8.4 Enacting SGP in a Science Unit

To illustrate how SGP works in disciplinary contexts, the rest of the chapter describes how one fictitious teacher, Mrs. Wang, engages her students in learning to write the biography or report genre as part of their six-week unit on scientists and their careers. The unit specifically aims to develop students' understanding that (a) science is a human enterprise interdependent with culture, society, and history, and (b) science is an exciting career that students should not be afraid of pursuing. The culminating project for the unit involves writing a biography of a famous scientist in whom students are interested or a report about a science career that students may be interested in pursuing in the future. The student writing samples presented in the rest of this chapter are reproduced as they were originally composed, without corrections to spelling, punctuation, or other grammatical conventions.

8.4.1 Preparation: Building Knowledge and Context

To prepare students for writing, Mrs. Wang immerses her students in reading and discussing many biographies of famous scientists, especially those of women and from minority backgrounds. According to Yore (2004), "school science has traditionally presented science as a noun, emphasizing encyclopedic volumes of facts, concepts, principles, laws, theories, and lengthy lists of experimental procedures and processes about science, rather than science as a verb, emphasizing the human endeavors, successes, failures, and emotional dispositions associated with doing science as inquiry" (p. 73). Science biographies present life stories of scientists, the trials and tribulations in their scientific inquiries, the impact of their discoveries, and personal and professional attributes that contribute to their successes. Reading, discussing, and writing about these books can help students develop an understanding of "the nature of science" (National Research Council, 2012), which includes

·　science is a human endeavor;

·　science is not just for the genius;

·　science is not always clean and unequivocal;

·　scientific knowledge is simultaneously reliable and tentative;

·　scientific investigation prizes evidence, observation, rational argument, inference, skepticism, peer review, and replicability of work;

·　creativity is a vital, yet personal, ingredient in the production of scientific knowledge;

·　science is limited to naturalistic methods and explanations, but precluded from using supernatural elements in production of scientific knowledge;

·　contribution to science can be and has been made by people all over the world;

·　the history of science reveals both evolutionary and revolutionary changes;

·　basic science research is not directly concerned with practical outcomes.

To ensure that her students have ample science biographies to read, Mrs. Wang applies for a grant that provides funds for her to purchase some 30 quality science biographies she has identified from the annual lists of outstanding science trade books for K-12 students compiled by the National Science Teachers Association (www.nsta.org). She also checks out roughly two dozens of science biographies from her school and municipal libraries. As a result, her classroom library has a rich collection of biographies that covers a range of time periods, fields of study, and ethnic and gender groups. A sampling of this collection can be found in Table 8-1.

Table 8-1 Sample Science Biographies

·　Aczel, A. D. (2003). Pendulum: Léon Foucault and the Triumph of Science. New York: Washington Square Press.

·　Aldrin, B. (2005). Reaching for the Moon. New York: HarperCollins.

·　Birch, B. (2000). Marie Curie: Courageous Pioneer in the Study of Radioactivity. San Diego, CA: Blackbirch Press.

·　Brown, D. (2004). Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

·　Burleigh, R. (2003). Into the Woods: John James Audubon Lives His Dream. New York: Atheneum.

·　Busby, P. (2002). First to Fly: How Wilbur & Orville Wright Invented the Airplane. New York: Crown.

·　Dash, J. (2006). A Dangerous Engine: Benjamin Franklin, from Scientist to Diplomat. New York: Frances Foster Books.

·　Davies, J. (2004). The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

·　Di Domenico, K. (2002). Super Women in Science. Toronto: Second Story Press.

·　Editors of Time for Kids with Lisa deMauro (2005). Thomas Edison: A Brilliant Inventor. New York: HarperCollins.

·　Ehrlich, A. (2003). Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson. San Diego: Harcourt.

·　Fleischman, J. (2002). Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

·　Fleming, C. (2003). Ben Franklin's Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman's Life. New York: Atheneum.

·　Fradin, D. B. (2006). With a Little Luck: Surprising Stories of Amazing Discoveries. New York: Dutton.

·　Hines, G. (2005). Midnight Forests: A Story of Gifford Pinchot and Our National Forests. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.

·　Hopping, L. J. (2005). Bone Detective: The Story of Forensic Anthropologist Diane France. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.

·　Hulls, J. (2003). Rider in the Sky: How an American Cowboy Built England's First Airplane. New York: Crown.

·　Johnson, D. (2006). Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson. Washington, DC: National Geographic.

·　Jones, L. (2000). Five Brilliant Scientists. New York: Scholastic.

·　Krull, K. (2005). Leonardo da Vinci. New York: Penguin Books.

·　Krull, K. (2006). Isaac Newton. New York: Penguin Books.

·　Lasky, K. (2003). The Man Who Made Time Travel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

·　Lasky, K. (2006). John Muir: America's First Environmentalist. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

·　Lawson, K. (2003). Darwin and Evolution for Kids: His Life and Ideas, with 21 Activities. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press.

·　MacDonald, F. (2000). Albert Einstein: Genius Behind the Theory of Relativity. San Diego, CA: Blackbirch Press.

·　MacLeod, E. (2003). Albert Einstein: A Life of Genius. Toronto: Kids Can Press.

·　MacLeod, E. (2004). Marie Curie: A Brilliant Life. Toronto: Kids Can Press.

·　McClafferty, C. (2006). Something out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

·　McCully, E. A. (2006). Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret K. Knight Became an Inventor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

·　Pasachoff, N. (2003). Niels Bohr: Physicist and Humanitarian. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers.

·　Patent, D. H. (2001). Charles Darwin: The Life of a Revolutionary Thinker. New York: Holiday House.

·　Ray, D. K. (2004). The Flower Hunter: William Bartram, America's First Naturalist. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

·　Robbins, L. E. (2001). Louis Pasteur and the Hidden World of Microbes. New York: Oxford University Press.

·　Ross, M. E. (2000). Pond Watching with Ann Morgan. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books.

·　Ross, M. E. (2000). Exploring the Earth with John Wesley Powell. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books.

·　Shell, B. (2005). Sensational Scientists: The Journeys and Discoveries of 24 Men and Women of Science. Vancouver: Raincoast Books.

·　Sullivan, O. & Haskins, J. (2012). Black Stars: African American Women Scientists and Inventors. New York: Wiley.

·　Todes, D. (2000). Ivan Pavlov: Exploring the Animal Machine. New York: Oxford University Press.

With her classroom library well stocked with science biographies, Mrs. Wang decides to set up an after-class reading program that motivates her students to read and discuss (in an online forum) what they read with peers every week. Once a week, each student checks out at least one book from the classroom library to read. As students read, they are expected to document in a graphic organizer the process of scientific inquiry in which the scientist identified a problem, formulated hypotheses, conducted experiments and/or observations, evaluated the findings, and presented/published his/her work. They also identify any significant historical events that helped shape the scientist's work, as well as key scientific attitudes exemplified by the scientist (e.g., curiosity, open-mindedness, flexibility, reflectiveness, patriotism, skepticism, demand for accuracy and precision, accepting ambiguity, risk taking, perseverance, and respect for evidence). They then share what they have learned about their scientist, science inquiry, and science career, as well as things they wonder about, in class each week (before checking out a new book), sometimes with small groups and other times with the whole class.

8.4.2 Modeling the Text: Analyzing Mentor Text and Playing with Language

Recognizing that many of her students are not familiar with the biography genre, Mrs. Wang begins her lessons with a discussion of the qualities of a good biography. She notes that a good biography is well-researched and well-written, meaning that the author has conducted research on the scientist and the type of science involved and validated findings with multiple sources. She asks students to read the jacket page of each book (or simply Google the author) so that they gain a sense of what the author's credentials are and whether she or he has conducted the necessary background research (e.g., interviews, archive research, document analysis, site visits) before writing the biography.

In subsequent lessons, Mrs. Wang engages her class in detailed reading of a short biography. She reads the text aloud and initiates a discussion about the text in terms of its purpose, schematic structure, and lexicogrammatical features. She points out to students that a biography tells the life story of a significant historical figure, often highlighting important moments or turning points in the person's life. She shows students that a biography covers a wide span of time, typically organized around early experience, career, and later life. She further explains that a good science biography typically contains an orientation that provides a synopsis of the scientist's life and significant contributions, a sequence of events that chronicles key moments in the scientist's life, and an evaluation that assesses the scientist's legacy. She spotlights a few linguistic features commonly found in a biography, such as

·　past tense verbs (e.g., began, lasted),

·　specific participants (e.g., Stephen Hawking, Alexander Friedmann),

·　nominalizations (e.g., confrontation, controversy),

·　temporal sequence markers (e.g., Beginning in the late 1950s ...; After he proved that ...; Before the Cambridge Ph.D. program …; After his diagnosis ...; Following his confrontation with Hoyle … ),

·　being and doing verbs (e.g., was, attended),

·　evaluative word choices (e.g., wildly unrealistic, an incredible honor), and

·　dense sentences (e.g., She had been a great source of motivation and continued to encourage him to pursue his theories even when disease and controversy might have discouraged him. The grandson of a successful farmer who lost all he owned in World War I, and the son of a father barely able to afford tuition, Frank believed his second-rate early education had held him back.).

To make her points more concrete, Mrs. Wang chooses as a mentor text a biography about Alice Hamilton (see Text 8-1), a physician and a leading authority on lead poisoning and industrial diseases. Mentor text, sometimes called anchor text, refers to any piece of writing (e.g., book, article, passage) that can be used as a good example of its genre to teach students about aspects of a writer's craft, such as a specific strategy, skill, or style of writing (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2009). Students first make sense of the text by reading it independently, making annotations and asking questions on the margins of the text. They discuss the text in small groups to ensure a basic understanding of the main ideas in the text. Next, using the mentor text, Mrs. Wang engages her students in discussing questions such as (a) what is the purpose of the text? (b) how is that purpose achieved? (c) who wrote the text? (d) what is the author's credential? (e) how was the text written? and (f) who was the intended audience of the text?

Text 8-1

Alice Hamilton was born in New York City on February 27, 1869. A pioneer in industrial toxicology and a nonconformist who valued personal liberty above all else, Hamilton became a leading American authority on lead poisoning and one of the handful of worldwide specialists on industrial diseases by 1916. Her reports on lead, and later on rubber and munitions, led to improved safety standards nationwide.

The daughter of a successful grocer, Alice Hamilton chose medicine as a career as a means to be both independent and socially useful. Her sister, Edith Hamilton, chose a different path, becoming a well-known classics scholar and author. Alice spent more than a decade as a resident of Chicago's famous settlement house, Hull House. She developed her friendship with reformer Jane Addams there, and also began to combine her scientific research skills with her latent reformist zeal.

Focusing on industrial diseases, Alice Hamilton became a special investigator for the United States Bureau of Labor in 1911. She broke the gender barrier by becoming the first woman on the faculty of Harvard University in 1919 and later its first professor of public health. During the course of her long career, Hamilton published numerous studies on industrial toxicology, several books, and an autobiography.

Alice Hamilton died on September 22, 1970, in Hadlyme, Connecticut. In tribute to her work, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health presents awards in her name to those scientists and engineers who excel in the field. (Fang, Adams, Li, Gallingane, Jo, Fennessy & Chapman, 2017, p. 75)

For example, she asks students how the structure of Text 8-1 helps achieve the overall purpose of the text, which is to report on Hamilton's life and scientific contributions in an informative way. She notes that the text consists of three parts, each contributing to the overall purpose of the text. The first paragraph is an orientation that introduces Hamilton and summarizes her career and major scientific accomplishments. The second and third paragraphs present key moments in the scientist's life and career. The last paragraph states the legacy of Hamilton's scientific contributions.

Besides the discussion about the generic structure of the text, Mrs. Wang deconstructs some sentences that are less familiar to students. She focuses on the appositive, non-finite clause, and embedded clause, each in a separate minilesson lasting 10-15 minutes, as these three grammatical features are present in the text and they all serve the same function — adding more information to the sentence. Recognizing that her students tend to write in an informal style that is interpersonal, fragmented, and interactive, as evidenced in the sample biography written by one of her former students (see Text 8-2), Mrs. Wang feels that these three grammatical resources are perfect for showing students how information can be packaged in a way that makes their writing more compact, focused, and academic.

Text 8-2

Do you want to hear about a woman scientist who lived for 101 years? Well, her name is Alice Hamilton. She was born in 1869 in New York City, and died in 1970. She was an American pathologist. She worked to promote safer working conditions in industry. She conducted studies and did research for the state of Illinois, the U.S. government, and the League of Nations. Also, she became the first female faculty member at the Harvard Medical School (1919-1935).

Wow, she did a lot. That was a big deal to be a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School, plus she was the first female there. I think that's pretty cool. Right now I am thinking that she was just born smart because she was educated at home most of her life, and then she went to a private school for girls for a few years. She received her medical degree from the University of Michigan, where she was one of the first women to get her medical degree. And then she continued her studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Actually, she never stopped trying to learn new things.

She was also a champion of workers' compensation laws. Cool, she started off so small, in her jobs I mean, and ended up so big. I wonder how she managed to do all that? I guess she just kept on trying until she succeeded.

Dr. Hamilton was a resident of Jane Adams's Hull House in Chicago. Even though Alice Hamilton was very well-educated, she wasn't interested in making lots of money. She was interested in making a difference in lives of people, especially those who were poor and sick.

Probably Alice Hamilton is best remembered for her important work in publicizing the dangers of chemicals used in modern industry. Throughout her long career, Alice Hamilton helped turn government attention to the poisonous effects of dyes, carbon monoxide, mercury, lead, radium, benzene, carbon disulfide, and gas used in manufacturing rayon. She promoted warning labels against these dangerous chemicals, and she tried to protect workers who were exposed to all these chemicals during the manufacturing process.

And so, that is why I think Alice Hamilton is a great scientist and an even greater person.

In her lesson on the appositive, Mrs. Wang writes the following two sentences from Text 8-1 on board, with the appositive phrase highlighted:

·　Her sister, Edith Hamilton, chose a different path, becoming a well-known classics scholar and author.(https://www.daowen.com)

·　The daughter of a successful grocer, Alice Hamilton chose medicine as a career as a means to be both independent and socially useful.

She tells the students that Edith Hamilton and the daughter of a successful grocer are both called, grammatically, the appositive in that each is a noun phrase separated by comma (s) from the rest of the sentence and used to provide more information about another noun (or noun phrase) immediately preceding (her sister) or following (Alice Hamilton) it. She points out that the added information is often not the focus of the presentation and could have been expressed with a complete sentence (e.g., Edith Hamilton is Alice Hamilton's sister; Alice Hamilton is the daughter of a successful grocer.), separate from the original sentence. She further notes that when the appositive is turned into a complete sentence, the information in the new sentence, which may be neither essential to nor the focus of the essay, becomes foregrounded because the new sentence now assumes an equal status with the main clause in the original sentence, and this can disrupt the flow of the text. She explains that scientists often use grammatical resources like the appositive to background certain information while also making their writing more compact and informative.

Sensing that her students have understood the concept of the appositive and its functionality, Mrs. Wang then asks them to search for more examples of the appositive in Text 8-1. Students have no trouble coming up with the following examples (the appositive italicized):

·　A pioneer in industrial toxicology and a nonconformist who valued personal liberty above all else, Hamilton became a leading American authority on lead poisoning and one of the handful of worldwide specialists on industrial diseases by 1916.

·　Alice spent more than a decade as a resident of Chicago's famous settlement house, Hull House.

They practice turning each appositive into a complete sentence, discussing what the transformation involves and how it impacts the meaning and flow of the text. To reinforce students' understanding of the appositive, Mrs. Wang has her students search for more examples of the appositive in other texts they have been reading and later complete a worksheet that involves turning a sentence with the appositive into two complete sentences. Conversely, students are encouraged to find two full sentences from other texts or their own writing for manipulation by transforming them into one sentence with an appositive.

In follow-up lessons, Mrs. Wang introduces the concepts of embedded clause (i.e., a group of words with a subject and a verb that constitute part of a noun or noun phrase) and non-finite clause (i.e., a clause whose verb does not show tense [because it is in -ing or -ed form] and whose subject is missing but can be inferred from the subject of the main clause), showing students how these two grammatical resources are also functional in integrating two possible sentences into one sentence without losing information. Examples of embedded clause and non-finite clause from Text 8-1 (see below) are identified and discussed. Students also complete exercises that require them to turn (a) a non-finite clause or embedded clause into a complete sentence or (b) two sentences into one sentence with a non-finite or embedded clause, and discuss how the transformation impacts both the meaning and flow of the text. In turning non-finite clauses into complete sentences, students sometimes have to add connectors that signal logical-semantic relations among the sentences. This experience shows students that non-finite clauses can bury logical relations (e.g., causation) that have to be recovered in the transformation. Exercises like these reinforce and deepen students' understanding of the form, function, and logic of grammatical choices in meaningful contexts.

^ Sentences with Embedded Clauses (italicized) from Text 8-1:

·　A pioneer in industrial toxicology and a nonconformist who valued personal liberty above all else, Hamilton became a leading American authority on lead poisoning and one of the handful of worldwide specialists on industrial diseases by 1916.

·　In tribute to her work, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health presents awards in her name to those scientists and engineers who excel in the field.

^ Sentences with Non-Finite Clauses (italicized) from Text 8-1:

·　Her sister, Edith Hamilton, chose a different path, becoming a well-known classics scholar and author.

·　Focusing on industrial diseases, Alice Hamilton became a special investigator for the United States Bureau of Labor in 1911.

8.4.3 Writing a Text: Joint and Independent Construction

Having read and discussed many different scientists and their careers for the first four weeks of the unit, the class is now ready to start thinking about the scientist they want to focus on. Mrs. Wang has her students complete an information sheet, where they list the name of the scientist selected, why this scientist is of interest, three sources they have consulted to find information about this scientist, and the particular scientific attitude (s) that they hope to exemplify in the biography. She has her students identify at least three sources (books or articles) they would use in writing the biography of their favorite scientist or science career. As students read their sources, they take careful notes of key events in the scientist's life, the social/economic/historical/political contexts of his/her discovery or invention, the particular scientific attitude (s) exemplified in the biography, and the significance of his/her scientific contributions.

To model the writing process for her students, Mrs. Wang decides to practice writing a biography with them, with her acting as a scribe writing sentences contributed by the students. Together, they select a scientist they have all read about and discussed. They then jointly plan and write the orientation paragraph that introduces the scientist and highlights his or her contributions. Next, Mrs. Wang divides the students into three groups. Each group is responsible for developing an assigned topic sentence into one paragraph that describes one key event or accomplishment in the scientist's life or one scientific attitude exemplified by the scientist. As each group contributes their paragraph, sentence by sentence, for the teacher to scribe on the SmartBoard, Mrs. Wang and the other two groups make comments and wording changes (when appropriate) to improve the assembled text. The three groups then jointly construct the concluding paragraph that evaluates the legacy of the scientist's discovery or invention.

The last week of the unit is dedicated to independent writing. Mrs. Wang has students complete a draft biography of their favorite scientist outside class. They then bring their drafts to class for self- and peer-editing, using the checklist provided below:

·　Is the purpose of my biography clear?

·　Is my biography interesting and informative?

·　Is the information presented in my biography accurate and factual?

·　Does my biography include an orientation, a sequence of at least three key events (or major accomplishments), and an evaluation?

·　What scientific attitude is exemplified in my biography?

·　Do I draw on at least three sources in my writing? Are my sources reliable?

·　Do I minimize using colloquial expressions or subjective language?

·　Does each paragraph include a topic sentence with supporting details?

·　Is the transition between paragraphs smooth?

·　Do I use visuals in my writing? If so, are they well integrated with the rest of the text?

·　Do I use correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling?

This is followed by several rounds of teacher-student conferences to improve the drafts, with particular attention to the revision checklist. The first and final drafts (Text 8-3a & Text 8-3b) of one student's writing are presented below, with embedded clause, non-finite clause, and the appositive highlighted (italicized) in Text 8-3b. Mrs. Wang organizes an "author tea party" on the final day of the unit, where students present their final drafts to their peers. The polished biographies are also published in an online class monograph that students can download to share with one another.

Text 8-3a (first draft)

Have you ever heard of Dr. Charles R. Drew? Well you should know him if you donated blood. If you haven't let me tell you a little bit about him. He was a black scientist born on June 3, 1904 in Washington, DC, star-football player, made the first blood bank, and a mystery about his death.

The first fact about him was that he was good in sports. He was the star-football player and was the captain of his football team. He was an all-American half-back. He was also awarded 20 medals. He later became the director of athletes at Mogen State University. He had a good education. He was smart because he graduated with honors.

The second fact about Dr. Drew was that He got his Medical Doctorate (M.D.) Master of Surgery (C.M.) and Doctor of Science. He wanted to serve mankind by preserving blood. He made the first blood bank by preserving blood for WWII victims. He utilized his techniques and made the Red Cross. He became Professor of Surgery and Chief Surgery.

The last fact is how long he had lived. He was born in 1904 and died when he was hit by a car in 1950. Many believed he died from discrimination because he was a black man.

This is the facts about the life and accomplishments of Dr. Charles R. Drew. Without his hard work we would not be able to save lives.

Text 8-3b (final draft)

Dr. Charles R. Drew is an African-American scientist who made the first blood bank. He was awarded 20 medals for his accomplishments.

Dr. Drew had a good education and a successful career. He graduated from Amherst College with honors. He went on to get his Master of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine degrees. He later became Professor of Surgery at Howard University and Chief Surgeon at Freedmen's Hospital. Wanting to serve mankind by preserving blood, he developed a method for processing and preserving blood without cells. He made the first blood bank by preserving blood for WWII victims. At the same time, he also fought against the racist policy of segregating the blood donated by African Americans.

Dr. Drew was also good at sports. He was a star football player. An all-American halfback in college, he was captain of his football team. He later became the director of athletes at Morgan State University before enrolling in medical school.

Dr. Drew was born in 1904 in Washington, DC. He died in 1950 when he was hit by a car in Alabama. His death remains a mystery to date. Many believe he died from discrimination because he was a black man.

These are the facts about the life and accomplishments of Dr. Charles R. Drew. Without his hard work, we would not be able to save lives.

References

* Haber, L. (1970). Black Pioneers of Science and Invention. New York: Harcourt.

* Schraff, A. (2003). Dr. Charles Drew: Blood Bank Innovator. New York: Enslow Publishers.

* Trice, L. (2000). Charles Drew: Pioneer of Blood Plasma. New York: McGraw-Hill.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew

8.4.4 Grammar Lessons for Writing a Science Career Report

While most students choose to write a biography of their favorite scientists as their culminating project for the unit, some students decide instead to write a report about a science career of personal interest, such as marine biologist, pediatrician, nurse, veterinarian, emergency medical technician, chiropractor, physicist, engineer, or forensic expert. Similar to her work on biography, Mrs. Wang goes through the same genre teaching-learning cycle when teaching her students how to write a report. This section focuses on describing how Mrs. Wang scaffolds report writing through a functional focus on grammar.

Because report is a different genre than biography, Mrs. Wang makes sure she devotes some time during the unit to teach her students about report, a genre highly valued in science but students often find challenging to write. She uses several mentor texts, such as Text 8-4 below, which she pulls together from several web sources, to show students that report is a type of informational text whose main function is "to document, organise and store factual information on a topic" (Derewianka, 1990, p. 51) and that this function is achieved through deployment of certain organizational and linguistic features.

Text 8-4

Marine biologists are scientists who study the origins, behaviors, diseases, genetics and the life processes of animals and wildlife of the marine environment. Some marine biologists specialize in wildlife research and management, including the collection and analysis of biological data to determine the environmental effects of present and potential use of land and water areas.

A marine biologist works in a variety of settings that can range from working in an aquarium and collecting underwater samples and data to conducting observation or preservation activities out in the field and working in a research lab. Everything marine biologists do is science. They need to be able to measure salinity, acidity, light, oxygen content, and other physical conditions of water to determine their relationship to aquatic life. Marine biologists also need to identify, classify, and study structure, behavior, ecology, physiology, nutrition, culture, and distribution of plant and animal species.

Like all scientists, marine biologists pursue a vigorous education that includes undergraduate and graduate study. As undergraduates, most prospective marine biologists study biology or zoology, and some choose majors in marine biology. Studying marine biology as an undergraduate is not a prerequisite to becoming a marine biologist, however. Marine biologists may find it useful to develop a strong background in engineering, mathematics, or computer science in addition to pursuing a natural sciences education.

Some marine biology jobs are available to those whose highest degree is a bachelor's degree, but advancement often requires earning at least a master's degree. Master's degree programs in marine science focus on research and advanced study. Students take courses in biostatistics, oceanography, marine chemistry, ecosystems, and geology. They may then choose electives in their area of interest. Students may choose to focus on the ecology of a specific marine area, or they may study a type of marine organism, like corals, fish, mammals, or plankton. Graduate students are also expected to conduct some original research in their area of interest and present a thesis.

Marine biologist is an exciting and vitally important career that is especially attractive to those who are genuinely interested in exploring and protecting the vast water resources of our planet.

Mrs. Wang then deconstructs Text 8-4 to show the organizational and linguistic features of the text. She notes that the report on marine biologists is, like most other reports, structured into three parts. It starts with a general statement that indicates what is being talked about. The statement usually takes the form of a classification or definition (e.g., Marine biologists are scientists who study the origins, behaviors, diseases, genetics and the life processes of animals and wildlife of the marine environment.). Next, facts about various aspects of the topic are presented. These facts are organized into topical areas (e.g., what marine biologists do, what it takes to be a marine biologist), each led by a topic sentence and elaborated through definition, exemplification, attribution, and comparison/contrast. There is usually a summary statement about the topic at the end (e.g., Marine biologist is an exciting and vitally important career that is especially attractive to those who are genuinely interested in exploring and protecting the vast water resources of our planet.).

Lexicogrammatically, report uses generic participants (e.g., a marine biologist, scientists) to make general, non-specific statements about a class of things; specialized vocabulary (e.g., genetics, acidity) to create technical knowledge; simple present tense (e.g., works, pursue) to indicate universal or permanent qualities and habitual activities and processes; linking verbs denoting relational processes (e.g., are, include) to define, classify, and characterize the class of things in question; nominalizations (e.g., management, preservation) to coin technical terms, summarize data, distill information, and create text flow; epistemic hedges that moderate knowledge claims (e.g., can, may); and expanded noun phrases to pack information into the clause structure (e.g., scientists who study the origins, behaviors, diseases, genetics and the life processes of animals and wildlife of the marine environment; a vigorous education that includes undergraduate and graduate study; an exciting and vitally important career that is especially attractive to those who are genuinely interested in exploring and protecting the vast water resources of our planet). Mrs. Wang emphasizes that it is not the presence of any particular feature, but the constellation of features that renders a report what it is.

The dense nominal syntax of reports projects a highly formal, objective, and authoritative tone that students often find alienating. Cognizant of this, Mrs. Wang contrasts the formal, detached style of science reports with the more informal, interactive style that characterizes students' writing. She points to Text 8-5 (presented below), as well as the sample science biography presented earlier (Text 8-2), as examples that evidence an interactive, interpersonal style that is often less valued in academic contexts. She projects sample student writing on the SmartBoard, one paragraph at a time, and identifies several lexical and grammatical features of this style that she reminds students are more appropriate for everyday conversational contexts. These features include:

·　interrogative sentences (e.g., Do you want to hear about a woman scientists who lived for 101 years?; Did you know that most coasters have brakes made by electronic engineers?),

·　first and second personal pronouns (e.g., I, you),

·　contractions (e.g., I think that's pretty cool; … she wasn't interested in making lots of money; … what it's used for; Now that's a lot; It's used in lots of ways …),

·　colloquial expressions (e.g., I think that's pretty cool; Wow, she did a lot; That was a big deal to be a faculty member …; Cool, she started off so small, in her jobs I mean, and ended up so big; Yea, the engineering business is really cool; Later in the past the need for electricity was so bad, this power plant; Now that's a lot; It's used in lots of ways …),

·　sentence initial conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs (e.g., Also, she became the first female faculty member …; … plus she was the first female there; Actually, she never stopped trying to learn new things; Also the Mall of America has more visitors …; Also this type of Engineering helped make …),

·　reference to writer's mental processes (e.g., I think that's pretty cool; Right now I am thinking that …; I wonder how she managed to do all that?; I guess she just kept on trying …; … that is why I think Alice Hamilton is a great scientist …),

·　chaining syntax (e.g., Right now I am thinking that she was just born smart because she was educated at home most of her life, and then she went to a private school for girls for a few years.),

·　pronouns with unclear or inconsistent references (e.g., I wonder how she managed to do all that?; … this type of Engineering is used mostly for …well everything that uses electronics.).

·　discourse fillers (e.g., Well, her name is Alice Hamilton; Wow, she did a lot; Cool, she started off so small …; Yea, the engineering business is really cool; Now that's a lot; ... this type of Engineering is used for… well everything that uses electronics; See most Engineers spend at least five years in college.),

·　amplificatory phrase tags (e.g., Cool, she started off so small, in her jobs I mean, and ended up so big; Later in the past the need for electricity was so bad, this power plant.),

As she spotlights each feature, Mrs. Wang engages her class in discussion about how it can be turned into a more formal expression so that it is functional for construing the sort of meaning prized by the academic community. She tells students that in academic writing in general and science writing in particular, writers tend to draw on a more formal set of linguistic choices, such as declarative sentences, third person pronouns, precise vocabulary, nominalized syntax, clear references, and within-clause realization of logical-semantic relations. Each of these features are exemplified and contrasted with its counterparts in everyday language. She makes sure that each lesson focuses on no more than 2-3 such features so that students do not feel overwhelmed.

Text 8-5

Electronic Engineering

Did you know that most coasters have brakes made by electronic engineers? The brakes are electromagnetic. Yea, the engineering business is really cool. Some of the major thing I'm going to talk about is, how this type of Engineering is used, what it's used for, and what it takes to succeed.

First, electronic engineering is used in everyday work. Computers, telephones, lights, … ironically electricity. Roller coasters often use engineering. For example the Millennium Force. Also there is almost 1,500,000 Electronic engineers in the United States! Now that's a lot.

Second, this type of Engineering is used mostly for … well everything that uses electronics. Nuclear power plants thrive on "electricity". Later in the past the need for electricity was so bad, this power plant; Fort Monmouth was one of the fastest built power plant.

Last but not the least, it takes a big college education to become an electronic Engineer. See most Engineers spend at least five years in college. You need a very high math degree, and science as well.

Interesting facts about this topic are that one of the Star Trek simulations was built using lots and lots of Engineering. Also the Mall of America has more visitors than the Grand Canyon and Los Vegas combined. Also this type of Engineering helped make one of the most advanced science labs in the world.

In conclusion Electronic Engineering has lots of ups and downs. It's used in lots of ways as I said in the last few paragraphs.

Recognizing that her students need more explicit support in learning to use academic language, particularly its nominalized syntax, Mrs. Wang designs three tasks — noun expansion, definition game, and sentence combining (see Chapter 7) — that she believes would help acclimate her students to the more formal style of academic writing and enhance their understanding of how scientists use language to pack information and facilitate discursive flow in their writing. Examples for these tasks come from the texts students have read or the writing from her former students.

In noun expansion, students, in small groups or individually within each group, compete in a game called building noun trains. They are given head nouns (e.g., technician) and asked to expand them by adding as many premodifiers and qualifiers as possible (e.g., those three emergency medical technicians in Orlando who have been specially trained and certified to administer basic emergency services to victims of trauma or acute illness before and during transportation to a hospital or other healthcare facility). Premodifiers include pointers (e.g., those, the), numerals or ordinals (three, third), describers (e.g., medical), and classifiers (e.g., emergency). Qualifiers include prepositional phrase (e.g., in Orlando, to victims of trauma or acute illness, before and during transportation to a hospital or other healthcare facility), embedded clause (who have been specially trained and certified), and infinitive (e.g., to administer basic emergency services). Whoever builds the longest noun phrase wins the competition.

Another task for familiarizing students with academic language is the definition game (Unsworth, 1997). Definition is a key tool used by scientists (and other disciplinary experts) to classify, define, characterize, and catalogue the natural (or social) world. In defining technical concepts, long noun phrases are often used to ensure precision and economy and to prevent misunderstanding, as can be seen below:

·　An EMT (emergency medical technician) is a person who is specially trained and certified to administer basic emergency services to victims of trauma or acute illness before and during transportation to a hospital or other healthcare facility.

·　A pediatrician is a family doctor who specializes in treating children from newborn through 18 years old.

·　Marine biologists are scientists who study the origins, behaviors, diseases, genetics and the life processes of animals and wildlife of the marine environment.

To play the definition game, Mrs. Wang divides her class into groups of 3-5 students each. She prepares three decks of cards. In one deck are cards that have terms for science careers (e.g., aerospace engineer, nurse, pediatrician, emergency medical technician, physicist, veterinarian). These cards are called Vocabulary Cards. The second deck consists of cards that name the different categories of the nominal structure, including POINTER, DEMONSTRATIVE, NUMERAL, DESCRIBER, CLASSIFIER, HEAD, EMBEDDED CLAUSE, PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE, and INFINITIVE. These cards are called Category Cards. They are written in capital letters, with one category per card. In the third deck, textbook or dictionary definitions of science career terms are written, and each definition is cut up so that each grammatical constituent of the definition (e.g., noun, adjective, prepositional phrase, embedded clause, article, demonstrative, number, infinitive) is put on one card. These are called Definition Cards. For example, the definition of "pediatrician" — a family doctor who specializes in treating children from newborn through 18 years old — is cut up into four cards (a, family, doctor, who specializes in treating children from newborn through 18 years old), each representing a constituent of the nominal structure (i.e., pointer, classifier, head, embedded clause).

At the start of the game, the Vocabulary Cards (3-5 cards at a time) are placed face up at the lower left side of the table. The Category Cards are shuffled and placed face down in the middle of the table. The cut-up Definition Cards are also shuffled and placed face up in the upper right side of the table. Each player must take a Category Card from the middle of the table and then look for a corresponding Definition Card in the upper right side of the table to be put next to the appropriate Vocabulary Card in the lower left side of the table. For example, if a player picks HEAD from the deck of Category Cards, she or he must then find a corresponding Definition Card (e.g., doctor), which is then to be placed next to the Vocabulary Card (pediatrician). Each correct placement scores one point. The teacher or an experienced student can monitor the game by being a referee. This game helps students consolidate their knowledge of the nominal structure. It gives them a chance to play with technical grammar of scientific definitions while also learning something about the science content.

In sentence combining tasks, students are given a set of simple sentences to combine in any way that makes sense (an open-ended task) or in a specific way (a cued task). Mrs. Wang tells her students that sentence combining exercises will help them write more interesting sentences that sound more academic to their readers and are functional for making the sorts of meaning valued in disciplinary contexts. She suggests that skilled writers often re-work their sentences to help convey their message more clearly and effectively. She models how to combine them — moving words or parts around, deleting or changing words or parts, or adding words or parts — and explains her reasoning in combining the sentences in a particular way and why she thinks the new combination may be more appropriate for particular contexts. She begins with a whole class discussion by showing them two simple sentences (e.g., Pediatricians are family doctors. They specialize in treating children from newborn through 18 years old.) and combining them into one sentence that sounds like a formal definition (e.g., Pediatricians are family doctors who specialize in treating children from newborn through 18 years old.). Sometimes, she has students work in pairs or small groups. One student (or group of students) deconstructs a complex sentence (e.g., Sandstone caves are shallow, hollowed-out cavities in the base of cliffs made of a soft rock called sandstone.) and rewrite it using the more "fragmented" syntax of conversational language (e.g., Sandstone caves are shallow, hollowed-out cavities. They can be found in the base of cliffs. They are made of a soft rock. The rock is called sandstone.). Another student (or group of students) puts the "fragmented" sentences back into one sentence that sounds more academic or scientific. The two students (or groups of students) then share their renditions, discussing why their transformations are more or less precise, clear, effective, or valued in relating the author's message to a specific audience in particular contexts of communication, instead of which option is correct or wrong.

Sometimes, Mrs. Wang presents a paragraph from one of her students' writings on the SmartBoard and then as a class they discuss ways it could be improved. She teams her students into pairs and provides a paper copy of the paragraph to each pair. Then she challenges them to talk together to discover how the paragraph could be changed. After they have written their ideas, they would read various versions out loud and discuss how each is different from the original text. This format gives students an opportunity to practice controlling and manipulating the syntactic options available within their actual writing. Because sentences build on one another to create a unified whole in any piece of writing, Mrs. Wang encourages her students to explore the effect that a change in the rhythm of one sentence may have on other sentences. Given that what makes a good sentence is mostly dependent on the purpose of that sentence within the context of a composition, allowing students to try out different options within their own writing increases their awareness that writing is a process of designing meaning that involves making choices from the grammatical systems of language, rather than piling up academic language features.

8.4.5 Reflections on the Unit

Mrs. Wang's writing lessons demonstrate a number of features that exemplify best practices in writing instruction. First, she connects writing with reading and talking. Texts students read serve as models for writing. Students learn both content knowledge and language patterns specific to a particular topic or genre through reading, exploring, and conversing about these texts. This experience prepares them well for subsequent writing tasks, as composing a quality text requires not only content knowledge but also linguistic resources for effectively presenting that knowledge.

Second, Mrs. Wang teaches grammar in a contextualized manner and from a functional lens. Her grammar lessons, often playful, go beyond mere deconstruction of linguistic structures to focus on the function and meaning of these structures in specific learning contexts. For example, she is well aware that knowing that expert writers use compact sentences with embedded clause, appositive, non-finite clause, and nominalized syntax more than do inexperienced writers does not mean that every sentence in students' writing should be a compact sentence, regardless of genre or audience. She cautions students that piling up more compact sentences (or other academic language features) does not automatically result in higher quality writing. She points out that what is more important is that students take note of the way compact sentences are used, the functions they serve in the text, and the effects they have on the meaning, focus, and discursive flow of the text. She recognizes that sometimes it may be more effective to hold small group or individual conferences, where she can talk with individual writers who have a tendency to write short or fragmented sentences about possibilities in a given piece of writing to integrate these sentences into more compact ones so as to emphasize a particular point, background certain information, achieve certain rhetorical effect, or create better discursive flow. She also makes sure her students are afforded opportunities to talk about and reflect on the language choices in the texts they read and in those they write. In short, form, function, meaning, logic, and context are simultaneously emphasized in the language play tasks, or grammatical exercises, that Mrs. Wang designs. As a result, her grammar lessons increase students' understanding of the ways language is used for different purposes and contexts, enabling them to write more powerfully in genre-specific and register-appropriate ways that are valued by the academic community.

Third, Mrs. Wang subscribes to the belief that less means more in writing assignment. With the amount of time she devotes to one writing assignment (biography or report) in the unit, it is clear that Mrs. Wang believes that one piece of writing done well and a few grammatical concepts taught well can be much more effective for a student writer's growth than many concepts and lessons taught superficially and many pieces of writing assigned without much guidance or feedback. In teaching grammar during writing lessons, she follows the best practices recommended by writing experts such as Myhill et al. (2013) and Weaver (2010). Specifically, she shares and discusses the content and craft in well-written texts (e.g., literature or non-fiction prose), selects only a few key grammatical features to focus on at one time, scaffolds the teaching of grammar with examples and explanations rather than formal definitions, makes links between the linguistic features introduced and the effects they might have on meaning/focus/flow, provides multiple opportunities for students to discuss and use the linguistic features introduced, encourages imitation by offering model grammatical patterns for students to play with and eventually appropriate in their own writing, nurtures students' ability to make informed choices in their writing and to see writing as a process of designing meaning, promotes playfulness and innovation with language, and celebrates the new things students have learned (or almost learned). These practices are more likely to succeed in improving students' engagement, language proficiency, literacy growth, and other learning outcomes.

Fourth, Mrs. Wang sees errors as a natural part of the learning process. She encourages her students to play with language and not to worry about making mistakes. She judges her students' work by their effectiveness or appropriateness, rather than correctness. She welcomes "mistakes" as opportunities for discussion and problem solving, helping students understand that writing (or language use in general) is a process of making choices and the writer has to choose the best option based on intended audience, stylistic appeal, points of emphasis, and clarity of meaning. Within this context, "mistakes" become sentences that could be formed in better ways than the writer originally attempted. Her stance on writing errors encourages students to experiment with innovative expressions and new styles, which is especially beneficial for less-skilled writers who are often unwilling to take risks in their writing.