Construction of Meaning in the Authentic Science Writing
of Deaf Students
Harry G. Lang
John A. Albertini
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
This study examines how students construct meaning
through writing during authentic science activities. To determine how well students understood science concepts, we analyzed 228 writing samples from deaf students in grades 6
through 11 as well as the explanatory and reflective comments of their teachers. The analyses indicate that certain
process writing strategies were differentially useful in helping
deaf students to construct meaning and in allowing teachers
to evaluate the constructed meaning. Three instructional
conditions and two teacher variables were found to play roles
in determining the accuracy and adequacy of the writing: (1)
the writing prompts the teachers used, (2) the focus for the
writing, (3) follow-up to the initial writing activity, (4) the
teacher’s content knowledge, and (5) the teacher’s ability to
interpret student writing. The authors recommend future
applications of writing-to-learn strategies and suggest directions for further research and changes in teacher education.
This study examines the science writing of deaf students from a social constructivist perspective, exploring how learning as an interactive process might include writing-to-learn activities. Specifically, we
investigated how writing-to-learn strategies might foster understanding and the construction of meaning
during authentic science activities. We identify patterns that emerge in the use of four writing-to-learn
This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. HRD-9550468. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions
in this paper. Correspondence should be sent to Harry G. Lang, Department of Research, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester
Institute of Technology, 96 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY
14623–5604 (e-mail: [email protected]).
 2001 Oxford University Press
strategies with deaf students and draw implications
about these strategies for facilitating the construction
of meaning in the science classroom.
The theoretical framework of this study is
grounded in the social semiotic (meaning-making) perspective of Vygotsky (1978, 1987) and his followers, especially Lemke (1990) and Wertsch (1991), who regard
learning as an appropriation of the social language or
discourse associated with the practices of science. According to Vygotsky, the interrelatedness of thought,
action, and semiotic tools (such as drawing or writing)
is fundamental to development. We shape our language
and thought as we internalize experience. Our educational interactions reflect the surrounding culture
(i.e., culturally situated activity) and, consequently, our
learning becomes a social process.
Wertsch (1991) provides an account for the social
nature of science learning, whereby children “ventriloquate” the patterns of those competent in the social
language and experience multiple ways of completing a
task from both expert models and other learners. As
children gradually learn to use language patterns for
their own purposes, learning becomes an appropriation
of the socially constituted meanings they encounter
during instructional activity. Through this process,
students acquire both the conceptual meanings of scientific disciplines and the “social power that accompanies appropriating a significant cultural tool” (Duran,
Dugan, & Weffer, 1998, p. 314).
The social constructivist theory places the teacher
in the strategic role of organizer and facilitator of social
Construction of Meaning in Writing
and cultural activity. Through meaningful contexts,
the students construct understanding. The emphasis in
social constructivism is on the primary role of communication and social life in meaning formation and cognition. As Lemke (1990) writes, the challenge for students is “to find science” in instructional dialogues. He
describes how conceptual relations are built and how
various dialogic strategies science teachers use relate to
constructing science themes or principles. Lemke believes that whereas language patterns are frequently repeated in teacher talk, there are inadequate opportunities for students to use these patterns to constitute their
own meaning. He explains that students must weave
their teacher’s text derived through face-to-face communication with their own verbal text in memory.
Over the past 20 years, educators have applied
principles of social constructivism to study learning by
hearing students in science classrooms. Osborne and
Wittrock (1983), for example, formulated the generative learning theory, which posits that learners construct knowledge when they selectively address new
sensory information by comparing it to knowledge
stored in long-term memory and generating new
meanings. Using the generative learning theory, Keys
(1999) examined the potential of writing-to-learn activity to generate hearing students’ translations of the
new science meanings into verbal symbols. She reported that, although some students included only
vague meanings for the data in the inquiry projects,
others were able to present their written ideas in
greater detail.
Just as authentic science activities are meaningcreating, so too are writing activities. Moreover, the
connection between writing and authentic science activity may be critical. Manipulating objects physically
is important, but engaging students in the identification of the purpose of the activity and in a discussion
about what was learned may be even more crucial. As
Bettencourt (1993) points out, “unless hands-on science is embedded in a structure of questioning, reflecting, and re-questioning, probably very little will be
learned” (p. 48).
In a comprehensive review of reading and writing
to learn, with implications for instructing deaf students
in science, Yore (2000) also emphasizes the interactive
and constructive nature of science language, stressing
259
that explicit writing tasks and instruction should be
embedded in the authentic context of scientific inquiry
as an integral part of science learning. He writes that
the instruction should increase metacognitive awareness and create opportunities for students to generate
ideas. The focus of writing tasks should be on the “big
ideas,” such as the nature of science, the practice of scientific inquiry, and the unifying concepts of science, as
well as on facilitating communication.
One role of writing, according to Botstein (1989),
is simply to use ordinary language. The use of ordinary
language to teach mathematics and science enables students and teachers to connect new terms, strange facts,
and unfamiliar usage to experience. Using ordinary language, particularly in writing, must become an everyday activity. “Even at low levels of general literacy, the
complex cognitive and epistemological processes embedded in speech (as opposed to tacit experience) and
action constitute a sufficient link to understanding mathematics and science. The act of writing in the
process of learning these subject areas is essential to developing curiosity and comprehension in the learner”
(1989, p. xiv) Over the past 25 years, others have
stressed this connection (Emig, 1977; Fulwiler, 1980;
Herrington, 1981). Educational psychologists and philosophers in the late twentieth century have also focused on the writing-thinking connection. Like Vygotsky, they believe that because writing as a process is
physical and deliberate and because the product must
be explicit, writing influences thought.
Writing to learn may be more effective when there
is mutual exploration of interpretations rather than an
emphasis on the acquisition of facts (Langer &
Applebee, 1986). Because of the lack of research on
how writing about a topic aids learning about that
topic, Langer and Applebee (1987) conducted a series
of studies on the effect of writing on learning with high
school students who were hearing. They concluded
that any of the activities involving writing (for example,
note taking, answering adjunct questions, and analytic
writing) “lead to better learning than activities involving reading and studying only” (p. 135). They found
that subject-area writing could be used productively in
three ways: (1) to gain relevant knowledge and experience in preparing for new activities, (2); to review and
consolidate what is known or has been learned, and
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Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 6:4 Fall 2001
(3) to reformulate and extend ideas and experiences
(p. 136). Of these three, writing to reformulate was the
most likely to lead to more complex reasoning, writing
to review the least likely. For grading purposes, however, teachers most often used review writing. Thus,
without alternative models of evaluation, teachers
tended to focus on accuracy rather than adequacy of
student thinking.
Rivard (1994) reviewed the published literature on
writing to learn in science, examining the links between
writing to learn and conceptual change. He summarized current practices, including expository writing
and expressive writing, concluding that “writing can
enhance science learning when teachers tailor tasks to
attain meaningful curricular goals, when learners possess the necessary metacognitive knowledge, and when
the instructional environment sustains a view of scientific literacy that embraces deep conceptual understandings rather than encyclopedic knowledge” (p. 978).
The extent to which these conditions may be found
in classrooms with deaf learners has not been studied.
Nor have there been any investigations on writing to
learn with deaf students in science. Deaf students exhibit pronounced difficulties in knowledge of English
vocabulary and syntax, which become apparent when
these students read and write. Marschark (1993) maintains that deficits in relational discourse processing also
contribute to the concrete, repetitive, and structurally
simplistic writing of many deaf students. For him, deficiencies in writing ability, together with limitations
imposed by lack of reading ability, are major contributors to deaf children’s generally poor academic performance. Yet, at the same time, he explains, “reading and
writing form an essential link to the worlds of social
and cognitive interaction, and the consequences of illiteracy have increasing impact on all realms of functioning as deaf children grow up” (p. 226).
Educators of deaf students more than a century ago
recognized the value of frequent writing experiences
aimed at enhancing understanding of the world
through meaningful exchanges with teachers and
peers. Pettengill (1874), for example, proposed that
skill in writing comes from practice:
In most of our school-rooms there are at least
twenty large slates arranged around the room, in
view of all the pupils of the class, and those slates
for a large part of the day are not in use for the regular
exercises of the class. Why should they not be continually employed by the teacher and pupils as a
means of social communication by writing? (p. 237)
Pettengill argued that requiring pupils to produce
numerous sentences of their own composition based on
certain given words and phrases and previously explained formulas leads to a “fruitful source of bad writing” (p. 236). However, this method of teaching writing
has continued into modern times. To date, literacy instruction for deaf students has dealt with writing on a
very limited basis. Studies in both the United States
and Germany have shown that when asked to recall literacy instruction, deaf adolescents most often mentioned report writing and language practice (Albertini,
1993; Meath-Lang, 1980; Meath-Lang, Caccamise, &
Albertini, 1982). These students especially recalled
forms of transactional writing whose purpose most
often is to inform, instruct, and persuade a narrowly
defined audience, usually the teacher, through essays,
reports, or exams. They also remembered writing to
practice the structure and vocabulary of the language.
Seldom did the students in these investigations mention writing for personal expression or for creative purposes.
Research on writing by deaf students has traditionally focused on lexical and grammatical proficiency (for
reviews, see Bochner & Albertini, 1988; Paul, 1998).
More recently, however, the focus has broadened to include informal, interactive writing and analyses of content and rhetoric. In expressive (personal) and creative
contexts, deaf students write with clarity and force
even if without the sentence and discourse markers of
more experienced writers (Albertini, Meath-Lang, &
Harris, 1994; Kluwin & Kelly, 1991; Marschark,
Mouradian, & Halas, 1994). These and other studies
on learning to write have pointed to the need for additional research on writing to learn in specific subject
areas such as science and mathematics.
In a case study of two eighth-grade deaf students
in a public day school, Mayer (1999) distinguished the
“act of writing” as a solitary endeavor and the “activity
of writing” as an aspect of literary development embedded in a sociocultural framework. She examined the
cognitive tools used when one composes text in the
larger sociocultural contexts, including such elements
Construction of Meaning in Writing
as “recalling previous exposures to print, remembering
what had been directly taught, using fingerspelling,
and mouthing with or without signs” (p. 44). Mayer
encouraged teachers to take advantage of the semiotic
mix in educational settings to provide opportunities for
deaf students to learn to write. She concluded that
“[c]ertainly classrooms that emphasize using reading
and writing in meaningful ways would provide a supportive environment for the development of higher levels of written literacy” (p. 43).
Schneiderman (1995) reported that when deaf
sixth- and seventh-grade children were taught a target
linguistic form (noun ⫹ verb ⫹ where sentence) in an
interactive instructional context, significant gains in
content learning (in this case, English skills) were realized. She suggested: “It appears that adopting strategies that are consistent with a social-interaction perspective on language development is helpful in
facilitating students’ use of the targeted form in an unstructured language-use task” (p. 11).
Four strategies consistent with a social-interaction
perspective of language and literacy development have
been selected for this study: the creative piece, guided
free writing, the double entry, and end-of-class reflection. The creative piece is simply an adaptation and
transfer of the genre that some students learn in English classes to the science classroom. It was suggested
in our work with teachers as a different and perhaps
more enjoyable way for students to construct meaning.
Free writing, end-of-class reflection, and the double
entry are taken from the writing-to-learn tradition as
practiced by Peter Elbow (1981), Toby Fulwiler (1987),
and the faculty of the Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking (Connolly & Vilardi, 1989). We know
of no previous research on the use of these particular
strategies with deaf learners. However, a study of 69
14- to 19-year-old deaf adolescents compared writing
performance across genre and found that the more
familar and less formal genre of letter writing produced
higher levels of performance than did standardized
tasks such as “write-about-the-picture” (Musselman &
Szanto, 1998). Similarly, a study of the writing of 10
Italian deaf native signers showed that the letter writing task was significantly easier than writing about a
video (Fabbretti, Volterra, & Pontecorvo, 1998). Thus,
we chose informal, familiar, and personal writing strategies. Angelo and Cross (1993) recommend three of
261
these strategies as techniques for teacher assessment of
course-related knowledge and skills.
In addition to investigations on writing, studies on
the effectiveness of active and interactive learning
strategies with deaf adolescents provide some support
for a social constructivist approach to teaching. Early
studies with deaf science students have supported the
use of manipulatives in the classroom. Boyd and
George (1973), for example, studied the ability of
10–13-year-old deaf students to manipulate and classify objects using “Science Curriculum Improvement
Study” (SCIS) and “Science: A Process Approach”
(SAPA) materials. They observed increased scores for
deaf students who used the hands-on materials (the experimental group). An emphasis on the “processes of
science” mentally engages the learners in beneficial
ways. Science process skills are thinking skills used by
scientists during scientific inquiry, such as observation
and description, and higher-order reasoning skills such
as hypothesizing, planning, and designing experiments,
or interpreting data (Gagné, 1967; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993). The national standards developed by the
National Research Council (1996) and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (1993)
recommended these processes in science curricula.
More recently, research on learning styles of deaf
college students has shown a significant positive correlation between the participative learning style and
academic achievement as measured by course grades
(Lang, Stinson, Basile, Liu, & Kavanagh, 1999). A
study of multimedia adjunct instructional aids in science also indicates that the cognitive activation induced
by interactive learning strategies, such as responding
to adjunct questions while reading, enhances factual
recall of deaf college students who are poor readers
(Dowaliby & Lang, 1999). This study supports the previously mentioned perspective of Langer and Applebee
(1987), who suggest that reading activities involving
writing may be better than those involving reading and
studying only.
Both writing and discussion about science experiences cause learners to generate verbal representations
of their thinking, which, in turn, promotes the construction of understandings (Fellows, 1991; Keys,
1994). Mayer (1999), quoting Freedman, Pringle, and
Yalden (1983), however, cautions that without full proficiency in a language, the constraints may place limita-
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Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 6:4 Fall 2001
tions on one’s ability to conceptualize intended meanings and organize thoughts in discourse. Although we
have a growing body of literature on the value of active,
interactive, and participative learning experiences for
deaf students, we have little knowledge of how useful
writing-to-learn activities may be in these contexts,
particularly with students who are still learning to
write in adolescence. This exploratory study will thus
examine the utility of writing-to-learn strategies and
the manner in which teachers learn to adapt them.
Method
“Construction of meaning” in this study refers to the
use of language and experience to come to an understanding of an abstract principle. Writing is the medium that enables the construction of meaning and
reveals the new understanding. To investigate the
construction of meaning and the understanding of science concepts, we examined deaf students’ science
writing and teacher commentary using an approach
called inductive analysis (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992;
Miles & Huberman, 1994; Patton, 1990). As Lederman
(1999) explains in his study on teachers’ understanding
of the nature of science and classroom practices, “conceptions or working hypotheses to explain the phenomenon of interest are continually formed as data are analyzed” (p. 922). In an inductive analysis, investigators
discover patterns, themes, and categories of analysis in
the data rather than imposing patterns on the data
prior to collection. The search for patterns in the data
is guided by questions identified at the beginning of
the study that may determine how the findings are to
be used.
Keys (1994) writes that the recent shift to more interpretive research methodologies has made it possible
to explore the role of writing in the context of other
forms of classroom learning. Numerous studies with
hearing students have used interpretive research in a
variety of authentic science contexts (Brown & Campione, 1990; Fellows, 1991; Smith, 1991). Fellows, for example, provided evidence that student generation of
written and verbal explanations was one of three major
factors contributing to higher levels of student attainment of scientific goal conceptions. Whether such
studies with deaf learners may lead to similar conclusions remains to be investigated. Interpretive research
methodologies, however, may also be useful in the education of deaf students because it is particularly difficult to establish the controlled conditions needed for
experimental studies in authentic contexts.
This study was conducted in the course of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant focusing on inservice teacher education in programs serving deaf students. In a critical analysis of research on learning to
teach, Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998) discuss how successful teacher education programs build
on the beliefs of teachers and that research on learning
to teach has advanced the field in significant ways.
They argue for a more ecological approach to research
on learning to teach, in which researchers examine the
meaning of data as related to the social and cultural
conditions where teachers teach, the needs of these
teachers, and the values of teacher educators. Toward
this end, we believe that both interpretive research and
the more traditional experimental studies may contribute to a meaningful theory of teaching and learning.
In this study, two research questions guided the inductive analysis. What does writing reveal about deaf
students’ understanding of science? Under what instructional conditions will the use of writing-to-learn
strategies be optimized? The “patterns” were generated from our analysis of all four sets of writing
samples, as well as from the teachers’ analyses of particular sets of samples.
Setting
Funded by a grant from the NSF (Lang & Albertini,
1998), we offered training to 234 teachers in eight regional workshops over a 3-year period. The workshops
focused on the development of science and English literacy for deaf students. The authentic science activities
ranged from experiences lasting only a few minutes
(e.g., short-term hands-on work with pulleys in physical science) to long-term experiences (e.g., the growth
of a plant under different conditions in biology). All of
the activities stressed the social construction of
knowledge.
Writing Strategies
In the regional workshops, teachers experienced each
of the four writing strategies and discussed possible
Construction of Meaning in Writing
ways these strategies could be used as semiotic tools.
To promote the understanding of these and other activities and to actualize the processes of science, we also
introduced the teachers to a menu of writing-to-learn
strategies—not to be used for grading purposes but
rather to encourage writing as a medium for recording
and communicating experiences and personal interpretations, and for constructing meaning in science. Brief
descriptions of the four strategies that are the subject
of this analysis follow.
Creative piece. Students are asked to create a fictitious
situation, such as imagining they are an object or a living organism, and to write about it. In the regional
training workshop, the teachers observed a pop can imploded by air pressure and wrote a creative piece titled
“I Am an Air Molecule in the Pop Can.” The writing
of the teachers was discussed in terms of understanding of such concepts as temperature and pressure relationships, energy and motion of air molecules, and the
general notion that air can exert pressure to change the
shape of an object.
Guided free writing. Teachers were trained to structure
the students’ science activity with specific writing instructions provided in steps. The example given in the
workshop involved a sealed can of Coke and a sealed
can of Diet Coke placed in a large tank of water. Teachers were asked to make a prediction prior to the handson activity about what would happen to each can when
placed in the water, describe what was observed after
the authentic science activity, and draw conclusions regarding the observations. Each of these steps was completed in writing with a focus on “relative density” as
the primary science principle.
End-of-class reflection. At the end of a class session, students are asked to think about the class and list two or
three of the most important things they learned. In the
workshop, the teachers were provided a slide show on
the contributions of deaf women and men in the history of science; upon completion they were asked to list
on an index card several important facts they learned
about deaf people in science careers.
Double entry. Students copy a paragraph or part of a
paragraph on one page of their journal and on the fac-
263
ing page they respond to it. Reactions may include, for
example, agreement or disagreement, expansion, or relating the original excerpt to one’s own experiences or
questions. In the workshop, teachers were asked to
choose an excerpt from several provided to them about
parental support in the life of a deaf scientist. The discussion focused on the potential of this strategy to assess what a deaf reader may be able to extract from a
science text and how well the entry may help the
teacher examine a student’s thoughts about the text.
Participants
Twelve participating teachers freely experimented with
these strategies in the context of their courses, sent us
the student writing samples, and discussed the results
via electronic mail, FAX, or conventional mail. This
study is “naturalistic” in that it seeks to understand
phenomena in context-specific settings. Even though
such a study provides a measure of ecological validity,
the individuality of the students and classrooms inevitably leads to great variation in the results. In these
classrooms, there were deaf and hard-of-hearing students with different general ability levels, as well as English and sign language skills. Teacher EC, for example,
described her class as follows:
[EC1] is a very bright student—she reads on a 10th
grade reading level and is in the 8th grade. [EC2]
repeated the 8th grade last year due to being absent
too many days. Also, a bright girl and good leader.
She is very good in cooperative learning groups.
[EC3] came to us this year for the first time. She
was at public school and had attended
school for the Deaf. [EC4] and [EC5] are bright
kids as well. [EC6] has the potential, but sometimes
behavior problems interfere.
Under these typical circumstances, reflecting the
reality of classrooms today, we examined the utility of
writing-to-learn activities in science in this study.
Data Analysis
Two sets of data are analyzed in this study: (1) writing
samples by deaf science students and (2) the written
commentary from their teachers. The student writing
samples consist of classroom writing, diagrams, and
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Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 6:4 Fall 2001
sketches. The purposes of the writing and sketching
were to record, reflect, predict, interpret, and reformulate. The writing was done on notecards, in journals
and learning logs, either handwritten or typed on computers. To draw valid inferences about science understanding and the construction of meaning from these
samples, we related the samples to the contexts in
which the data were gathered. For the description of
contexts, we relied on teacher commentary.
Teacher commentary contains descriptions of the
student writers (age, grade, and general comments
about ability); instructions provided to the students
and the type of writing used; and the stated objectives
of the lesson and the associated writing. The commentary also includes interpretation and assessment of the
writing. Appendices 1–4 include examples of excerpts
from teachers in discussing their students’ writing-tolearn activities in this study.
Results
Twelve science teachers in earth science, physical science, general science, biology, and chemistry courses,
grades 6 through 11, collected a total of 228 writing
samples from their deaf students. Table 1 lists the
science principle or topic and number of samples by
writing strategy and teacher. Appendices 1 through 4
provide examples of student writing and associated
teacher commentary for each of the four writing-tolearn strategies.
Analysis of Four Writing-to-Learn Strategies
Creative piece. Teachers approached the creative piece
in various ways. Students were asked to imagine themselves as bacteria, chemical elements, soap bubbles,
simple machines, and falling bodies. One teacher encouraged the writing of a one-act play in which two
plants exhibiting different genetic traits conversed. As
shown in Table 1, there were 10 distinct lessons using
creative writing activities. Four of the 62 samples are
shown in Appendices 1 and 2, followed by selected
comments from the teachers.
In a single class, students introduced multiple perspectives and contexts. They revealed metalinguistic
development by employing literary devices such as
Table 1 Science topics and number of samples
Writing
strategy
Guided free
Grade
9
6–8
7–8
6
7
8
9
10
10
6–8
9
Total
End of class
Grade
6–8
6
7
11
11
6–8
7
6–7
7–9
8
Total
Creative piece
Grade
6–8
7
9
8
9
11
11
6–8
7
7
Total
Double entry
Grade
9
11
7
Total
No.
samples
Teacher
Topic
CB
EC
EC
NG
LR
MF
VR
VR
KR
BT
AJ
Density of liquids
Mass and weight
Pumpkin
Ozone depletion
Mechanics of eye
Eye/refraction
Simple machines
Potato growth
Worms/ecosystem
Electricity
Growth of crystals
CB
EC
EC
LR
VR
KR
MK
MK
BW
BT
Acids and bases
Recycling paper
Molecules/materials
Decline of bluebirds
Chemistry
Canned food safety
Chemical changes
Ozone depletion
Endangered species
Volcanoes
5
21
9
1
5
5
34
10
15
3
108
EC
LR
DP
MF
VR
KR
KR
BT
BW
AJ
Recycling paper
Bacteria/virus
Atomic structure
Soap bubble
Simple machines
Plant genetics
Worms/reproduction
Gravity
Digestive system
Igneous rock
23
1
6
3
3
6
6
6
7
1
62
VR
KR
LR
Simple machines
Genetics
Vision/blindness
3
5
2
10
4
11
4
3
1
3
4
1
6
6
5
48
metaphors, satire, imagery, and similes. Student KR3,
for example, in describing her worm tank, mentioned
that it smelled “like the sock or skunk.” Anthropomorphism was a common characteristic of the creative
Construction of Meaning in Writing
pieces, as shown in the following excerpt from “The
Mystery of the Missing Worms,” written by a student
in KR’s eleventh-grade class who is discussing possible
reasons why her classmate’s worms died in the worm
column over a period of a week.
Mary [not her real name] poured the water in the
worms column. The worms are afraid of water, the
worms say THAT TOOOO MUCH WATER!
Mary say “I never see the worms inside, I forget
the worms.” The worms can’t breath so the worms
say “HELP, HELP!” But Mary can’t hear, She is
deaf. The worm say “Oh that Mary is deaf, OK,
someone HELP ME!” But people are talking or
playing music or leaving of home, and OUT! The
worm say “Gasp, cough, wheez” stop air breath.
The worms are DEAD.
The teachers observed that students often focused
on unique aspects of the science concept in their writing. As an illustration, in the creative piece on the “Life
Cycle of Paper,” EC hoped the students would demonstrate an understanding of the growth of trees from
seeds, processing of wood into paper, and the reuse of
the paper through recycling. The students employed
different starting points in their creative pieces. One
began with a seed, another with a tree, and a third with
the cutting down of a tree. Some truncated the process,
but most revealed an understanding of the variety of
ways paper could be reused through recycling, such as
in greeting cards, calendars, and posters.
The teachers generally viewed the creative piece as
helpful in assessing student construction of meaning
and understanding of principles in science. Asking
seventh-grade students to assume the role of a cookie
in the digestive system allowed BW to evaluate the students’ understanding of the process and functions of
the different organs. The “Simple Machines” writing
helped VR’s ninth-grade students to focus on describing a particular machine (e.g., lever, wheel and axle, inclined plane, pulley). When the students read each
description and guessed which machine was being described, they focused on the accuracy and clarity of the
writing. The science principle in the lesson on Gravity
(Appendix 1) taught by BT was the notion that two
objects with different weights will fall at the same rate
(i.e., the acceleration of gravity is constant and independent of weight). BT’s students wrote from the per-
265
spective of one of the falling bodies. Though his students, in a mix of grades 6 through 8, found the writing
itself difficult, BT stated that some of it was helpful
in assessing their understanding the principle (“basic
concepts”). DP’s goal for her lesson on the “Atom
Party” was to evaluate how well ninth-grade students
could describe chemical bonding in terms of the atomic
structure of elements. She asked her “student elements” to mingle at the party and describe their chemical interactions.
The creative piece was popular among the teachers
in this study. The strategy produced longer writing
samples, encouraged used of literary devices, and involved incorporation of individual perspectives.
Guided free writing. In a guided free writing activity, the
students are asked to write their predictions, observations, and conclusions about physical phenomena during an authentic science activity. As in the regional
workshops, teachers used this writing strategy for formulating rudimentary hypotheses, recording observations, and drawing conclusions. Some teachers used all
three steps (calling them predictions, observations, and
conclusions), whereas others used one (conclusion,
with questions) or two (before/after; prediction/conclusion). Three samples are provided in Appendix 2
with comments from the participating teachers. As
shown in Appendix 2, BT taught a lesson on static
electricity, wondering if the students might predict that
the fluorescent tube would glow when rubbed with a
plastic bag. AJ asked each student to grow crystals and
photograph the process. She structured the process so
that all could compare predictions with the actual
growths observed. KR added a step to the guided free
writing strategy. She encouraged her tenth-grade students to also ask questions while writing the conclusion.
The characteristic of guided free writing that most
interested the teachers in this study was how the strategy encouraged the use of science processes such as
predicting, observing, recording, and interpreting. In
addition, the guided free strategy allowed the teacher
to evaluate individual students’ construction of meaning. Having the students write the conclusion, in particular, allowed the teacher to examine the students’
generation of new knowledge and to look for possible
misconceptions.
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End-of-class reflection. When students were asked to
think about what they experienced in a lesson and to
write down two or three things they learned, they generally made lists with three to four points (Appendix 3).
In the lesson on endangered species, students BW3
and BW6 identified important points from the class
just completed, but they did not provide substantial
elaboration. Teachers had mixed results when using
the end-of-class reflection to evaluate student understanding of science. With regard to this writing strategy, KR wrote, “Their reflection did confirm to me
that they understood what to look for in food spoilage,”
but BW concluded, “I don’t think the index cards accurately reflect the students’ understanding. . . . Writing
sentences is definitely not their strong point” (Appendix 3). In our view, BW’s students showed more understanding of the content and writing skill when using
other writing strategies, such as the creative piece.
Whereas some understanding of the science principles could be observed in the end-of-class reflections,
and it was possible to identify misconceptions, the
writing was restricted in content. This limited the ability of the teachers in this study to evaluate their students’ thinking.
As noted by LR, the strategy seemed to provide a
useful starting point for reflection and further learning
in her seventh-grade science class. Regular use of the
strategy might sharpen the students’ ability to look for
important emphases in each class. Several teachers did
find ways to enrich the results of the end-of-class reflection strategy. KR (Appendix 3) encouraged her students to add questions, and these questions helped her
prepare for the next lesson.
Although students using the end-of-class reflection
strategy were able to recall salient points from the
classroom activity, such a simple prompt does not generate obvious construction of meaning. The writing
samples were generally much shorter than those generated by the other three strategies.
Double entry. A double entry allows the teacher to assess
both comprehension of the reading material and interpretation of the excerpt chosen by the student. It shows
how well students extract content from a text and how
they generate new meaning in their written reactions.
Appendix 4 includes two student entries along with the
original paragraphs from their textbooks. As in her use
of end-of-class reflection, KR asked her eleventh-grade
students to include questions in their reactions to the
text. The questions provided by KR3 in Appendix 4
clearly show that this student grasped the basic ideas
(content of the text). In his reaction, KR3 identified
gaps in knowledge (e.g., the meaning of “monastery”)
and posed questions for follow-up learning.
In the second example, VR3’s rephrasing indicates
an understanding of the concept of “work” in ninthgrade physical science and the fact that a machine may
make work easier by reducing the force necessary to
move an object (“easier & more enjoyable”).
The double entry requires special attention to the
selection of text. Its success in terms of providing material for evaluating construction of meaning also depends more on the students’ reading abilities than the
other three strategies used in this study. If construction
of meaning is the focus of the writing activity, the instructional prompts should identify critical points on
which the students should focus in reading the selected text.
Analysis of Content of Student Writing: What Does
Writing Reveal About Deaf Students’ Understanding
of Science?
This analysis of the accuracy and adequacy of the students’ understanding is based on the teachers’ analyses
of particular sets of samples as expressed in their written comments and on our own careful reading of all of
the sets of samples. Results of these analyses were that
the students’ writing revealed the learning of science
process skills, the grasp of new concepts, concept
transfer, and the construction of new concepts.
As seen in the examples in Appendices 1–4, the extent to which students construct meaning depends on
the particular writing-to-learn strategy, the instructional prompts provided by the teachers, and the focus
of the writing. The construction of meaning is explicit
in some samples. In other samples, there was minimal
content to analyze.
All of the teachers who experimented with the
guided free writing strategy saw its usefulness in helping them to evaluate science process skills. After a lesson on the formation of crystals, AJ commented that
Construction of Meaning in Writing
writing was helpful in evaluating the formation of
hypotheses:
I felt it was a good way for the students to use their
hypothetical thinking skills. It gave them the opportunity to use their knowledge about solutions
and crystal formation to predict the outcome of the
experiment. Some students had based their assumptions on what they had learned in class; others
had merely guessed about the outcome. When we
shared our guesses as a class, the students who had
made the educated guesses were the envy of the
class. This was due to the fact that their guesses
were closest to the actual outcome of the experiment. It gave the students who used background
knowledge a confidence boost and gave incentive to
those who merely guessed.
VR summarized the importance of guided free
writing to strengthen students’ science process skills:
“I think that as the students used it more often, they
would become better predictors, and better summarizers.” EC stressed a distinction between the writing-tolearn strategies and the more formal laboratory report
and noted that the interactive nature of the guided free
approach allowed her to evaluate student understanding on an individual basis as well:
On the subject of guided free writing, I think the
process takes longer because of stopping to write,
but I find that the students will write because they
have something worthwhile and visible to write
about. Whereas, before I was having them do lab
reports after everything was done and they were
like filling in the blank and I did not feel the true
concept was understood. I prefer the guided free
[approach] also because students are writing and
communicating with me at the same time and I was
getting a more accurate picture of exactly who understood and who did not.
As a form of evaluation, the writing-to-learn strategies generally helped the teachers in this study to identify which students grasped new concepts. BT (Appendix 1) commented that only some of the students
understood the principle that falling bodies accelerate
at the same rate due to gravity. He was able to identify
which students needed more assistance through evalu-
267
ation of the creative pieces. Similarly, Appendix 1 illustrates the writing of one of DP’s students, who described how he saw elements “fighting” for electrons
during the “Atom Party,” during a lesson on chemical
bonding. In general, DP saw understanding of a complex science topic in the writing, despite some conceptual errors in her students’ writings.
In VR’s response to the textbook description of
compound machines (Appendix 4), VR twice mimics
or “ventriloquates” patterns from the original text in
his double entry response. The first shows a grasp of
the definition of compound machines: “a compound
machine is a combination two or more simple machine.” The second shows possible confusion about the
relationship between number of machines and amount
of work produced: “And you cannot multiply those two
which is simple machine or compound machine X
work.”
The writing strategies helped teachers identify
when knowledge learned in one context was transferred to other situations. EC used a miniature pumpkin and guided free writing to develop the science
processes of observation and description. In her comments, she noted that EC1 referred to a previous lesson
in relation to his observations of the pumpkin:
The writing from [Student EC1] definitely blew
me away with his analogy of the miniature pumpkin
to the mapping of the earth. I knew right away he
understood the mapping of the earth. . . . I was not
looking for that connection, but was thrilled by it
when I read it! I had [him] share his writing with
the class and the others understood his observation better.
In evaluating understanding, teachers noted that
writing helped them identify possible misconceptions.
Whether the writing activity took only a few minutes
(such as the guided free writing or end-of-class reflection) or longer (creative piece or double entry), it
alerted the teachers to misunderstandings, or at least
to the need to probe further for clarification. EC4, for
example, wrote a creative piece about the recycling of
paper and in it described a tree, “six month later grow
very tall.” The teachers noted that such writing provided a natural opportunity to follow up with questions, in this case about how quickly trees grow.
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beach some cute guy found me he picked me up
and brought me to a new home it was his place a
guy Who named a [boy’s name]. I was dull but later
on for days [boy’s name] took be to a rock store.
asked the man to make me look beautiful now I look
beautiful I’m color of pink, white, dark pink mixed
together! So now I’m a beautiful crstayal now I’m
so happy that [boy’s name] found me and kept me
forever!
Figure 1 Use of an illustration in writing to learn about
recycling of paper.
In this lesson on recycling paper, EC found that
some students with limited writing skills had seized the
opportunity to use drawings to communicate their understanding. One of her students developed a creative
piece with numerous illustrations and short captions.
Another produced one sketch (Figure 1), which shows
comprehension of the cycle of paper production from
seed to plant to tree to sawdust/chips to recycled paper, but using words or labels sparingly. Although there
was minimal writing in this sample, the sketch indicates understanding of the cycle (i.e., there was construction of meaning for low-ability writers). Similarly,
in Appendix 1, despite the poorer writing skills of this
student, VR believes an understanding of the function
of the lever is demonstrated in this student’s Creative
Piece on simple machines.
Another example is found in a seventh-grader’s
(AJ1) writing on igneous rocks:
“Beauty Pink”
I live in Italy. then my name is beauty pink. the heat
and hot thing keeps pressure me I don’t like it! then
the volcano eupt I poped out! I flew all over to other
country and land in California of Hollywood. then
I was so hot so I land in a water finally I’m so cool
not hot anymore! Whew! then I was flowing in a
The teachers repeatedly emphasized that follow-up
was essential to check facts and guide students in the
construction of meaning. In the case of AJ1 above, for
example, follow-up is needed to see if she actually believed that a rock could travel from Italy to California.
Other examples of possible misconceptions are
found in one of LR’s student’s creative piece on viruses,
part of a high school biology lesson. As LR writes:
Her description of the virus was basically appropriate, but she tended to oversimplify. For example,
she said that the virus invades “more million of
cells.” She also referred to killing mucus, when in
fact the mucus is produced to trap the virus. Also
the fact that cold virus became polio was completely incorrect.
The writing strategies also allow the teachers to evaluate students’ initial ideas and how conceptions are constructed while participating in authentic science activities. When students interpret phenomena and draw
inferences, they are generating meaning. CB used
guided free writing with the activity on the density of
liquids. Before pouring oil, syrup, soap, and alcohol
into a test tube, her students predicted how the liquids
would look when they settled in the test tube. Some
students used illustrations and labeled the liquids.
Next, they were asked to record their observations and
draw conclusions. Evidence of the construction of
meaning, the understanding of the relative densities of
the materials, was apparent in the prediction, observation, and conclusion steps of the guided free writing
strategy. Some students merely underlined the actual
order of the liquids from least dense to most dense. In
other cases, the students commented on their predic-
Construction of Meaning in Writing
tions in writing. CB summarized this activity to us as
follows:
The students drew a picture of a test tube and the
layers of their ordered guesses in their journals. It
is interesting that all the students’ guesses were
similar in that they all thought the alcohol was
lighter than the oil. The students then poured the
liquids into the large test tube in the order of their
prediction. The students discussed their layers and
tried to determine why some of them were different. The students then shook up their liquids and
left them in the rack until the next day. . . . The
next day the students observed the layers. They
brainstormed as to why the oil was on the top. This
was connected to common experiences such as Italian salad dressing, oil leaks from tankers. It was finally discovered by the students that the alcohol is
mostly water and since oil floats on water, that
made sense that the alcohol would be under the oil.
The students then drew another test tube with the
correct layers in order. Then they wrote what they
had learned from the experiment.
In their end-of-class reflections, two students
mimic or ventriloquate vocabulary from the lesson. KR
(Appendix 3) is obviously taken with the descriptive
adjectives used to describe canned foods: “Why are
bulging, leaking, spurting liquid may cause the body
sick?” LR (Appendix 3) uses several key technical
terms in her reflection on the class: decline, nonnative,
and habitat. Such appropriation of scientific patterns
and vocabulary in the student writing shows the attempt to construct understandings of the phenomena
or concepts.
Optimal Conditions: Under What Instructional
Conditions Will the Use of Writing-to-Learn
Strategies Be Optimized?
This analysis of classroom writing and teacher commentary indicated that the writing-to-learn strategies
were differentially useful and that their utility in evaluating understanding depended on certain instructional
conditions and teacher variables. Three instructional
conditions were found to play roles in determining the
269
accuracy and adequacy of content of the writing: the
writing prompts used by teachers, the focus for the
writing, and follow-up to the initial writing activity.
The two teacher variables were the teacher’s content
knowledge and the teacher’s ability to interpret student writing.
Instructional prompts. First, the quality of the student’s
construction of meaning in these samples seemed related to how the teacher designed and carried out the
lesson. If teachers intended to study their students’
construction of meaning, it is critical that they provide
explicit instructions or focused prompts that encourage students to write in a way that will lead to meaningful construction. More meaningful construction occurred when the strategies involved guided steps where
the teacher could see the students’ thoughts before and
after participating in authentic science activity.
In EC’s lesson in chemistry, a plastic bag full of water was punctured with a wooden stick over the science
teacher’s head to demonstrate the molecular properties
of polymers. There was little science in the writing,
however, perhaps because explicit prompts were not
provided. Student EC2 wrote, “Oh! That was so funny
when [scientist] held the bag with water over [teacher’s
name]’s head and stuck the pencils through it.” EC11
wrote, “[Scientist’s name] teach us about hole of pastic
[plastic] bags water in it and [teacher’s name] get no
wet.” (Note: The student is explaining that no water
spilled on the teacher’s head when the scientist punctured the bag of water with pencils.) Neither these nor
the other students in this class produced writing that
indicated why this phenomenon happened, probably
because the prompt for the writing asked only for a
general description of what they saw.
In comparison, in introducing the creative piece for
the lesson on plant genetics, KR provided a lead question (“What would you like or not like as traits?”) that
appeared to help the students establish dialogue between two plants. Nearly every student included specific content and indicated some understanding of the
genetics. In the following illustration, an eleventhgrade deaf student’s dialogue between two plants, only
a small excerpt from a long story, revealed to the
teacher a good use of vocabulary, some understanding
of genetics, but a possible misconception when the stu-
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dent drifted into discussing Usher’s Syndrome and
deafness.
AA: “My name is George, What yours?”
aa: “Mine is Josh.” “You know what? You are lucky
that you have red stems that looks pretty color that
I don’t have red stems.”
AA: “Oh please!!! I am not that lucky, you are lucky
that you have green stems that looks clean than the
red stems.”
aa: “Well, thanks. Anyway How come that I don’t have
a red stems like yours?”
AA: “Well that is a good question that you are asking
me.” “I appreciate it.” “My stems is read and yours
is green because of chromosomes. Some humans
are not deaf, usher syndrome, or blind like that you
know what I mean. What are you getting then?”
aa: “Oh I get it.” “I am deaf and I have usher syndrome.” “That my parents have same thing with
mine usher syndrome and deaf.”
AA: “No. . . . Humans parents’ chromosomes are hiding inside their bodies which that gives you usher
syndrome and deaf.”
aa: “Oh really, that is cool.” “I am intersting why I have
it.” “Thanks so much for answering my questions
that I need to know.”
AA: “(smile) “AHH. . . . No problem at all.” “Anytime
if you need to know what is going on okie dokie??”
In indicating to us how the students were constructing meaning through the writing process, KR
identified the possible misconception: “Boy, some of
the kids got this right away and some didn’t! Some
mixed Usher’s Syndrome info with plants and wrote as
if the plants could have U.S. This really was a good way
to see how they comprehended.”
In Appendix 2, AJ describes how she would modify
the instructional prompt in her lesson on crystals. If
she were to do this activity all over again, she would ask
the students to describe what they “saw happen.” She
found in asking them to write down what they “saw”
led to descriptions of the crystal, rather than the process of the formation of the crystals. Similarly, EC related her perception that her students failed to use key
vocabulary in their writing: “I did notice several did
not use the vocabulary words mass and weight in their
writing. We told the students to do their best and write
it the way they could best explain it to us. I think I will
encourage them in the future to use these specific
terms in their writings.”
Similarly, EC realized that her prompts for writing
were not adqequate. In her lesson on observing a
pumpkin, she was interested primarily in developing
observation and description skills, but she learned that
the particular group of students was generally not
ready to provide detailed descriptions without guided
practice. She wrote to us, “I would probably talk about
it a little. I did not discuss anything prior to asking
them to write about the pumpkin. I wanted to see how
much I could get from them on their own.”
The inductive analysis of teacher commentary also
indicated that the teacher needs to be spontaneous in
changing the prompts when something does not appear
to be working. DP, for example, noticed that her students were having trouble in taking on the identity of
“calcium” in the creative piece titled “Atom Party” and
in describing its behavior when with other atoms such
as oxygen, lithium, neon, sulfur, fluorine, and gold.
Rather than waiting for the next time, she immediately
modified the assignment by naming each student a
different chemical element. As a result, she felt that the
chemical bonding principles she was teaching were
better understood, including the “perspective” of the
calcium atom she had originally planned to evaluate.
One form of prompt used by a teacher in this study
was “question posing,” a process of encouraging students to ask for clarification on concepts and principles
they do not understand or wish to learn more about.
KR was an experienced teacher who used question
posing by students effectively. Previously, we mentioned how KR used questions with the end-of-class
reflection in the lesson on food spoilage. Her experiments with student-generated questions were unique
in this study, and the potential of this strategy for facilitating learning bears further investigation. As she reflected after her lesson on the contributions of worms
to an ecosystem (Appendix 2), the students’ questions
helped her to see how they were constructing meaning.
The questions also helped her to plan follow-up. Similarly, in her double entry lesson on Mendel (Appendix
4), she used question posing by the students as a means
for examining their thoughts on the topic.
Establishing a focus. Closely related to the issue of use of
instructional prompts was the establishment of a focus
Construction of Meaning in Writing
for the writing-to-learn activity. In the school where
MK and EC teach, a scientist came to visit regularly
to demonstrate science concepts and principles. The
purpose of the partnership with industry was to motivate students to think about science careers. After one
lecture on molecular structure by the scientist, EC attempted to use the end-of-class reflection and found
that there were too many topics covered to benefit from
that strategy. Without the use of some teacher-imposed
structure, it was difficult to evaluate either basic understanding of science or the construction of meaning. In
this case, the introduction of a single theme in both the
lecture and the instructions for writing (e.g., molecular
structure of polymers) might have led to more coherent
and focused summary of learned principles or concepts
as shown in the students’ written samples. She mentioned that she would reinforce the focus next time by
using more visual aids to help the students understand
the concepts of molecular structure and to construct
knowledge from their experiences.
In another lesson, the lack of a clear focus was due
to having minimal science content in the activity. Evaluation of understanding was therefore difficult. EC had
asked the students to construct a card for Mother’s
Day. Although the lesson did teach the students that
materials could be recycled, the project was more an
art activity than a science lesson; thus, the science content was minimal, as shown in the content of the writing as well.
VR tried to apply the end-of-class reflection to an
entire semester-long course:
I really was looking for any vocabulary that they
might have acquired . . . something that wouldn’t
have been in their vocabulary at the beginning of
the year. I also wanted to see their idea of “chemistry” meaning was whatever they learned related to
how matter reacts, or was it something I had not
realized that we had been learning!
Although VR had stated her objective of obtaining
“an in-depth glimpse of any one topic,” she was asking
the students to reflect on a much longer time frame,
and this lack of focus led the students to identify general or vague concepts. The students wrote short answers, such as “atoms,” and “atomic number,” or general skills such as “how to balance the equations.”
Several mentioned only topics they learned very re-
271
cently. This did not help VR much, and she concluded
that the strategy would be more effective used at the
end of individual class sessions.
BW, on the other hand, established specific objectives for her lesson. In her end-of-class reflection, she
stated that she intended to (1) assess each student’s
memory of the tiger lecture, (2) assess each student’s
ability to select the important points, (3) use their writing to structure the next day discussions in small
groups, and (4) list their index card entries on the
blackboard and prioritize the list. In this manner, she
established not only a clear focus for the lesson but a
systematic way to encourage the social construction of
meaning through peer discussions.
Follow-up. We found follow-up to take many forms in
the writing-to-learn activities, and it was essential as
part of the dialogue in the social constructivist context.
The most common forms of follow-up identified in this
study included vocabulary enhancement, checking for
possible misconceptions, and building on writing and
learning. Follow-up with vocabulary development appears to be a special need. The opportunity to develop
vocabulary through writing was noted by most of the
participating teachers. Both improvement of spelling
and expansion of technical and nontechnical vocabulary were brought up frequently in teacher commentary. BT used his guided free writing activity to determine that the students did not grasp all the vocabulary:
I need to come up with some activities that really
hammer in those vocabulary words/concepts. I felt
pretty good about the students being able to show
they understood what happened. I need to work
with them some more on getting to explain WHY/
HOW it happened. Slowly, but surely they’re getting it.
In Appendix 1, BW3 describes “something whit
[white] below” in the “esophaung,” indicating that the
term for mucus was not yet learned and the spelling of
“esophagus” might be reinforced in a follow-up activity. Similarly, in the example from the lesson on simple
machines (Appendix 1), the student’s writing is primarily descriptive according to the teacher’s instructions. The writing activity was a gaming strategy in
which students described themselves as a particular
machine and classmates were expected to guess which
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Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 6:4 Fall 2001
machine was being represented. Follow-up with this
particular student might focus on vocabulary development. For example, the student used “the middle of
sharp” instead of “fulcrum.” Vocabulary development
is an important factor in reading comprehension, and
such writing-to-learn activities may in turn enhance
reading to learn.
In this investigation, many students introduced inappropriate, misspelled, or missing primary technical terms (e.g., esophagus) in their writing, as well as
semitechnical terms (e.g., “many woods” for sawdust
or chips). LR, in her lesson on the eye, wrote:
I had hoped that he would use the correct terms
that he knew for the eye and also describe the function as he described the parts. He in fact did mention some of the terms and described them very
well. As I worked with him I asked him to put more
terms in his descriptions . . . for example . . . “it
has a lot of water inside eye.” . . . I asked him what
the water was, then he labeled it as vitreous humor.
I was pleased with this response, because it showed
that he had truly grasped the terms and their placement in the eye.
As mentioned earlier, follow-up is essential for
dealing with misconceptions. For example, LR, who
taught the a lesson on viruses, wrote to us about how
she used follow-up in a social constructivist context in
the interpretation of one of her student’s written representations, which exhibited several misconceptions:
For example, in the lesson titled “Mass and Weight,”
the notion of density and how the densities of the cans
of Coke and Diet Coke compared with one another was
not introduced by the teacher, nor how the densities of
the two unopened cans compared with the density of
water in which they were placed. Rather, the students
were expected to learn that there was “something”
different in the two cans that led one can to sink and
the other to float and that the weights were different.
This vagueness was subsequently reflected in the student writing in relation to the quality of science
learned.
The teacher’s content knowledge may also play a
critical role in evaluating the students’ understanding
of science. As an illustration, one ninth-grade student’s
response to VR’s double entry activity on simple and
compound machines included the following:
I believe that electronic has no work for people for
example typewriter, laundry like that that compound machines is very nice to have. I feel that
compound machine sure helps people. . . . I think
that people use that compound machine to be lazy.
I understand that compound machine can help using hard thing (ex: life or push made it easier very
little).
Several teachers mentioned that the original writing and follow-up together improved student understanding and helped them to better see the students’
perspectives on the science being learned.
In evaluating for understanding, familiarity with
the science principles “work,” “force,” “distance,” and
“efficiency” is necessary. Whereas the naive reader may
at first see little understanding of science in this writing, the teacher familiar with the content and writing
difficulties of deaf children will see the expressions “no
work” and “lazy” as more meaningful. The expressions
indicate a basic understanding (albeit poor choice of
vocabulary) that a compound machine requires less
effort by humans, thus making it possible to do work
more efficiently; and that “very little” force (lift
[“life”], push) makes it “easier” to move a heavy object
(“hard thing”). In our dialogue with VR, she provided
perspective on the issue of her student’s content understanding and construction of knowledge:
Teacher content knowledge. There is some evidence in the
qualitative data in this study that the more content
knowledge a teacher has, the more likely the teacher
will emphasize the appropriate content in an activity.
It is often difficult to see his surface understanding,
except through the “relational” aspects. . . . What I
mean is, when I ask a knowledge question, the answer I get from this particular student is often con-
I followed up by questioning these points. I also
had the other students read and comment on the
piece. They pointed out some of the [errors]. . . . It
truly helps to weed out the misconceptions. If the
students know the information very well, then I like
to present this activity as a culminating activity.
Construction of Meaning in Writing
fusing, leading me to think that he does not understand. But when asking application or evaluation
questions, he excels, which makes me question the
validity of the question I asked for knowledge, since
I didn’t think you could “interpret” information,
without understanding its content!
Teacher’s ability to interpret writing. A teacher who uses
writing-to-learn activities in science must be able to accurately interpret the writing of a deaf student, especially one like VR’s tenth-grade student below, with frequent grammar and spelling errors:
Hello. Well my therory is matter in day or night
that cuz we have water in it and not need sun to
help in cause that day time really helps but not necessary. Day light as if you have water in potatoes
that will help grow but slower if used by sun then
it will dry faster and no water cuz that it (evironment like sun take water from soil) to help grow
potatoes. That plants in dark has more water has
no evniroment never has heard but I think that dark
are better than daylight that will make root grow
and day doesn’t. So, I think I am right for now and
I will knew soon as possible.
The teacher who received this writing was unable
to follow the student’s train of thought. We suggested
that the teacher ask follow-up questions without giving
the student an hypothesis, as one of the benefits of the
writing activity is the development of critical thinking
skills and encouraging students to make decisions for
themselves. This student thought about the various
factors and made decisions about what he felt were the
most important ones. Rather than look at the writing
sample in isolation, a teacher needs to see how students
will benefit from the accumulated effect of writing
throughout the course. VR replied to us as follows:
I guess I was so frustrated with the entry that I did
not think! The lab is comparison of amount of
sprouts on potatoes when they are left in the dark
vs when they are kept in a well-lit area. The assignment was to give me their hypothesis. . . . As far as
leading him . . . I felt so confused by what he had
written that I wondered if he would follow the direction I was going even if it wasn’t his direction? I
273
hesitate to ask for clarification when I might be
putting words into their hands that they might pick
up rather than staying with their own. Since they
have completed the lab, and he and I have discussed
it, I realize that what you gathered was what he
meant.
In summary, the patterns identified through the inductive analysis of the 228 student writing samples and
teacher commentary show that writing-to-learn strategies are differentially useful in the science classroom.
That is, if the construction of meaning is to be examined in the writing, certain writing strategies may be
more useful than others in certain contexts. A number
of conditions may optimize the construction of meaning during a specific writing-to-learn activity.
Discussion
This study has focused on the use of writing in the context of action-oriented science classrooms. From our
analyses of teacher commentary and student writing,
we conclude that each of the four writing strategies had
certain benefits and limitations for teaching science to
students who are deaf. The samples generated by these
strategies indicated certain kinds of learning, and their
effectiveness in promoting learning depended on certain instructional conditions. The results of this study
point to implications for the use of writing in science
education, for the education of teachers, and for further research.
The Use of Writing in Science Education
The four strategies were variously useful for focusing
students on science concepts. The creative piece encouraged individual choice and expression, much to
the surprise and delight of some of the teachers. This
type of writing allowed students to focus on a unique
aspect of a concept or phenomenon and create a scenario around that aspect. The drawback for teachers
was that students occasionally got carried away in their
scenarios and strayed from scientific fact. The double
entry also allowed individual choice and expression. In
selecting and responding to text, students were encouraged to make individual, personal associations with the
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content of a text. Further, students’ responses allowed
the assessment of reading comprehension and construction of meaning. However, this strategy required
careful selection of texts by the teacher and intermediate to advanced reading ability on the part of the students.
From the teachers’ point of view, the strategies
were variously useful in assessing student understanding. In a general sense, end-of-class reflection provided
teachers with guidance for subsequent instruction.
These samples revealed which points in the class were
remembered or missed and which needed review in
subsequent lessons. To assess understanding of a concept, the double entry and creative piece were much
more effective than the end-of-class reflection samples.
The latter samples were simply too brief and note-like
to show elaboration of thought or to allow assessment
of understanding. As Kelly (1995) notes, different writing assignments may impose varying degrees of cognitive demand. Based on the classification system developed by Purves, Soter, Takala, and Vahapassi (1984),
Kelly concludes that the closer a writing activity approaches reproduction of original information, the less
cognitive demand there is. The results of this study indicate that the amount of cognitive demand required
by the double entry depended on the teacher’s instructions with regard to constructing meaning. Only additional research will shed light on the most appropriate
instructions to elicit the desired construction.
With regard to the writing per se, teachers noted
that students’ attitude toward the use of writing in the
science class generally improved the more they used
these strategies. However, sophisticated uses of language, such as assuming alternative perspectives and
asking reflective questions, were evident only in the
longer samples generated by creative piece prompts or
double entry texts.
In these analyses, we have defined science learning
as the use of science processes, the grasp of new concepts, the construction of new concepts, and the transfer of new concepts to new situations. Instances of each
type of learning appeared in the samples analyzed here.
Two of the strategies seemed suited to the expression
of particular types of learning. Guided free writing was
suited to teaching the science processes. This strategy
also appears to satisfy the criteria Bettencourt (1993)
established for authentic science activity to be effective
from a constructivist perspective. He argued that before the activity, there should be a question; during the
activity, there has to be a reflection on the phenomena
encountered; and after the activity, there should be an
accounting of what happened. On the other hand, the
creative piece was suited for showing the construction
of new concepts. In the contexts of their own imaginations, some details reflected scientific fact and others
did not.
There was great variability in the writing samples.
Age and writing ability varied as did student attitude
and experience vis-á-vis writing. Other sources of variation revealed by the analyses were the instructional
conditions surrounding the use of the writing strategies. Apart from the student variables, it was apparent
that effective use of each writing strategy depended on
variables controlled by the teacher. The clarity of the
writing prompt (or instructions), the focus of the science lesson and associated writing, and the planning
and use of follow-up activities all influenced the quality
and quantity of the science writing. In addition, the
teachers’ content knowledge and the teachers’ experience with unedited student writing played a role in
evaluating understanding of science concepts. Thus,
this study indicates that students can benefit from the
use of these strategies if use is predicated on appropriate training, solid content knowledge, and experience on the part of the teacher.
Implications for Teacher Education
Through dialogue with the authors, the teachers themselves constructed new meaning as they experimented
with these writing-to-learn strategies and incorporated
them into their teaching. One example is the discussion
we had with VR about an instructional prompt for the
creative piece during a lesson on simple machines (Appendix 1). VR’s objectives included teaching the relationship between the force exerted on the machine (input) and the force exerted by the machine (output), and
the relationship between the distances through which
these forces were exerted. Her first effort with an instructional prompt encouraged the students to develop
description skills. Specifically, she used the gaming
strategy, “What Machine Am I?” Students described
Construction of Meaning in Writing
themselves as a lever, pulley, inclined plane, or another
simple machine, and the class was expected to guess
which machine was being described. Following the discussion of the results, she realized that using a different
instructional prompt such as “I Can Lift 500 Pounds!”
would likely elicit writing that would focus more on
the relationships between weights and distances. Such
writing would allow her to examine the students’ conceptions of lifting large weights with a lever, for example, by exerting forces at different distances from
the fulcrum.
The teachers in this study also learned of the importance of the “discrepant event,” which, when introduced during an authentic science activity, challenges
students’ expectations. Examples included the objects
having different weights falling at the same rate (gravity), and the plastic bag full of water not leaking when
punctured with a pencil (molecules/materials). This
notion of discrepant events has been studied in the
context of reading comprehension processes of deaf
children. Schirmer (1993) writes that active cognitive
processing is more likely to occur when readers encounter text material that does not completely confirm
their expectations. Similar findings have been reported
in studies with hearing students in science (Hewson &
Hewson, 1984).
Teachers in this study who taught by asking the
whole class questions noted that in this tradition only
the best students responded. The use of writing allowed the teachers to see each student’s responses to
such questions, without mimicking what peers may
have said. In conjunction with writing, the teachers in
this study also experimented with cooperative learning,
gaming strategies, and other techniques to increase
participation and social interaction among students in
processing the learning activities and constructing
meaning in science.
The social constructivist approach to teaching appeared in many forms, such as in CB’s encouragement
of “brainstorming” through student interaction. Similarly, as shown in Appendix 2, KR encouraged her students to construct meaning through social discourse by
raising questions and hypotheses about what happened
in the guided free writing activity on the ecosystem of
worms. She saw the writing solidify thinking, especially through question posing and follow-up activities.
275
KR also mentioned the construction of meaning in her
genetics activity, which employed the double entry
writing strategy: “I think it helped them think for
themselves. Everyone understood something about the
paragraph. They have just compiled a list of ‘questions
I would ask Gregor Mendel’ and [they] are answering
some of their own questions raised from the reading.”
The social constructivist teacher views learning as
a dialogical process. This dialogue in its various forms
(signed, spoken, written) is essential for generating new
meaning during the writing activities. Teachers need to
respond to student writing in order to share interpretations, clarify understanding, facilitate understanding,
and model good writing. In this study, the writing often
showed the teacher which students needed follow-up
or order to elaborate or clarify.
A social constructivist approach allows the teacher
to shift roles, finding the one most appropriate in encouraging deaf learners to take new sensory information, compare it to stored knowledge in long-term
memory, and construct new meanings in authentic science contexts. As Bettencourt (1993) explains, constructivism brings us the appreciation of a student’s
efforts to generate new meaning. When a student’s account appears strange to us, our best response may be
to try to understand why the student’s idea seemed
sensible at the time. A harsh judgment of its correctness may influence motivation negatively. Through the
dialogical process, the teacher can challenge the student about the adequacy of a conception.
Constructivists caution against relying on lecture
as a method. They advocate the careful use of lectures
interspersed with encounters of constraints, as well as
discussions, time for reflection, and opportunities to
use the ideas in different situations (Bettencourt,
1993). The teacher’s role is to take account of what students know, encourage social interaction among learners such that they can negotiate meaning, and introduce a variety of sensory experiences from which
learning is built (Von Glaserfeld, 1993). The teacher
should also monitor student understandings and guide
discussions so that all students have opportunities to
express their understandings in language and engage
in activities such as clarifying, elaborating, justifying,
and evaluating alternative points of view (Tobin &
Tippins, 1993). By using writing, the teachers in this
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study provided time for reflection, encouraged students to use ideas in different situations, and monitored and maximized their interaction in the process of
negotiating meaning.
Our analysis of the first attempts by these teachers
to systematically obtain and evaluate writing samples
in authentic science contexts showed a critical need for
training in how to incorporate writing-to-learn strategies effectively. Our colleagues in this study expressed
a need for effective techniques for dealing with pragmatic interpretations of deaf students’ writing. The
goal is to develop confidence in understanding the
writing of deaf students and the knowledge of how to
build on this understanding. The constructivist teaching approach requires a transition from viewing learning as an acquisition of scientific knowledge to a
perspective on learning as engagement with scientific
ideas (Gallagher, 1991). As Rivard (1994) concluded,
training in writing-to-learn activities can illustrate this
engagement to teachers and thereby encourage them to
employ such activities with their students.
The results of this study indicate that content expertise is essential for teachers wanting their students
to use writing to construct knowledge. Like their hearing peers, deaf adolescents identify content knowledge
as the most important characteristic of an effective
teacher (Lang, McKee, & Conner, 1993). Some investigators have claimed that the academic achievement of
deaf students depends, in part, on their teachers’
knowledge of the subject (Kluwin & Moores, 1985). Ingersoll (1999) writes that the effects of being taught by
a teacher without a strong background in a field may
be just the kind of outcome not captured in student
scores on standardized examinations. Whether we are
concerned with performance on standardized tests, academic achievement in subject areas, or, as in this
study, the use of writing strategies to teach and evaluate
learning, the teacher’s own mastery of the subject is an
important factor. One teacher commented on the practice of interrupting a lesson to look information up in
order to respond to students’ questions:
I find myself doing this and vow that I will do whatever I can to get beyond it. . . . We science teachers
need to know] our inadequacies, but not to feel de-
feated or criticized, but inspired to improve for the
sake of our students. . . . I feel like [this discussion]
has given me “the key to a bulldozer” and the blue
prints are taking form.
Implications for Further Research
This study focused on science learning and teacher
variables, not on the students’ reading or writing abilities. Little is known about how the variables studied
here relate to student characteristics. More research,
for example, is needed to identify the most effective
writing-to-learn strategies that may also improve
learning to write. Musselman and Szanto (1998) have
summarized how learning to write, especially grammatical complexity, may be sensitive to writing genre.
Are aspects of writing-to-learn dependent on genre?
Studies of systematic and sustained use of one or
more writing-to-learn strategies might shed light on
the relationship of student writing ability to the learning of course content. Additional research on such
strategies as question posing, follow-up, or variations
in instructional prompts may add to the body of knowledge and improve science learning through time. We
need to better understand how teachers establish explicit goals and provide coherent instructions. At present, we know little about the influence of signed, spoken, or written instructions for writing activities on the
detail and content of the samples obtained. More research is also needed on how prior knowledge, writing
tasks, and content learning are interrelated. Classroom
use of expressive writing and the relationship between
writing and critical thinking and between writing and
conceptual change are largely unexplored avenues in
science education. How might teachers and students
optimize conceptual change? Examining patterns in
student writing may assist teachers interested in incorporating the strategies, as well as researchers interested
in further investigation of writing to learn during authentic science experiences. The results of this qualitative study also suggest that additional research is
needed to examine whether writing activities facilitate
deep-level cognitive processing. For example, does
guided free writing help students test their hypotheses?
More research on motivational aspects of writing
Construction of Meaning in Writing
may also be helpful in understanding how deaf students perceive both science and English literacy. Several teachers offered unsolicited comments about the
effect of combining science and writing-to-learn activities. Comments like MF’s lead us to believe further research in this area would be fruitful:
The class showed childlike enthusiasm when they
saw the bottle of soap bubbles and various wands.
After explaining how we would see the full spectrum of colors reflected by the varying thickness
of soap, they enjoyed a few minutes of blowing
bubbles. I stopped them periodically to re-focus on
the science concepts, they made many observations. . . . When their scientific process was completed and class discussion accomplished, they enthusiastically began their first Science Journal
entry. Language and confidence levels affected the
length of journal entries greatly. Because this was
the first journal entry, I didn’t want to push for too
much. I felt it most important that they associate
the journal with a pleasurable place of their own. I
did require of them to write and/or contemplate
their entry for at least ten minutes. Comfort with
language and feeling secure in understanding the
assignment varied. . . . They completed the task
and seemed to enjoy having this book of their own.
The motivational dimension found in the teacher
commentary also applied to their own instruction and
pursuit of action research. Teachers indicated that they
would carry out the writing activities differently the
next time they incorporate them in science. This naturalistic study reminded them of the various functions
of writing: to question, to speculate, to communicate.
They saw the particular need to collaborate with researchers in further investigating whether writing, by
its very nature, can enhance learning in their classrooms.
Received August 18, 2000; revision received February 23, 2001;
accepted March 20, 2001
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Appendix 1
Creative Pieces
1. Digestive System (7th Grade)
BW asked her biology students to design a model of the
human digestive system using paper cutouts for each
organ. Upon completion, they wrote a creative piece,
in which they imagined themselves as a cookie passing
through the human body.
BW3’s Writing
“Chocolate Chip Cookie Adventure”
My friends and I am a chocolate chip cookies. My
friends and I are sitting on a plate waiting for people to
come and eat us. Later on there was a young boy named
Kevin. He took one of the cookies, wwhich [which] was
me. I was scared to death! Kevin put me into his
mouth. His mouth looked sharp and had many over
lapping teeth. Then suddenly he bit me. Half of my
body was bitten off. After that my body was all broken
up in many small pieces and I was squeezed into hos
[his] very thin esophaung [esophagus] which was very
dark. I saw something whit [white] below. afteer [After]
a while all of me was slipped into his stomach which
had a bunch of other foods and drinks. I was stuck in
his stomach until I was alls [all] squeezed into his small
intenstine [intestine.] I was all mushed up like a baby
food. When I was in the small intestine the blood cells
were cleaning me like “Seprating the parts. after that I
went out the anus into the toilet and flushed down to
the pipe.
BW’s Comments
I see two ways to be creative here. First, students might
be technically skilled in visualizing exactly what happens inside their body. Second, some students may be
so confident about these workings that they skip the
technical part and jump off to really creative writing,
not really “scientific” information. . . . Students generally showed understanding of the digestive system and
the functions of various parts of the body involved in
digesting a cookie. The trip through the body was generally accurate, although the description of the functions often lacked depth.
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2. Simple Machines (9th Grade)
VR asked the students to describe one simple machine
in a way that would allow classmates to guess which
machine was chosen (in the example below, the lever).
In retrospect, she recognized that the creative writing
game she developed may have made it difficult for her
to evaluate learning in the manner she had hoped. She
wondered if students were intentionally not using vocabulary that might give away the answer too readily:
VR1’s Writing
I have long line and short wide And I have sharp
middle of long line and fat wide that looks like board.
In the end of board it can go up or down each board
goes opposite way. I push board down other goes up
across the middle of sharp. What kind I’m?
VR’s Comments
Description uses vague terminology, “long line . . . flat
wide . . . board” for lever arm, and “sharp” for fulcrum. Activity was described well . . . “end of board
can go up or down each board goes opposite way,” and
“I push board down other goes up across the middle
of sharp.” Showing movement around the fulcrum,
and unbalancing of forces causing movement. I think
the student understands the function of a lever very
well. . . . I am unsure of their acquisition of vocabulary
. . . do they know, and are intentionally trying to confuse, or do not know the vocabulary?
3. Gravity (8th Grade)
BT asked his students to drop several objects having
different weights and write a story about gravity and
the acceleration of the objects to the earth.
BT7’s Writing
My name is Billy the ball and the boy took me to his
class to show his friend and make me embarrass. I was
scared and he brought my friend. His name is Playstation. I don’t want the boy to drop me and my friend in
the floor. I think the floor is hard and I will bounce up
and down and break the his teacher’s things on his
desk. The teacher would be unhappy but all the kids
would laugh. The boy drop me and my friend. I think
I am the heaviest than my friend. My friend is the
lightest and I will be first then my friend will be second. My friend and I went down really fast and we
touch the floor. I can’t believe that we touch the floor
and I did not win and my friend did not win we are the
same. Oh man I wish I am the best weight but we were
the same. The end.
BT’s Comments
Some of the writings were cute. I did not like this activity as an assessment as much as some of the other assessment tools. It was more difficult for the students to
understand the writing activity than it was for them to
understand the concept. Many of the kids wanted
to write statements like, “the other day in school I
dropped . . . . ” I found it was incredibly difficult for
the kids to make up a story that had a purpose. Even
with guidelines, and stated points that I wanted mentioned the students still had difficulty producing
pieces.
Having said that, there were some points that were
helpful. I was able to see in SOME of the student writing that they understood some of the basic concepts.
One student who wrote she was a book wrote, “We
were dropped on the floor guess?? It was at the same
speed why? Because gravity don’t care of the weight.” I
felt confident she had the idea right.
4. Atomic Structure and Bonding (9th Grade)
In the lesson entitled “Atom Party,” DP combined the
creative piece with the topics of atomic structure,
atomic behavior, and bonding in her chemistry class.
Prior to the writing assignment, students practiced diagramming atoms with correct placement of electrons,
following the “Octet Rule” and comparing the differences between neutral and charged ions. She turned
the activity into experiential learning by having the students move around the room, pairing up or repelling
each other (i.e., chemical bonding), and this helped
them “more easily write from their element’s perspective.”
DP1’s Writing
“Atom Party”
Hello, I’m Ne. (Neon) I’m just went to party. My protons and electrons are 10. My shell is K⫽2 L⫽8. It’s
Construction of Meaning in Writing
satisfy. I’m repel oxygen, fluorine, lithium, sulfur, and
gold. [Teacher added calcium] I’m perfect and no
needs to lend and borrow electrons from others. This
party, there is oxygen, flourine, lithium, sulfur and
gold. [Teacher added calcium] That’s why I mostly repel with them. I’m alone atoms!
DP’s Comments
Neon correctly identified her last shell as full, described herself as “perfect” and explained that she
wanted to be left alone. Calcium initially said she had
two electrons for grabs and found oxygen or sulfur for
“an equal fit.” Fluorine summarized that he needed
one more electron in his last shell and could fit with
lithium, but not with neon or calcium (although he
really could fit with calcium). Oxygen is a creative student and describes how he sees elements fighting for
electrons during the party but manages to introduce
himself to lithium and get one electron. On the way out
chlorine tried to steal it but he beat him up to keep
the electron. While there are some small errors in their
writings, the goal of the activity was for students to
have practice with the idea that number and placement
of electrons determines chemical reactivity and tendencies for behavior.
Appendix 2
Guided Free Writing
1. Static Electricity (8th Grade)
BT asked his students to predict “What will happen
when I rub a fluorescent light bulb and plastic bag together?” and to record their observations and conclusions.
BT6’s Writing
Prediction: I think it will light come on or stactic electricity or rub it and light on.
Observation: Mr. [BT] have a long long and a sack.
He hold the light on the back and front and rub back
and front to make the light come on.
Explanation: Static electricity—when 2 things rub
together, it makes static electricity. You use your bag
and hold the light and you rub it and it will shock when
279
you rub it. it is shock the gas with the bag and it will
light on.
BT’s Comments
The idea behind the project is to try and “show” the
electric charge that happens when friction occurs. With
all of the other rubbing activities (shoes on carpet, balloon, etc.) the students could feel the static, but were
unable to see it. I was hoping the students would be
able to “see” the electricity and understand the concept
better. . . . The writing helped lots in trying to figure
out whether or not the students understood. I believe
the students understood what happened. I don’t believe, however, that the students were able to grasp all
of the vocabulary involved. I need to come up with
some activities that really hammer in those vocabulary
words/concepts . . . [and] I need to work with them
some more on getting them to explain WHY/HOW it
happened. Slowly, but surely they’re getting it.
2. Crystals (9th Grade)
AJ3’s Writing
Before: I think that the experiment will look like crystal
blue diamonds or something else.
After: The experiment really was what I expected.
The solution was encredile because the CuSO4 has dissolve & turn into crystals.
AJ’s Comments
I feel that this writing activity did help me assess
whether or not the students understood the basic principles of crystallization. I subscribe to the notion that
if the students are able to explain back to me what I
have just said or taught, then they must have a grasp
on the concept. I feel that I would have gotten a better
idea if they understood had my directions about the
second writing been more clear. I now know this for
next time! . . . There is only one thing I would like to
change. The second time I asked the students to write,
my directions were “Write about what you saw happen
to the experiment.” Judging by the students’ second
writing samples, I feel that many students misunderstood it as “Write about what you saw.” I found that
most of the students wrote a description of what the
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crystal looked like, rather than an explanation about
its formation.
Appendix 3
End-of-Class Reflections
3. Contributions to an Ecosystem/Worms
(10th Grade)
KR6’s Writing
Week 1
When we filled our worm column we had a lot of leaves
in the column. We had newspaper and had 11 red
worms. I put 1/2 inch of soil. Poured 2 cups of water
(OPPS!!!!). I mixed all the items with a stick so after a
week I can see what is going to happen.
Week 2
So after a week, I dumped all of my soil out and MAN
did I see more tiny worms just look likes baby ones.
Some of the leaves were smaller because the worms ate
the leaves. The newspaper were tangled on the soil because I put too much water in the column.
1. My concern about how come do I have more worms
that before?
2. How do they make more babies?
3. Do they have sex or have some kind of talent to
make babies?
KR’s Comments
What did I think of their conclusions? I liked that it
raised questions and hypotheses as to what happened.
I like the writing about the experience because it really
solidifies thinking. Often they will raise questions or
mention something in passing and that is exactly what
happens—it gets passed up and not followed up
on. . . . Most were curious about worm reproduction
(and upon thinking about it I became quite curious
about worm reproduction myself! Yikes, how does it
happen??). So we will research sexual and asexual reproduction and figure out the love life of the common
worm.
1. Endangered Species (9th Grade)
BW3’s Writing
1. The zoo save tigers
2. More baby tigers. How? Mate.
3. Zoo finish tigers free.
BW6’s Writing
1. Put endanger tiger in zoo
2. Don’t go near where tiger life. If you do then tiger
will attack you then you will have to shot it. Then tiger
is gone. So don’t go near.
3. Stop people to poison to anmals because Tiger eat
them then tiger have poison too then it will die.
BW’s Comments
The lesson was about the South China Tiger, which is
nearly extinct. Management of the zoo tigers was emphasized. Before the lesson students were given large
index cards. They were told to write 3 important points
about tigers as endangered species. . . . It was too
much material to cover in one lesson. I don’t think the
index cards accurately reflect the students’ understanding. If those same students were to sign about the
tiger lesson, anyone would be impressed. Writing sentences is definitely not their strong point. Knowing the
students, I can “read into” the few words they put
down. I would definitely repeat the index card summary method many times during the year. As the year
went on, I’m sure these students would improve. They
barely understood what to do this first time.
2. Migration of Eastern Bluebirds
(11th Grade)
LR1’s Writing
1. The declined of the Eastern Bluebirds and we are
trying to get them more larger
2. The habitats of the Eastern Bluebirds
3. The two non-native birds and how they have came
here. They were the reason that the Eastern Bluebird
was declined.
Construction of Meaning in Writing
LR’s Comments
I would say that the end of class reflection definitely
gave me a framework to begin with. Knowing [LR1] as
I do, I knew that she had retained more details than
she wrote about, but this gave me a chance to pull the
additional information from her. Therefore, I don’t see
the response being the end all as to whether or not she
learned the information, but rather whether or not she
can express a thought completely. For others it can provide a starting point for reflection, as could also be
done with [LR1]. I do think it if was used more, they
would get used to refining the information on their own
without as much prodding. This in fact would foster
better critical thinking skills.
The students basically had a great reaction to my
request to do this exercise. As I stated before, they
seem to enjoy pulling out their science journals. They
get a real feeling of accomplishment from using it. I
also notice, they enjoy reflecting on past projects and
entries. The one drawback is that sometimes some of
my students do not put their best work into it. They
tend to get a little sloppy. This varies from student to
student.
3. Canned Food Safety (7th Grade)
KR5’s Writing
Science
1. There is a bad thing are leaking, bulging, spurting
liquid, and the off-odor.
2. When you cut open the metal can, put the food in
the cooking and if see any bad foam, that is bacteria,
food poisoning.
3. Foam is light clear white little the bubble.
Question
1. Why are bulging, leaking, spurting liquid may cause
the body sick?
2. When you open the can it smell little bad, then can
they eat it?
3. How does can the factory separate the good and bad
food in the metal?
KR’s Comments
This activity was a bit more traditional in that they
were given information, it was discussed as a group,
281
and then summarized. . . . But, surprisingly, they enjoyed it because it was on an overhead and they got to
move around (stand up, go to the overhead, etc.). Their
reflections did confirm to me that they understood
what to look for in food spoilage. As far as what to do
next, further information was requested on food poisoning and its symptoms so we will explore that next.
Appendix 4
Double Entry
1. Genetics (11th Grade)
In this lesson on genes, in which a paragraph on Gregor Mendel was copied and a reaction was written, KR
modified the instructions and encouraged the students
to ask questions as part of their response. This approach provided more detail in the students’ interpretations and conceptions. The questions provide the basis for dialogic interaction.
KR3’s Writing
Original Text
The history of genetics began with a monk named Gregor Mendel working in the garden of a small monastery
in Eastern Europe. Mendel, whose parents were Austrian peasants, was born in 1822. He entered the monastery at the age of 21 and was ordained a priest 4 years
later. In 1851, Mendel was sent to the University of
Vienna to study science and mathematics. After he left
the university, Mendel spent the next 14 years working
at the monastery and teaching at a nearby high school.
In addition to teaching, Mendel also looked after the
monastery garden. Here he grew hundreds of pea
plants. Mendel experimented with the pea plants to see
if he could find a pattern in the way certain characteristics were handed down from one generation of pea
plants to the next.
Double Entry
Gregor Mendel had started to investigate what happens to the genetics in plants, that is almost similar to
people. He started to work in the monastery at the age
of 21, in 1851 he went to college to study science and
math. When he was 25 years old he became a priest.
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He had worked at the monastery after college and
started to grow plants to find out about genetics. He
discovered new things but couldn’t explain what the do.
1. What does the word monastery mean?
2. In my head, I wonder how many years did Mendel
spent at Vienna? It didn’t say.
3. Did he ever dreamed of doing this?
4. Did people in Europe or around the world get fascinate at what he had discovered?
5. What made him wanting to do something with
science?
6. What did he discovered after the pea plants?
KR’s Comments
All seemed a bit apprehensive when I said write whatever they want. Some had immediate questions and
some asked me for the meanings of those words. . . . I
found it a good form of evaluation for me. Discussion
of their entries also brought out more and helped me
to see what they got and what they didn’t. Yes, I will
try this strategy again!
2. Compound Machines (9th Grade)
VR3’s Writing
Original Text
A car is not one of the six simple machines you have
just learned about. The car is, however, a combination
of simple machines. There are wheels and axles, a gearshift lever, a set of transmission gears, a brake lever, and
a steering wheel. There are only a few of the simple
machines in a car.
A car, bicycle, watch, can opener, and typewriter
are examples of compound machines. Most of the machines you use every day are compound machines. A
compound machine is a combination of two or more
simple machines. You are surrounded by a great variety
of compound machines. How many compound machines do you have in your home? A partial list might
include a washing machine, VCR, blender, sewing machine, and vacuum cleaner. Compound machines make
doing work easier and more enjoyable. But remember
that machines, simple or compound, cannot multiply
work. You can get no more work out of a machine than
you put into it!
Double Entry
I think Compound Machine is a thing that I just
learned. I think it was a good section describing about
compound machine. I feel that I learned it & it is an
interesting section to learn. I understood them like:
The meaning of a compound machine is a combination two or more simple machine. And you cannot multiply those two which is simple machine or compound
machine⫻work. Compound machines make it more
easier & more enjoyable for people to use. A car is one
of a compound machine.”
VR’s Comments
I like this kind of entry because of the thinking-outloud.” The student is not inhibited by the quest for the
“right” answer, and just muses on the meaning of it all.
Sometimes, too, depending on the English proficiency,
I like to “chat” about what they wrote, to see if they
wrote what they meant, or chose words that were “inaccurate.” . . . This student is probably more involved
with the machines than are the others, because he
comes from a farm family. I think that gives his understanding a little different “flavor.” I like this strategy. . . . Instead of answering “knowledge” questions
on every article, the students can choose their own connection with each passage, and show me what that is!
. . . How often would I use this strategy? Probably once
per unit. By that I mean that I can see a good avenue
for it to be an article chosen from outside the text, or
whatever. The student reads the article, then chooses
some small piece of it to “double entry.” It would then
give me the chance to see the student’s personal connection with the subject . . . and also an insight to their
carry-over of vocabulary, etc.
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