Modeling Scientific Writing/Document

Modelling scientific writing

Many teachers are frustrated at the way pupils will readily engage with practical work and talk activities in science but when it comes to writing things down the pupils often fail to express themselves adequately. The OFSTED report of the third year of the National Strategy states:

‘More opportunities should be planned into lessons in order to improve the range and quality of pupils’ writing in science’.

(The Key Stage 3 Strategy: evaluation of the third year. HMI March 2004) The report goes on to say:

‘In over half of the schools there is a good balance of theoretical and investigative work, although scientific enquiry is not being systematically developed’.

Although writing about investigations is only a small part of scientific enquiry, teachers would agree that there is a weakness in pupils’ report writing. How often have you heard ‘They cannot write an evaluation to save their lives’?

The next part of this unit illustrates how modelling can help pupils improve their writing in science.

Modelling how to write an answer to an examination question is an excellent strategy to use in all year groups (not just Years 9 and 11).

Modelling how to answer test questions

Think about ways to model answers in science. Bear in mind that simply asking pupils to copy out answers is unlikely to effectively support their writing. You could, for example, provide a model for a different question and ask pupils to apply a structure to another question. You could also give keywords, dominoes, peer answers, example answers to mark and work from (or improve), quizzes, activities using highlighting/coloured marking to highlight keyterms and ideas, etc. Think about how to apply a strategy within a science lesson.

Types of writing Below is a list of the main text types that pupils are expected to write across the curriculum and in examinations.

Text type	Examples
Instructions	Recipes, directions
Recount	Stories, experimental write-ups
Explanation	The rain cycle, mathematical conclusions
Information	Food in Roman Britain, the properties of mercury
Persuasion	Advertisements, manifestos
Discursive writing	Magazine articles, discursive essays
Analysis	Literary criticism, analytical essays, data tables or charts
Evaluation	Critical reviews, reflection on outcome

Reproduced from Literacy Across the Curriculum (DfES 0235/2001)

Identifying text types

From the list above, identify which text types you are going to use in the next unit you are teaching. Think about how you will introduce the writing tasks. What will you tell pupils about what is required when writing a specific text?

Each text type has a set of conventions at word, sentence and text level. In order for pupils to become proficient writers, they need to have explicit teaching for each type. This is not just a job for the English department. As science teachers we are only too aware of those pupils who are unable to access higher levels, not because they do not understand the science but because they cannot communicate their ideas effectively. Writing is a skill that develops with continual practice and reinforcement. Pupils need repeated opportunities to learn about features of writing. They will not be as good at writing a conclusion the first time you model it for them, but will improve the more they do it.

Modelling a text type, showing pupils how to select and manipulate content, is a proven strategy for improving the outcome of writing tasks. It helps pupils to avoid many common errors and substantially reduces marking. It raises pupils’ confidence in their ability to undertake a task because they have a good model in their heads of what they need to produce. This has a beneficial effect especially when the pupils are preparing coursework for GCSE.

There are a set of generic conventions that can be applied to all texts.

Purpose	Sentence Level
What is the purpose? Who is it for? How will it be used? What kind of writing is appropriate?	Viewpoint (first person, third person, etc.) Prevailing tense Active/passive voice Typical sentence structure and length Typical cohesive devices
Text Level	Word Level
Layout Structure/organisation Sequence	Stock words and phrases Specialised or typical vocabulary Elaborate or plain vocabulary

As a result of Literacy across the curriculum training, the school literacy coordinator and Key Stage 3 school strategy manager (who happens to be a science teacher) at St Clere’s school in Thurrock, decided to collaborate on improving pupils’ writing in science. The teachers involved wanted to include the whole science department, but also undertake a small-scale investigation involving a lower-attaining group of Year 7 pupils. They decided on a two-pronged model. See the Appendix for the way of working. You will see from the model that there was joint work undertaken with the target group of Year 7 pupils that focussed on the use of connectives. This group of pupils had very poorly-developed literacy skills. Most pupils were working at about level 3 or 4 in science and the majority were at level 3 in English. It was fortuitous that the same class had the literacy coordinator immediately after their science lesson for English. This meant that what the pupils were learning in science was then used as a context for the English lesson too.

The other aspect of the collaboration was the decision to concentrate on the pupils’ ability to write evaluations, particularly for GCSE work. The literacy coordinator met with the department after looking at some good examples of coursework. Although evaluation writing is not a feature of English teaching, the literacy coordinator arranged for some English teachers to teach how to write a good evaluation so that science teachers could observe them. As a result of this, writing frames were produced to help pupils structure their evaluation writing.

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The next few tasks will use video footage of the way this case study worked in order for you to reflect on the way writing is modelled in your classroom.

If writing is to be modelled effectively there is a specific teaching sequence that will help. Teaching sequence for modelling writing 1 Establish clear aims 2 Provide examples 3 Explore features of the text 4 Define the conventions 5 Demonstrate how it is written 6 Compose together 7 Scaffold pupils’ first attempts 8 Move pupils on to independent writing 9 Draw out the key learning

Using connectives in writing Video sequence 1 (Using models and modelling techniques) shows a lesson during which Sarah (the teacher) is using literacy-based activities in science to enhance pupils’ ability to write using connectives. It also demonstrates pupils

being taken through a staged writing sequence to produce pupils’ own versions of information they had about reproduction. The video is representative of the whole lesson, but is cut at various stages in order for you to make notes and reflect on what you have seen.

Watch the video through once in order to understand what the lesson was all about. Watch the video again and this time, using the grid below make a note of examples where the various writing sequences are being used. It would be good to share your observations with another teacher.

Establish clear aims
Provide examples
Explore the features of text
Define the conventions
Demonstrate how it is written

Evaluation and next steps Watch video sequence 2 (Using models and modelling techniques), which shows

Sarah (science teacher) and Ashley (literacy coordinator) evaluating the lesson

Sarah has just taught. They then go on to plan the next steps of their collaboration. What effect has the use of connective frames had on the pupils’ learning?

What steps should Sarah and Ashley take next to ensure that the whole science department become involved in the use of placemat prompts?

Classroom assignment: model writing Identify a good opportunity to model writing in a unit of work you are about to teach.

Collect some good examples of text type (including some written by pupils) for the pupils to refer to. Have some textbook examples if this is appropriate.

Plan how you are going to model the writing in lessons, use the teaching sequence as a guide. For example, if the unit requires some investigative work, you might want to try modelling a prediction in the first lesson and build up to instructions, recount, analysis and evaluation over the following lessons. If you are involved with some persuasive writing you may wish to try modelling the opening sentence in the first lesson and then build up the whole text over a number of lessons. Write yourself a script for the first lesson – remember to keep it short.

Decide whether you are going to model on a whiteboard or OHP.

If you can, make an audio or video recording of your lesson or have another teacher observe to help you reflect on it later

Practical tip Write out a script for he lesson you are going to teach. Talk it over with the literacy coordinator.

Refer to your script when teaching the lesson.

Make sure you face the class because you can then observe pupils’ reactions and answer their questions.

Evaluation Use the following questions to help you focus the evaluation from task 10. What worked well?

Were there any difficulties? If so what did you do to overcome them?

Analyse the written outcome from a previous lesson where you did not model the technique. Compare the scripts with the model lesson. What are the differences between the two samples?