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Reading and Academic Discourse: Communicate Like Scientists

Why Focus on Reading and Academic Discourse?

In today's global, high-tech, demanding, and competitive workplace, there is an essential need for professionals who are not only innovative thinkers, but can also communicate their ideas both verbally and in written form. The immense foundation for these communication skills must be built early in student's primary and secondary education prior to their rigorous collegiate or professional studies.  

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Regarding the specific literacy deficits with the students entering Animo Pat Brown Charter High School, 75% or more of our 9th graders are below grade level in reading, with ~25% reading on a low elementary school level. Therefore, we wanted to actively focus on reading in science to help our students build the essential skills to become college and professional workforce-ready. Reading Apprenticeship (RA), from WestEd, offers a research-based scaffold from elementary reading levels (remediation) all the way to college-readiness. The RA program is supported by a range of studies that demonstrate marked improvements in student achievement. Through the professional development experiences afforded by the grant, such as RA, our team had great success in advancing in the areas of reading and academic, student-led discourse.

RA images.jpg 

Our Experience with Reading & Academic Discourse Professional Development

The Reading Apprenticeship Approach:

Reading Apprenticeship (RA) is an extensive professional development program aimed at improving student's academic literacy. RA draws on teachers' untapped expertise as discipline–based readers and on students' untapped strengths as learners. The result is a research–based, research–tested partnership that benefits students and teachers alike. Randomized controlled studies have shown that with RA:

  • Teachers increase the effectiveness of their disciplinary teaching.
  • Students build both reading and subject area competence.
  • Students gain the dispositions to engage, problem solve, and persevere when faced with challenging academic texts.

 Reading Apprenticeship Framework


Outcomes of Reading and Academic Discourse

Prior to the professional development we received through the grant, our science classrooms were all but void of reading and discussion. Our team admits that because of the disadvantaged reading abilities of our students, it was easier to "teach" the science content to students directly, often via power point lecture, rather than use any sort of text (textbook, journal article, pop culture article, etc.) as an interactive resource for students. Although we were all considered "strong and successful" educators, as evidenced by our student's high standardized test scores, we knew we were doing our students a major disservice regarding their potential success in college and beyond.

Through the professional development we were afforded from the grant, we quickly realized that reading, writing, and discussion were highly essential skills to student's long-term growth and success. Almost overnight, our approach to teaching changed. Nearly every lesson required reading some sort of text that required students to engage metacognitively, and then share their thoughts and/or confusion in academic student-led discussions. Each of us were blown away by the new levels of depth, discovery, and questioning our students were experiencing because of our adapted pedagogy focused on literacy development through science content. 

Below are some examples of resources we created because of the professional development we received.

Reading Think-Aloud Stems:

 

Think-aloud Reading Stems
 

These are given to students as bookmarks for them to use whenever they read a text. The sentence stems give them ideas on how to make their thoughts, connections and areas of confusion "visible" as they read (click on image for PDF version).

 

Academic Discussion Sentence Starters: 

These sentence starters can be given to students as support to help them practice speaking academically (click on image for PDF version).

 

Academic Discussion Sentence Starters

 

11th Grade Chemistry Class Academic Discussion transcript

Full transcript is linked here

Background: At the start of class, students worked silently on whiteboards for 5 minutes on a prompt (shown in linked transcript), which was projected at the front of the classroom. When the 5 minute timer went off for the independent warm-up problem, the teacher began the student-facilitated discussion, keeping track of which students spoke on a seating chart for accountability:
  • Teacher: Who would like to start off the discussion?
  • Areli: I would like to start off by reading the formula. CH4 gas plus O2 gas produces carbon dioxide gas and H2O gas. Shanae, would you like to move us on?
  • Shanai: Stacey, could you tell us which are the reactants and which are the products?
  • Stacey: The reactants are CH4 and O2 and the products are carbon dioxide and H2O. 
  • Areli: Elizabeth… [Elizabeth’s hand is raised]
  • Elizabeth: I would like to answer the first question which says ‘What happens when the temperature increases?’ The higher the temperature, the more collisions that will happen.
  • Luis: [to Elizabeth] Can you please explain why?
  • Elizabeth: Nicolas, would you like to explain?
  • Nicolas: [After a short ~10 sec. pause while he thinks and laughs] This will happen because the molecules will have more kinetic energy which will cause the particles to collide more often therefore making the reaction rate increase. Daisy, do you have a question?
  • Daisy: I have a question about this problem. If the temperature increases what will increase, the reactants or products? [~5 sec. pause. Brandon’s hand is raised] Brandon?
  • Brandon: Well, if the temperature increases, won’t the reactants be consumed more making more of the product at a faster rate? [~5 sec. pause while class processes what Brandon said. Jule’s hand raises] Um, Julie.

  • Julie: I agree. I would like to move us on to letter b “more O2 gas is added to the reaction at a constant volume.” I wasn’t really sure what would happen, but I guessed that there would be more products made. [~5 sec. pause, Shanai’s hand goes up] Shanai?

  • Shanai: I was confused about part b too so I left it blank. But then I remembered about the demo from yesterday with the acid and zinc. The 12 molar solution had a stronger concentration than the 1 M acid solution, so the 12 M solution reacted faster. So I put that the rate of this reaction would increase because there is more O2 so the concentration of the reactants is greater just like in the demo. That would make more of the products in this case like you said Julie. [many students in the class process this and seem to have “ah ha” moments]

  • Areli: Does anyone have questions? Luis?

  • Luis: I would like to add on that if you add more oxygen molecules, you will have more collisions because there are more molecules present.

  • Shanai: Would someone like to close the discussion since all the questions seemed to be answered?

  • Areli: I still have a question. You know how when the temperature is increased it produces the products faster and so does if you add more O2?  Does this mean they have a similar impact on the reaction?

  • Claudia: Yes I think both a) and b) have a similar effect since they both produce more collisions.

 

Other Helpful Links

 Academic Discourse & Literacy

 

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