The Impact Of Imbedded Creative Writing On The Understanding Of Concepts In Science

The impact of imbedded creative writing on the understanding of concepts in science

Background

Before the 1970s the focus in science education fell mostly into the realms of behaviourist and logico-mathematical thought. Reading, extended writing, and oral practices were mainly ignored from the science classroom. Since the end of the 1970s research into science education has to an extent shifted towards a more balanced approach which often incorporates methods from the language arts. (Holliday, Yore, & Alvermann, 1994).

Science is by definition an empirical practice theories are synthesised, empirically tested, and these empirical methods are strictly peer reviewed. This empirical nature suggests that numerical data and mathematical reasoning define mastery of the sciences. However, research into science education suggests that advanced scientific literacy is often more important for the development of early core understanding. (National Research Council, 1996).

Writing within science education started with the knowledge-telling model where students would regurgitate theories they had learnt in a linear fashion. The introduction of these techniques were originally centred on teacher evaluation of student knowledge. However, as time progressed the narrative changed and the write-to-learn model was developed. In this model students would tackle a range of different writing styles in order to supplement their understanding of a topic rather than to prove it. (Connolly, 1989, p. 5) states that It is about the value of writing to enable the discovery of knowledge.

Several classroom studies have demonstrated the potential effectiveness of writing in science to improve writing performance, science achievement, and attitudes toward science and writing. (Tucknott & Yore, 1999). Embedding writing tasks seems to then be beneficial not only to attainment within science but to also extend to other curriculum areas and even towards wider attitudes towards science as a whole subject.

Aims

The aim of this study is to assess whether a topic can be better understood through employing the write-to-learn model within a normal lesson. Although the write-to-learn model comes under a number of guises, this study aims to employ the use of creative writing at its core. If a scientific concept or process can be better understood in this fashion then it will inform on the planning of future elements of the curriculum and raise attainment across the subject. The impact on other subjects of embedded literacy within science will be far more difficult to assess and as such will not be tested. However, the effect on students positive engagement with a topic as a result of an extended writing will be examined.

Method

Student attainment

Improvements in student understanding as a result of creative writing will be assessed through a test based system. A topic will be taught to a group of students. After the delivery of the topic has been completed the group will be randomly split into two sub groups (A and B). Group A will be asked to complete a creative writing task based on the material that they had just been taught. Group B will act as the control and they will be asked to complete a non-creative summary task of the material.

Both groups will be tested in unison after the two tasks have been completed and their results compared. In order to get a fairer assessment of the differences in student progress, this will be done with two separate ability sets the top set (H) which consists of 31 students and the lower ability set that consists of 26 students. The results from these two sets will be compared.

Impact on student engagement

Directly after the completion of a creative writing task, the students will be asked to complete a questionnaire. This method was chosen due to the fact that within a school setting a questionnaire can be made compulsory. The advantage of this being that responses from a sample that actually mirrors the statistical population as a whole will yield far more reliable data.

The questionnaire focuses on how the creative writing task improved the students perceived engagement with a topic and their perceived engagement with the subject as a whole as a result of completing said writing task.

Care was taken during the development of the questionnaire to avoid instilling false enthusiasm for the task either through the questions themselves or through the delivery of the writing assignment. Questionnaires will also be anonymous so that students do not feel obliged to answer in any particular way.

Results

Attainment

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 1

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 2

Figure 1 shows the differing levels of achievement for the top set. The group that did the creative writing task performed 7% better than those who did the non-creative summary task. Figure 2 shows the same data but for the lower ability set. Within the lower set the group that did the creative writing task did 2% better on the assessment.

Questionnaire

1) Doing creative writing tasks in lessons is an enjoyable way to learn about a scientific topic.

2) I enjoy the variety that creative writing tasks bring to science lessons.

3) Writing about scientific concepts in a creative way helps me to understand the concept better.

4) I would look forward more to learning about a topic if I knew we were going to get the opportunity to write a creative piece about it.

Srongly agree = 4

Agree = 3

Unsure = 2

Disagree = 1

Strongly disagree = 0

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 3

Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 4

Figures 3 and 4 show the coded responses to the student questionnaires, higher and lower sets respectively.

Analysis

Attainment

Both groups showed signs that the creative task had improved their understanding of the concept around which they were writing. The higher set had a significant (7%) difference between the attainment of those doing creative writing and those doing non creative writing. The lower set had a (2%) difference. These figures suggest that higher sets benefit more from doing a creative task than lower sets in terms of attainment.

Student engagement

Both groups showed clear positive attitudes towards embedded creative writing within lessons. Both sets scored on or over 3 (agreed) with questions one, two, and three. Both sets scored between 2 (unsure) and 3 (agree) on question 4.

Feedback in the other comments section was generally positive some examples are shown below:

Being able to write stories in science lessons is fun

I like English and I like science. Doing them at the same time is really good

I wish we could do more writing in science

However, a small number of students were not so positive:

I don t like having to worry about spelling at the same time as doing science

Writing stories is boring

I write too slowly to be able to make a story in such a short time

Conclusions

The results of the study show that embedding creative writing into science lessons has a positive impact on attainment. However, the study also shows that there is a difference in the impact between ability groups. The top sets attainment difference was significantly better than lower sets. In my opinion, taking into account the responses from the questionnaire, the difference is due to the amount of focus that the students have to set aside to each part of the activity. Top sets have to dedicate less of their focus to the literacy aspect of the writing task (spelling, grammar, and punctuation) and are thus able to dedicate more focus to understanding the scientific content. On the other hand the lower set were more concerned with getting aspects of basic literacy correct and were therefore distracted from the science.

The results of the study also show that creative writing has an almost unanimously positive impact on attitudes towards science lessons as a whole. The scores from the questionnaire showed that almost all students agreed with the positive statements and most were able to comment positively when given the opportunities.

Attitudes were however not all positive. 5 out of 57 students gave responses that were showed that creative writing did not further their enjoyment of the subject. There was no recognisable trend amongst these students in terms of reading age, gender, prior attainment in science, or prior attainment in English.

The study has shown that embedding creative writing tasks into science lessons is generally positive. However, this is not ubiquitous. Care must be taken to not alienate those students who did not feel they benefited from it.

Reflections

The method for testing the different levels of attainment focused purely on the short to mid-term memory of that concept. It would be useful to perform the same method but to have an extended period of time between the learning of the concept and the testing of it. This would mean we could analyse the effects of creative writing on long term memory instead. (Patterson, 2001) believes that the write-to-learn model is most effective when the student is having to recall knowledge from a long time ago. Rather than having to try to recall complex ideas in an abstract way, the student can use the story as the tool to unlock that prior understanding.

There is the risk with the write-to-learn model that students get carried away with the writing element and this detracts from the learning element. This was evident in some of the written work done for the purposes of the study. Especially in the higher set, students often wrote whole paragraphs which contained no scientific content and that were probably not a beneficial use of time. I believe that with time, consistent feedback, and with proper scaffolding of responses, this issue could be minimised but it is certainly a concern at this point.

Going forward I think care must be taken to limit creative writing tasks to topics in which they will be most beneficial. There is the risk that with over exposure the positive impacts on engagement might diminish. I believe the variety creative writing introduces is a significant factor in how well it received by the pupils. Future creative writing tasks must be well planned, have expectations of responses well explained, and most importantly, be fun.

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

HOLLIDAY, W. G., YORE, L. D., and ALVERMANN, D. E. (1994) The reading science learning writing connection: breakthroughs, barriers, and promises. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31, 877

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (1996) National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

PATTERSON, E. W. (2001) Structuring the composition process in scientific writing, International Journal of Science Education, 23, 1 .

TUCKNOTT, J. M., and YORE, L. D. (1999) The effects of writing activities on grade 4 children s understanding of simple machines, inventions, and inventors. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED428973, Columbus, OH.