Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Recommended Literature for Science Classrooms

Reading is a Tool to Extend Thinking Beyond Regular Life Experiences in all Contents.
Science text libraries are expanding within education




“Literature is the most astonishing technological means that humans have created, and now practiced for thousands of years, to capture experience. For me the thrill of literature involves entering into the life worlds of others. I’m from a particular, constricted place in time, and I suddenly am part of a huge world — other times, other places, other inner lives that I otherwise would have no access to.” 

-Stephen Greenblatt, professor of humanities at Harvard and author of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.

 Reading is a basic and essential skill for every student in science. However, reading in the science classroom goes beyond the ability to comprehend and gather information from text material. Students not only read to interpret text, decode tables and graphs, and understand equations, but also to have an experience with the content of that text that can be used to engage and motivate students to explore the topic further on their own. A positive experience with information and literary texts allow students’ imaginations to expand and deepen their interest in scientific literature. 

 In conversations with teachers around text they are using in their science classrooms, there are often questions of "Is this okay?"...The Science Framework calls for supplementing and not replacing science instruction to not only include science information books, but also fiction, narrative and even poetry. Pretty exciting!

A valuable resource I can recommend you take a look at for access to quality text is the: Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12. It is published annually by the National Science Teacher Association. This list of award-winning books is researched and approved each year by educators. The 2015 list is available at:   
A small sample of book titles/covers found at website
http://www.nsta.org/publications/ostb/ostb2015.aspx (Replace “2015” in the URL to get listings of outstanding tradebooks from other years.) 

The California Language Arts/English Language Development Framework provides guidance on using a variety of texts in the classroom. There is an interdisciplinary expectation that the development of each student’s literacy skills is a shared responsibility–science teachers collaborating with teachers of other academic content subjects for an integrated model of literacy across the curriculum. We are all literacy teachers.

In order to peak a students' interest in science we want to provide opportunities for students to engage in multiple types of text experiences. Reading trade books with a science link, tales about science investigations, historical case studies, or biographies of scientists or engineers is wonderful and can greatly enhance the learning experience. Another book I would like to recommend is: Joy Hakim’s book: Reading Science Stories which allows the reader to appreciate science through real life scenarios. Through narrative nonfiction a student may possibly relate to the experiences of a scientist and can encourage their desire to engage in the practices of science.  She offers twenty-two different stories of scientists. She explores how they approached problems and provides insight into their life experiences.  However, reading trade books or narrative nonfiction does not replace the need for students to actually do science. 


High-School Literature Circle
     Literature circles which have long been used in ELA classrooms can be successful with science based non-fictio as well (e.g. Straits and Nichols 2006; Wilfong 2009) and have been shown to help with access and equity (Ogbomo 2014).  For an overview of how to incorporate literature circles in a science classroom see: http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=52824 



     Reading science content or reading fictional stories with a science theme is not equivalent to doing science. Non-fictional literature is meant to be used with hands-on activities to challenge thinking, scaffold understanding, and enhance the learning experience. While reading through the NGSS Framework I found this statement helpful for organizing the order of creating a lesson: "Additionally, reading ought not come first in a learning sequence. Rather, reading should take place after students have had experiences with the content and have generated questions." 

Another great series
The California Department of Education updated website Recommended Literature: PrekindergartenThrough Grade Twelve is a searchable database of books to help students, teachers, and families find books that entertain, inform, and explore new ideas, cultures, and experiences. Some of the search categories that can be used for selection include the author, title, illustrator or translation; grade-level span; language of a book if other than English or if the title is bilingual; cultural designations; genre; classification; curriculum connections; awards; and discipline and topics or areas of focus within an academic discipline. The literacy strategies you are already using successfully will work well in science as well...so try it on if you haven't already!

Here are some online resources as well to check out for articles: 
As always please share any resources you are currently using with success in science, and if you try one of the resources listed provide us feedback in the comments!!

Thank you





 

 
 
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