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Education Faculty Articles and Research Attallah College of Educational Studies

2004

Making Thinking Visible: A Method to Encourage Science Writing

in Upper Elementary Grades
Roxanne Greitz Miller
Chapman University, [email protected]

Robert C. Calfee
University of California - Riverside

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Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, and the Science and Mathematics Education
Commons

Recommended Citation
Miller, R. G., & Calfee, R. C. (2004). Making thinking visible: A method to encourage science writing in
upper elementary grades. Science and Children, 42(3), 20-25.

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Making Thinking Visible: A Method to Encourage Science Writing in Upper
Elementary Grades

Comments
This article was originally published in Science & Children, volume 42, issue 3, in 2004.

Copyright
National Science Teachers Association

This article is available at Chapman University Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/

education_articles/23
 Copyright © 2004, National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Reprinted with permission from
Science and Children, Vol. 42, No. 3, Nov/Dec 2004. For more information, go to http://www.nsta.org/elementaryschool

Making
Thinking
Visible A method to encourage
science writing in upper
elementary grades

By Roxanne Greitz Miller

and Robert C. Calfee

W
hat does it mean to
“write to learn science,”
and why should we use
writing as a vehicle for
science learning when other alterna-
tives exist? Many studies have exam-
ined the role of writing in the learn-
ing process, demonstrating that
writing, in conjunction with other
activities such as reading and hands-
on experiences, contributes to
greater critical thinking, thoughtful
consideration of ideas, and better
concept learning.
We would like to add a basic and
universal observation to these findings
supporting the use of writing, particu-
larly in science: writing makes thinking
visible. Few activities can achieve what
writing can in science—enabling stu-
dents to self-assess complex content
knowledge and allowing the teacher to
assess the student in two dimensions:
overall writing ability and specific
content area achievement.

20 Science and Children

 However, for writing to fulfill these standards, care- Connecting Knowledge
fully planned and scaffolded writing activities—be- During the Connect phase, teachers used classroom
yond what we normally see in science classrooms, discussions to determine students’ prior topical knowl-
especially at the elementary level—must be imple- edge. Virtually all teachers are familiar with collabora-
mented. To illustrate this point, we will describe the tive activities such as think-pair-share, brainstorming,
Reading and Writing About Science (RWS) Project and hands-on science. A critical strategy in the RWS
conducted between 2000 and 2003 with support from Project was “wall-papering” the room with written
the National Science Foundation. Twenty-one teach- documentation of these activities.
ers, with levels of experience ranging from beginner up For example, during an initial brainstorming session
to 30 years, participated in the project, teaching 587 on earthquakes, the teacher wrote students’ comments
students in grades four through six. and shared experiences on flip-chart paper to facilitate
The goal of the project was to provide upper el- the discussion and activate background knowledge.
ementary teachers with the skills to create classroom Rather than removing this artifact after the discussion
situations that integrated literacy with science, was over, it remained posted in the room for the remain-
equipping students to communicate their thinking der of the unit, during which it was revisited and revised
and understanding through exemplary science read- as necessary by both teacher and students.
ing and writing activities. This approach aimed to This technique was especially important in our local
produce deeper science concept learning, while also area, where large numbers of students who are at-risk or
serving as an authentic indicator of student achieve- English language learners benefited from the instant
ments in science and literacy. availability of ideas and vocabulary to scaffold subse-
quent academic tasks. Students quickly “caught on” to
A CORE Framework the fact that they could revisit their initial sharings,
In order to make a dramatic change in the way teachers correct misconceptions, and add new knowledge
approach science writing, we found it necessary to throughout the unit.
address both science instruction as a whole and the use
of writing during various stages. To guide us in this Organizing Information
endeavor and communicate a concrete idea of an ideal Information is essential in science but it can quickly be-
foundation for highly effective science writing to come overwhelming; students need to learn strategies to
teachers, we turned to the CORE Model of Instruction Organize and manage their collections. To facilitate orga-
(Chambliss and Calfee 1998). nization, the RWS Project relied on teaching students to
The CORE Model was originally developed as a create graphic organizers before, during, and after science
representation of the manner in which reading and reading. (These same organizer structures can also be used
writing can be linked and reinforcing to each other; we for organizing information from hands-on activities.)
saw possibilities to extend this model to experiential We identified five basic graphic organizers as par-
learning (such as science inquiry). ticularly effective for organizing science content. We
The CORE Model incorporates four elements: have found that closely matching the organizer’s struc-
Connect, Organize, Reflect, and Extend. The ele- ture to the nature of the science concept is particularly
ments can be used for designing a sequence of in- effective when tasking students with subsequent writ-
structional activities. Students first connect what ing. For example, when studying tsunami, students
they already know about a topic to new science con- were shown how to construct a “falling domino” orga-
tent or experience. Then they organize information nizer, a sequential graphic that indicates cause and
from multiple sources into coherent packages. They effect (akin to what happens in a line of falling domi-
then reflect on the collection of “stuff” by discussing noes), with each occurrence causing something else to
it with others in preparation for the writing task. happen. The graphics we used with great success in-
Finally, completion of the project serves to “stretch” clude the web, linear string, falling dominoes, branch-
or extend the learning. ing tree, and matrix (See NSTA Connection for a list of
The following paragraphs expand on each of these graphics and examples).
elements. The interactive elements serve both teacher In response to post-project surveys conducted one
and students as lenses (and common language) for to three years after participation, many RWS teachers
thinking about their progress through a unit. In our commented that one of the most beneficial things they
project, teachers appreciated the logical and easy se- learned from our professional development sessions
quencing of activities; students quickly internalized the was how graphic organizers, and specifically choosing a
complementary nature of the stages and their useful- “matched” organizer rather than a more general one,
ness as aids in learning and writing. dramatically improved student writing.

November/December 2004 21
Figure 1.
Guidelines for constructing effective writing prompts.

Prompt Element Criteria Example

Focus Statement The focus statement has a twofold purpose: It activates stu- You are learning about different
dents’ prior knowledge, and it models implicitly to students that kinds of rocks and how they are
thinking before writing is critical to writing a coherent and inter- formed through the rock cycle
esting essay. Focus statements may be separated from the ac- process. Although rocks can
tual writing directive by placing them in separate paragraphs, have many differences, they all
folding over the sheet of paper, or using two separate sheets. are related to each other
through the rock cycle.

Audience Tell the students who the audience is for this composition. Giving Suppose you want to explain
the students an idea of whom they are writing to/for gives them to your parents about the
critical/essential information about tone, vocabulary, and struc- rock cycle.
ture. It also makes the writing more real to the students and
encourages them to consider audience in their writing, and, by
extension, authorship in their reading.

Form (Type) Tell the students what form the writing is to take, whether it is a Write as many paragraphs as
letter, paragraph, essay, or another form. you need to explain (1) what
the rock cycle is, (2) what the
different kinds of rocks formed
by it are, and (3) how the rocks
can be changed from one kind
into another. Be sure that your
composition has a clear begin-
ning, middle, and end.

Purpose Be specific and simple with instructions on the purpose of the General examples: “Write a
students’ writing. Use specific phrases and keep them consistent story that tells….” “Write an es-
between assignments throughout the year. say to explain….” “Write a let-
ter to convince….” “Write a let-
ter to persuade….”

Supporting Details Always remind students to give supporting details. Include a Use examples from the reading
concluding sentence in your prompt directing them to do so. passage [or an alternate/addi-
tional source, such as an experi-
ment, if it is appropriate to the
prompt] to support your writing.

Planning Space Students should be provided with space to create webs, weaves, After prompt: You may use this
and Directive and/or graphic organizers of their own design to help organize their space to plan your writing.
thoughts prior to writing. This space may be provided between the
focus and directive statements or on a facing page. A statement
directing students to use the space should be included in the prompt
(or after it) so that students (1) are encouraged to develop a written
organizer, and (2) know they are allowed to write in the blank space
(obvious to us—but not to students accustomed to being told “don’t
write in the book”). Younger students may be provided with an
advanced organizer that accompanies the writing prompt.

22 Science and Children

 Figure 2.
A sample prompt and its corresponding student writing and graphic organizer.
Teacher Prompt:
Today you learned about bacteria. You learned some are helpful while some are harmful. Pretend you are a reporter writing
an article for a fourth-grade science magazine. The title of this article should be “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” In your
writing, explain how bacteria are helpful and harmful. Also, explain how they are different and the same. Be sure your article
isn’t just a list of illnesses or symptoms that are caused by bacteria. Instead, use details and examples from your reading to
compare and contrast these bacteria. Use paragraphs to show main ideas.

Student Work:
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Bacteria can be harmful because it causes illness. It could spoil your food. For example, they make green stuff mold on old
bread and it’s bad if you eat a lot of mold.
Bacteria can help you by digesting the food you eat. It could be a toxic avenger that means it cleans up oil spills. Bacteria
rejuvenates plants to create oxygen. They are decomposers they recycle dead things back into the air, water, soil. And they
produce food and they help you make food. For example yogurt and cheese. And antibiotics is a medicine made by bacteria.
Harmful and helpful bacteria are alike because they both reproduce themselves. They are both a small size. They live
almost everywhere. They are carried by animals, air, and the water. And bacteria come from other bacteria.

Harmful Alike Helpful

They cause Reproduce Antibiotics

illness themselves in the
middle Toxic avengers help clean
Food spoilers up oil small spills
They make green stuff size
(mold) grow on old Food digesters help you
bread live almost to digest your food
everywhere break it down

carried by animals, Rejuvenators help

air, and water plants bacteria create
oxygen for decomposers
come from other Recycle dead materials
into air, water, or soil
could breathe
Food producers help you
make different food, i.e.,
yogurt and cheese

Once students completed their organizers (con- Reflecting on Learning

structed collaboratively in small groups, in large groups Metacognition and self-evaluation are large components
with the teacher, or independently) and thereby had a of all of the phases of the CORE Model; however, they
foundation for writing, they moved onto the prewriting are most prominent in the Reflect phase. During this
phase. The organizers served a dual purpose here; not phase, students reflect on their learning in large and small
only were they used to organize science concepts before groups facilitated by the teacher. At this time (prior to
and during content acquisition activities, but they were writing), students have a final opportunity to correct any
used again after—in preparation for writing. science misconceptions and solidify their content

November/December 2004 23
knowledge. Cross talk school science maga-
between students and zine, pediatric patients,
groups extends the ex- and a younger elemen-
perience of the indi- tary student. After
vidual student and fur- composing, students
ther lessens academic were given the opportu-
disparity between di- nity to share their writ-
verse students and En- ing with other students
glish language learners. and the teacher. In ad-
At the end of the re- dition to facilitating
flection phase, students in the RWS Project received writing as communication, sharing allowed students to
their writing prompt. We placed the prompt in this become familiar with how and what other students write,
phase, rather than the extend phase during which the giving them concrete examples of others’ work. Without
composition is actually written, because a significant this type of sharing, students have no idea where their
factor in writing success is the ability to effectively work stands in comparison with others; it is essential—
“dissect” a writing prompt by reflecting on the task to be particularly for students from diverse achievement lev-
performed, its components, and the knowledge needed els—to have this type of feedback and examples of out-
to perform the task. standing student writing to which they can aspire.
Immediately upon beginning to work with schools,
we found drastic inconsistencies between how teachers Evaluating the Results
structure (or do not structure) their writing prompts. A final challenge for our project was to develop a rubric
RWS teachers were trained to construct their prompts for scoring science content in student writing. Often we
to use five common elements: focus, audience, type, were confronted with a fine piece of student writing,
purpose, and supporting details. Guidelines for these coherent and well written but missing the “meat”; the
elements appear in Figure 1, page 22. challenge was to design a rubric that would enable
Teachers guided students through the prompt dis- teachers (and students) to identify key features distin-
section process, facilitating identification of individual guishing poor, fair, good, and excellent science content
prompt elements, until students were able to do so for writing from one another.
themselves. By using a consistent format, students were We aimed to design a generic rubric that could be
able, over time, to recognize more easily what they were used with virtually any science writing assignment,
being asked to do and how to set about doing it. while allowing teachers to target specific key ideas and
When first exposed to this method, teachers often benchmarks within the scoring levels. Upon examining
said that using a prompt like this was “too long and too many writing rubrics in use in science and other sub-
complicated” for their students. We persuaded them to jects, we drew upon a rubric previously published in
try anyway. The overwhelming response was longer Science Scope (Harding 2002) and adapted it consider-
and richer student responses, even with students as ably (see NSTA Connection).
young as third grade. We believe part of the success of In addition to this rubric, we also used more traditional
this system is how it not only makes the writing task rubrics for other traits (such as grammar/mechanics,
easier for the student to approach but also scaffolds spelling, and vocabulary) to give us an indication of overall
teachers in creating better-designed writing assign- student writing ability as well as content knowledge.
ments that assess student thinking and learning.
Measures of Success
Extending the Experience We addressed success of the project from two perspec-
The writing composition is the focus of the Extend tives: student and teacher. For students, writing scores
phase, with students working individually to respond to on RWS science writing assessments demonstrated
the writing prompt. Figure 2, page 23, features an ex- growth in all rubric components, with the most sub-
ample of a writing prompt along with an example of a stantial gains emerging in length and coherence.
student’s composition and graphic organizer. Fourth-grade students appeared to benefit most
The traditional “process writing” approach (de- from the program. This may be due to previous inex-
velop, draft, revise, polish, and publish) was used to perience with exposition and science content; thus,
guide the steps of the composition process. training in expository reading/writing techniques and
Toward our goal of real communication through writ- science content early in grade four may provide stu-
ing, we attempted whenever possible to target the writing dents with what they need to succeed. However, addi-
task for an authentic audience, including readers of a tional analyses showed that students who participated

24 Science and Children

in two years of the program (either in fourth and then
fifth grade or fifth through sixth grade) continued to Connecting to the Standards
increase their writing scores throughout the extended
This article relates to the following National Science
exposure to the program.
Education Standards (NRC 1996):
Additionally, and of great interest to our region, was
that students who performed poorly at the outset of the Professional Development Standards
program showed the most benefit from participation. Standard B:
Within each classroom, students were divided into Professional development for teachers of science
tertiles (low, medium, and high) based on the prewriting requires integrating knowledge of science, learning,
score. The writing performance gap between high and pedagogy, and students.
low tertile students was reduced by approximately 40 to
50 percent as a result of RWS participation. Teaching Standards
Standard B:
Teachers’ Insights Teachers of science guide and facilitate learning.
A major concern of our team was to design a science- Standard C:
writing program that “worked” in real schools with real Teachers of science engage in ongoing assessment
teachers. Results from teacher artifacts and discussion of their teaching and of student learning.
sessions showed the design was perceived as effective,
efficient, and adaptable. Long-term surveys showed
teachers continue to implement the writing strategies ject areas, discussing curriculum and instruction in lan-
outside their participation in the research project; rather guage more typical of gifted classrooms. To use a meta-
than reverting to prior practices, teachers’ change in phor to Neil Armstrong’s famous words—while what we
instructional practice is sustained, and their self-per- have learned in the RWS Project may be viewed by some
ception of knowledge regarding effective writing tech- as a small step toward effective science writing, we be-
niques continues at high levels. lieve it was a giant leap for RWS Project students toward
Teacher insights shared with us were especially their success in science and in future schooling. n
thought provoking. In a discussion of “What do you
believe about the most effective ways to teach reading Roxanne Greitz Miller (Roxanne@roxannegmiller.
and writing, from your experience in the project?”, the com) is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of
following comments emerged during a videotaped dis- California, Riverside, and a veteran science teacher in
cussion near the end of the project: the Florida public schools. Robert C. Calfee (Robert.
[email protected]) is a distinguished professor in the
• “We [teachers] realize that narrative and exposition Graduate School of Education at the University of
share features. But we now prefer exposition over nar- California, Riverside.
rative for teaching reading and writing—it’s more con-
crete, and instead of teaching narrative first to students, Acknowledgment
we think that exposition should be taught first and that The work described in this article was made possible by a
read/write instruction should be content-based.” grant from the National Science Foundation’s Interagency
• “The instructional methods we are using in RWS clue Education Research Initiative (No. 9979834).
the kids in on what the instructional format is going to
be. After doing one unit, the kids know what’s coming Resources
and prepare themselves along the way. It’s creating a Chambliss, M.J., and R.C. Calfee. 1998. Textbooks for Learn-
reflective student, not just the teacher. Students are ing: Nurturing Children’s Minds. Malden: Blackwell.
“owning” the instruction and are motivated.” Harding, T. 2002. Svithjod, stories, and songs: Rewriting
• “Instead of just creating scaffolds for content, we’re earth science in creative ways. Science Scope, 26(1):19–21.
creating scaffolds for process. We’re creating suc- National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National Science
cessful practice, and think that it will lead to suc- Education Standards. Washington, D.C.: National Acad-
cessful large-scale assessment.” emy Press.

These excerpts must be viewed as testimonials, to be NSTA Connection

sure, but the substance of the comments also merit Click on this article at www.nsta.org/elementary school
attention. These are teachers serving students with sig- for a science writing rubric and more information about
nificant needs, working with limited resources under graphic organizers.
extraordinary pressures to increase test scores in all sub-

November/December 2004 25