Composing Science

Offering expertise in the teaching of writing (Kim Jaxon) and the teaching of science (Leslie Atkins Elliott and Irene Salter), this book will help instructors create classrooms in which students use writing to learn and think scientifically. The authors provide concrete approaches for engaging students in practices that mirror the work that writing plays in the development and dissemination of scientific ideas, as opposed to replicating the polished academic writing of research scientists. Addressing a range of genres that can help students deepen their scientific reasoning and inquiry, this text includes activities, guidelines, resources, and assessment suggestions. Composing Science is a valuable resource for university-level science faculty, science methods course instructors in teacher preparation programs, and secondary science teachers who have been asked to address the Common Core ELA Standards. Book Features: Provides models for integrating writing into science courses and lesson plans. Focuses on the work that science writing does, both in the development and dissemination of ideas. Addresses the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core ELA Standards. Includes samples of student work, classroom transcripts, and photographs that capture the visual elements of science writing. “The pedagogy described in Composing Science doesn’t only recapture the sense of the uncertainty of discovery, it also articulates and examines the social and collaborative writing practices that science uses to produce knowledge and reduce uncertainty. Without question, teachers of science will find this book inspirational and useful, college teachers for sure, but also teachers up and down the curriculum.” —Tom Fox, director, Site Development, National Writing Project “This book will be invaluable, not only for the genuinely new and wonderful ideas for teaching, but also and maybe more for the rich examples from the authors’ classes. Through the lens of writing we see students doing science—and it is truly science—in surprising and delightful ways.” —David Hammer, professor, Tufts University

This book takes an integrated approach, using the principles of story structure to discuss every aspect of successful science writing, from the overall structure of a paper or proposal to individual sections, paragraphs, sentences, and words. It begins by building core arguments, analyzing why some stories are engaging and memorable while others are quickly forgotten, and proceeds to the elements of story structure, showing how the structures scientists and researchers use in papers and proposals fit into classical models. The book targets the internal structure of a paper, explaining how to write clear and professional sections, paragraphs, and sentences in a way that is clear and compelling.

Selected and introduced by Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is a celebration of the finest writing by scientists for a wider audience - revealing that many of the best scientists have displayed as much imagination and skill with the pen as they have in the laboratory.This is a rich and vibrant collection that captures the poetry and excitement of communicating scientific understanding and scientific effort from 1900 to the present day. Professor Dawkins has included writing from a diverse range of scientists, some of whom need no introduction, and some of whoseworks have become modern classics, while others may be less familiar - but all convey the passion of great scientists writing about their science.

This book encompasses the entire range of writing skills that today's experimental scientist may need to employ. Chapters cover routine forms, such as laboratory notes, abstracts, and memoranda; dissertations; journal articles; and grant proposals. Robert Goldbort discusses how best to approach various writing tasks as well as how to deal with the everyday complexities that may get in the way of ideal practice--difficult collaborators, experiments gone wrong, funding rejections. He underscores the importance of an ethical approach to science and scientific communication and insists on the necessity of full disclosure.

Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century offers guidance to help writers succeed in a broad range of writing tasks and purposes in science and other STEM fields. Concise and current, the book takes most of its examples and lessons from scientific fields such as the life sciences, chemistry, physics, and geology, but some examples are taken from mathematics and engineering. The book emphasizes building confidence and rhetorical expertise in fields where diverse audiences, high ethical stakes, and multiple modes of presentation provide unique writing challenges. Using a systematic approach—assessing purpose, audience, order of information, tone, evidence, and graphics—it gives readers a clear road map to becoming accurate, persuasive, and rhetorically savvy writers.

Scientific writing is often dry, wordy, and difficult to understand. But, as Anne E. Greene shows in Writing Science in Plain English,writers from all scientific disciplines can learn to produce clear, concise prose by mastering just a few simple principles. This short, focused guide presents a dozen such principles based on what readers need in order to understand complex information, including concrete subjects, strong verbs, consistent terms, and organized paragraphs. The author, a biologist and an experienced teacher of scientific writing, illustrates each principle with real-life examples of both good and bad writing and shows how to revise bad writing to make it clearer and more concise. She ends each chapter with practice exercises so that readers can come away with new writing skills after just one sitting. Writing Science in Plain English can help writers at all levels of their academic and professional careers—undergraduate students working on research reports, established scientists writing articles and grant proposals, or agency employees working to follow the Plain Writing Act. This essential resource is the perfect companion for all who seek to write science effectively.

This book is about the use of language in the science classroom. It discusses the evolution of scientific discourse for learning in secondary schools, and examines the form and function of language across a variety of levels including lexiogrammar, discourse semantics, register, genre and ideology. Special attention is paid to how this knowledge is imparted. It will be of particular interest to educators involved with linguistics and/or science curriculum and teachers of English for special and academic purposes.; It is aimed at teachers of undergraduates in science and literacy, linguists teaching in English for special and academic purposes and students in higher education with an interest in science and literacy.

"Kids love hands-on science. Yet too few grow up to be scientists. Kids need to be reading, writing and thinking about science as well as doing it. Writing in Science in Action propels us full throttle into both hands-on and "minds on" science. Rupp Fulwiler show us how to help kids wrap their minds around science, do science and have a blast in the process. If we really want to prepare kids for an increasingly unpredictable future, we need teachers to read this book and share the practices with the budding young scientists in their rooms." -Stephanie Harvey, author of The Comprehension Toolkit Writing in Science in Action, the highly anticipated follow-up resource to Betsy Rupp Fulwiler's landmark book Writing in Science (Heinemann 2007), offers all new field-tested materials, including 10 video episodes that show teachers as they implement her approach in real classrooms with real children. The Writing in Science in Action online resources brings the content to life by providing clear and explicit models of students talking and writing, and teachers providing the scaffolding, modeling, and conferring needed to support those students.You'll see teachers working in diverse settings with a range of learners, including ELLs, students with special needs, and reluctant writers. You'll also see groups of teachers assessing student notebooks and planning instruction based on their assessments. Focusing on science topics that are accessible and familiar, Fulwiler uses carefully interconnected video episodes, student work, and detailed classroom vignettes to take the reader into the complexity of individual classrooms and the practices of skilled teachers. Seeing her approach in action is a powerful teaching tool, and the online resources, used in combination with the practical text, takes Writing in Science to a whole new level. Seeing really is believing. Writing in Science in Action provides clear guidance and structures for classroom practice, with: * specific strategies that can be immediately used in any classroom * step by step instruction on how to use each strategy * ideas for planning, modeling, scaffolding, and assessment * samples of over 100 student notebook entries with commentaries * techniques for working with ELLs, emergent writers, and struggling students.