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I Read, I Learn, iMovie: Strategies for Developing Literacy in the Context of Inquiry-Based Science Instruction

Abstract

In the United States, increasing pressure to adopt standards-based teaching and assessment in literacy, science, and technology is making curriculum integration a more popular and vital option for teachers. In this article, the authors present their most successful strategies for teaching literacy in the context of inquiry-based science and technology instruction, highlighting their use of desktop digital video editing with the recently released iMovie software. The strategies described increase student motivation, build on children’s prior knowledge and natural curiosity, and provide a context that enhances literacy instruction by expanding experiences and science vocabulary, stimulating creative writing, developing knowledge of literary genres, and fostering student expression and knowledge of audience through writing about relevant issues.

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The Crisis of Science Education

In the United States, elementary school children are performing poorly on science tests. Much of the problem with children’s science learning can be attributed to a lack of instructional emphasis on science in the early grades and to elementary teachers’ frequently limited knowledge of science subjects (Abell, Bryan, & Anderson, 1998; Lave, 1990; Lederman, 1999). Furthermore, curricula in U.S. elementary schools are increasingly being driven by standardized assessments that focus on a narrowly defined view of literacy (Poole, 1994). For example, skill-based programs dominate elementary reading curricula in southern California, despite research that shows process skills and content are not learned meaningfully out of context (Goodman, 1986).

Scientific literacy, which incorporates an understanding of the nature of science, investigations of the natural world, the ability to use reading, writing, listening, and speaking to learn about science, interpretation of data, and communication of scientific findings, features prominently in the rhetoric of current education reform movements in the United States (see, e.g., American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989, online document; National Research Council, 1996, online document). Despite this, many school districts have taken an aggressive approach to developing narrow skill-based strategies in students, with little attention paid to integrating science content or scientific literacy into the prescribed curricula.

In some elementary schools in California, for example, science lessons are incorporated only in programs for gifted and talented students, while those who perform poorly on standardized reading tests are grouped in classes devoted almost exclusively to reading. In mainstream classrooms in the San Diego district, instruction in traditional print-based literacy is mandated for 40 percent of the school day, and emphasis on skill-based, content-independent guided reading strategies is the norm. As a result, science is frequently omitted from daily instruction, even by teachers who are enthusiastic about the subject. Although some standardized tests of reading do show improved scores in the city in the past year or two, it has been at the expense of other disciplines.

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Promoting Equity in the Classroom

As science educators, we struggle to forward a wider view of literacy and a more integrated approach to elementary teaching. We have become aware of increasing disparity in achievement among science learners as the discourse of classrooms becomes more constrained and prescriptive. We are also concerned that the practice of tracking at the secondary level is becoming more influential in the lower grades. The inequitable access to knowledge propagated through tracking is well documented (Goodlad, 1984; Oakes, 1985, 1990), and several scholars argue that the correlation between curriculum differentiation and unequal racial and gender representation in particular tracks reproduces larger socioeconomic injustices (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Page, 1991). As such, tracking serves as a highly efficient mechanism to deliver students into their so-called proper places in society (Anyon, 1981; Gamoran, 1987; Rosenbaum, 1976). Yet the practice is widely accepted because it is believed to be in students’ best interests (Oakes, 1985).

The school disciplines of science and mathematics have played an especially prominent role in promoting student stratification. In traditional school settings, science tends to be presented as abstract, disconnected, and objective, beyond the understanding of most students (Duschl, 1994; Lemke, 1990; Rodriguez, 1997). Further, school science is often taught in tracks laced with implicit messages of power. Stratification is accomplished by privileging the discourse of “higher level” science, to which only a few members of a school or classroom community have access. The “lower level” science classes promote a discourse of disseminated facts, watered-down content, and basic process skills. Ironically, such classes tend to focus on reading dry texts and answering recall questions, instead of engaging students in active forms of learning and deeper communication that could motivate them to read and write in a meaningful context.

Disempowering messages conveyed in lower track science classes are often exacerbated by the mandated curriculum coverage and routine assessments supposedly intended to measure growth or ability. Standardized testing and curricular stratification have been noted to reinforce disturbing messages about the nature of knowledge (Poole, 1994) and contribute to the deterioration of students’ confidence and agency during the process of science learning.

classroom scene Constructing more open discourse in elementary classrooms is not without challenge, though research shows that renegotiation of classroom expectations needs to and can be accomplished (Hildebrand, 1998; Hogan, Pressley, & Nastasi, 1996; O’Loughlin, 1992; Rosebery, Warren, & Conant, 1992). The specific skills needed for interpreting text, designing data collection, analyzing data, and discussing differing conclusions must be taught. This can be done only by expert teachers comfortable in promoting a new kind of classroom discourse that weaves aspects of scientific thinking and speaking.

Moreover, changing the discourse can help all students in our increasingly diverse classrooms appropriate scientific ways of speaking, thinking, and acting. In the United States, large gaps are forming between English-speaking and other students (Oakes, 1985, 1990; Oakes & Guiton, 1995). The study of science can help teachers close this gap at the elementary level, since the hands-on nature of science investigations encourages English language learners to become active participants in their learning (Ballenger, 1993; Michaels & O’Connor, 1990; Rodriguez, 1997). Integration of science into reading instruction can elicit cultural interpretations, identify alternative conceptions, and engage students in meaningful discourse about scientific phenomena through reading and writing (Ballenger; Gallas, 1994; Gee, 1989, 1994).

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Approaches to Integrating Science and Literacy

An integrated science and literacy curriculum would increase our ability to bridge diverse home and school discourses as well as improve learners’ access to instruction in science, math, engineering, and technology. This would be particularly beneficial prior to the middle grades, when struggling readers begin to lose interest and choose nonscientific endeavors. Traditional approaches to science teaching do little to solicit student misconceptions, while they encourage teachers to gloss over scientific conceptual development (Lave, 1990; Martens, 1999; Solomon, 1992). In contrast, an integrated curriculum in which, for example, students might tell stories about their ideas, gives teachers insights into what students actually know, can free them to address misconceptions directly, and encourages consideration of pedagogical options. Stimulating children’s scientific literacy through story development can also assist preservice teachers in stepping away from a teaching approach involving only the simple dissemination of scientific facts (Gallas, 1995; Lynn & Abell, 1999; Shapiro, 1994).

Among the barriers to an integrated curriculum that promotes storytelling about science is the fact that children’s naive explanations of and beliefs about scientific phenomena often have cultural significance. We run the risk of violating, marginalizing, or being insensitive to cultural ways of being and knowing if we promote a “pure science” view of the world (Au, 1980; Ballenger, 1992). It is imperative that we remain closely connected with the common culture of the community when renegotiating what counts as scientific knowledge.

Other barriers include many teachers’ lack of scientific expertise, limited time and methods for soliciting student beliefs about the world, minimal dissemination of exemplary practices, minimal availability of exemplary integrated assessments that tap into more than a singular domain of knowledge, and the alleged chasm of communication between educational researchers and practitioners.

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Strategies for Combining Science and Literacy Through Technology

As instructors in science education methods, we develop and test pedagogical and evaluation strategies that transcend traditional assessments as a means of developing deeper conceptual understanding of science for all students. Specifically, we work to understand how cognitive and sociocultural domains of science learning are affected through the integration of literacy. To do so, we have been using state-of-the-art desktop video production and writing in science instruction.

We believe that the technological innovation with the greatest potential to affect classroom instruction is desktop digital video. The increased memory and speed of desktop and laptop computers, the greatly improved compatibility of digital video equipment and other devices with these computers, and the creation of well-designed video editing software have made the task of creating digital video projects widely accessible. Digital video projects can incorporate scripts, scanned drawings, audio, and many other modes of communication, integrating reading, writing, speaking, and listening. In the sciences, such projects can include drawings, graphical representations of data, text, and other ways of expressing key concepts and terminology, all of which can be burned on to a compact disk (CD) or recorded on a video cassette in a matter of minutes.

children working on a laptop computer Our strategy has been to identify areas in which science and literacy can be woven together within the context of district-mandated literacy standards and without losing a conceptual, investigative approach to science. We have found that the potential for integration and commonality is endless. In the project described here, we worked with second- to fifth-grade teachers to identify curricular overlap in science and literacy, determine ways in which students made sense of daily instruction (specifically with regard to misconceptions in science), develop and provide appropriate reading assignments in science, and promote strategies for student writing about science-related concepts. Students were involved in hands-on science experiences, enhanced reading and writing opportunities, and supplemental instruction. Specifically, they used Apple Computer’s iMovie desktop video to write stories, make predictions, design projects, report events, and promote their favorite activities. We aimed to deepen science understanding by increasing the variety of students’ experiences in science beyond traditional text-based instruction.

We used four different approaches to promote integration between literacy and science instruction in the elementary classrooms:

Expanding students’ experiences and the science vocabulary available to them for their writing through the introduction of external artifacts and events

Stimulating creative writing and graphical representations through inquiry lessons

Expanding students’ knowledge of literary genres through the writing, editing, and production of public service announcements on scientific topics

Fostering development of students’ voices and their understanding of audience through writing about science problems with societal impact

In the following sections we clarify how each of these strategies, and the lessons developed around them to incorporate digital video, has merit both for promoting science education reform and for fostering a richer context for literacy in science classrooms.

Expanding Students’ Experiences and Vocabulary

One of the ways we stimulated children’s writing was by introducing varied contexts and events for them to write about. For example, in one combined kindergarten-Grade 1 class, the teacher taught a unit on ponds that integrated math, literacy, and science. Unfortunately, it was too logistically challenging to arrange for the students to visit a pond ecosystem. We agreed with the teacher that the reading and writing assignments in the unit would have little value if the students had no personal experiences and connections that would allow them to transact with the texts (Rosenblatt, 1995). To counter this, we took several students on a after-school trip to a pond, where we filmed some video footage and collected samples of pond life (plants, crayfish, frogs, lizards, turtles, snails, and insects) and pond water. We then created an iMovie of the experience (available at the time of publications of this article as a streaming video file on a server at the University of San Diego) to share with all the students in the classroom. Children were then asked to make real-world connections with the content through writing, classifying, drawing, and other literacy activities.

The iMovie and related investigations even helped students understand that some pond animals and plants cannot be seen with the naked eye. Students took turns viewing different pond water samples through magnifying glasses and microscopes, and they created a bulletin board of observations of the different animals they discovered and questions they had about their findings. (To model ecological responsibility, we returned all the live samples to the pond after this point in the unit.) The observation-and-question bulletin board provided a low-stress opportunity for students to try out writing skills. To gain answers to their questions, they e-mailed scientists in the local community. The answers they received and their own observations were then used by the students to categorize organisms by their scientific families and to compile a more formal field guide they and their families could take along when they visited the pond. This activity provided a meaningful context for reading and writing, along with examples of prewriting techniques. In addition, studying the scientific families gave a context for examining the ways in which language conveys meaning, including basic word morphology and syntax.

The bulletin board also gave us insights into how children think and write. Through it, the teacher gained an opportunity to correct certain misconceptions children were harboring (e.g., fish and pond bugs appear from nowhere) and to discover areas where content knowledge was lacking. The teacher was also reminded of the challenging, genuine, and probing questions children pose when given an opportunity.

The iMovie was also used as a springboard for students to develop short stories about what it would be like to be an animal living in a pond. The idea of ecological responsibility was also reinforced through a meaningful writing experience: the creation of posters to teach others how to protect our disappearing wetlands. The variety of writing experiences in the pond unit also emphasized the way we use different forms of writing to communicate with different audiences.

Stimulating Writing and Representing Through Inquiry Lessons

two girls writing Science and writing have many commonalties. One of the most obvious is that they both use steps of planning, preparing a draft or design, reviewing, and revising. In science, we never finish -- we continue to refine theories, search for additional support for our ideas, and communicate our findings. Much of the same can be said for the writing process.

One important tenet of science is that one’s knowledge can be used to make predictions to explain future phenomena. In one combined Grade 2-3 classroom, we used iMovies of science demonstrations with unexpected results to engage students in writing. For example, when we asked students to write their ideas of what sort of casings might protect an egg if it were dropped, most predicted success for layers of Styrofoam packing. However, the unanticipated results shown in an iMovie caused children to push the limits of their knowledge. Not only did these students predict outcomes, share those predictions and findings, and engage in revisiting and revising their written predictions and observations, they went on to work together to write explanations, make predictions for the outcomes of other investigations and experiments, and engage in a broader discourse by analyzing different perspectives of the same problem.

pea-and-toothpick bridget model Design proposals were another venue for written communication. Students were given a choice of tasks: designing a bridge with peas and toothpicks that would hold a can of soup, or devising a container that could protect an egg from breaking if it were dropped from a three-story building. Students did not simply guess haphazardly, but instead worked in teams to create formal designs and written explanations, construct their projects, and then test their projects under the critical lens of the camera. (An iMovie showing one bridge-designing project is available on a University of San Diego server.)

In addition to supporting the importance of planning and revising, these lessons provided authentic reasons to read a wide variety of expository text. Students working with the bridge designs, for example, read about the history of bridge building as far back as the Roman era and investigated building materials and concepts in geometry. As they did so, the children encountered new content-specific vocabulary. The children were fascinated by the strength of the first arch design and the building of the first steel bridge.

They knew in advance that the strength of their own bridges would be tested, with the tests recorded on videotape for presentation to the class as an iMovie, and they therefore were strongly motivated to research, collaborate, revise, and perfect their designs. These designs were not limited to text and photos but also required students to draw two- and three-dimensional renderings of their proposed bridges, which were submitted for approval from “local officials.” Architects and civil engineers were contacted for advice along the way. After the bridges were tested and the iMovie was shown to the class, some students were assigned the role of inspectors, to provide written documentation of each bridge’s structural integrity or design flaws. These collaborative projects gave students an opportunity to learn about the roles of people in society and their influence on our communities, and communicated the importance of reading and writing in different careers.

Expanding Knowledge of Literary Genres

When working with children with limited literacy skills, it is important to consider what they already can do well. In the case of language-minority students, artistic expression and creativity can offer a launchpad to connect children and teachers in a common mission. This was our goal as we assisted children in developing advertising campaigns and public service announcements focused on science issues. These activities were designed to teach children to be concise in their writing, and to help them learn to think carefully about the words they were going to use to express their point of view in a limited time frame. In this way, they would experience an authentic form of communication and extend their skills of planning, editing, and presenting in an exciting format.

In the same Grade 2-3 class, we had children select the issues of greatest importance to them from current or past science lessons or from science topics that they wanted to learn more about. Chosen topics included recycling, endangered species, pollution, and television violence. Students then drafted cartoon-like storyboards to plan their digital videos. One group focused on the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez (their iMovie is available on the class Web site).

Students in the group read books about oil spills and articles about the Valdez disaster, investigated clean-up techniques, and tested which methods were most effective. They wrote letters to Exxon inquiring about their methods but received very little assistance from the company representatives, who simply directed them to the company Web site. Students used time-elapsed recording with iMovie to document the success of their own clean-up experiments using skimmers, detergents, surfactants, and other methods employed during the Valdez crisis. The technology meant that five experiments could be conducted and documented simultaneously, thus saving considerable class time.

boy looking at motor boats in a yacht harbor Once students realized that there is no entirely effective way to clean up an oil spill, their focus shifted to use and prevention. Ship design, rules for marine navigation, and containment of spills through flotation devices were explored by some in the group, while others made public service announcements to discourage use of petroleum products and encourage development of alternative fuel sources and ways to reclaim and distribute products such as motor oil and diesel fuel. We grouped students with similar interests but varied artistic and language abilities and jigsawed the task among group members. Along with storyboards, children were required to work together to produce a script to accompany their video footage. Students with limited English completed storyboards in their own languages and were assisted in translating their scripts. Most of the children we worked with had seen subtitled media of some kind, and their creativity was not inhibited by this process. In this way, students of different abilities and backgrounds could engage simultaneously in an exciting science, social studies, and literacy unit while complementing and teaching one another through their varied artistic and language expertise.

Finding and Fostering Student Voices and Audiences for Student Writing

A final strategy we used integrated writing and science in the process of civic planning and development. There are many ways in which children can become directly involved in issues in their communities. As the first step in designing a project that would engage children in local community planning and development, we identified issues that directly affected them, including local water sources, pollution and recycling, and school safety. We worked with teachers and students to identify specific issues, develop a strategy for assessing the problem, brainstorm solutions, and present children’s ideas to the appropriate community leaders.

One of the schools where we work sits on a busy street, across from an apartment building. Sudents were very concerned about the speed of the cars that drove past and were aware that one student from their school had been killed by a reckless driver. We brainstormed ideas about the best way to bring this issue to the attention of community leaders, and it was agreed that videotaping offenders and presenting an iMovie of students’ concerns would have the desired effect. (To view the iMovie, visit the University of San Diego server.)

chart being filled in by hand holding pencil For 2 weeks, we integrated science instruction with mathematics, technology, and social responsibility within the literacy emphasis at the school. We explored motion, speed, school and societal rules, responsibility, and effective action while trying to provide an authentic context for problem solving. “How fast do cars actually travel in front of our school?” was the question we explored. We used motion detectors to measure remote control cars, made graphs of constant and changing speeds, and designed experiments to test a variety of phenomena; we then invited others to assist us in more accurately answering our question. A kind, but nonetheless imposing police officer from the San Diego Police Department agreed to visit the classroom to discuss speed limits, safety, and his equipment.

Officer Daye came armed with his radar detector to assist us with our experiments. With notepads, graph paper, and signs in hand, students videotaped offenders and documented the number of cars exceeding the speed limit. Students observed some adults (a few saw their own parents) slowing down once they realized they had been clocked, but others sped past unremorsefully, seemingly without noticing the legion of students and their new police friend with his radar detector. Officer Daye trained students to be keen observers of cars, speed, and safety, and suggested that they point at speeding cars to let their drivers know they have been noticed. When students tried this out, they found it was quite an effective tactic -- particularly when Officer Daye himself pointed a mighty finger (not the detector) at the cars. Students jumped up and down, elated by their new-found power to influence their neighbors and community.

Once all the data had been collected, we began the task of analyzing our results and compiling appropriate clips for the class iMovie. The findings disturbed us all. Of the 68 cars we clocked and charted, 59 were exceeding the limit.

Once back in the classroom, students chose either to write letters, write and produce an iMovie, or some other means to turn their science study into social activism. Publishing our findings in the local newspaper, posting pictures of speeding cars on local street signs, and designing more personal written pleas were some of the ways we used to make the existing laws more relevant to the community.

Our efforts caught the attention of the local television reporter who asked us to repeat our study for broadcast to the larger San Diego community. We took the opportunity to demonstrate our classroom activities and showcase our video and written work. This literacy, science, and technology project taught children the power of writing more powerfully than any other we attempted. Children learned how writing can reach a wide audience, how it can promote change, and how it can educate adults as well as children. Graves (1983) writes that “publication is important for all children. It is not the privilege of the classroom elite, the future literary scholars. Rather it is an important mode of literacy enfranchisement for each child in the classroom.” Publishing in a class library is meaningful, but publishing in a broader venue, such as the local newspaper or on a Web site is even more empowering.

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Implications

We agree with the reformers across the educational spectrum who call for more integration of content and more culturally relevant instruction about current social problems. We also agree that high standards of achievement should be a goal for all students. But while we embrace such visions, we assert that standards do not articulate successful strategies for teachers, for balancing changing school policies, mandates, and populations, or for educating teachers with regard to their options for assessment and achievement.

The strategies we have described for integrating science lessons with literacy instruction provide students with background experiences and knowledge that prepare them to transact with text, create situations in which context-embedded vocabulary can by used by all students (particularly useful for English language learners), provide active learning experiences, use a variety of participation structures, motivate students, provide authentic reasons to read and write, and illustrate the real-life need for good communication skills. Combining investigative work with text-based experiences in these ways allows a wider variety of students to be successful through multiple paths, honoring their personal strengths and interests, while building on and developing their skills.

Integrating science and literacy builds upon children’s natural curiosity and makes reading and writing more meaningful. In our work, we have observed science enhancing literacy instruction by expanding experiences and science vocabulary, stimulating creative writing and graphical representations, expanding knowledge of literary genres, and fostering student voices and knowledge of audience through writing about relevant issues. Through each strategy we have seen that weaving science stories and shared experiences together with reading and writing instruction encourages students to compare their own personal knowledge with that of scientific communities, thus building a sense of purpose for schooling.

We recommend that readers hoping to accomplish similar outcomes examine their curricula carefully for opportunities to enhance literacy instruction with science investigations. We also encourage teachers and administrators to examine their definitions of literacy, to see if their functional use of the word should be broadened so that instruction and assessment can incorporate a richer discourse in which many voices truly count. If your educational context is similar to the ones we have observed in southern California and North Carolina, incorporating a wider set of genres, artifacts, and venues for motivating children will be beneficial. Digital video production can serve as a tool for assessing whether teaching practices truly avoid exacerbating the differences in opportunities to learn that currently exist between advantaged and disadvantaged students.

Finally, as educators interested in equity for all students, we must bear in mind the vast diversity of students and cultures that influence our daily teaching. We must work to understand the impact of this diversity in the classroom for excluding and constraining contributions from culturally diverse students. Digital video is one way to place children’s voices and motivation for learning at the forefront of educational decisions.

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References

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About the Authors

portrait of Randy Yerrick

E-mail Randy Yerrick portrait of Donna Ross

E-mail Donna Ross

Randy Yerrick and Donna Ross are science teacher educators in the College of Education at San Diego State University, California, USA. As research associates in the university’s Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education, Donna and Randy are involved in the teaching, mentoring, and research of elementary teachers in southern California.

The videos linked to this article are housed outside of this publication and should not be considered a part of it. Any technical difficulties related to display of the video segments should be brought to the attention of the article authors, rather than the publisher. To print this article, point and click your mouse anywhere on the article’s text; then use your browser’s print command.

Citation: Yerrick, R.K., & Ross, D.L. (2001, July/August). I read, I learn, iMovie: Strategies for developing literacy in the context of inquiry-based science instruction. Reading Online, 5(1). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/yerrick/index.html