Christina Saidy
Girls Writing Science:
Opening Up Access
in a Girls’ Reading
and Writing Group
F
our ninth-­and tenth-­
grade girls
circle around me. One is holding a
copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. They have asked about
the book. Who is Henrietta Lacks? Who is Rebecca
Sloop? Why did she write this? I begin telling
them a bit about Henrietta Lacks. After a few minutes I say, “She had cervical cancer. Do you know
what that is?” They shake their heads no. “Do you
know what a cervix is?” Again, no. For the next few
minutes, we talk. It is part book talk, health education, and information about science writing. The
girls listen intently. When we are done, they begin
writing on their papers or move around the room to
other posters and books. As they move, they read,
write, talk quietly, and giggle some.
The girls in the description above participated in a project called Girls Writing Science
(GWS) at a local urban charter school. For seven
weeks, 24 girls, the majority of whom identified as
Chicana/Latina, met during a 1.5-­hour block at the
end of the school day. GWS was designed and implemented in a way that put reading, writing, listening, and speaking at the center of an exploration
of thinking and learning about scientific fields. The
girls read and wrote about science, created interview questions, wrote emails, interviewed women
in science-­related fields, and wrote profile pieces
based on their interviews.
GWS brought together the language arts and
the sciences to open up access via writing to scientific ideas, concepts, and people. Access to science-­
related fields for young women, especially ethnically
and linguistically diverse women, is regularly
This piece describes an
extended workshop in which
reading, writing, listening,
and speaking were used to
build and sustain a feminist
ecology intended to open up
access to future lives in
science for ethnically and
linguistically diverse girls in
an urban secondary school.
denied because of systemic sexism and racism (Bystydzienski and Bird; Ellis et al.; Hill et al.). While
there is a pervasive myth that Latina women, and
other women of color, are not interested in STEM
fields (Ong et al.), research disproves this and shows
women of color who persist in STEM fields often do
so because of supportive peer and community interactions (Espinosa). In response to this research,
GWS was grounded in feminist social justice approaches (Bruce et al.). Via reading and writing we
built and sustained a feminist ecology intended to
open up access to future lives in science for the girls
who participated.
Feminist Ecologies
This workshop pushed back against traditional notions of classroom-­based writing as formulaic and
structured (Applebee and Langer; Wiley) to offer
opportunities for students to consider ways writing is epistemic, or knowledge building. Moreover, GWS opened up opportunities for students
to make connections with each other, with scientific voices via a variety of texts, and with scientific
women outside of the classroom. In this way, at the
core of the workshop was an ecological approach to
knowledge and writing. In the words of Kathleen
J. Ryan et al., “an ecological model of knowledge
regards more broadly, ‘place, embodied locatedness,
and discursive independence,’ as ‘conditions for the
very possibility of knowledge and action’” (2). As
the young women participants moved within the
classroom, within texts, and outside of the classroom to build knowledge and make connections,
English Journal 106.5 (2017): 27–33
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Girls Writing Science: Opening Up Access in a Girls’ Reading and Writing Group
they built an ecology of knowledge about science-­
related information via engagement with texts.
This ecological approach to knowledge
building was grounded in feminist principles,
and students, teachers, researchers, and interviewees regularly discussed and challenged traditional
limits on girls’ access to scientific knowledge and
practice. Ryan et al. note,
The girls used a variety
“Ecological feminism recogof reading and writing
nizes the diversity of women’s
activities to make
experiences within the shared
experience of patriarchal opknowledge and meaning
pression and acknowledges
via writing in a
that ‘values, notions of realfeminist ecology.
ity, and social practices are
related’” (9). GWS brought together younger and
older women via reading, writing, talking, listening, and sharing. This was more than a cross-­
curricular writing workshop; it was a model for
ways girls come to recognize the complex interplay
of texts, people, and experiences as they envision
what it means to live and work as women in male-­
dominated fields.
Coming to the Space
This workshop developed as a product of the National Writing Project’s NSF funded Intersections
grant, which sought to investigate the intersections
of literacy and science via strategic partnerships. In
year two of the project, two teacher participants,
a language arts teacher and science teacher, along
with the director and co-­director of the local site
of the National Writing Project (the researchers),
came together at Metro Center Academy, a charter
school in a large urban area in the Southwest, to
implement a GWS.
Girls were invited to participate in this workshop in one of two ways: (1) via a letter home to parents of girls in grades 9–­10 inviting their daughters’
participation or (2) via nomination by language arts
or science teachers because of the girl’s interest in
either writing or science. In total, 24 girls signed
up to participate in the seven-­
week workshop,
which took place during time designated for capstone—­a period blending study hall, academic tutoring, and school spirit activities. Of the 24 girls,
20 identified as Chicana/Latina, 2 as white, 1 as Filipina, and 1 declined to identify. Twenty of the girls
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indicated they will be the first in their families to
go to college. Metro Center has a 98 percent graduation rate and high number of students who enroll
in two-­and four-­year colleges. The students came
to the GWS with varying levels of understanding
about their participation and a variety of goals, but
they were open and interested from the start. We
wanted the girls to feel like the knowledge work
they did in GWS was connected, communal, and
transformative. We had snacks at each meeting, we
regularly shared writing and ideas, and the teachers
and researchers worked together to build a community of women outside of the program with whom
the students could connect.
In this article, I will detail the ways these
24 girls took part in an extended workshop that
invited them to co-­create and use activities often
gendered female—­reading, writing, listening, and
speaking—­to confront the limitations placed on
women in scientific fields. The girls used a variety
of reading and writing activities to make knowledge and meaning via writing in a feminist ecology
and became active participants in a transformational process that represented the promise of access
via literacy education.
Reading Women
The anecdote that opens this article is from one of
the first activities, which invited students to use
reading and writing to learn about women in science. In this activity, I created posters with pictures
of women scientists and their biographies. I also
placed books about women in science around the
room (see Tables 1 and 2 for lists of adult and children’s book resources). Students were encouraged to
engage with these texts in a variety of ways: walking around to a variety of stations, reading extended
excerpts of texts, talking with other students or me
about the texts, etc. As they made their way around
the room, the girls looked for and wrote about a
woman whose work you admire, a woman whose
work is interesting but you don’t fully understand,
and a woman whose work you know about but want
to know more.
One of the explicit goals of the scavenger hunt
activity was for students to use reading and writing as ways to think more broadly about women
in scientific fields. Another goal was for the young
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Christina Saidy
TABLE 1. Books for Women-­in-­Science
TABLE 2. Picture Books for Women-­in-­Science
Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt or Reading/Writing
Activities
Title
Author
Jane Goodall
Dale Peterson
Title
Author
Lise Metner
Ruth Lexin Sime
Rosie Revere Engineer
Andrea Beaty
Temple Grandin
Sy Montgomery
The Fossil Girl
Catherine Brighton
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark
Lady of DNA
Brenda Maddox
The Watcher
Jaenette Winter
Amelia to Zora
Cynthia Chin Lee
Grace Hopper and the Invention
of the Information Age
Kurt W. Beyer
Who Says Women Can’t Be
Doctors?
Tanya Lee Stone
Rocket Girl
George D. Morgan
The Most Magnificent Thing
Ashley Spires
Madame Curie
Eve Curie
Sofia Scott Goes South
Alison Lester
The Fossil Hunter
Shelley Emling
I Wonder
Chrysalis
Kim Todd
Annaka Harris,
John A. Rowe
The Immortal Life of Henrietta
Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
Violet the Pilot
Steve Breen
Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Look Up! The Story of the First
Woman Astronomer
Robert Burleigh
The Sound of a Wild Snail
Eating
The Girls of Atomic City
Denise Kiernan
Marvelous Mattie: How Margret
E. Knight Became an Inventor
Emily Arnold
McCully
Headstrong: 52 Women who
Changed Science
Rachel Swaby
Summer Birds: The Butterflies of
Maria Merian
Margarita Engle
and Julie Paschkis
The Madame Curie Complex
Julie Des Jardins
Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon
Jeannine Atkins
Nobel Prize Women in Science
Sharon Bertsch
McGravne
Annie Jump Cannon, Astronomer
Carole Gerber and
Christina Wald
Ada’s Algorithm
James Essinger
Hypatia of Alexandria:
Mathematician and Martyr
Michael A. B.
Deakin
Rachel Carson and Her Book That
Changed the World
Laurie Lawlor and
Laura Beingessner
Me . . . Jane
Patrick McDonnell
Rita Levi-­Montalcini: Nobel
Prize Winner
Susan Tyler
Hitchcock
Rosalyn Yalow: Nobel Laureate:
Her Life and Work in Medicine
Eugene Straus
Barbara McClintock
Ray Spangenburg
and Diane Kit Moser
women to use talk and reflection to begin connecting to women in science and each other. Some girls
laid on the floor reading (see Figure 1), while others
made their way around in small groups. In these
small groups the girls talked about what they saw,
asked each other questions, and wrote down notes
(see Figure 2).
As the girls read, wrote, and reflected on
the lives and careers of notable women in science-­
related fields, they began thinking about what they
knew or did not know, issues of access and equity,
and ways women develop grit and determination.
Via this questioning, the girls began to position
themselves in conversation with these notable
women in science.
In their explorations, many of the girls questioned how the women scientists broke through
barriers or limitations. For example, Alicia, a student who read about Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina
woman astronaut, questioned, “What were the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are?
What were the struggles women overcame to get
into science fields, but also her personal struggles?”
Alicia’s questions represented a trend in this reflective writing—­
an understanding that barriers to
women’s science careers exist. Elena, another student, wrote Lise Meitner “knew physics and her
brother knew chemistry. They worked together on
radioactivity. I admire this woman because I enjoy
physics and chemistry.” However, Elena went on to
question, “Was she bothered by her brother getting
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Girls Writing Science: Opening Up Access in a Girls’ Reading and Writing Group
FIGURE 1. Alicia gets comfortable reading a picture
book about Mary Anning during the
women-­in-­science scavenger hunt.
all of the credit?” In the majority of responses the
girls wrote about barriers, boundaries, others who
took credit for the work, etc., and showed a profound understanding of the barriers for women
in science-­related fields. The opportunity to use
writing to express feelings and questions about
these barriers is significant in a feminist ecological approach to reading, writing, and research. For
the girls to see themselves in conversation with
other women in science, they had to understand
issues such as the systemic exclusion of women in
these fields.
Additionally, the girls used this activity to relate or express interest in the work of the women
scientists. Inez, one of the girls who participated
in the book talk about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, wrote about her interest in the book and
in Lacks’s story: “I chose this book because this
woman had a type of cancer and I am interested in
cancer.” For Inez, who was interested in oncology
because a family member had cancer, Sloot’s writing and Lacks’s story were particularly interesting
because “[h]er cell are important for medicine.” In
30
FIGURE 2. Elena reads and writes during the
women-­in-­science scavenger hunt.
Elena was particularly interested in
inequities for women in science. In the
background three girls read, discuss,
and write about women in science.
this case, Inez tied together a family experience,
her newfound knowledge about cells, and an experience with a text about science. Elena, who read
about Lise Meitner and saw the problem in Meitner’s brother taking credit for her work, also talked
about similarities between herself and the scientist, writing that Meitner “knew physics and her
brother knew chemistry. They worked together on
radioactivity. I admire this woman because I enjoy
physics and chemistry.” Elena used this writing and
reflection activity as an opportunity to make connections between the interest of a notable woman
scientist and her own interests.
In this activity, the girls experienced and
participated in the beginning steps of building a
feminist rhetorical ecology. They came to see many
of the struggles women scientists experience as
they gain legitimacy in their fields of study and
made connections to the work of these women. In
doing so, they could see themselves in this work
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Christina Saidy
and envision this as part of their future lives. One
student, Lila, reflected on the activity saying, “It’s
good to learn about a variety of topics even if you
won’t go into it in the future. Maybe I will.” Lila
understands that gaining a breadth of knowledge
and reflecting on it opens up possibilities for her in
ways she may not have been aware existed.
Expanding Ecologies: Moving beyond
Text and Classroom
The goal of GWS was for girls to imagine their possible lives in science via reading, writing, thinking,
and speaking activities grounded in the language
arts, and the curricular end goal was to have students read and write beyond the classroom in an
interview activity with a woman scientist. These
interviews and the corresponding profile write-­up
would offer access to possible lives in science and
an experience of participating in a feminist ecology.
Preparing students to interview women in science
and write profiles required the building of a network of women in science willing to be interviewed
and the teaching of writing, speaking, and listening skills integral to the interviews.
Building and sustaining the network of
women scientists was, perhaps, the most challenging part of this feminist ecologies approach because
it required regular communication between the students and researchers and extensive legwork by the
researchers. To begin, the girls wrote notes about
who they would like to interview, why this person
or field, and how this was somehow connected to a
life path they might pursue. This note format was
important because it offered a different way for the
girls to experience schooled writing—­as informal
and needs based. A number of publications argue
that women in the workplace often fail to secure
raises or promotions because they do not ask for
what they need (Babcock and Laschaver; Frankel).
Via the note, the girls were invited to express interest, need, and a vision for their futures. Some of
the girls were specific. For example, Erica hoped to
interview a pediatric oncologist because she had a
family member who had cancer as a young child
and she wanted to explore the field in the hopes
of helping others the way her family member had
been helped. Other notes were far more general.
Carla hoped to interview an “animal researcher,”
while Rosa hoped to interview “a woman who practices in the medical field.”
After reading the notes and talking with the
girls, the researchers began contacting women we
know in scientific fields and asking them to be interview subjects. This work was challenging at times.
For example, nobody knew a pediatric oncologist.
I tried multiple connections to no avail. I talked to
physicians and nurses I knew, called a local children’s
hospital and talked to the community outreach coordinator, and even sent emails to unknown oncologists. I discussed these challenges with the girls to
make transparent the work of creating this feminist
ecology. Erica, who hoped
to talked to a pediatric on- It was important the girls
cologist, was happy to talk saw our network was
to a pediatrician who could co-­constructed and co-­
tell her more about the dif- created via our reading
ferences in training, profes- and writing processes and
sional practice, and lifestyle
knew they could influence
between a pediatrician and
pediatric oncologist. Other the development of
girls were paired with in- this feminist ecology
terviewees close to their by expressing need and
original choice. Carla, who interest via writing.
hoped to interview an animal researcher, was paired with a local zookeeper.
Two girls who generally had requested to interview
women in the medical field were paired with a midwife. At the time, neither of the girls knew what
a midwife was, so this pairing offered the girls an
opportunity to use reading and writing not only to
access possible lives but also to more clearly understand women’s bodies and health.
This process of building a network of professional women was a process of reading, writing,
listening, and speaking for the girls, me as a researcher, and the other researcher and teachers working on this project. It was important the girls saw
our network was co-­constructed and co-­created via
our reading and writing processes and knew they
could influence the development of this feminist
ecology by expressing need and interest via writing.
Genres for Seeing and Accessing
Feminist Ecologies
Once the network was created, the girls were ready
and excited to use their literacy skills to gain access
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Girls Writing Science: Opening Up Access in a Girls’ Reading and Writing Group
to the knowledge and experience of professional
women working in fields they wanted to explore.
This preparation had two parts: (1) a minilesson
and corresponding peer response activity on writing interview questions and (2) a minilesson and
workshop on writing professional emails. These
two lessons and their corresponding writing activities helped the girls to learn rhetorical skills and
strategies and specific genre conventions typically
used in professional documents as a way to gain
access. Because some of this was new, it was important that the girls were learning to write emails
and interview questions to supportive women in a
co-­created network.
For interview writing, we discussed oral and
written interviews, since many of the girls planned
to conduct email interviews. The girls began by
generating lists of the things they wanted to know.
Then, the workshop focused on specific strategies for
asking good interview questions, such as do not ask
yes/no questions, ask open-­ended questions, and do
not ask about something you could easily research.
After this workshop, the girls developed their own
interview questions, checked them against the general guidance given in the workshop, peer reviewed
the questions, and then met with a teacher or researcher to revise the questions even more. This approach to writing interview questions encouraged
the girls to recognize the multiple layers and inputs
in successful writing and see audience-­focused writing as an ecological connected process.
After the girls developed their interview
questions, I taught a brief genre workshop on writing emails. Since most of the girls do not use email
for regular communication, this information was
fairly new. In the workshop, I provided the girls
with a sample email and used it to model specific
genre elements in a professional email including
formatting, stylistic elements, design elements
(arrangement), tone, and developing ethos. After
the workshop, the girls wrote rough drafts of their
emails. They were aware the emails were going
to a group of professional women in science who
were committed to providing access to their fields,
so they were nervous and wanted to get the emails
“right.” They worked diligently to draft, offer and
receive peer response, and solicit help from the researchers. The girls who planned to conduct oral
32
interviews used the email workshop to write drafts
of thank-­you emails.
In their emails, the girls articulated their need
for information, their interests in science, and their
hopes for their future lives. Lila, who interviewed
the midwife, worked diligently on her email. She
wrote, “I am interested in a science career, and I
would like more information about your career. . . .
Your responses will really help me as I plan for a
career in science.” In return, she received a lengthy
email about the field, educational requirements, rewards, and challenges. In one question, Lila asked
about “the biggest weakness of the profession,” and
the midwife replied, “The biggest weakness of the
profession for me is time. Midwifery is often a calling of the heart and so can be difficult to leave ‘the
job’ at the office. It means time away from my family, missed birthdays, holidays, special events.” In
this reply, the midwife answers honestly and truthfully about the challenges of work/life balance, and
her honesty was refreshing to Lila. Also in the reply,
the midwife included a picture of herself holding
a newborn immediately after birth. The description of the challenges along with the photo of the
midwife smiling at the newborn helped Lila see a
woman in the medical field who finds deep satisfaction in her work but also must sacrifice time with
her family for her work.
In nearly all of the interviews, the interviewees spoke and wrote about the obstacles to scientific fields for women and the ways they overcame
many of these obstacles. Elena, who was interested
in archaeology, was paired with Karen, an archaeology professor. Elena asked about Karen’s work,
career trajectory, fears, and obstacles to meeting her
goals. Karen wrote a lengthy and detailed message
in which she talked about the challenges of being a
first-­generation college student, a woman studying
chemistry and archaeology, and the challenges of
traveling alone to Bolivia, Peru, and Chile to excavate archaeological sites. However, Karen also made
it clear that a motivating factor for her in her career
is providing access for other women. She wrote:
One thing that motivates me is the importance
of being a role model as a scientist who is also a
woman. I didn’t have many examples of that growing up, and even in college and graduate school I
wasn’t sure it was possible to be a scientist and also
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Christina Saidy
be a parent and well-­rounded person. I really love
being a scientist, and a woman, and a parent, so I
want to show others, especially girls and women,
that it is possible.
Karen’s words exemplify the goals of GWS to use
reading, writing, speaking, and listening to build
and sustain feminist ecologies to open up access to
future lives for young women.
Conclusion
Via this experience of ecological feminism, the girls
developed and honed their reading and writing
skills to access information, co-­create professional
networks, and participate in these professional networks as they plan for their future lives. We were
committed to creating a transformative feminist
experience that combined the language arts and
sciences in an innovative way to not only open up
access to professional skills but also help young
women to build and sustain professional networks
and relationships to make pathways clearer. At the
end of GWS one of the girls, Clara, made a comment that captured the essence and the promise of
this feminist workshop: “I feel like I learned a lot.
And that being a girl in this field is a little difficult,
but it’s a challenge I’m willing to take.”
Works Cited
Applebee, Arthur N., and Judith A. Langer. “EJ Extra:
A Snapshot of Writing Instruction in Middle Schools
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2011, pp. 14–­27.
Babcock, Linda, and Sara Laschever. Women Don’t Ask: The
High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation—­and Positive Strategies for Change. Bantam Dell, 2007.
Bruce, Heather E., et al. “Feminist Pedagogy Is for Everybody: Troubling Gender in Reading and Writing.”
English Journal, vol. 97, no. 3, 2008, pp. 82–­89.
Bystydzienski, Jill M., and Sharon R. Bird, editors. Removing Barriers: Women in Academic Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics. Indiana UP, 2006.
Ellis, Jessica, et al. “Women 1.5 Times More Likely to
Leave STEM Pipeline after Calculus Compared to
Men: Lack of Mathematical Confidence a Potential
Culprit.” PLoS One, 13 July 2016, http://journals
.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone
.0157447.
Espinosa, Lorelle. “Pipelines and Pathways: Women of
Color in Undergraduate STEM Majors and the College Experiences That Contribute to Persistence.”
Harvard Educational Review, vol. 81, no. 2, 2011,
pp. 209–­41.
Frankel, Lois P. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their
Careers. Business Plus, 2014.
Hill, Catherine, et al. Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. American Association of University Women, 2010.
Ong, Maria, et al. “Inside the Double Bind: A Synthesis of
Empirical Research on Undergraduate and Graduate
Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.” Harvard Educational Review,
vol. 81, no. 2, 2011, pp. 172–­209.
Ryan, Kathleen J., et al. “Introduction: Identifying Feminist Ecological Ethe.” Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist
Ecological Approach to Rhetoric, edited by Kathleen J.
Ryan et al., SIU Press, 2016, pp. 1–­22.
Wiley, Mark. “The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (and
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Christina Saidy is an assistant professor of English at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on writing and writing
transitions with students and teachers in secondary schools and colleges. She is a lifetime member of NCTE. She can be contacted at [email protected].
R E A DWR IT E T H IN K CO N N E C T IO N Lisa Storm Fink, RWT
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simply by paying close attention to our surroundings. Tune in to this ReadWriteThink.org podcast episode to hear
about an array of science books for teens, books that offer up crisp writing and memorable characters while telling
a good story. You’ll hear about ecology and climate change, food production, infectious disease, ancient human
history, the universe, and our power as humans for both ingenuity and destruction. http://bit.ly/1xFzVHz
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