SCIENCE INQUIRY, ARGUMENT AND LANGUAGE
Science Inquiry, Argument
and Language
A Case for the Science Writing Heuristic
Edited by
Brian M. Hand
University of Iowa, USA
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
vii
Executive Summary
ix
Introducing the Science Writing Heuristic Approach
Brian M. Hand
1
Creating Border Convergence between Science and Language:
A Case for the Science Writing Heuristic
Lori Norton-Meier
Transforming Pedagogy: Embedding Language Practices within
Elementary Science Classrooms
Lori Norton-Meier, Lynn Hockenberry, Sara Nelson,
and Kim Wise
13
25
Factors Influencing Implementation of the Science Writing
Heuristic in Two Elementary Science Classrooms
Andy Cavagnetto
37
Analysis of the First Year of a Three-Year SWH Implementation
within K-6 Classrooms
Recai Akkus
53
Implementing Inquiry with the SWH in 7th Grade Biology Classes:
A Teacher’s Perspective
Olivia Eun-Mi Yang
73
Promoting High-Order Thinking through the Use of the Science
Writing Heuristic
Bruna Irene Grimberg
87
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Secondary Students’ Perceptions of the SWH Approach to
Nonconventional Writing: Features that Support Learning of
Biology Concepts and Elements of Scientific Argumentation
Liesl M. Hohenshell
Quality of Teacher Implementation of the SWH Approach
Sozan Omar
Teacher Change, Critical Pedagogy, and Students’ Learning within
Secondary Science Writing Heuristic Classrooms
Murat Gunel
Instruction by Using the Writing Heuristic
Thomas J. Greenbowe and K.A. Burke
99
111
127
139
Orienting and Mentoring Chemistry Teaching Assistants to Use
the Scientific Writing Heuristic
K.A. Burke
151
The Laboratory-Lecture Correlation: From the Science Writing Heuristic
to the Traditional Organic Chemistry Laboratory
Jacob D. Schroeder
165
Promoting Sustainable Leadership within the Reform System
Thomas L. Alsbury
177
The Case for the SWH Approach
Brian M. Hand
195
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To build the research program described in this book takes the work of lots of
people over a long period of time. I would like to express my thanks to the
following.
Firstly, my wife and best friend Carol, and my children Atlanta, Meegan and
Marsden, whose love and support has enabled me to have the space to do what I
really enjoy.
Secondly, I would like to thank all the contributors who have been part of the
research collective and have made significant contributions to this endeavour. I
have enjoyed all the discussions, debates, arguments, and negotiations and am
better for them.
Thirdly, I would like to thank Carolyn Wallace for getting me started on the
whole process, and Larry Yore, Vaughan Prain and Lori Norton-Meier for
constantly challenging me to think through issues and to go beyond the obvious.
Fourthly, I would like to thank all the participating school districts, teachers, and
students who have enabled all of us to conduct this research. I would like to
especially thank the Boone School District for what is now closing on a decade of
research being conducted at their schools.
Lastly, I would like to thank Shari Yore for taking on the task of technical editor
and making some of us actually make sense, and Tracie Miller for help in coordinating all the necessary publishing details.
vii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
There is currently much debate in the science education community and in
education generally about the need to involve students in practices that will make
them scientific literate citizens of the world. An important component of this goal
is to ensure that students can be involved in science inquiry activities, adopt the
argumentation strategies used by scientists, and use the language of science.
Science learning is no longer about replicating the language of science – that is,
using the big words of science without understanding their meanings – but rather
students need to be able to distinguish science claims from pseudoscience, to
understand what constitutes evidence, and to link questions, claims, and evidence
together in forming strong science arguments. To achieve this, students need to be
able to have experiences of these processes as a part of their normal science studies
within school.
The research described in this book addresses the use of an approach codeveloped by the editor and Carolyn Wallace, called the Science Writing Heuristic
(SWH) approach, to achieve the aims described above. The SWH approach
requires students to pose questions, make claims about their inquires, use the data
in logical ways to structure reasoned evidence to support their claims, examine
what scientists and others say about their investigations, and then to stand back and
reflect on what they have learnt from their inquires. Importantly, the SWH embeds
this argument structure within the inquiries students complete as a central core
function of their science experience. Students are expected to develop arguments
using the language of science to talk, read, and write about the concepts they are
investigating.
The research reported in this book examines the use of the SWH approach
across the entire education spectrum from early childhood to the university setting.
We have used the approach from the pre-kindergarten classroom to first year
chemistry laboratory classes in a major university. The research has adopted a
range of methods to address issues of whether the approach will help students’
understanding of science concepts, if teacher implementation has an impact on
student performance, and in trying to identify the pedagogical strategies necessary
for successful implementation. All the researchers, regardless of the particular
questions they addressed, have focused on trying to understand how the SWH
approach can be used within classrooms to benefit all learners.
The results of this research across all these grade levels highlights three consistent
findings. These are:
– The quality of implementation of four identified pedagogical foci is critical to
student success.
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BRIAN HAND
– Language is an absolutely critical element of the whole process.
– The embedded nature of argumentation is critical to helping students build
understanding of argument.
The importance of these findings highlights the need for us to continue to
explore the concepts of language and embeddedness of argument as critical
features of science classrooms.
x
BRIAN M. HAND
INTRODUCING THE SCIENCE WRITING HEURISTIC
APPROACH
As a science teacher in the late seventies and through the eighties, I was concerned
with ensuring that all students in my classes were familiar with laboratory activities
and used the format of science reports of hypothesis, method, observation, data,
results, and conclusions. It was my responsibility to involve students in the
processes of science and to build their science knowledge. As long as the students
were able to complete the activities, report using the scientific format, and
complete the tests given, I was comfortable in the knowledge that I was doing a
good job teaching my students. Student discussions were rarely about what they
wanted to engage with because I wanted, and needed, to ensure that I was able to
cover the necessary curriculum. I was concerned about students and tried to ensure
that the classroom environment was comfortable and where all students were
valued.
So what caused my change? Moving into research and higher education caused
me to look much more carefully at classrooms, teaching, and learning. While I am
a little slow in picking up things, trying to match theoretical understandings to
what occurs in classrooms required a shift in thinking. Suddenly, the complexity of
trying to link teaching, learning, science inquiry, science argument, and language
to learn strategies required me to appreciate that there is no simple solution. There
is no simple cause and effect solution – we are bound up in complexity. Hence, the
beginning of the journey…
INTRODUCTION
The focus on language, as viewed in terms of the concept of science literacy, has
shifted many times over the last century. Much of the early focus on science
literacy was ensuring that a learner could read the science textbook and use the
words of science correctly. However, the various standards documents in the
middle of the 1990s changed the emphasis from replication of terminology to a
focus on the ability to (a) use language to build understanding of the topic and (b)
communicate to a broad audience the science knowledge gained from studying the
topic. This shift in emphasis has meant that attention is now focused on the
relationship between language and science. Students are expected to do much more
than simply remember lists of facts, spell words correctly, or recognize the science
words in the text (because they appear in bold). Language is critical to the
Brian M. Hand (ed.), Science Inquiry, Argument and Language, 1–11.
© 2008 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
BRIAN M. HAND
construction of science knowledge, the debates and arguments of science, and to
the dissemination of science knowledge. Using the Science Writing Heuristic
(SWH) approach for inquiry investigations, we can help students participate in
science disciplines in ways that resemble the thoughtful methods employed by
‘real’ scientists. Students develop their capacities to formulate scientific arguments
and learn the language of science through its use.
Norris and Phillips (2003) clearly defined for us the two essential senses of
literacy that frame science. The first is the derived sense of literacy in which
“reading and writing do not stand only in a functional relationship with respect to
science, as simply tools for the storage and transmission of science. Rather, the
relationship is a constitutive one, wherein reading and writing are constitutive parts
of science” (p. 226). For Norris and Phillips, this is critical because these
constituents are the “essential elements of the whole” (p. 226); that is, remove
these language elements and there is no science. Science is not something that can
be done without language. To this derived sense of science literacy, I would
expand Norris and Phillips’ definition to include the different modes of
representation. While this is implicit within reading and writing, there is a need to
understand that different modes of science are integral to the concept of reading
and writing; that is, science is more than just text. Other modes used by scientists
to construct understanding include graphs, equations, tables, diagrams, and models.
The second essential sense of literacy is the fundamental sense of science
literacy. For Norris and Phillips (2003), the fundamental sense involves the
“reasoning required to comprehend, interpret, analyze, and criticize any text”
(p. 237). Importantly, they argued that science has to move past oracy and the oral
traditions because “without text, the social practices that make science possible
could not be engaged with” (p. 233). The important recording, presentation and representation of ideas, and debates and arguments that constitute the nature of the
discipline are not possible without text. These two essential senses of literacy are
critical to the development of scientific literacy. Simply viewing the acquisition of
science content knowledge (the derived sense) as success denies the importance of
being able to apply the reasoning structures of science (the fundamental sense)
required for reading and writing about science.
For all the people involved in the research reported in this book, the focus is on
both senses of literacy. There is a focus on developing and improving students’
understanding of the knowledge of science, as well as promoting the use of
language as a critical element of building the reasoning structures necessary for
engaging in science.
SCIENCE INQUIRY
The concept of using inquiry as a critical element of science teaching has a long
history originating with the learning cycle in the 1960s through to the current
emphasis in national documents. For example, the U.S. National Science Education
Standards (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) have mandated the use of
inquiry strategies in order to improve science literacy. Success will result in
2
INTRODUCING THE SWH APPROACH
students becoming literate members of society who are able to think critically
using scientific argumentation processes. However, current studies indicate that
getting students to become critical thinkers who engage with high-order cognitive
activity within science is not easily achieved; and it requires structured support for
students to become proficient at using the appropriate reasoning strategies
(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999). For Wellington and Osborne (2001), the
emphasis on inquiry leading to reasoning and science argument is critical because:
Put simply, learning to think is learning to reason. Learning to reason
requires the ability to use the ideas and language of science. … Moreover,
learning to reason in science requires the ability to construct arguments that
link evidence and empirical data to ideas and theories. Practical work alone is
insufficient to create a bridge between observation and the ideas of science.
(p. 83)
Building on the arguments of Norris and Phillips, inquiry teaching needs to
capture both the fundamental and derived senses of literacy such that students
develop abilities, critical thinking, habits of mind, and communications in the
context of inquiry science; these cognitive and metacognitive attributes result in
understanding the nature of science, scientific inquiry, and the big ideas of science.
Literacy practices of the science discourse community serve as the dialectic
between the sensory experiences of the inquiry and the cognitive state of
understanding the central concepts of science. From this position, knowledge is
viewed as being constructed by an individual with language having its own
meaning for each individual; thus, public knowledge becomes a process in which
meaning is negotiated (Lerman, 1989). This process of negotiation will enable a
shared and consistent meaning to be attached to the language (Prawat, 1989).
Bransford et al. (1999, p. 229) emphasized the concept of language as critical to
learning because “student’s personal knowledge [is] the foundation of sensemaking.” They further believe that students need to understand
the role of language in developing skills of how to ‘argue’ the scientific
‘evidence’ they arrive at; the role of dialogue in sharing information and
learning from others, and how the specialized, scientific language of the
subject matter, promotes deep understanding of the concepts. (p. 299)
Thus, science inquiry, as a central tenet of science, and the learning of science
need to address the importance of language and argumentation in the construction
of science knowledge.
ARGUMENTATION
Argumentation is a fundamental tradition of science communities. Each science
community has an associated view of knowledge, plausible reasoning, patterns of
argumentation, and variation in the evidence used to establish or justify knowledge
claims. The use of canonical science ideas, models, and overarching theories in
arguments are fundamental to the interpretation of data, augmentation of evidence,
3
BRIAN M. HAND
and scientific explanation. Explanations must be consistent with observational
evidence about nature, emphasize physical causality, and facilitate accurate
predictions, when appropriate, about the systems studied. Arguments and related
knowledge claims should be logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to
criticism, report methods and procedures, and make knowledge public (NRC,
1996). Effective argumentation leads to scientists’ understanding of the natural
world and to establishing canonical science knowledge.
Arguments have three generally recognizable forms: analytical, dialectical, and
rhetorical. Duschl, Ellenbogen, and Erduran (1999, p. 1) stated:
Essentially in the analytical approach an argument proceeds inductively or
deductively from a set of premises to a conclusion. For analytical arguments
of categorization, the form is the syllogism [a=b, b=c, therefore a=c]. For the
analytical argument of causation, the form is material implication: If p then q;
p therefore q.Dialectical arguments are those that occur during discussion or
debate and involve reasoning with premises that are not evidently true. They
are not totally based on knowledge and probability but on the refutation of
the counterclaims and rebuttals. Rhetorical arguments are oratorical in nature
and are represented by the discursive techniques employed to persuade an
audience. These arguments focus on persuasion by presenting a more
compelling case than the alternative cases.
Phillips and Norris (1999), and Yore, Bisanz, and Hand (2003) argued for the
importance of requiring students to understand scientific argumentation and
reasoning involving claims, evidence, warrants, counterclaims, rebuttals, and
certainty because they are essential attributes of science-literate populations. In
transferring these ideas to the context of the science classroom, Driver, Newton,
and Osborne (2000, p. 291) stated that rhetorical argument “is one sided and has
limitations in educational settings.” They believe that these forms of argument
occur when “teachers marshal evidence and construct arguments for the pupils.”
Instead, a “dialogical or multivoiced” interpretation of argument is a much better
form in that it encourages students to take different positions over “the claims
advanced,” thereby improving the quality and nature of the argument put together.
However, as Osborne, Simon, and Erduran (2002, p. 4) pointed out, “just giving
students scientific or controversial socio-scientific issues to discuss will not prove
sufficient to ensure the practice of valid argument.” Building on the work of Kuhn
(1991), Osborne et al. posited that students need to be explicitly taught about
argument through instruction, task structuring, and modeling.
Driver et al. (2000, p. 290), in defining the difference between logic and
argument, stated that arguing is a “human practice that is situated in specific social
settings.” Argument can be both an individual activity done through thinking and
writing, or it can be a negotiated social act. Translating these activities into the
classroom so that students can build an understanding of and be able to practice
scientific argument requires argumentation to be built into a “designed sequence of
instruction that provides opportunities” for student growth (Duschl & Ellenbogen,
2002, p. 3). Importantly, Duschl and Ellenbogen believe that the traditional
4
INTRODUCING THE SWH APPROACH
discourse patterns used by teachers do not encourage or even allow the type of
discourse that scientists undertake when they build arguments for scientific claims.
Building on this position, Wallace and Narayan (2002, p. 4) suggested that, for
students to be engaged in science where argumentation is a core component, they
need to be involved in “learning to use language, think and act in ways that enable
one to be identified as a member of the scientific literate community and
participate in the activities of that community.” Kelly, Bazerman, Skukauskaite,
and Prothero (2002) further emphasized this need by stating that students must
learn the kinds of claims people make; how they advance them; what
literatures people rely on and how these literatures are invoked within
arguments; what kind of evidence is needed to warrant arguments and how
that evidence can be appropriately developed, analyzed, and interpreted given
community standards; what kinds of concepts are appropriately evoked; and
what kind of stance authors can appropriately take as contributors to their
fields. As students engage in serious writing practices, they move beyond a
simple formal approach to science to active work with scientific evidence,
knowledge, and concepts. (p. 3)
For Lemke (1990), this requires teachers to create situations in which students
can talk science in contexts resembling real science contexts. Thus, students must
be involved in inquiry activities that require them to build explanations and
participate in argumentation processes. As part of this process, students must also
have opportunities to engage with ill-structured authentic issues where there is
more than one plausible solution or answer. This requires them to think critically
through the relative value of each answer or solution and implement appropriate
reasoning strategies to argue for a solution to the problem.
THE SCIENCE WRITING HEURISTIC APPROACH
Current efforts in science education have highlighted the need for writing-to-learn
strategies to be used in science classrooms (Yore et al., 2003). These strategies
recognize the value of having students articulate their understandings in different
ways as a means to construct a richer conceptual framework of science knowledge.
Importantly, these strategies are based on incorporating authentic writing tasks that
extend students’ needs to engage with the demands of science, rather than seeing
writing as note-taking, fill in the gap, or complete the sentence type exercises
(Prain & Hand, 1996). Writing-to-learn tasks incorporate the need for students to
access canonical science knowledge and, thus, engage the nature of science and
their epistemologies and reasoning strategies as a framework to build
understanding (Hand, Prain, Lawrence, & Yore, 1999). The SWH is an example of
this type of writing activity.
After a chance meeting at the National Association for Research in Science
Teaching annual conference in Chicago in 1997 with Carolyn Keys, we joined
forces to explore the idea of building a framework that would link inquiry,
argumentation, and an emphasis on language. The result was the development of
5
BRIAN M. HAND
the Science Writing Heuristic approach. The SWH approach (see Table 1) consists
of a framework to guide activities as well as a metacognitive support to prompt
student reasoning about data. Similar to Gowin’s Vee heuristic (1981, p. 157), the
SWH provides learners with a heuristic template to guide science activity and
reasoning in writing. Further, the SWH provides teachers with a template of
suggested strategies to enhance learning from laboratory activities. As a whole, the
activities and metacognitive scaffolds seek to provide authentic, meaning-making
opportunities for learners. The negotiation of meaning occurs across multiple
formats for discussion and writing. The SWH is conceptualized as a bridge
between informal, expressive writing modes that foster personally constructed
science understandings and more formal, public modes that focus on canonical
forms of reasoning in science. In this way, the heuristic scaffolds learners in both
understanding their own laboratory activity and connecting this knowledge to other
science ideas. The template for student thinking (see Table 1) prompts learners to
generate questions, claims, and evidence for claims. It also prompts them to
compare their laboratory findings with other sources, including their peers,
information in the textbook, Internet, etc. The student template prompts learners to
reflect on how their own ideas have changed during the experience of the
laboratory activity. The SWH can be understood as an alternative format for
laboratory reports as well as an enhancement of learning possibilities of this
science genre. Instead of responding to the five traditional sections of purpose,
methods, observations, results, and conclusions, students are expected to respond
to prompts eliciting questioning, knowledge claims, evidence, methods, description
of data, and observations, and to reflect on changes to their own thinking.
Table 1. The two templates for the SWH: Teacher template and student template
The Science Writing Heuristic, Part I:
A template for teacher-designed activities to
promote laboratory understanding
1. Exploration of pre-instruction understanding through individual or group
concept mapping
2. Pre-laboratory activities, including informal writing, making observations, brainstorming, and posing questions
3. Participation in laboratory activity
4. Negotiation phase I – writing personal
meanings for laboratory activity (e.g.,
writing journals)
5. Negotiation phase II – sharing and
comparing data interpretations in small
groups (e.g., making group charts)
6. Negotiation phase III – comparing
science ideas to textbooks for other printed
resources (e.g., writing group notes in
response to focus questions)
6
The Science Writing Heuristic, Part II:
A template for students
1. Beginning ideas – What are my questions?
2. Tests – What did I do?
3. Observations – What did I see?
4. Claims – What can I claim?
5. Evidence – How do I know? Why am I
making these claims?
6. Reading – How do my ideas compare
with other ideas?
INTRODUCING THE SWH APPROACH
7. Negotiation phase IV – individual re- 7. Reflection – How have my ideas
flection and writing (e.g., creating a presen- changed?
tation, such as a poster or report, for a
larger audience)
8. Exploration of post-instruction understanding through concept mapping
While the SWH recognizes the need for students to conduct laboratory
investigations that develop their understanding of scientific methods and
procedures, the teachers’ template seeks to provide a stronger pedagogical focus
for this learning. In other words, the SWH is based on the assumptions that science
genres in school should reflect some of the characteristics of scientists’ writing and
be shaped as pedagogical tools to encourage students to ‘unpack’ scientific
meaning and reasoning. The SWH is intended to promote both scientific thinking
and reasoning in the laboratory and metacognition, where learners become aware
of the basis of their knowledge and are able to monitor more explicitly their
learning. Because the SWH focuses on canonical forms of scientific thinking, such
as the development of links between claims and evidence, it also has the potential
to build learners’ understandings of the nature of science, strengthen conceptual
understandings, and engage them in an authentic argumentation process of science.
The SWH emphasises the collaborative nature of scientific activity, i.e.,
scientific argumentation, where learners are expected to engage in a continuous
cycle of negotiating and clarifying meanings and explanations with their peers and
teacher. In other words, the SWH is designed to promote classroom discussion
where students’ personal explanations and observations are tested against the
perceptions and contributions of the broader group. Learners are encouraged to
make explicit and defensible connections between questions, observations, data,
claims, and evidence. When students state a claim for an investigation, they are
expected to describe a pattern, make a generalization, state a relationship, or
construct an explanation.
The SWH promotes students’ participation in setting their own investigative
agenda for laboratory work, framing questions, proposing methods to address these
questions, and carrying out appropriate investigations. Such an approach to
laboratory work is advocated in many national science curriculum documents on
the grounds that this freedom of choice will promote greater student engagement
and motivation with topics. However, in practice, much laboratory work follows a
narrow, teacher agenda that does not allow for broader questioning or more diverse
data interpretation. When procedures are uniform for all students, where data are
similar, and where claims match expected outcomes, then the reportage of results
and conclusions often lacks opportunities for deeper student learning about the
topic or for developing scientific reasoning skills. To address these issues, the
SWH is designed to provide scaffolding for purposeful thinking about the
relationships between questions, evidence, and claims.
7
BRIAN M. HAND
EMBEDDING LANGUAGE AND ARGUMENTATION PRACTICES
There has been an ongoing debate about the best approach to introduce language
instruction within classrooms, particularly in relation to science classrooms. The
work of Halliday and Martin (1993) clearly emphasized the need for students to
engage with the structure of the genres of science as a precursor to doing science.
This position adopts the view that there is a need to learn to use the language prior
to learning the science. For example, students need to learn the structure of the
laboratory report prior to using the format to engage with laboratory activities. Gee
(2004) argued for the opposite position; i.e., we need to embed language within the
learning experience. In this position, language is viewed as a learning tool; and
there is no separation between learning how to use language and learning science.
Klein (1999), in his review of the writing-to-learn literature, suggested there is no
conclusive evidence for the learning-to-use language position. On the other hand,
Prain (2006) suggested that using the language as a learning tool position offers
much more potential for learning gains than learning about language separate from
the context of its use.
While there is much debate about the relative merits at the extremes of these
positions, Hand and Prain (2006) have argued for some convergence of these
positions. They believe there is a continuum of positions such that, while there is a
requirement for students to engage with the language of the discipline as a learning
tool in order to learn the content, students also need to understand the structure of
the genres used within science. Klein (2006), in discussing the relative importance
of first- and second-order cognitive science with respect to science literacy, stated
that there is no one position in terms of language that should be adopted. He
suggested that in
the middle of the spectrum are practices that integrate expressive features of
human thought and language with denotative features of authentic science
text, such as concept mapping, graphing and the SWH. The result is that
contemporary reforms in science literacy education accommodate students’
cognition and language, while preparing them to participate in disciplinary
knowledge construction. Furthermore, the central hypothesis overarching
these interpretations is that enhanced science literacy in the fundamental
sense will result in improved understanding of the big ideas of science and
fuller participation in the public debate about science, technology, society,
and environment issues – the derived sense of science literacy. (p. 171)
The importance of recognizing the need to have some middle ground also
applies to the concept of science argument. Much of the work done by Osborne and
his colleagues is based on the work of Halliday and Martin. Their work focused on
promoting argument as a structure to be learnt prior to using argument within class.
They suggested “argument is a discourse that needs to be explicitly taught, through
the provision of suitable activity, support, and modeling” (Simon, Erduran, &
Osborne, 2006, p. 237). While I agree with Osborne and his colleagues on the
8