An Argument For Learning

IDEAS

An argument for learning

Science teachers and students build literacy through text-based investigations

Vol. 38 No. 2

Scientists learn about the work of others largely through reading. They read publications in their field looking for what’s new, often expecting that their understanding may change as a result of compelling new evidence. They read with a critical stance, evaluating the reliability of new findings and explanations and comparing them to existing accounts. Most scientists also write regularly to keep track of their inquiries and share their work with others, using varied and complex forms of texts — including technical language, mathematical expressions, graphs, diagrams, models, and verbal exposition to represent their ideas. Using the inquiry process, scientists follow and engage in arguments with other scientists’ work and build models and explanations of the phenomena they study. Through these recursive practices of reading, reasoning,

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Cynthia Greenleaf (cgreenl@wested.org) is co-director and director of research and Willard R. Brown (wbrown@wested.org) is a senior associate at the Strategic Literacy Initiative, WestEd.

References

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Goldman, S.R., Brown, W., Ko, M.-L., Britt, M.A., Greenleaf, C.L., Lawless, K., … Yukhymenko, M. (2016). Explanatory modeling in science through text-based inquiry: Testing the efficacy of the READI intervention approach. Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2016 Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.

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Schoenbach, R., Greenleaf C., & Murphy, L. (2016). Leading for literacy: A Reading Apprenticeship approach. San Francisco, CA: Wiley Press.

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