The advocacy for writing in science and STEM-related fields through reasoning-based writing, critical thinking and argumentation has been accentuated as a core competence in curriculum documents. In South Africa, the CAPS document for Physical Sciences acknowledged the importance of writing and consequently, call on teachers to engage in teaching…

This article shares results from a qualitative research project that examines the similarities and differences in how composition textbooks and science-writing textbooks address visual communication topics. This research has two goals. First, it seeks to better understand how visual communication is practiced and valued in the composition and…

Originally published as a special issue of the "Middle School Journal," this book presents integrative curriculum as a foundational element of the middle school. By addressing the current gap in literature on curriculum integration in the middle grades, this text explores how learning can be organized around authentic concepts or…

This study examines the writing of 30 engineering students, faculty response, students' reading of the response, subsequent revision, and faculty evaluation to ask what factors contribute to constructive conversation about writing. It affirms previous research that suggests engineering faculty do not provide the facilitative commentary widely…

Writing-to-learn activities are designed to use writing as a process in which students generate and clarify understanding of scientific concepts for themselves, rather than simply communicating with a teacher for evaluation. Instead of having students parrot science facts back to the instructor, writing-to-learn activities focus on the production…

Cross-curricular secondary instructional strategies exist in many different forms and can be applied to any two or more curricular disciplines. Most importantly, these strategies have been proven to be effective in improving learning and comprehension of important concepts across all curricular fields involved in the activity. There is no…

Over the past three years, the authors have worked with kindergarten teachers to develop study units with sequences of integrated science inquiry and literacy activities appropriate for kindergartners. Their work, which is part of the Scientific Literacy Project, has been very successful. The success of the Scientific Literacy Project (SLP) is in…

Most middle school science teachers are familiar with the idea of reading and writing across the curriculum. We, as science teachers, understand that our students need time, practice, and lots of encouragement in order to learn how to read and write well. What we also need to remember, however, is that learning how to read and write in science is…

Two labs incorporating the Science Writing Heuristic are described that introduce scientific inquiry in a course for preservice students majoring in elementary education. One lab adapts a previously described discovery learning opportunity involving the change in composition and mass of pennies in 1982. The other involves the use of flotation…

Student writing skills are an important concern for every teacher. This is especially true when using inquiry-based approaches in the science classroom. Writing promotes critical-thinking skills and construction of vital scientific concepts and challenges ingrained misconceptions. Yet, many teachers encounter practical problems when incorporating…

In order to help students to make connections in science and literacy through writing, the authors present them with an open-ended question (OEQ), which is a divergent assessment in the form of a writing prompt (a situation), and directions for writing at the beginning of each major unit. Students complete this assessment by the end of the unit.…

It seems that everyone is using science journals or notebooks lately. As middle school science teachers, the authors use science journals as a tool to enhance students' knowledge and understanding of content and reinforce students' writing skills. Here they share how they use science journals to motivate students to write about science in middle…

Using "Science News" as a teaching tool promotes writing about science, talking about science, and broadening students' views about what science is. This article describes an ongoing assignment in which students choose one article from "Science News" each week and write a brief summary and explanation of why they picked that article. (Contains 1…

This study asked four experienced teachers to respond to elementary students' science writing and explain their thinking, discussing factors they considered as they made the choices that ultimately supported or undermined children's attempts to write about science. Teachers responded first in writing, then orally expanded on written comments…

Writing can be a rich source of information for science teachers who wish to take their students' present understandings into account as they plan and carry out instruction. The responses students give when asked to explain in writing what happened in an experiment can help the teacher address particular student's misunderstandings. Even writers…