Ever since Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, teachers have felt obligated to devote more time to language arts and math instruction, with the goal of improving student scores on assessment tests. As a result, many elementary students now receive significantly less science instruction than they did a decade ago.
I’m a strong proponent of integrating science and language arts instruction as one solution to this problem. And over the past few years, I’ve developed several strategies to help teachers do that. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw that the April 23, 2010, issue of Science included a special section called Science, Language, and Literacy.
I found most of the articles interesting, but one piece really made me think. In “Academic Language and the Challenge of Reading for Learning About Science,” Catherine E. Snow, the Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at Harvard University, is deeply concerned that today’s students are struggling to read and write academic language.
Although I feel that Snow unfairly chose a very poor writing sample to illustrate the pitfalls of using nonacademic texts to describe scientific principles, her article did raise an interesting question in my mind. Is there some characteristic inherent in academic language that makes it superior for communicating complex ideas? Or is it the act of composing a written statement, regardless of the language used, that helps scientists (or historians or people in other academic disciplines) solidify their thinking?
I’ll come back to these questions in a minute, but first I’d like to point out that Snow’s observation—that today’s students are struggling with academic language—doesn’t surprise me a bit.
After all, the nonfiction texts twenty-first century students read are farther removed from academic texts than ever before. In fact, most recent award-winning nonfiction trade books read like stories. The writing style is lively and engaging and often incorporates a variety of narrative elements. The design, format, and art in these books all work with the text to enrich the presentation.
Science textbooks are also more visually dynamic than in the past, and their writing style is less formal. Every few pages, readers encounter full-page or full-spread features that clearly show students how the science topics being discussed are relevant to their daily lives.
Today, most schools teach writing using the Six Plus One Writing Traits, which guides students in crafting prose that is interesting, easy to understand, and enjoyable to read. Six Plus One emphasizes the use of strong, active verbs and colorful phrases to grab the reader’s attention. Students are encouraged to use a conversational tone and to let their voice, or personality, infiltrate their writing. These traits are diametrically opposed to the standard conventions of academic writing, which features complex sentence structure, a distanced, authoritative tone, and judicious use of passive verbs.
When I first started reading academic texts in the 1980s, comprehending them was a challenge. The terse writing was thick with unfamiliar vocabulary and unfamiliar concepts, but the style was not all that different from the language in my high school science textbooks or the language I was expected to use when writing papers for English class.
Today’s young people have a very different experience when they encounter academic texts. For them, navigating academic writing is like translating a foreign language. Not only do they have to confront the high-level vocabulary and sophisticated concepts, they must deal with language constructions and conventions
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"Spending weeks, or horrifyingly in some classrooms, months, on test-taking lore denies students a lot of time that would be better spent reading and discussing real books—a practice that is shown again and again to positively impact students’ reading achievement."
Donalyn Miller, 6th grade teacher blogger at The Book Whisperer commenting on the sad irony of focusing on teaching reading-test strategies versus teaching reading. She concludes: "I have never seen a student who could read and comprehend a wide range of texts fail these tests, but I have seen a few students, carrying only a handful of test-taking beans, who did."
Read more of her thought-provoking observations from inside the classroom.
On my fridge I have a photocopy of a letter that Sandy Berman sent to the Library of Congress this August suggesting that they establish dildoes as a LCSH. I got many fascinating photocopies along with it for supporting evidence. I enjoy being on Sandy’s mailing list. Today, vickiep from del.ico.us sent me a link to “strap-on sex” as a new Library of Congress subject heading. Hooray! Unfortunately, links that go into the Library of Congress Authorities searches aren’t permanent but I was able to replicate the search and find the listing for dildoes in the weekly list for September 26th. Of interest to me particularly is that the authority record for strap-on sex contains Wikipedia, Google and “LC database” as notes in the 670 field. update: Tim at LibraryThing has a post showing the record.
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I agree completely, with you, Melissa. The last thing we want to do is give these students a reason to stop reading and to dislike science. Science is fun! And reading dry texts was never that fun- I know, I can remember. If we can use our talents to produce fun, exciting ways to get the information across, all while keeping the students interest high, why not do that? But I believe you are fighting an uphill battle. Getting the "establishment" to change won't be easy. Good post!
Didn't Einstein once say that if you can't explain it to a seven-year old, it's a sign that you don't understand it yourself?
Great post, Melissa. Academic writing in many ways reflects, according to Deborah Tannen (You Just Don't Understand, About Men and Women in Conversation), the most important trait for a male culture--namely, authority. The writer must demonstrate erudition and produces text that is opaque. It's a zero sum game that implies that the writer knows more than the reader. Female conversation, on the other hand, is about building community by sharing information, by making it accessible. The male establishment may feel threatened by too much clarity.
Charles Darwin's books VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE and ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES have never gone out of print. Why? Because Darwin wrote about science in exactly the same way you advocate in today's blog; the text is truly conversational, fun to read, and lyrical at the same time, and the ideas he presents are both fascinating and easy to understand. Even humor is a part of the mix. If one of the world's greatest scientists wrote so well-and during the 1800's to boot-that says a lot about the pull of good writing. So you're absolutely right, Melissa. integrating science and language arts instruction is a great idea! What better and easier way to learn?
As a former academic biologist, I do think that there are some academic words that carry critical meanings which are hard to capture in more accessible language. But as a children's writer, I think that we can explain complex topics well AND that if we use our writing to introduce some technical vocabulary, then we're rocking it!
I am not a fan of jargon, and I think scientific language is just another kind of jargon that often gets in the way of good, clear communication. And things get complicated when a word means one thing in scientific language and another in everyday language. Take the word theory, for instance. The theory of evolution. In science that means one thing, on everyday language it makes some people misunderstand it to mean "just a theory." So if I were Queen of the World, or, I imagine, if you were, Melissa, we would abolish jargon in favor of clean and understandable writing that is also fun and evocative and lively. I'm so glad you wrote this post.
I am not a fan of jargon, and I think scientific language is just another kind of jargon that often gets in the way of good, clear communication. And things get complicated when a word means one thing in scientific language and another in everyday language. Take the word theory, for instance. The theory of evolution. In science that means one thing, on everyday language it makes some people misunderstand it to mean "just a theory." So if I were Queen of the World, or, I imagine, if you were, Melissa, we would abolish jargon in favor of clean and understandable writing that is also fun and evocative and lively. I'm so glad you wrote this post.
Great post and comments! I learned in graduate school how to decipher academic writing, but it wasn't much fun. I even had to write some myself to get my advanced degrees. But the standard style of English language scientific writing today isn't a forever thing. As a graduate student, I loved reading descriptions of animals dredged from the ocean deep by late nineteenth century biologists, for example. The language was active, colorful, and entertaining as well as informative. And then, of course,as Roz points out, there's always Darwin.
I also remember being amazed by the style of some academic articles written in French; their style was much more lively and casual than those in English.