Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum ~ Double Entry Journal #10

In a blog posting briefly describe why it is the responsibility of all teachers to provided writing instruction for their students.

Without reading the article I can state why reading and writing is important in the field of science. Being able to read scientific textbooks, journals, articles, and so forth are challenging on its own. Being able to interpret what is being read is even more difficult. Science is a rather abstract subject and making sense of scientific mumbo jumbo as I like to call it can only be approached by the science teacher. After all, the science teacher is really the only one qualified to teach students how to read science textbooks, journals, and articles. Recently during my clinicals I had to teach 10th graders how to take a science journal and skim the article for keywords. The article was too long to read and absorb on a 10th grade level, therefore breaking the article down was essential especially in a 50 minute time period. 

The next point I would like to make is that science teachers also have the duty of teaching students how to read scientific data tables and graphs. It is one things to create a graph but being able to read the graph and interpret is a higher level of thinking. Often this level is not reached, not even in college. I believe science teachers forget that this skill is a literary skill and that no one else is more qualified to teach it. 

Writing in science is another skill that is highly important. Getting students in the mode of being scientists in the science classroom is a skill I've been working on in my science classroom. As a scientist in the community, being able to communicate your findings is often done in written form. Without the proper skills and techniques of writing, communication fails. When communication fails, the scientist's findings might as well be null and void. You'd literally be laughed out of the scientific community. Your findings certainly aren't going to be published in a journal or article. Properly done, the science teachers should be able to begin showing proper techniques of writing in science which in turn will prepare the student for the university level and so forth and so forth. I can't express how many times students enter the university level and can't write a science report. The students who lack these skills have a lot of catching up to do before they can move to a higher level.  

This is purely my point of view and I can't see that this isn't the case all the way across the curriculum. 

Quote:
Students who can read with clear comprehension and write effectively about a given subject matter will learn the material much more thoroughly than those who do not. (NCTE, 2011)

Reaction: 
I completely agree with this quote. There are certain techniques required to make an subject easier to read and comprehend such as being able to skim and scan; summarize after a few paragraphs or a chapter; finding key words; looking for headings which will help summarizing techniques; and so forth. In science, in particular this is the best way to cut through the science mumbo jumbo to find the important parts. Without these skills it is easy to get hung up in the first few paragraphs of any science literature. Being able to relate the information back in written form shows a certain amount of comprehension. I honestly believe that this eliminates a lot of the need for memorization. 

Quote:
Yet, as research shows, reading and writing cannot be learned once and for all; these skills represent complex arrays of capacities that vary from one discipline to another. Reading and writing in science is not the same as reading and writing in social studies or a technical subject like drafting. (NCTE, 2011)

Reaction:
Exactly! This information supports my opinion above. Reading and writing varies from one subject to the next. I know that I am not qualified to teach literacy in English or History but I know and feel positive that I can in Science.

Name and describe four research-based strategies to support writing instruction for students.

1. Low stake writing assessments - Break down the assessments in to key words, summarize a topic, or outline a procedure. This process gets away from the tedious long assessments that can really weigh on the student. It instead gives them quick practice sessions in reading and writing.
2. Multiple forms of feedback - Switch gears from traditional grading to peer responses, class discussion of samples, and one-on-one conferences. This helps the student view their writings from a few different perspective and builds meta cognitive skills.
3. Employ a variety of levels of reading difficulty - This technique boils down to scaffolding. If the students are always bombarded with difficult texts, especially those above grade level (such as the textbook), then they are not given the chance to practice skills at their own level and build from there.
4. Employ variety in texts and their presentations - the science classroom in particular should give students a chance to read a variety of science magazines, digital text that can be found easily on the Internet, short journals that sources such as LiveScience puts out on a daily basis (last weeks article was "New Hominid Found" which was barely a page long). Even Sci-Fi may be interesting to some students in a science classroom. Anything that grabs the attention of the student will help them practice their skills. And may even provide an interesting discussion in the classroom.

Related Source:

(sarahblaz, 2008)

This video represents the fact that unless we teach students to understand science based literacy then they will not have the skills to make informed decisions on their health, to understand the changing world around them, to make informed decisions about the ever changing environment (aka many ecological disaster are the result of ignorance), or to even make knowledgeable arguments.
Sources Cited:
NCTE. (2011). Reading and writing across the cirriculum. National Council of Teachers of English, 15-18. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CC/0203-mar2011/CC0203Policy.pdf

sarahblaz. (Producer) (2008). Scientific literacy- science education for the 21st century [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-elygXbo7s