In this study, we analyzed the quality of students' written scientific explanations found in notebooks and explored the link between the quality of the explanations and students' learning. We propose an approach to systematically analyzing and scoring the quality of students' explanations based on three components: claim, evidence to support it,…

This study aims to add to the growing research related to the implementation of non-traditional writing tasks in classrooms to encourage science literacy. A secondary reanalysis methodology was employed to review student interviews collected as a part of several individual studies during a ten year research program. This method established an…

Students in a treatment group turned in written summaries of eight lectures, which were returned with chemistry and writing mistakes noted. Although achievement gains were found, results may have been due to the processes involve in organizing/writing the summaries or to the additional time required to complete the assignments. (JN)

Reviews literature on writing to learn in science to develop a conceptual framework and an agenda for future research. Asserts that research is still needed in this area to generalize across a variety of science classrooms and to elucidate principles for guiding effective teacher use of writing-to-learn strategies. Includes 92 references. (ZWH)

Examines how instruction in scientific writing in a university oceanography course communicated epistemological positions of the discipline. Uses an ethnographic perspective to explore how teachers and students came to define particular views of disciplinary knowledge. Identifies epistemological issues such as uses of evidence, role of expertise,…

Reports on some of the findings of a study involving 25 inner-city students and designed to use students' writing to follow their conceptual changes over a 12-week science unit. Students' writing showed changes in central concepts, complexity, and organization as the lessons progressed. Contains 31 references. (ZWH)

Establishes a broad framework from which to interpret and evaluate the reading-science learning-writing connection. Intends to outline the established links between, identify current bottlenecks in thinking about, and highlight productive inquiries into print-based languages and scientific understanding. (ZWH)

Examines the thinking processes of 16 eighth grade science writers during laboratory report writing and explores the possibility that writing can contribute directly to science learning. Five students exhibited no mental reflection during writing whereas nine students demonstrated scientific problem solving including hypothesis and evidence…

Examines the relationships among instructors' course goals, instructional activities, and students' assessment of their learning of content and writing in writing-intensive undergraduate natural and applied science courses. Finds that instructors are described along a continuum anchored by instructor-as-corrector on one end and…

Three classes of ninth-grade general science students participated in a collaborative report-writing intervention study. Students' collaboratively written laboratory reports were evaluated for evidence of the use of scientific reasoning skills and to document qualitative changes in reasoning skills over time. Concludes that collaborative writing…

Whereas there has been strong advocacy of the value of writing for learning in science, the role of student planning in this approach and the relationships between planning, writing, and learning have been underresearched. Our mixed method study aimed to address this issue by seeking to identify quantitative differences in learning outcomes…

Written and oral communications and the processes of writing and reading are highly valued within the scientific community; scientists who communicate well are successful in gaining recognition and support from members of their own communities, the research funding agencies, and the wider society. Yet how do scientists achieve this proficiency?…

Challenges ways in which a positivist view of science has led to hegemonic discourse on writing to learn science and highlights contradictions in this discourse. Argues for pedagogy that draws on critical, feminist, and hegemonic pedagogies and incorporates affective, creative, critical, cognitive, and diverse language practices set within…

The article to which this essay responds advises risky practices that trouble traditional distinctions between science and not-science (things not scientific in nature), particularly its argument to politicize science as a way to organize teaching. Raises questions about science as a regime of truth in a place where such questions carry much…

This multiple case study examined the coauthorship process in research laboratories of different university departments. The study focused on two cases comprising five writing teams, one in biochemistry and microbiology and four in earth and ocean sciences. The role of the research supervisor, the role of the student (graduate and postgraduate),…