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CHOOSING NOVELS TO PROMOTE SCIENTIFIC
LITERACY AT SECONDARY SCHOOL
Pau Custodio, Isabel1 and Márquez Bargalló, Conxita1 and Marbà-Tallada, Anna1
¹ Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Abstract: This paper aims to present a research about the selection and characterization of
novels to promote scientific literacy at secondary school. Considering the fact that reading
and writing are central to scientific literacy and among the different texts that can be used this
paper focus on novels because narratives can be a way of communicating science. The two
aims of this research are: 1) Analyse what book selection criteria are used to select novels to
promote scientific literacy at secondary school 2) Describe what scientific themes are
represented and how are presented in the novels identified as able to promote scientific
literacy at secondary school. With this aim 10 professional were interviewed and asked to
express their book selection criteria and to recommend novels. These recommended novels
were analyzed trough library descriptors, literary reviews and personal reading. The four basic
criteria expressed for the participants were: 1) High literary quality 2) Appropriateness to
reader competence 3) Scientific theme integrated into the story 4) Scientific theme related
with science curriculum. Results about novels characterization show that not all content area
were equally represented; being biology the most represented content area. In addition a high
number of novels were about environmental issues. Moreover, three different ways of
presenting scientific themes were found. In conclusion, this study has shown that the book
selection criteria for choosing novels to be used in science class were specific, differing from
those used to select other kinds of science related books (example informational books).
Referring to novels characterization it is suggested the idea that teachers can lead students to
explain the situation presented in the novel in a scientific way by using scientific content from
different content area.
Keywords: novels, scientific literacy, secondary school
INTRODUCTION
One of the goals of the science education is to promote scientific literacy, defined as the
“ability to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective
citizen” (OECD, 2013, p. 7). To achieve this goal in science classrooms students are prompt
to be engaged in negotiation in real-world science in communities of practices that prioritise
socio-scientific Discourses and the development of reflective identities of engaged citizenship
(Sadler, 2009).
Otherwise it is well-know that reading and writing in science class is central to promote
scientific literacy. Thus scientific literacy has to be promoted both in the fundamental and the
derived sense. Scientific literacy, in a fundamental sense, refers not only to reading and
writing when the context is science, but to comprehending, interpreting, analyzing and
critiquing scientific texts. Meanwhile, the derived sense refers to being knowledgeable of the
substantive content of science (Norris & Phillips, 2003).
To achieve this goal and get the students involved in science they must learn to make sense of
a large variety of texts (Lemke, 1990; Wellington & Osborne, 2001) and not only of
textbooks. There are several approaches to this diversification of texts, but in this study we
focus on the use of novels (i.e. fictional prose narrative of book length).
There are several arguments that justify this approach. The first one is that narratives (i.e.
fictional written text) can be a way to communicate and represent specific scientific ideas
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(Avraamidou & Osborne, 2009). Moreover, they are also a way to improve teaching and
learning, by doing it in a more attractive and meaningful manner (Egan, 1986; Klassen, 2010).
The second is that students that are more diversified in readings and focused on more
demanding of longer texts (namely books) perform better on reading literacy (Kirsch et al.,
2002). Lastly, novels can present socio-scientific issues, considered as “social issues with
conceptual and procedural connections to science” (Sadler, 2009, p. 2) that can be used to
promote scientific literacy among students.
In order to use novels in science class it is necessary a careful selection, as not all novels will
be adequate to our purpose. Unfortunately, it is known that the selection of written material,
further than textbooks, can be a difficult task (Ford, 2004b). This problem is highlighted at
secondary schools, where we based our research, where science teachers usually had little
formal training in reading education (Fang et al., 2008).
Additionally, if the proposal is to use novels as a didactic tool, it will be necessary to analyse
what characteristics have the novels that can be used in science class. In this case, the
common feature is their relation with a scientific theme. Studying what scientific themes are
represented and how they are presented will help to know how these novels can contribute to
science education.
In this paper results about the novels selection and characterization are presented. Those
results are a part of a broad project about using novels to promote scientific literacy at science
secondary school class. The specific research questions are:
1)What book selection criteria would be used by a range of professionals related to science,
literature or education to select novels to promote scientific literacy at secondary school?
2) What characteristics regarding scientific theme (representation and presentation) have the
novels identified as able to promote scientific literacy at secondary school?
METHOD
The research context
The research was done in Catalonia, a region of Spain. In our curriculum (Departament
d’Ensenyament, 2015) the reading literacy and the consolidation of reading habits are
considered as a shared responsibility of all subjects. Specifically in the science curriculum the
content related to reading is: “text critical reading in order to interpret knowledge” (content in
year 13, p. 134), “reading of research made by others and analysis of the procedures used to
collect data and evidence shown” (content in year 14, p. 136), “critical reading of scientific
text” (content in year 15, p. 156) and “data search in different source and analysis of the
information founded” (content in year 12, p. 132) that can also be considered related to
reading. So, as it is shown there is no specification about other kind of texts different from
scientific researches to be used. This is unfortunate for two reasons. Firstly, because when
students leave school they will mostly gain science information from news media outlet and
other informal sources (McClune & Alexander, 2015). Secondly, because through critical
reading activities in science class, in this case of newspaper articles, we can help students to
apply scientific concepts to the analysis of real-life problems (Oliveras, Márquez, & Sanmartí,
2013).
Otherwise, in the language curriculum the literary dimension and the reading comprehension
are considered basic dimensions and the reading of young-adult literature suggested in all
middle school grades. However, any integrated project between language arts and content
areas is proposed.
Not surprising, from our experience we notice that few secondary science teachers use trade
books in general and novels in particular. This means that science teachers are not used to
select novels for their class. On the other hand, most of language teachers propose one
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compulsory reading each trimester, which is often a novel. This means that students are used
to read novels suggested for their teachers and analyze it in language arts courses. Our
didactical proposal is innovative because it suggests analyse the novel in a scientific manner.
Referring to book selection criteria we found in the literature some criteria for choosing trade
books (for example Donovan & Smolkin, 2002) but not for choosing novels to be used in
secondary science class. Besides, some science book lists were locate in our language
community, but they were nor useful for our purpose as they include mainly informational
books, as it happens in other language contexts as in Ford (2004a) research.
In this context we decided to interview some professionals related with science, education or
language in order to answer the research questions.
The interviews
The interviews were structured in three parts organized by some open-ended questions. In the
first part we ask participants about the opportunities and challenges of using novels in science
class. In the second part we ask them to tell us what criteria they will use to choose novels to
promote scientific literacy at secondary schools. In the third and last part we encouraged them
to recommend novels that could promote scientific literacy at secondary school. In order to
help participants in this last part we show them the scientific general topics of the secondary
school curriculum. However, we also encourage participants to enumerate novels they
consider science-related but not tied with any of the topics presented. First author carried out
and audiotaped the interviews and transcribed them later. In this paper we analyze only the
second and third part of the interviews.
The participants
Ten professionals were interviewed. These include (coded from A to J): two science museum
librarians [A,B], two young-adult literature specialized librarians [C,D]; two language
teachers [E,F]; two teachers-writers [G,H] and two science teachers and cultural scientific
activities promoters [I, J]. Both secondary school science teachers had used novels in their
science class.
Table 1. Interviewees’ professional profiles
Code
[A]
[B]
[C]
[D]
[E]
[F]
[G]
[H]
[I]
[J]
Professional profile
Natural history museum librarian
Natural history museum librarian
Secondary school librarian, member of a children and young-adult literature seminar
Educator, librarian at a specialized education library, coordinator of a children and youngadult literature seminar
Secondary school language teacher, professor of language education
Secondary school language teacher, author of a report on young-adult book selection
criteria
Secondary school science teacher (Biology-Geology), author of young-adult novels
Primary school teacher, educator and author of young-adult novels
Secondary school science teacher (Physics-Chemistry), cultural activities promoter
Professor of biology, coordinator of a integrating reading-science project at secondary
school level
The analysis
In order to answer the first research question interview’s transcriptions were categorized.
Using an inductive approach, categories and subcategories emerged from data. Categories
were partially based in Colomer’s (2010) themes when talking about selecting books for
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children and adolescents. Main categories are: literary quality, appropriateness to reader
competence and educational goals (see Table 2).
In order to answer the second research question all the titles (99) recommended during the
interviews were compiled. But only the 52 that were classified for the public library system as
young-adult novels were analyzed. This choice was motivated for several reasons: to avoid
non-narrative books, to ensure books will be adequate to secondary school students and to
assure books are freely available.
Those 52 young-adult novels were analysed and classified according to what scientific themes
were represented following the descriptors provided by the public library system or literary
reviews (see Tables 3 and 4). Additionally, a specific analysis by personal reading of 20 of
those novels, selected randomly, was done in order to identify how the scientific content was
presented (see section Scientific theme: How is presented).
RESULTS
First research question: Book selection criteria
As it can be seen in Table 2 participants refer mostly to literary standards. Most of them
consider that it is necessary that novels have a certain degree of literary quality. Moreover,
they considered that topic has to be close and interesting to young, original or well narrated
and with a moral perspective appropriate to possible readers. To fit these characteristics and
also to be appropriate to readers’ age they consider that selecting books edited in young adult
collections can be useful.
Only four participants focus on science when they refer to educational goal (classified as
“promoting scientific literacy”). From this comments three main ideas appear. Firstly, it is
considered that novels had to include science related content but keeping a high quality
literary. Secondly, that scientific theme has to be properly integrated into the story and do not
have to show a clearly educational purpose. “It is necessary to avoid the fiction books that
cover up a textbook” says [G]. Thirdly, that scientific theme has to be related with the science
curriculum.
In summary, participants consider that the four basic criteria to choose novels to be used in
science class are: 1) High literary quality 2) Appropriateness to reader competence 3)
Scientific theme integrated into the story 4) Scientific theme related with science curriculum.
Table 2. Book selection criteria classification
Categories
Literary quality
Appropriateness to reader competence
Reader’s interests
Topic and moral perspective
Reader’s age
Educational goals
Promoting reading among students with different
reading levels
Promoting different literary experiences
Promoting scientific literacy
Participants
[C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H]
[G], [H]
[C], [D], [F], [H], [I]
[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [G], [H]
[D], [H], [I]
[B], [C], [E]
[D], [E], [G], [J]
Second research question: Novels characteristics
In this section we show the results referring to the second research question. We divided the
results in two parts: firstly we show the results about the scientific themes that were
represented in the novels and secondly about how these themes were presented.
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Scientific theme: What themes are represented?
It is shown in this section how the novels were classified by scientific topics. This was not an
easy task, as most of the novels present different plots or complex situation that can be
associated with more than one topic. For this reason we opt to classify them by the main
scientific topic, even if it implies a certain simplification. Additionally, once we have detected
the specific and/or general topic of each novel we grouped them by the different content area
that we can found in the science-technology secondary school curriculum (Departament
d’Ensenyament, 2015). Those are: Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Physics and Technology.
However, any novel was classified as Geology (see Table 3).
During the analysis another challenge appears; as some novels present an environmental
approach understand as a complex situation that combines the natural world with the human
activity. We consider that this approach cannot be neglected, but at the same time was difficult
to classify the novels with the same system as in Table 3. For this reason, in Table 4 the
scientific topics of the 16 novels that have an environmental approach are listed. As it can be
seen, some of the topics of Table 4 could also be classified in Table 3 categories but we
decided to classify separately as we consider that the environmental approach is the most
important feature.
Table 3. Scientific content novels classification (n=36)
Content
area
Frequency
General topic
Animals
Biology
Frequency
5
Evolution
3
Human biology
12
23
Plants
Chemistry
2
Physics
9
Chemical
changes
Matter states
Quantum
mechanics
Cosmology
Invisibility
3
Specific topic
Frequency
Horses
Birds
Illegal wildlife
trade
Personified
animals
Wolfs
Darwin
A.I.D.S.
Anorexia
Cancer
Coma
Drugs and
catalepsy
Human heredity
Mutants (human)
Garden
Trees
Plants invasion
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
5
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
1
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Black hole
Brahe and Kepler
Space
colonization
Non specific
topic
1
1
1
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Scientific literacy and socio scientific issues
2
Quantum
mechanics and
theory of
relativity
Theory of
relativity
Robots
Virtual reality
2
1
1
1
Table 4. Scientific topics of novels with an environmental approach (n=16)
Scientific topics
Frequency
Animal love
Climate change
Energy
Forest
Miners
Nature
Research work
Space colonization
Waste
Wildifre
1
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
2
1
As can be seen from the Table 3 the main content area represented was Biology (63,8%) as it
was found by Ford (2004a) when analysing outstanding trade books. Physics was the second
most represented content area (25%). Other content areas were poorly represented, as
Chemistry (5,5%) and Technology (5,5%). It can also be seen that nearly half of the novels
(16/36) had an environmental approach. This high amount can be due to the nature of the
environmental approach. As for its relation with the natural world can present a scientific
theme, and for its relation with the human activity can be a good plot for a novel, as often
novels presents a human story.
Moreover, during the analysis different novel genre were detected. The main novel genres
represented were realistic fiction (33%), science-fiction (25%) and adventures (19%). These
results show that other novel genres apart from the traditional use of science-fiction could
serve to promote scientific literacy.
Scientific theme: How the scientific theme is presented?
As it was explained before, 20 of those novels were carefully examined in order to determine
how the scientific content is presented. During the analysis three categories appear: 1) Novels
were the scientific theme is central to the story 2) Novels were the science theme is not central
to the story 3) Novels were the scientific theme is only the background where the story
happens. Next, we explain each category and show some examples.
1) Novels were the scientific theme is central to the story. In this kind of novels the scientific
topic it is clearly defined and basic for the story. These kinds of novels often include some
scientific vocabulary and some content knowledge. To be used as a didactical resource these
books can be useful because it is easy to identify the scientific theme. In the other hand,
students can have problems in understanding the scientific vocabulary and sometimes if the
scientific theme it is not well integrated to the story the engagement of the students may
decrease.
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Two examples of this kind of books are shown. The first one refers to a book classified as
“Quantum mechanics” and the second one as “Evolution: Darwin”.
At CERN, the research centre more advanced in the world, between experiments about
trips trough time and teleportation, between particles that particles that exceed the
speed of light and others that reveal the origin of the Universe... (Fernández-Vidal,
2012, back cover).(Translation made by authors)
Charles Darwin is already world-famous and a controversial man for his theory of
evolution of the species when, in 1865, decides to write for their children the story of
the journey that, with 23 years old, performed around the world aboard the Beagle
(Muñoz Puelles, 2007, back cover). (Translation made by authors)
2) Novels were the science theme is not central to the story. In this kind of novels the
scientific theme is essential only in one of the plots presented. To be used as a didactical
resource in this kind of books it can be more difficult to identify the scientific topic as it
cannot be as obvious as in group 1. In the other hand, they can provide more engagement. It is
also important that the scientific plot is well integrated in the novel, unless there is the risk
that some students skip the “scientific part”.
An example of this kind of book is shown. The book was classified as “Animals: Illegal
wildlife trade”.
It is coincidence that just now people start to talk about a mysterious bloodthirsty beast
that round the valley at night? Who is the mysterious Russian who lives in Castle Hill?
And above all, what is the most horrible thing that can happen to a teenager couple in
love? (Hernàndez, 2013, back cover). (Translation made by authors)
3) Novels were the scientific theme is only the background. In this kind of novels the
scientific theme is only the situation, but the plot is centred in other aspects, normally in
social or psychological issues. To be used as a didactical resource this kind of books can be
very useful because these social or psychological issues (love, friendship) can motivate
students. In the other hand, students probably need more help to interpret the situation in
scientific terms.
An example of this kind of book is shown. The book is classified as “Health:Coma”.
Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what
happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck.
Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost,
what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. (Forman, 2010,
backcover)
DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
Referring to the first research question, when talking about book selection criteria participants
refer mostly to literary standards, using different criteria as those used typically when
choosing trade books. For example, they do not refer explicitly to content accuracy criteria
typically used when choosing trade books (Donovan & Smolkin, 2002; Ford, 2004b). Those
differences could be due to the fact that on novels content accuracy is not considered as
important as it is on informational book, genre predominant at the science outstanding trade
books (Ford, 2004a). Those results show that it is necessary to adapt the book selection
criteria to the different existing kinds of books (informational, picture book, fiction...).
Additionally, we found that the criteria used for our participants were mainly based in literary
standards. Unfortunately science teachers had no formal training in this field. For this reason a
collaboration between content area teachers educators and literacy teacher educators can be
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considered (Fang, 2014) in order to apply the general knowledge about book selection criteria
and reading activities to the specific case of reading fiction in science class.
Referring to the second research question it can be seen that in our novel sample the different
content area were not equally represented. This, may imply difficulties when choosing novels
to fit curricular needs (Ford, 2004b) and can be problematic if the novel is considered a way
to transmit scientific content. But our view has a broadly approach. We consider that the aim
of using novels is science class is to present a socio-scientific issue on which questions can be
formulated and where science, trough scientific models become the necessary instrument to
answer them. In this frame, novels do not have to provide the answer (i.e. the scientific
content) but the questions. For knowing the answer probably some other sources of
information, with others features, will be better (for example informational books where
accuracy is guaranteed). In this sense, even though we classified the novels in one content
area through the questions, and the corresponding answers, the same novel can be used in
many content areas. Thus, our classification by content area is only the start point. With the
idea that reading is not only decoding but comprehending, interpreting, analyzing and
critiquing texts (Norris & Phillips, 2003) we can lead students to explain the situation
presented in the novel in a scientific way. In this process more abstract concepts will be
needed, and probably disciplines as physics and chemistry will gain importance. For example
from an anorexia novel we can talk about diet, next about nutrition and finally about the
chemical process involved. Or from a wildfire situation, classified as environmental issue, we
can interpret the situation in different ways: combustion reaction (chemistry), soil erosion
(geology), loss of biodiversity (biology). This example shows that novels can lead students to
explain situations in an interdisciplinary way. The teacher role and the reading activities will
be very important to ensure that students interpret the situation in a scientific way. In addition,
teachers will also need to decide in what aspects they want to focus on.
Related with this idea, teachers will also need to have in mind how the scientific theme is
presented. In our research we consider three kinds of different novels that can be found. We
do not support the use of one kind or others, but we consider that it is important that teachers
be conscientious of what kind of novels are purposing to their students. Each of this kind of
novels will need different scaffolding strategies. Teachers will need to find the equilibrium
between the engagement of the students with the text and their educational purpose.
Novels can provide a frame to work with socio-scientific issues, presenting complex situation
that can be interpreted from a range of different disciplines. Working in this interdisciplinary
mode it can be a way to help students to be engaged citizens. But to success, the novel
selection and the scaffolding activities will be fundamental. Teachers will need to help
students to “read” the issues presented in the novels in a scientific way, explaining phenomena
scientifically (OECD, 2013). Because, if we not scaffold them maybe students will only pay
attention to love stories (it must be said, they can be also analyzed as chemical and hormonal
changes).
Acknowledgement: This research was partially funded by Spanish Government (EDU201566643-C2-1-P) and Catalan Government (2014SGR1492).
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