‘stories,’’ both in their

interviews and to their students, even if there were no fictional elements to a writing

piece. This may have been because they expected students to add specific details

and more adjectives to their writing in order to make it more creative. To them,

these kinds of details were most often found in the fiction ‘‘stories’’ they read to

their class. Leslie, Evan, and Nora expected their students to ‘‘be creative’’ when

they wrote in science, and all four teachers wanted their students to ‘‘have fun’’

while writing. These feelings may have partially contributed to teachers’ decision to

have students add fictional elements or eloquent details to some of their science

writing. They reasoned that because students’ writing was not only composed of

facts, it was no longer considered similar to what scientists write.

Evan and Nora provided good examples of how they viewed some forms of

writing as being creative and fun, and other forms, like writing in science, as not.

One day, Evan asked his class to write rough drafts of a letter to a family member

about a planet. He explained they needed to write facts and he wanted them to be

creative. He said they could ‘‘write some make-believe stuff because if you think

about some of the books we’ve read recently, like the Magic Tree House books, they

have a lot of make-believe stuff to make them interesting’’ (1/25/08). Rather than

referring to one of the expository texts about objects in the solar system he had

recently read to the students during science instruction, he referenced the popular

Magic Tree House fiction series he typically read aloud. In the lesson described

earlier where Nora told her students they could be creative while writing in science,

she explained several times during that lesson before and after students began that

their ‘‘story…doesn’t have to be a report. It can be fun. It can be fiction’’ (1/30/08).

Thus, when Evan and Nora decided to use writing in science, they often had

students add ‘‘interesting’’ and ‘‘fun’’ components to it, like make-believe or the use

of details that were not necessarily scientific. This resulted in a narrative form of

writing that combined real facts with make-believe elements. To these teachers, this

was a seemingly more creative form of writing, and no longer considered similar to

how practicing scientists write.

Anita’s writing goals provide a final example of the differences between writing

in science and other forms of writing. Anita regularly encouraged her students to use

similes, metaphors, and figurative language. She felt having students use language

in these ways allowed them to be creative, ‘‘which is fun for them and it really

expands their vocabulary’’ (12/14/07). Yet, students only used these features in

narrative texts and never in factual writing or during science. This may have

contributed to why Anita ‘‘never thought about’’ (3/6/08) having her students write

in ways similar to scientists. Anita thought writing in science was very different


123

from the other types she had her students create and she did not feel it allowed her

students to practice using language in the ways described here. Therefore, it may

have been difficult for Anita to understand how and why writing like scientists

might be useful in her classroom.

Finally, the teachers believed the process through which their students produced

science writing was similar to writing in other subjects. The school in which these

teachers worked used 6 ? 1 Trait� Writing (NWREL 2007) to help students learn

to write different genres. Evan believed these traits of writing—ideas, organization,

voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation—applied to any

form of writing, even science writing. Given he felt he was expected to implement

the writing features found on the district writing rubrics that aligned with 6 ? 1Trait� Writing (NWREL 2007), it was essential he fit the features to whatever

writing his students did, even writing in science. Overall, when the teachers had

students write in science, they felt this writing should be used to teach the writing

process prevalent in 6 ? 1 Trait� Writing (NWREL 2007) as opposed to teaching

students how to write like scientists.

In summary, Leslie, Evan, and Nora thought the writing that scientists produce

was similar in many ways to the writing they already had students create because

their students wrote about experiences and facts and followed the writing processes

laid out in the district writing program. Contrary to the others, Anita did not think

her students wrote like scientists because science writing was different from the

types of writing they did produce. Anita felt her students were not familiar with real-

world ways of science writing because most of their experiences as students

involved fictional writing and not the use of the scientific language and text

structures she thought scientific writing contained. Finally, it seemed all of the

teachers considered the writing that scientists produce to be less ‘‘creative’’ than

other forms of writing, so many of them suggested their students add more creative

(e.g., make-believe) details while writing in science.

Discussion

One purpose of this study was to learn how teachers understood the ways scientists

write. The teachers perceived scientists’ writing to be factual, presenting data,

observations, experiences, procedures, and conclusions. These teachers’ ideas aresimilar to some of the ways scientists write; for example, scientists report data,

observations, procedures, explanations, and definitions (Suppe 1998; Yore 2004;

Yore et al. 2004). Yet, there are many ways scientists convey information which

aids their own learning. Scientists’ writing includes: (a) arguments presenting

claims and defending them with evidence; (b) critiques of other scientists’ work;

(c) diaries, journals, and field notes with data, personal beliefs, and ideas;

(d) descriptions of cause-effect relationships; and (e) editorials, descriptive reports,

newspaper columns, and books for the general public (Richardon 2005; Yore 2004).

These types of scientific writing were not used, read, or discussed in this study’s

classrooms. These types of science writing make science possible, and provide


123

teachers and students with ‘‘an entry into the scientific community, its ways of

thinking, and the discourse it uses’’ (McQuitty et al. 2010, p. 321; also Honig 2010).

Additionally, the teachers in this study had a particular definition of the word

‘‘creative,’’ which to them meant ‘‘make-believe’’ or ‘‘elaborate’’ details. As a

result, this influenced how they viewed the ways scientists use writing, namely as

being contrary to ‘‘creative.’’ Yet in science, the act of scientific inquiry and

producing inferences are considered creative because scientists are using their

imaginations and critical thinking in order to develop experiments, models, and

explanations from data. Scientists invent explanations, which ‘‘requires a great deal

of creativity’’ (Lederman 2007, p. 834). When scientists, or students, create

explanations about the natural world, they are using both the empirical

observations they collected as well as their own imagination and creativity.

Therefore, the teachers in this study might benefit from an expanded definition of

‘‘creativity’’ to include the process of doing science, the models and simulations

enacted to explain science, and the writing that portrays effectively, accurately,

and interestingly to an outside audience what is being done, observed, and claimed

during science lessons.

A second purpose of this study was to understand how the teachers’ views of

scientists’ writing influenced their own uses of writing during science lessons. The

teachers asked students to write about data, observations, and experiences with

scientific phenomena, procedures for conducting experiments, and factual

knowledge about a topic (what they considered conclusions). Thus, the types

and purposes for science writing the teachers had students use occasionally

mirrored what they believed practicing scientists write. The resources the teachers

used may have influenced these types and purposes for writing in science. The

teachers and students were continually exposed to science represented as lists of

facts through the books and other sources used to teach science. Informational

texts often show science as accumulated facts, do not always show the way

research was conducted, and often present conclusions with little or no reference

to the reasoning and arguments scientists used to form them (Ford 2006; Penney

et al. 2003). By using resources that rarely modeled how scientists conduct their

work or the forms of writing scientists use in the process of doing science, the

teachers may have had little experience with the variety of writing that practicing

scientists would engage in.

Many of the ways the teachers used science writing reflect a partial understand-

ing of nature of science (NOS): i.e. science is derived from observations of the

natural world (Lederman 2007). These findings are similar to earlier studies where

teachers asked students to write observations more often than inferences (Alonzo

2001, 2008; Applebee and Langer 2011; Ruiz-Primo et al. 2010). In order for

writing in science to more fully reflect NOS, it can be helpful for writing to at least

occasionally take place within the context of inquiry-based science. In fact, the

context within which any tenet of NOS is taught and used is as important to

understanding NOS as knowing the tenets themselves (Allchin 2011).

The teachers in this study tended to have students observe natural phenomena

and simulations and test how the world works by following premade instructions

(Glen 2008). Students then used these experiences to record observations in writing


123

as they manipulated or observed materials. This needs to be taken a step further,

though, so students are planning and conducting their own tests, asking questions,

reviewing what is already known and comparing it to what they have found, seeking

evidence through observations, experiments, and other means, proposing claims

using evidence from the data they have gathered, and communicating with others

about findings—this is scientific inquiry (NRC 2000; Yager 2004). By continuing to

teach science by using experiences without inquiry, some of the only ways these

teachers might be able to conceive of writing as useful during science lessons was to

do what they had been doing: writing about procedures, observations, and facts.

Without inquiry science, there are no claims and evidence to present in writing, no

reasoning processes to work through via writing, and no new knowledge to present

to authentic audiences. As previous research suggests, teachers often lack the

pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of NOS to effectively teach science using

argumentation (Driver et al. 2000). Thus, teachers are not going to ask their students

to write inferences in science if the teachers themselves do not understand what an

inference is, how it compares to observations, and how both are used within the

context of inquiry science.

However, teachers may not consider NOS when deciding how to use writing to

teach science. This may be due to their lack of experience or knowledge of NOS,

their own past science and literacy experiences, or the culture of their school and

community. For example, sometimes the teachers in this study purposely had their

students produce writing about science that they did not consider inherently

‘‘scientific’’. Rather, writing was used to organize, record, and convey information

and practice general literacy skills, despite the subject area (Glen 2008). In these

instances, the teachers were not concerned with having students write like scientists.

The resulting writing did not correspond to scientific genres. This is consistent with

previous studies (e.g. Honig 2010), including Hildebrand’s (1998) findings

regarding teachers’ uses of hybrid imaginative writing in science. In these studies,

teachers had students write about science topics in ways that fit better with the type

of writing the teachers were comfortable doing (such as adding make-believe details

to science facts) and with district writing curriculum requirements, such as the

6 ? 1 Trait�Writing (NWREL 2007) prominent in the current study. Several traits

of writing, such as word choice and sentence fluency, can be interpreted as a way to

add creativity to science writing by including the use of figurative language and

word patterns, respectively. But, without examples of what this might look like in

scientific writing the teachers were limited in their knowledge about how to include

science topics in the writing curriculum in ways that were more authentic to the

science discipline.

In conclusion, having only one teacher in grades kindergarten, first, second, and

fourth limited our understanding about how grade level influenced the writing and

science that was taught at Lakeview Elementary. However, these four teachers

collectively provided rich data about factors influencing science and writing

instruction that crossed grade levels. The teachers in this study all perceived

scientific writing as an uncreative endeavor used to explain facts, observations, and

experiences to others.


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Implications and Future Research

It may be the teachers in this study were not familiar with the various writing tasks

that could correspond to scientists’ writing. If this is the case, the teachers may

benefit from experiences that enable them to see what, how, and why scientists

write. This can be combined with helping teachers understand how writing that

models what scientists do is an important process to support both science and

literacy learning. If writing is used in ways that are authentic to scientific inquiry

then the practices and genres of science can be fully embedded with the literacy

skills that elementary teachers must attend to when teaching writing.

It may be necessary to attend to teachers’ understandings of NOS in order to

address how writing during science is beneficial. Most previous studies of

elementary teachers’ conceptions of NOS show that teachers held naı̈ve under-

standings about how science works (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000;

Lederman 2007). And, although previous studies have also shown that improving

teachers’ NOS views does not necessarily translate into classroom practice (Akerson

and Abd-El-Khalick 2003; Lederman 2007), teaching young students about NOS

cannot be achieved without teachers having some knowledge of it themselves

(Akerson et al. 2007). In this study, the teachers’ limited understanding about how

practicing scientists use writing may have contributed to the teachers using writing

during science lessons to teach their students more about how the narrative writing

process works as opposed to NOS or how to use scientific inquiry to generate

scientific writing. And, although it may be that school science writing can never be

like real science writing, it can still be used to portray NOS. Writing that reflects

NOS can potentially promote in teachers and students a positive attitude toward

science, respect for NOS and for scientists, and an understanding about how to do

inquiry science.

Science and literacy educators might consider several avenues of future research.

One is a more thorough understanding of how teachers’ views of NOS influence the

literacy tasks they choose to use in science. This study only began to examine this

topic with its look at teachers’ pedagogical practices and ideas about science and

how scientists use writing. Teachers’ understanding of scientists’ writing as factual

and not creative is contrary to NOS views of science as a tentative and creative

endeavor where scientists create inferences about the natural world (AAAS 1990).

In addition, it would be beneficial to determine how more teachers understand the

science-related nonfiction and fiction texts they have students read and how this is

related to their understanding of scientific writing and NOS. Previous studies

regarding the development of teachers’ understandings about NOS suggest that

explicit-reflective instruction, learning through inquiry, model lessons, and contin-

ual feedback and support over an extended period of time help elementary teachers

achieve a deeper understanding of NOS (Akerson et al. 2000, 2007; Akerson and

Hanuscin 2007; Henriques 1998; Luft and Pizzini 1998). The positive results from

these practices during the professional development of elementary teachers serve as

a good model for how to help elementary teachers use more authentic writing

practices in science as well.


123

Learning to use mentor texts (Dorfman and Cappelli 2009) in science is another

way teachers can build their own and their students’ understandings of the authentic

literacy practices of scientists. The relevance students see in relation to science

mentor texts can come from practicing scientists’ writing, particularly those

scientists students may learn about during a unit of study, studied or collected data

with, or gained information from as needed during scientific inquiries. Additionally,

students’ interactions with authentic texts can increase students’ interests in the

topic, their ability to use and comprehend the texts, and their facility in modeling the

texts in their own writing (Caswell and Duke 1998). However, students can have

difficulty acquiring information about NOS from texts that favor narrative or

informational/factual styles of writing over ones that show the argumentative,

creative, and tentative features of science (Newell et al. 2011). Thus, it is of utmost

importance that students are exposed to texts written by real scientists. Finally,

mentor texts for both fiction and expository writing are a much touted means of

writing instruction for all grade levels, yet there has been little research on how to

support teachers’ efforts in this area (Donovan and Smolkin 2011). Therefore, this is

a much needed avenue of research and one that may be a successful way for science

and literacy educators to collaborate in order to improve teachers’ and students’

understandings of both NOS and authentic literacy practices.

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