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To develop the skills of arguing, demonstrating, explaining one's own thought and work path is a crucial activity in research, both in the mathematical and scientific field and in the humanistic field. I completely agree with Dr. Gunel on the importance of rational writing to improve specific language, to fix learning, and to make the thoughts clear and explicit

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THE EFFECTS OF WRITING TO LEARN ACTIVITIES ON STUDENTS' LEARNING OUTCOMES

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THE EFFECTS OF WRITING TO LEARN ACTIVITIES ON STUDENTS' LEARNING OUTCOMES

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Theorists agree that writing can be a valuable tool for learning content because while writing students explore ideas, discover relationships, observe contrasts, sequence ideas, and process information (Fulwiler & Young, 1982). Moreover, Walshe (1987) concluded that writing activities increase the quality of learning by helping students clarify ideas and relationships between them. Parker and Goodkin (1987) claim that the physical act of writing has mental/cognitive consequences. As students write about information, they reconstruct the thinking process; they internalize the activity and meaningful learning occurs.

Some studies (e.g., Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004; Gunel, Hand, & Prain, 2007; Sampson, Enderle, Grooms, & Witte, 2013; Uzoglu, 2010) have shown that writing to learn activities have significant effects on:

Achievement scores

Attitudes towards science

Scientific process skills

Conceptual understanding

Scientific literacy

Self-responsible learning

Argumentation skills

The use of multiple modes of representation

Peer interaction

Critical thinking and problem solving skills.

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My name's Gaia, I'm... years old, and I've got a 6 years son.
I work as an English and ICT teacher in an Italian Primary School. This is my 18th year as a teacher and I sometimes feel tired. But.... everytime I feel really, really tired... suddenly I find a new online course, a new occasion of sharing and learning something completely different and interesting and intriguing... So this is the reason why I'm here: to learn something new and to find colleagues form all over the world to share ideas, materials and hints.
Enjoy your course

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In primary school, inquiry is the daily prompt to lessons and new contents. Pupils are driven by their natural curiosity about the world and the relations and they are involved in this inquiry process as a vital part of their development. This becomes concretely evident in teaching science. Somehow, primary school is an enormous Science lab in which kids are continuously involved in finding and practicing something new and intriguing....
Inquiring is the main way leading to problem posing and problem solving, even if pupils are often more interested in the object of their punctual observations (insects, animals, growing plants...) than in the process.
Making them reflect on the process is the teacher's work, to systematize their spontaneous discoveries in an epistemological correct syllabus of contents.

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1.1 FRUIT PREPARATION: MY ENTRY ON PADLET

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1.1 FRUIT PREPARATION: MY ENTRY ON PADLET

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FRUIT PREPARATION OBSERVATION
1) Fruit preparation in jar A changed:
colour (from dark red to grey),
volume (it splitted from the jar)
consistence (some bubbles are visible on the surface, sign of gas development)
Possible hypothesis: different composition of fruit preparation in jar A compared to jar B (less sugars or not added sugars in A);
different ways of preparation (jar A could be not pasteurized);
presence of preservatives in jar B and not in jar A;
different conservation during the week after the opening of the jars.

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1.2 FROM THE SITUATION TO THE HYPOTHESIS

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1.2 FROM THE SITUATION TO THE HYPOTHESIS

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In the preparation A there are only natural sugars and not added sugars; so the preparation is more sensible to oxydation when open.

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This is the protocol of the experiment I held in my class as part of a CLIL project about "easy chemistry" (3rd grade)
1) Add 50 g. of yeast to 150 ml of water and stir well
2) put 20 ml of water and yeast in each tube;
3) add sugar to each yeast in this proportion:
tube 1: 0 gr sugar
tube 2: 1 gr sugar
tube 3: 2 gr sugar
tube 4: 4 gr sugar
tube 5: 8 gr sugar
Cover each tube with a balloon.
Label the tubes indicating the amount of sugar you put in it.
Observation: after one hour, the first balloon didn't inflate. The other 4 balloons inflated in different ways.
The fifth balloon fully inflated.

Conclusions: in absence of sugar, the yeast doesn't develop gas.

The quantity of sugar affects the inflation of the balloons.

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My experiment was quite similar to the example, but more "rudimentary" in materials and organization. I pointed on pupils' autonomy and group observation.

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THE TOOL

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MY PADLET REFLECTION
Going through the self-reflection protocol, I had the chance to point on different aspects of the process and on how to conduct Science experiments in class, specially with young children, that areoften interested more in the results than in the process.

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As I said, I teach English and ICT in a primary school near Milan, Italy.
I have two 3rd grades (8-9 years old) and one 5th grade (10-11 years old). All my classes are of 24 pupils, with at least 50% girls.
There are also some pupils form different Countries: China, Albania, Caribbean Islands, Ecuador, Romania, Argentina and Peru.
Italian is the mother language for the 75% of my pupils and a L2 for the remaining 25% ; English is often the third language.

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2.1WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO REFLECT ON OUR IMPLEMENTATION)

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2.1WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO REFLECT ON OUR IMPLEMENTATION)

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"Did the activity encourage you to ask questions?"
This is the leading question driving all our daily activities in primary school. Asking questions, being curious, is a natural condition for 5-10 years old pupils. The whole learning-teaching process twists around pupils' curiosity and willing to know. Classroom situations and observations; real life experience; the natural world: everything is occasion to raise questions in pupils' mind, and questions need to find an answer. The teachers' work is to maintain fresh this curiosity and drive it to a systematic knowledge of contents.
Reflecting on our implementations goes exactly on the way of passing from informal observation and registration of events to a scientifically correct approach to inquiry end experiments in class

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2.3 ANALYSIS OF CLASSROOM IMPLEMENTATION - 2ND EXAMPLE

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2.3 ANALYSIS OF CLASSROOM IMPLEMENTATION - 2ND EXAMPLE

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1) By connecting an intriguing question to pupils' daily life. Curiosity is the first step
2) Materials can be poor, recycled or of common use. Pupils can choose from different materials
3) Because everyone of them has background knowledge and the teacher is aware of the differences present in the class
4) The teacher circulates the classroom, observing each group to get an idea about how they are planning their work. The teacher's role is not passive, but also not intrusive and the students feel free of taking responsibility of their work.
5) The students make an hypothesis and then have to test them
6) the students presents their hypothesis and their test to the class, in large group, each experiment is discussed and assessed.
7) I think that the hypothesis formulated is quite correct
8) In Science, drawing conclusion from experiments and previous literature is very important (differently, any scientific research would not have reason to exists): in an enquiry-based approach is basic to teach students how to correctly draw their own conclusion from what observed and experimented.
9) The final revision has the aim of resume and clarify processes and sharing experiences

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Both the given examples are situation connected to the students' life and involving their health. The second experiments starts from a real situation and can take positive advantages to their environment. Students are always very interested in problems about health, environment, pollution...
The model used by the teacher is the 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate), that can be apply form the early years in an enquiry-based model

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Both the given examples are situation connected to the students' life and involving their health. The second experiments starts from a real situation and can take positive advantages to their environment. Students are always very interested in problems about health, environment, pollution...
The model used by the teacher is the 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate), that can be apply form the early years in an enquiry-based mod

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3.2 THE RELEVANCE OF NEW DISCOVERIES IN LIFE SCIENCE

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3.2 THE RELEVANCE OF NEW DISCOVERIES IN LIFE SCIENCE

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the first discovery that comes to my mind is the use of Big Data for bioinformatics (sequencing and comparing DNA) and biomedicine (laser surgery, bio modeling for rare disease as craniosynostosis).
Science and Philosophy has many points of connection when ethic questions are involved, and is important to drive students  to implement and use their own critical thinking.

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4.1 WRITING TO LEARN: A BRIEF EXPLANATION

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4.1 WRITING TO LEARN: A BRIEF EXPLANATION

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During the first half of this module, we will look at writing to learn activities. These are short writing tasks for students that help them think through key concepts and definitions of a certain topic. It allows them to adapt the information in a way that is comfortable for them, hence helping them to learn.

Incorporating informal writing strategies into all the subject area disciplines is known as writing to learn (Connally, 1989; Rivard, 1994). There is a wide range of writing strategies that can be used in learning and teaching processes. These activities can generally be grouped into three groups according to the affective and cognitive engagement:

Poetic forms

Expressive forms

Transactional forms

Poetic writing can be defined as the language of novels and poems. The aim of writing poetry is to separate yourself from action and to think reflectively about experiences and feelings.

Expressive writing both includes information and reflections about that information. Since expressive writing is usually done informally, without concern for the judgment of others, the writer may concentrate on making connections with prior knowledge, clarifying understanding, and otherwise “explaining the matter to oneself” (Britton et al., 1975, p. 28). Because expressive writing can be a very powerful tool for associating concepts with language, it has come to be known as writing to learn (Connally, 1989).

Transactional writing, which is mostly used by science writers, is characterized by the voice of the participant in action. Transactional forms of writing have often been called “writing to inform” or “writing to communicate” (Freisinger, 1980).

Please watch the following video interviews with prof. Dr. Murat Gunel to discover more about writing to learn activities: what exactly is the connection between writing and learning, how these activities are connected to science education and how to assess them. After watching the videos, please let us know your opinion in the Padlet below.

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3-5  USING A PHILOSOPY FOR CHILDREN APPROACH

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3-5  USING A PHILOSOPY FOR CHILDREN APPROACH

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Philosophy for Children (P4C) is an approach that prompts critical thinking among students, where they get the opportunity to employ other key life skills, such as communication, creativity and collaborating with others. The idea is that by engaging in philosophical inquiry, students can better prepare to become citizens in society. Although the name suggests that P4C is for primary school children, it is actually a method widely used among high school teachers.

A P4C can include the following sequence of steps:

1. Warm-up (could involve introductions or an icebreaker game)

2. Stimulus (we will use a video clip later in the module, but it can range from a newspaper article to a photograph)

3. Private reflections (thinking time on stimulus)

4. Question creation (individually developing a question related to a stimulus)

5. Question-airing (collaborating in separate groups to describe the generated questions; the most relevant question from those generated within the group can be picked by consensus)

6. Question-choosing (sorting and classifying the questions generated by all groups as philosophical or otherwise; we will use a quadrant to do this; one philosophical question is chosen by the whole class on a vote)

7. First thoughts (on the question chosen by students in the class)

8. Inquiry (students may sit in a circle and inquire on the question while the teacher acts as a facilitator)

9. Last words

10. Review and evaluation of the process/content

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P4C training and further reading

Most teachers doing philosophy for children have taken a course in order to learn about the key practices and principles involved. We think this is essential. All the co-directors of p4c.com are experienced teachers and trainers. If we can't cater for your training needs, then we will be able to put you in touch with someone who can. Please contact Kathy Williams to find out more.

In the meantime, here is a brief summary of some of those key principles and practices and some ideas you can use straight away. For more comprehensive guidance see our recommended reading list and join p4c.com. Now read on >>

Principles of P4C

Here are some of the principles that underlie philosophy for children. We'll see how these could lead to some simple, everyday practices to help children and young people become for thoughtful, curious and reasonable. Then we'll outline the important concept of the community of inquiry and explain, in summary, a sequence of activities that most p4c lessons would use.

Good thinking is learned from dialogue with others.

Children need to take part in dialogues that provide examples and models of good thinking .

The wellspring of knowledge and intellectual excitement is questioning.

Claims should be tested in argument. Argument is seen not as a quarrel but as a collaborative search for the best answer to a question.

To think well is to be creative as well as critical. Creative thinkers make connections, speculate and explore alternatives.

Good thinking depends on attitudes as well as abilities. Children should be encouraged to be reasonable in the fullest sense of the word.

People make sense of the the world though a web of concepts. We should talk with children about significant concepts.

It is good for children and adults to talk together about philosophical questions - questions that matter and that link thinking about one area of experience to thinking about experience as a whole.

Many of the principles of p4c can be applied with all ages of pupils and in most subject areas using some straightforward practices. We've grouped them together under the heading: encourage questioning, develop concepts, encourage dialogue and argument, and work for reasonableness. The p4c.com website has many resources tailored to helping you achieve these practices and with your pupils.

Practice 1: Encourage questioning

1. Encourage pupils to ask questions by structuring a question-creation session into some of your lessons. Allow pupils to talk to a partner before coming up with their question. Get pupils to write their questions down.

2. Collect pupils' questions and study them with the pupils. Discuss the kinds of questions they are and how they could be answered. Display the questions and write them up in 'question book collections' or display them on the walls.

3. Make space and time in your lessons to discuss pupils' questions with them. Help them to spot assumptions and significant (or 'juicy') concepts contained in their questions.

4. Help pupils discriminate between those parts of questions that require information, inference and considered judgement.

5. Help pupils to choose questions they will discuss together. (See practice 3)

Practice 2: Develop concepts

Pick out some significant concepts and make some time to discuss them with pupils. Stimulate discussion by introducing some 'borderline cases', that is scenarios or questions involving the chosen concept that allow pupils to explore their understanding and lead the discussion to deeper levels. Have a look at our key document on concepts to give you some ideas about what this means in practice. Here are some concepts that could come up in the various subject areas:

1. Literature: love, democracy, fairness, justice, goodness, power, anger.

2. Humanities/social studies: justice, globalisation, nation, history, truth, cause, evidence, interpretation.

3. Arts: beauty, art, imagination, reproduction, real, copy, meaning.

4. Religious education: belief, faith, truth, morality, tolerance.

5. Design technology: purpose, economy, value, elegance, simplicity, effectiveness, originality.

6. ICT: knowledge, entertainment, game, reality, legality, morality.

7. Citizenship: rights, duties, justice, fairness, freedom, welfare, community, enterprise.

8. Science: science, experiment, evidence, knowledge, theory.

Practice 3: Encourage dialogue and argument

Here are some steps you can take to encourage dialogue and argument in your classes:

1. Have the pupils sit in a circle so they can see each other and listen in a more focused way.

2. Establish some ground rules for good dialogue and help pupils put them into practice.

3. Establish the idea of argument as a means towards finding the best answer to a question where possible answers are contestable. Encourage pupils to argue without rancour by testing claims and reasons in a spirit of collaborative dialogue.

4. Give pupils thinking time by allowing short 'breakouts' where they can converse with a partner to gather their thoughts or rehearse their arguments.

5. Give children examples of the sorts of moves they can make to get the dialogue to a deeper level. These would include: thinking of alternative points of view and speculating about the consequences of each one, giving examples, noticing similarities and differences, examining reasons and establishing whether statements about people and things apply to 'all', 'many', 'some' and or 'none'.

Practice 4: Work for reasonableness

If you have done all the other things above, then your pupils should be well on the way to becoming reasonable in all senses of the word; they are open to new ideas and alternative points of view, they don't prematurely judge the opinions of others and they value arguments that are supported by reasons. If you value reasonableness and draw attention to its various aspects, then perhaps pupils will come to value it too.

The community of inquiry

A Community of Inquiry may be defined as a collaborative and reflective approach to discussion built up over time with the same group of learners. It aims to achieve:

1. Community: cooperation, care, respect and safety

2. Inquiry: a search for understanding, meaning, truth and values supported by reasons

The community of inquiry can play a positive role in combating what is perceived to be a drift in society to the idea that opinions can't be judged and don't need to be justified. Even very young children can come to expect reasons to support claims. The community of inquiry is not a mere exchange of opinions where anything goes. On the contrary, it is a context for discussion wherein people are challenged to justify their opinions regularly. At the same time, the community of inquiry contrasts with classroom debate with its emphasis on winning the argument rather than understanding the issues in question or the beliefs of other participants. Argument is seen as a collaborative effort to come to the best answer to a question.

Teachers develop their class towards being a community of inquiry by following the practices described above. For p4c, those practices are usually embedded in a regularly repeated sequence of activities summarised below. There are many variations on the sequence but the basic structure remains.

P4C sequences

Preparing the context

It is important for the group to sit in a circle or horseshoe, not only as an aid to good listening but also to indicate that everybody's participation is equally valued. Before beginning the first p4c session, the group should spend time deciding a set of guidelines for good discussion. These can be developed over time as groups gain experience.

Preparing the text

Inquiry seems to work best when dialogue is focused on shared experience such as any the following or a combination of them:

Reading stories, poems, news items or dialogues.

Looking at images, watching short films or listening to music.

Reflecting on artefacts.

If we refer to all of these ways into experiences as 'texts', then teachers often look for texts that they think will have to potential to lead into dialogue that is rich in concepts. Teachers will spend some time considering what concepts might arise from the text and how best to prepare for dialogue around those concepts. p4c.com should be a great help with is kind of preparation.

Preparing for progression

Teachers will have ideas about what needs to be developed for the group to progress towards the ideal of the community of enquiry and for individuals to progress towards being more reasonable people. She will be thinking about what to encourage, what to draw pupils' attention to and how best to intervene in the dialogues that will follow. She might for example decide to highlight:

The importance of careful listening and asking questions to clarify meaning.

The necessity of identifying what is the same and different in what people say.

The importance of identifying assumptions in the questions that pupils put forward.

Sharing the text

Whatever text the teacher has chosen, it is shared in an appropriate way so that pupils are able to give it their full attention share thoughts about anything that interests them, puzzles them or that they find significant. The teacher will provide time and sometimes a structure for this initial reaction to the text. For example she might:

Give pupils some thinking time in pairs to identify 'juicy concepts'.

Present pupils with a couple of images and ask them what they think are some significant similarities and differences.

Present pupils with words and pictures and ask them what they think the connections are between the two.

Ask pupils to identify 'hot spots' or parts of a text they find interesting or significant.

Ask pupils to write or draw some initial thoughts - perhaps using one of the previous points in this list as a structure.

Creating and choosing questions

Following the sharing of the text pupils are asked to create questions that are based on what they are curious about or interesting in. Questions may reflect their ideas about the whole story or part of it. Pupils are encouraged to create questions that lead to a good dialogue, though their understanding of what this means in practice will develop over time. The extent of the teacher's involvement in creating the questions will depend on the age and abilities of the pupils'. Sometimes pupils are set into groups to discuss their questions and agree on one to put forward for the group. Finally the pupils and teacher together create an agenda for dialogue by choosing one or more questions. During this stage the following practices are common:

The teacher or pupils ask for clarification about a question. What is it asking? Where might it lead?

Assumptions in the questions are identified and 'questions behind the questions' are recognised.

Similarities and differences between questions are noted.

Dialogue

Dialogue about the pupils' own questions is at the heart of p4c. But dialogue that is more like building something together than exchanging ready-made opinions. Opinions are still expressed but final judgements are held back until other points of view have been explored. In a good dialogue people disagree without getting angry with each other and they want to understand what others are trying to say. Careful listening is as important as careful speaking and active listening will show up in questions learners ask each other. In p4c dialogues, we notice that:

The teacher will elicit appropriate 'moves' from pupils in response to what others have said. Such moves might include those mentioned in 'Practice 3' above: thinking of alternative points of view and speculating about the consequences of different of each on; giving examples, noticing similarities and differences, examining reasons and establishing whether statements about people and things apply to 'all', 'many', 'some' and or 'none'.

There is a effort to arrive at some clear statements in response to the question(s) that can be tested through collaborative argument.

There is sometimes an effort to keep track of the discussion through verbal summary, short writing task or use of diagrams such as concepts maps.

There are sometimes 'breakout sessions' to allow pupils in pairs or small groups to gather their thoughts about a particular concept or argument. Sometimes the teacher will provide a structure for the breakout such as listing examples of a concepts like 'democracy'.

At the end of the dialogue there is summary and an opportunity for pupils to have their 'last words' either in response to the content of the dialogue or to the process. Last words could be given as an oral response or in writing.

Follow up

The teacher will consider each dialogue plan for further progression towards a community of enquiry. For example:

She might highlight a concept that is worth exploring in greater depth through structured questions or examples before the next dialogue.

She might identify a behaviour, such as giving examples, that needs work or encouragement.

She may set some writing, artwork or research as a response to something that came up in the dialogue.

She will be planning the next session in the light of the last one.

What p4c.com can offer

We will be building up an extensive collection of resources to help teachers and others with all the aspects of p4c mentioned above. To find out more about how to join, click here. To find out more about training opportunities, please contact Kathy Williams.

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P4C training and further reading Most teachers doing philosophy for children have taken a course in order to learn about the key practices and principles involved. We think this is essential. All the co-directors of p4c.com are experienced teachers and trainers.

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Thinking includes a number of important elements that a facilitator can model and encourage to provide forward movement in a discussion. The facilitator is there to provide positive cognitive interventions that help move the discussion forward.

During the discussion, the facilitator needs to be aware of opportunities to focus attention on the key elements of thinking.

These include:

Questioning – asking good questions to provide a focus for the inquiry.

Reasoning – requesting reasons or evidence to support arguments and judgements.

Defining – clarifying concepts through making connections, distinctions and comparisons.

Speculating – generating ideas and alternative viewpoints through imaginative thinking.

Testing for truth – gathering information, evaluating evidence, examples and counterexamples.

Expanding ideas – sustaining and extending lines of thought and argument.

Summarising – abstracting key points or general rules from a number of ideas or instances.

Strategies to extend and develop student thinking include:

Thinking time – encourage pauses for thought or some moments of quiet meditation on a topic. Remember to provide at least 3 seconds thinking time after you have asked a question and 3 seconds thinking time after a child gives an answer.

Think—pair—share – allow individual thinking time for a question, invite discussion of the question with a partner, then open up for class discussion.

Ask follow-ups – ask students to extend or qualify what they said by asking questions that challenge their thinking, such as ’Why?’, ‘Do you agree or disagree?’, ’Can you say more?’, ’Can you give an example?’, ’Describe how you arrived at that answer’.

Withhold judgement – respond to student answers in a non-evaluative way, e.g. a positive but neutral response such as ‘Thank you’, ‘Ok’, ‘That’s interesting’, ‘A-ha’, ‘I see’.

Invite the whole group to respond – encourage a response from the whole group by saying things such as; ‘How many people agree/disagree with that point of view?’ (hands/thumbs up, down or to side). You can also ask questions such as ‘Having heard that, what questions might we ask?’

Ask for a summary – promote active listening by asking for a summary of what has been said, e.g. ‘Could you summarise Kim’s point?’, ‘Can you explain what Jane has just said?’, ‘Can you tell me the arguments so far?’

Play devil’s advocate – challenge students to give reasons for their views by presenting opposing points of view, or by asking students to be devil’s advocates, e.g., ‘Who can think of a different point of view / an argument against that?’

Invite a range of responses – model open-mindedness by inviting students to consider different viewpoints: ‘There is no single correct answer to this question. I want you to consider alternatives’.

Encourage student questioning – invite students to ask their own questions before/during and/or after discussion. ’Does anyone have a question about what has been said?’, etc.

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2.6 TIPS AND ADVICE TO IMPLEMENT MY IBSE PROJECTS

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2.6 TIPS AND ADVICE TO IMPLEMENT MY IBSE PROJECTS

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Pupils' interests and connection to their real life are the first aspects to consider when planning an IBSE project; then it's good idea to start with a small challenge, puzzling and intriguing to catch their attention. Experiments need to be easy to do, but formally correct on scientific basis.
A brainstorming is excellent to formulate hypothesis, and working in small groups to practice and analyse the situation offers the opportunity to take a role and share ideas even to the weaker students.
From a teacher's point of view, planning an IBSE activity means planning and taking times, organizing spaces, preparing materials and giving feedback and scaffolding during the whole activity.

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4.2 How do writing to learning activities contribute to students' results

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4.2 How do writing to learning activities contribute to students' results

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The activity of writing requires concentration, order, check on structure, language, spelling. Putting ideas, concepts, intuitions in words help students to better understand the processes and not only the results and to interconnect information

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Baker, W. P. et al. (2008). Writing-to-learn in the inquiry-science classroom: Effective strategies from middle school science and writing teachers. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 81(3), 105-108.

Balgopal, M. M., & Wallace, A. M. (2009). Decisions and dilemmas: Using writing to learn activities to increase ecological literacy. The Journal of Environmental Education, 40(3), 13-26.

Bangert-Drowns, R. L., Hurley, M. M., & Wilkinson, B. (2004). The effects of school-based writing-to-learn interventions on academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 29-58.7

Britton, J., Burgess, T., Martin, N., McLeod, A., & Rosen, H. (1975). The development of writing abilities (11–18). London: Macmillan.

Connally, P. (1989). Writing and the ecology of learning. In P. Connally & T. Vilardi (Eds.), Writing to learn mathematics and science (pp. 1-15). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Freisinger, R. A. (1980). Cross-disciplinary writing workshops: Theory and practice. College English, 42, 154-166.

Fulwiler, T., & Young, A. (Eds.). (1982). Language connections: Writing and reading across the curriculum. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers.

Gunel, M., Hand, B., & Gunduz, S. (2006). Comparing student understanding of quantum physics when embedding multimodal representations into two different writing formats: Presentation format versus summary report format. Science Education, 90(6), 1092-1112.

Gunel, M., Hand, B., & Prain, V. (2007). Writing for learning in science: A secondary analysis of six studies. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5(4), 615-637.

Keys, C. W. (1999). Revitalizing instruction in scientific genres: Connecting knowledge production with writing to learn in science. Science Education, 83(2), 115-130.

Parker, R. P., & Goodkin, V. (1987). The consequences of writing: Enhancing learning in the disciplines. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers Inc.

Rivard, L. P. (1994). A review of writing to learn in science: Implications for practice and research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31, 969-983.

Sampson, V., Enderle, P., Grooms, J., & Witte, S. (2013). Writing to learn by learning to write during the school science laboratory: Helping middle and high school students develop argumentative writing skills as they learn core ideas. Science Education, 97(5), 643-670.

Uzoglu, M. (2010). Ogrenme amaçlı yazma aktivitelerinin kullanımının ilköğretim seviyesinde kuvvet ve madde ünitesini öğrenmeye etkisi [Effects of using writing to learn activities on learning force and matter units in the primary education level] (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey.

Walshe, R. D. (1987). The learning power of writing. The English Journal, 76(6), 22-27.

Yore, L. D. (2000). Enhancing science literacy for all students with embedded reading instruction and writing-to-learn activities. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 5(1), 105-122.

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4.1 WRITING TO LEARN: A BRIEF EXPLANATION

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4.1 WRITING TO LEARN: A BRIEF EXPLANATION

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During the first half of this module, we will look at writing to learn activities. These are short writing tasks for students that help them think through key concepts and definitions of a certain topic. It allows them to adapt the information in a way that is comfortable for them, hence helping them to learn.

Incorporating informal writing strategies into all the subject area disciplines is known as writing to learn (Connally, 1989; Rivard, 1994). There is a wide range of writing strategies that can be used in learning and teaching processes. These activities can generally be grouped into three groups according to the affective and cognitive engagement:

Poetic forms

Expressive forms

Transactional forms

Poetic writing can be defined as the language of novels and poems. The aim of writing poetry is to separate yourself from action and to think reflectively about experiences and feelings.

Expressive writing both includes information and reflections about that information. Since expressive writing is usually done informally, without concern for the judgment of others, the writer may concentrate on making connections with prior knowledge, clarifying understanding, and otherwise “explaining the matter to oneself” (Britton et al., 1975, p. 28). Because expressive writing can be a very powerful tool for associating concepts with language, it has come to be known as writing to learn (Connally, 1989).

Transactional writing, which is mostly used by science writers, is characterized by the voice of the participant in action. Transactional forms of writing have often been called “writing to inform” or “writing to communicate” (Freisinger, 1980

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4.3 Evaluating wrinting to learn examples

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4.3 Evaluating wrinting to learn examples

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The idea of writing a letter or a poem on a scientific experiment is interesting and has many different aspects: in such a culture as the Italian one, still based on humanistic studies, it connects Literature to Science, in a perspective of  relationships among two worlds that are stille considered distant
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4.1 WRITING TO LEARN: A BRIEF EXPLANATION

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4.1 WRITING TO LEARN: A BRIEF EXPLANATION

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During the first half of this module, we will look at writing to learn activities. These are short writing tasks for students that help them think through key concepts and definitions of a certain topic. It allows them to adapt the information in a way that is comfortable for them, hence helping them to learn.

Incorporating informal writing strategies into all the subject area disciplines is known as writing to learn (Connally, 1989; Rivard, 1994). There is a wide range of writing strategies that can be used in learning and teaching processes. These activities can generally be grouped into three groups according to the affective and cognitive engagement:

Poetic forms

Expressive forms

Transactional forms

Poetic writing can be defined as the language of novels and poems. The aim of writing poetry is to separate yourself from action and to think reflectively about experiences and feelings.

Expressive writing both includes information and reflections about that information. Since expressive writing is usually done informally, without concern for the judgment of others, the writer may concentrate on making connections with prior knowledge, clarifying understanding, and otherwise “explaining the matter to oneself” (Britton et al., 1975, p. 28). Because expressive writing can be a very powerful tool for associating concepts with language, it has come to be known as writing to learn (Connally, 1989).

Transactional writing, which is mostly used by science writers, is characterized by the voice of the participant in action. Transactional forms of writing have often been called “writing to inform” or “writing to communicate” (Freisinger, 1980

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4.4 EVALUATION OF WRITING LEARNING ACTIVITIES

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4.4 EVALUATION OF WRITING LEARNING ACTIVITIES

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Writing to learn activities promote students’ learning by improving their critical thinking skills. They also enhance students’ scientific literacy. At the end of the writing to learn activities, teachers can use the written products as an alternative measurement and assessment tool. As mentioned in earlier sections, there are various writing to learn activities such as journals, letters, lab reports, poems, diaries or stories. Therefore, each writing to learn activity can be evaluated from different perspectives with various rubrics. Rubrics are provided below with a brief explanation.

Science journals could be evaluated with respect to different themes, such as science vocabulary, accuracy, organization, content, model representation, self-reflection, etc. Find some examples of rubrics with which to evaluate science journals in Appendix A, Appendix B, and Appendix C.

Letters could be evaluated with respect to cognitive actions, such as observation, measurement, comparison, analogy, clarification, claim, cause/effect, induction/generalization, deduction, investigation design and argumentation. Find a rubric to be used for text analysis of letters in Appendix D.

There are various templates one can use to write lab reports. In the science writing heuristic (SWH) approach, students use a template as in Appendix E. This template could be evaluated with respect to different themes, such as (a) the quality of questions, claims, and evidence, (b) the relationship between claim and evidence, (c) the quality of the argument, etc. Find a rubric with which to evaluate the student template of SWH in Appendix F.

Poems could be evaluated with respect to different themes, such as form, word usage, poetic elements, language conventions, effort, illustration, etc. Find a rubric with which to evaluate poems in Appendix G.

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I normally use rubistar4teachers.org to set my rubrics.
Here's an example created to assess a Science exhibit: https://bit.ly/2GMkryD

MCLEARES  rubrcs are an interesting tool: I'm planning to use them next year. Thanks for sharing them!