Science Current Events as an Academic Knowledge Bridge

Blog post # 2

My strategy for bridging the academic language/processing ability gap for my focal

student was to introduce them to “journalism science” in the form of doing a current

event for extra credit. As described by Doug Buehl (2017) in Developing Readers 

in the Academic Discipline, “Journalism science alerts us to a new study, for 

example, and reports in a general fashion on the findings and possible implications

(p. 101).” My cooperating teacher has long encouraged students to do mini activities

for extra credit on their own time but had not laid out any specifics for what students

could do, or how many points they would receive for extra credit. The general

guidelines were to run your idea by one of us to see if it sounded good. We have had

a few posters turned in with food webs, and the scientific method, but enthusiasm for 

“research something and make something” has dwindled. 

I have introduced the Science Current Event Assignment. The steps follow:

1) Read a current event - provide the link to the webpage, or take a photo of the article. 
The assignment will not be accepted without this step.

2) Write a 1 page, single-spaced summary addressing the following points:

• What is the main point of the article? Why did you choose it? How is this scientific? (2 points)
• How/why was the discovery made? (1 point)
• What were the steps or procedures for the experiment(s)? (1 point)
• What are the conclusions of the study and future steps to implement this new research? 

(1 point)

By doing current events on scientific discoveries related to the topics we have 

already covered in class, students are building on what they already know. This 

is an effective way for students to broaden their disciplinary knowledge, and to 

read science articles on topics that appeal to them. This type of assignment also 

begins to address the gaps in content knowledge that students possess, and 

educators cannot bridge these gaps with a one size fits all model. Buehl states,

“Instead, our instruction needs to seek a middle ground, a teachable terrain 

between the extremes of academic knowledge and discourse, which is a

considerable distance from many of our students, and student-centered approaches

that honor everyday informal knowledge, which may be a considerable distance 

from our standards and curriculum (p 91).” Indeed, this model assignment allows

students to build their own prior existing knowledge, develop text-to-text

understandings, and foster their disciplinary literacy in Science.

This is particularly effective for emergent bilingual students to be mentored into

reading scientific studies. I chose to focus on one emergent bilingual student in 

my class and asked him to model the assignment for me during lunch, as an 

opportunity for him to earn some extra credit. I sat down with him and asked him 

to read along with me about an article on how chocolate is made. The article was

in a young adult National Geographic magazine and explains how the chocolate 

begins as a cocoa bean and is processed into a chocolate bar over several steps. 

Additionally, I have this particular copy of the magazine in English and Spanish, 

and so we were able to do a contrastive analysis between the two languages to 

further the student’s understanding of the steps. He wrote a short summary, and

although not all of the answers to the extra credit assignment were able to be

answered for this model, I do believe he gained a deeper understanding of the 

topic. He learned about the fermentation of the cocoa beans, which he had not

known about before. We then ate some M&Ms to celebrate! One page of the article

is below.

Having the student do the reading, and then answer the comprehension questions

in a short writing assignment is self-directed, and allows for students to select what

they research. Since opening this assignment up to the whole class, I have had a few

students express interest in completing a current event for extra credit, and we will 

see if the students take advantage of this opportunity.

One drawback of this particular strategy is that many students do not have access to

computers or the internet at home. I did not consider this issue of equity in designing

the assignment, however, I do provide time at lunch once a week where students

could come in and use our Chromebooks to complete this type of activity.

1. Do you think there is an equity issue for this type of assignment?
    
2. Should it be part of the students’ regular curriculum or do you think the extra credit,
   year-round assignment is better?
3. How would you improve upon this model in regards to “teaching” students to relate
   to scientific discipline-rich literature?

Blog 1: What does disciplinary literacy look like in Science?

Disciplinary literacy in science is the ability to critically read and write about scientific 

research, determine authenticity of practices and their subsequent analysis. Students 
who are scientifically literate are able to analyze what other scientists have discovered 
in order to learn, engage in similar practice, replicate their experiments, and/or create
their own experiments while adhering to scientific practices. Adherence to scientific
practices, particularly while designing an experiment, determine the authenticity of the 
findings of an experiment.

The 3 skills student scientists  need in order to think/read/write and act like a 

member of the scientific community are: 1)  Baseline understanding of what 

is science and the scientific method: Scientists must be able to read scientific 

studies and the resulting data to help them understand: 1) the reason for conducting

an experiment (Purpose or Problem). 2) How the experiment will address the problem

or purpose. 3) How the variables and control variables or group were identified and

organized. 4) Issues of bias and authenticity. 5) how to design and redesign experiments. 

6) how to analyze results. In San Luis Coastal Unified Schools we use the model “C-E-R” 

which stands for: Claim (Was your hypothesis correct), Evidence (How do you know? 

What is acceptable evidence?), Reasoning (How does your evidence support your claim?

Not restating the evidence, rather, use scientific laws/theories (gravity, energy, cycles of

matter) to further support your evidence. 

The second skill students need in order to think/read/write and act like a member of the 

scientific community is critical thinking: the ability to critically analyze the results of an

experiment and ask questions to clarify misconceptions. Critical thinking includes asking 

questions to determine why things occur the way they do, and, so what? Critical thinking 

includes being able to assess reading and writing for rationale. Rationale allows students 

to understand how one event relates to another, or how different branches of science are 

related. Students need to dive deep into scientific phenomena in order to communicate 

verbally and in writing what they think initially, what they learn, and how their thinking has 
changed as new evidence is discovered. Critical thinking, and the acquisition of new skills
related to critical thinking allows them to recognize knowledge gained in the learning process.

The third skill students need in order to think/read/write and act like a member of the
scientific community is organization. Scientists keep journals when tracking change 
over time or cause and effect. Scientists build their data on pre-existing data, and need
to be able to refer to previous data in an efficient way. This can be accomplished K-W-L 
charts and graphic organizers. Organized writing in the science field includes citations
and references to peer-reviewed studies. Scientists will quote experts in the field, and invite
other scientists to join forces or duplicate experiments to see if results are accurate and 
repeatable. Notes should be legible and/or in graphic organizer to ensure consistent location
for vocabulary and data.

Some effective reading strategies for science are described by a science educator, 

Jonah Jones, during an interview in Drawing on What we Do as Readers:  

Discovering and embedding strategies across the disciplines by Carol Giles, Yang

 Wang, and Danielle Johnson in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 59(6)

May/June 2016. These include "front-loading" vocabulary, explaining difficult portions

of texts to students prior to them reading them, and asking students to reflect on
background knowledge when exploring new science concepts.

Some questions for educators in Science I have are:
How important do you feel "front-loading" vocabulary is for readers of scientific texts?
Do you have any strategies you feel are equally effective to assist future scientists in reading?

Some of the texts we will teach from this quarter include Pearson Realize’s Science 

Unit on Ecology, and the Full Option Science System text on Geology (erosion/deposition).