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The Reading-Science Learning-Writing Connection:

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JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 31, NO. 9, PP. 877-893 (1994)

The Reading-Science Learning-Writing Connection: Breakthroughs,

Barriers, and Promises

William G. Holliday
Depnriment of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland, CoUege Park,
Maryland, 20742-1175

Larry D. Yore
University of Victoria

Donna E. Alvermann
University of Georgia

Abstract
This article establishes a broad framework from which to interpret and evaluate the reading-science
learning-writing connection. The presentation of breakthroughs, barriers, and promises is intended to
outline the established links between, to identify current bottlenecks in thinking about, and to highlight
productive inquiries into, print-based languages and scientific understanding. The ideas presented come
from various disciplines connected to science education. The ideas are meant to be informative, provoca-
tive, integrative, supportive, and without hidden agenda.

The roles of experience and language in science learning have been the focus of discussions
among science educators for decades. Many of these discussions have been based on an
eitherior resolution strategy rather than a rational investigation or the multiple-perspectives
framework that is gaining popularity with constructivists. Science textbooks have generally
been assigned the most blame in these discussions without any systematic research efforts to
investigate textual materials and few efforts to explore other components of a text-based instruc-
tional system or the area of written composition.
The key consideration in this Special Issue is not iflanguage or experience is necessary. But
the key questions are when language and experience are required, how they influence science
learning, and how they interact in the science learning process. Hands-on experiences are
necessary but not sufficient to learn many counterintuitive science concepts. Likewise, language
is necessary but not sufficient in initial learning of abstract concepts. The important factors are:
1 . What types of thinking and strategies arc mutually beneficial in reading, writing, and
science learning?
2 . How can experience and language activate the necessary internal mental processes?
3. How do memory and experience provide some of the essential information for learn-
ing?

0 1994 by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/94/090877-17
878 HOLLIDAY, YORE, AND ALVERMANN

4. How do internal, spoken, and printed language scaffold the construction and the
renovation of scientific understanding?

Scientific literacy involves the location and comprehension of scientific information, the
adoption of a contemporary view of science, the development of informed conceptions, opin-
ions, and beliefs, and the ability to communicate these ideas and persuade others of their
veracity. This means that science teaching must clearly establish links among experiences, prior
knowledge, associated analogies, and concept labels to demonstrate alternative conceptions,
images of the scientific enterprise, canons of evidence, and logic. These links are gradually
modified to illustrate the standards of socially and culturally shared conceptions and accepted
science vocabulary. Communications are likewise shaped to reflect scientific reasoning, appro-
priate associations of evidence, inference and interpretative frameworks, and effective patterns
of argument. The rules of scientific language are natural outcomes of the rich experience and
language of these settings that reflect science as people-made constructions, cyclic, dynamic,
temporary, and tentative.
People use language as a tool to direct their intellectual power to problems in much the
same way people use tools to direct their physical power to problems (Greenfield, 1991). The
selection of a specific tool from a well-stocked tool kit that matches the demands of the problem
is critical. Likewise, language must be selected to match the demands of the communication
problem. People select specific grammars to present a joke, tell a story, introduce a speaker,
describe an event, or establish a casual relationship. Each of these grammars has specific
characteristics, strategies, and rules.
The move from oral language to print-based language and from face-to-face communica-
tion to communication with an unseen audience represents major breakthroughs in symbolic
thought and in abstract logical reasoning (Vygotsky, 1978). The decoupling of sensory experi-
ences and symbolic labeling may well be the major problem in much print-based science
instruction. The success of natural language and construction of models in the natural world
may lie in the temporal currency and sensory richness of the process. Frequently, literate people
forget that words, syntax, and linguistic rules lack meaning to people who have not established
the link between words as concept labels and experience with the related events and the habits of
the mind associated with specific types of communications and patterns of argumentation.
The success of verbal learning, the flexibility of natural language, the social necessity of
verbal discourse, and the embeddedness of spoken language in sensory experience stimulated
much of the science education and cognition revolution of the 1960s. The move away from
print-based language in science learning discounted many advantages of the language technolo-
gy associated with printed language. Simonsen and Singer (1992) suggested that disassociation
of print materials and learning has disadvantaged people in the information age.
The remainder of this article will attempt to outline several theoretical issues related to
print-based language and science learning. The issues will be discussed in a framework that will
include breakthroughs, barriers, and promises of reading; the breakthroughs, barriers, and
promises of writing; and some concerns related to the integration of reading, science, and
writing. Some of these issues will be addressed in the other articles in this Special Issue,
whereas others stand unchallenged by contemporary science education research.

Reading-Science Learning Connection

A comprehensive review of reading-to-learn science could not be included because of space
limitations of this Special Issue, but such reviews are available elsewhere (Rivard & Yore, 1992;
 THE READING CONNECTION 879

Yore & Shymansky, 1985). The reading-science issues highlighted in this section are referenced
to a few current, critical, or classic sources.

Breakthroughs
The single most important advancement in science reading has been the parallel but inde-
pendent reconceptualization of reading as an interactive-constructive process and science learn-
ing as something more than conditioned responses and rote memorization. Much early science
reading research was guided by a text-driven, bottom-up model that emphasized decoding skills
and textual attributes. This research encouraged controlled vocabulary, fragmented sentence
structure, and reduced conceptual demands that generally de-emphasized the science curriculum
and discounted the utilization of textual materials in science teaching. Concurrently, science
education research was exploring hands-on, cognitively appropriate, inquiry-oriented science
learning. Intuitively, science educators believed that science learning involved more than text
memorization, visual information, or experimental activities.
Now, both science reading and science learning can be described as an interaction between
prior knowledge, concurrent experience, and information accessed from print and other sources
in a specific social context that is focused on constructing meaning. Readers interactively
process information by switching between selective perceptions of text-based information
(print, charts, pictures) and concurrent experiences (concrete inquiries, discussions, thinking),
and comparison of the information and experiences with their personal knowledge (topic,
domain, scientific enterprise, textual, strategic). The personal knowledge is retrieved from long-
term memory to construct plausible interpretations (models) of the situation in short-term
memory (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; Osborne & Wittrock, 1983; Yore & Shymansky, 1991).
Readers increase or change their understanding by either extracting information from text, other
people, and concurrent experiences and then assimilating this information into knowledge
structures retrieved from their long-term episodic and semantic memories or by accommodating
discrepant information by reorganizing their knowledge structures while monitoring, strategi-
cally planning, and regulating the global meaning-making process (Rivard & Yore, 1992).
Thus, cognition is an interactive-constructive process, and metacognition is a conscious aware-
ness and control of this generative process that results in verifying, structuring, and reconcep-
tualizing information into meaningful knowledge networks.
The reading process is a social event that involves internal regulation, is influenced by
context, and utilizes higher order thinking (Bloome, 1991; Carey, 1986; Resnick, 1987). Social
constructivism focuses on the development of cognitive processes that occur within individuals
as a result of their having interacted with each other. This means that the cognitive processes
associated with reading are no longer viewed as residing solely in the individual; rather, they are
seen as “being moved out of the privacy of one’s head and into the interaction” (Mehan, 1981 ,
p. 73). Valencia and Pearson (1987) stated that the interactive constructive view “emphasizes the
active role of readers as they use print clues to ‘construct’ a model of the text’s meaning. It de-
emphasizes the notion that progress toward expert reading is the aggregation of component
skills” (p. 727). Truly engaged readers of all abilities enjoy opportunities for open-forum type
discussions, where a free-flowing exchange of ideas among students and between students and
teachers enriches and refines their understandings of the reading and heightens their motivation
to read further (Alvermann, O’Brien, & Dillon, 1990).
The value of the interactive-constructive model of reading to science education research,
science teaching, and science teacher education lies in the philosophical compatibility between
this model and constructivist models of science learning, This apparent kinship allows science
880 HOLLIDAY, YORE, AND ALVERMANN

educators to access a substantial body of knowledge about, and processes in, reading that may
help address recurring problems in science learning. Furthermore, the kinship empowers sci-
ence educators to explore more fully the realities of scientific literacy, persistent classroom
practices, and popular changes in the school curriculum.

Barriers
The major barriers to effective utilization of reading and textual materials to enhance
science learning include too few collaborative research studies that address reading-science
issues in the regular classroom, little interest in two-way communication between teachers and
researchers regarding the meaning-making process and explicit comprehension instruction, and
the poor quality of selection criteria for science textual materials. Research into the cognitive
and metacognitive aspects of learning from science texts has focused on strategy use (Wan-
dersee, 1988), expert-novice differences (Dee-Lucas & Larkin, 1990; Ferguson-Hessler & de
Jong, 1990; Reif & Allen, 1992); topic- and domain-specific influences (Alexander &
Kulikowich, 1994), conceptual change (Hynd, McWhorter, Phares, & Suttles, 1994), and
metacognitive awareness of science reading, science text, and science reading strategies (Craig
& Yore, 1992). Comprehension instruction research has explored embedded text questions
(Holliday & Benson, 1991; Holliday & McGuire, 1992), concept mapping (Willerman &
MacHarg, 1991), and text structure (Cook & Mayer, 1988; Spiegel & Barufaldi, 1994). Unfor-
tunately, much of this research lacks ecological validity and generally is limited to secondary
school and university students.
Several studies indicated that science teachers are uninformed about contemporary views of
science reading, use few ancillary instructional strategies to improve reading comprehension,
and disregard explicit strategy instruction (Armbruster, 1992- 1993). Likewise, many articles
decry the lack of informed problem selection and practical classroom focus of much science
reading research. DiGisi (1993) found that biology teachers viewed both inquiry activities and
textual materials as essential to teaching biology and had positive attitudes toward science
reading instruction, but they were uncertain how to facilitate science reading among their
students. Gottfried and Kyle (1992) found that the few elementary teachers who used multiple
textual resources to teach biology were more aligned with well-regarded practices in biology
teaching than were teachers who used a single textbook. They concluded that “regardless of
textbook orientation, the majority of teachers in this study appear to function as passive, uncrit-
ical technicians who are ready and apparently willing to disseminate knowledge in an authoritar-
ian tradition” (p. 46). These findings confirmed earlier survey and interview-observation studies
of elementary and secondary science teachers (Shymansky, Yore, & Good, 1991; Yore, 1991).
Many of these problems are caused by researchers apparently ignoring the issues and practices
important to classroom teachers. Science education research during the 1960s ignored textual
materials, disregarding the fact that textual materials continued to be the major influence on
science teaching. The lack of research has been exacerbated by the lack of science reading
articles published in science education professional journals (Shymansky et al., 1991).
Good (1993) lamented the lack of science textbook selection criteria. Publishers produce
textbooks that sell. Most editorial departments are responsive to requests from marketing
departments that rely heavily on sales records, market surveys, mandates from the big statewide
adoptions (California, Florida, Texas), and teacher focus-group feedback. But in many jurisdic-
tions teachers decide what textbooks are bought. With increased teacher involvement in curricu-
lum material decisions, it is critical that valid user-friendly selection criteria be established to
guide these decisions.
 THE READING CONNECTION 88 1

Promises

A revised research agenda, informed by current research results on scientific literacy and
sociocognitive psychology, reflects much promise. Model-driven research that explores en-
gaged, motivated readers’ socially and culturally linked cognition and conceptual change should
receive high priority on the agenda. The promise of producing increasing numbers of engaged
expert science readers begins with identifying their cognitive traits, how they build strategic
knowledge (e.g., improving their ability to infer) and content knowledge (e.g., improving their
understanding of the concept of force), how their cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational
elements link, and how these elements are influenced by a variety of social and cultural factors
and contexts. Also reviewed are elements of curricular approaches, conceptual change, and
learning cycle research linked to engaged science readers.
Skilled readers (a) actively interact with texts, trade books, and other materials by con-
structing and reconstructing knowledge in their minds based on what they know; (b) use
learning strategies (planning, hypothesizing, rereading) to coordinate printed verbal and visual
displays while reorganizing and reinspecting printed materials with clear goals in mind; (c) exert
effort to master ideas useful in solving problems; and (d) continue throughout life to develop and
refine their background knowledge about science (Garner, 1990). Looking at narrative reading
research, Pearson, Roehler, Dole, and Duffy (1992) described the thoughtful, expert reader
based on narrative reading research as a person who (a) uses prior knowledge to make sense of
text; (b) monitors comprehension continuously; (c) repairs comprehension problems as they are
detected; (d) assesses importance of textual ideas; (e) synthesizes information as it is read; (f)
constantly generates inferences during and after reading; and (8) self-questions. Cognitive-
based research on engaging students to read and learn science includes theoretical and empirical
work published in many areas including strategic and content knowledge and cognitive-based
achievement motivation.
Engaged science readers interactively construct and reconstruct understanding in short-term
memory using strategic and content knowledge retrieved from long-term memory (Holliday,
1992). Wandersee ( 1988) found that even university students who excelled in their coursework
demonstrated a limited repertoire of science reading strategies. When faced with comprehension
failure, they resort to rereading as their single most common strategy. Dee-Lucas and Larkin
( 1988) found that novice science students’ judgments of importance are influenced by the type
of information encountered and the tendency to focus on facts, definitions, and numerical
equations. In contrast, expert science students’ judgments emphasize conceptual information
and broad umbrella-type ideas. Ferguson-Hessler and de Jong ( 1 990) found that good and poor
science students were equally active while studying text, and exhibited similar numbers of study
strategies when utilizing scientific text. Good students, however, exhibit different strategies, are
more astute in the application of those strategies, and attend to procedural and situational
knowledge rather than declarative knowledge.
Unengaged students spend much time in unproductive processes, such as memorizing
isolated textbook information in preparation for a test. They have little opportunity to practice
reformulating and applying strategic knowledge in concert with content knowledge to new
problem-solving contexts (Alexander, 1992; Holliday & McGuire, 1992). Successful perfor-
mance on recognition or recall test items after reading a science textbook is not evidence of
engagement. Nor does engagement result in the accumulation of new knowledge stacked on top
of old knowledge stored in long-term memory. Engagement entails, among other things, a
restructuring of knowledge, that is, flexible assimilation of new knowledge into preexisting
knowledge structures or restructuring knowledge structures to accommodate discrepant infor-
882 HOLLIDAY, YORE, AND ALVERMANN

mation (Iran-Nejad, 1990). Alvermann and Guthrie ( 1993) suggested that engagement involves
“students (acquiring) the competencies and motivations for diverse purposes, such as gaining
knowledge, performing a task, interpreting an author’s perspective, sharing reactions to stories
and informational texts, escaping into the literary world, or taking social and political action in
response to what is read” (p. 2). The goals of engagement are very much the same as a
contemporary view of scientific literacy (Glynn, Yeany, & Britton, 1991).

Motivation. Engaged readers of science master strategic and content knowledge, take
academic risks, persist in completing difficult tasks, and are patient, flexible, venturesome,
masterful, effortful, and “charged” to change their conceptions and solve problems (Maehr &
Midgley, 1991; Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). Pintrich and DeGroot (1990) developed two
interactive models that link cognition, metacognition, and achievement motivation and that are
potentially useful in guiding promising research in science. The first model includes three
interrelated con~ponents:(a) cognitive strategies, (b) selected metacognitive strategies, and (c)
other management and control strategies. Data collected recently from cognitive and metacogni-
tive studies and earlier from motivational studies led to the formation of a second three-
component model of achievement motivation that includes: (a) students’ expectations concern-
ing achievement, (b) values concerning achievement, and (c) affective or emotional reactions
concerning achievements. These two models are receiving considerable attention in much of the
cognitive psychology and reading literature, yet few researchers in science teaching seem
interested in the potential usefulness of these promising models.
Students are motivated by not only inspiring teachers, but also motivating classroom
environments (Nolen & Haladyna, 1990). Ramey-Gassert and Shroyer (1992) found that stu-
dents who believe in their capacity to perform a task and expect to perform well use more
cognitive strategies than those students less confident of their personal abilities. Students who
value an assigned science reading task, believe it potentially interesting, and are convinced that
competent performance is important are more likely to complete the task and to perform
successfully (Garner, 1990). However, anxiety and other negative reactions to tasks can inter-
fere with students’ use of cognitive strategies (Schunk, 1990). Research covering the cognitive
based motivational models is still tentative; nevertheless, the models support the need for
teachers to socialize students to value intrinsically successful school performance and under-
standing and not just higher school grades, higher scores on standardized achievement tests, and
outdoing other students (Lee & Anderson, 1993; Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993).

Socially Linked Cognition. Social and cognitive psychologists exploring socially linked
cognition suggest that strategic knowledge about content learning is often more successful when
students cooperate to motivate and to instruct one another in conceptual change and problem-
solving activities (Glasson & Lakik, 1993; Resnick, 1991; Roth, 1993; Wertsch, 1991). Social
psychologists are increasingly confident that events and experiences shared by ‘two or more
people influence the way they strategically remember and process information and later retrieve
and apply this subject knowledge. Students often perform science tasks in a social context where
strategic processing is dependent on prior knowledge, interpretative frameworks, and motiva-
tional variables that are constrained or enhanced by activities outside the classroom (Champagne
& Bunce, 1991; Prawat, 1989). Hastie and Pennington (1991) suggested that social influences
are pervasive and perhaps even influence students in seemingly solo activities that appear to be
of the greatest private and independent nature. Social interactions also influence the way
 THE READING CONNECTION 883

students interpret and apply their own knowledge while performing higher order reading tasks
(Wertsch, 1991). Students engaged in thinking about shared science-related events generally
demonstrate improved understanding (Champagne & Bunce, 1991).
Today, more than ever before, using language to learn science takes place in an incredibly
rich mix of culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Yet, surprisingly, little is known
about the instructional aspects of print-based language arts and science learning within multi-
cultural classrooms. In a recent review of the research on language, culture, and education
(Garcia, 1993), issues related to literacy teaching and learning were limited largely to a discus-
sion of teaching reading in children’s first and second languages. The broader aspects of literacy
development (numerical, cultural, artistic, technical, and scientific) within multicultural science
classrooms were not mentioned. This is a promising research domain rich in potential.
Sleeter and Grant (1987) described five different curricular approaches, each with different
target populations, goals, and assumptions about what makes any curriculum, science included,
truly multicultural. However, the tendency has been to equate multicultural education with
curriculum integration. This limited view has, unfortunately, resulted in simply integrating
content about various racial and ethnic groups and women into the existing curriculum (e.g.,
featuring minorities and women scientists in side bars or special biographical sections of
textbooks). This area is rejected by minority scholars who see in it little attention to the bigger
issues at hand. Working from a broader framework, Banks ( 1993) advocated reconceptualizing
the curriculum to “help students understand how knowledge is constructed and how it reflects
human interests, ideology, and the experiences of the people who create it” (p. 37).
Students often perform science tasks in a social context where strategic processing is
dependent on prior knowledge, interpretative frameworks, (epistemologies, community values,
cultural beliefs, etc .) and motivational variables that are constrained or enhanced by factors
inside and outside the classroom. Carey and Smith (1993), Norris and Phillips (1994) and
Snively (1987) described various interpretative frameworks and orientations that have the prom-
ise to guide and explain the sociocultural influences on science reading.

Conceptual Change. Over 3,000 studies have been directed at identifying science miscon-
ceptions held by children and adults (Pfundt & h i t , 1991). These misconceptions, which are
socially transmitted and instructionally derived, are attributed to informal interactions, outside
of competent science learning, with concept events. These misconceptions, once internalized,
are pervasive and resistant to change. Recently, conceptual change research in science education
and reading has explored different epistemologies and instructional strategies. Science educa-
tion research has indicated that conceptual change instruction must engage learners’ prior
conceptions; encourage predictions based on their prior knowledge; provide discrepant experi-
ences or information; develop a rationale for an alternative conception that is reasonable,
valuable, and useful; and provide relevant applications for the new conception.
Reading research in conceptual change has indicated that effective strategies involve more
than activation and refutation of the misconception. A meta-analysis of 47 intervention studies
done by researchers in science education between 1981 and 1991 to address students’ miscon-
ceptions about various science concepts concluded that three instructional approaches (learning
cycle, bridging analogies, and conceptual change) most helped in overcoming misconceptions
(Guzzetti, Snyder, Glass, & Gamas, 1993).
The learning cycle consists of three phases: exploration, in which students use hands-on
experiences; term introduction, in which the teacher assists students with inventing a concept
884 HOLLIDAY, YORE, AND ALVERMANN

label; and concept application, in which students are helped to generalize the ideas. Bridging
analogies link a known example to an unknown idea and encourage students to make written
predictions, observations, and explanations about a target concept. During teacher-led discus-
sions aimed at challenging students to provide their rationales for their beliefs, anchoring
examples that are scientifically acceptable approximations of the target concept are introduced.
Conceptual change strategies involve “approaches in which the learner’s preconceptions interact
with new information to produce conceptual restructuring . . . [thus] when a student’s prior
conception is at variance with the scientific conception, the prior conception must be shown to
be unacceptable” (Guzzetti et al., 1993, p. 147). Researchers in both reading and science
education have shown a preference for designing studies that arouse cognitive conflict refuta-
tional text, which argues against a commonly held misconception, is thought to be an effective
means of creating cognitive conflict (Hynd et al., 1994), as are techniques such as the discussion
web (Alvermann, 1991), think sheets (Dole & Smith, 1987), and the Socratic teaching method
(Paul, 1992).
Several problems and limitations associated with conceptual change research were uncov-
ered as a result of the meta-analysis, such as what actually constitutes a misconception and how
conceptual change can be measured. A limitation of this conceptual change research has been
that researchers have paid more attention to the cognitive aspects of learning science than they
have to the motivational and personal agendas students bring with them to any learning task
(Lee & Anderson, 1993). Also, much of the research on conceptual change has apparently
overlooked issues related to race, culture, gender, and social class.

Writing-Science Learning Connection

A comprehensive review of the writing-to-learn science literature is provided by Rivard
(1994). Therefore, this section only provides a brief highlight of the perceived breakthroughs,
barriers, and promises with limited reference to the substantive and historical literature.

Breakthroughs
An important breakthrough in the writing-science learning connection from the science
educator’s perspective is the popularity and momentum that writing across the curriculum
(WAC) has enjoyed in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and postsecondary
institutions (Connolly & Vilardi, 1989; Russell, 1990). The most recent movement in writing in
the content areas started in the United Kingdom and was based on the realization that writing
was not consistently implemented across the academic disciplines (Britton, Burgess, Martin,
McLeod, & Rosen, 1975). Although, writing to learn science has slowly gained some momen-
tum in high schools, colleges, and universities in North America, the application of writing to
learn science has been uneven in many educational institutions. Unfortunately, little consider-
ation of writing to learn has been given in science teacher education programs, curricula
development projects, program evaluations, and teaching/learning research. The WAC move-
ment has been a grassroots movement and has produced classroom applications well in advance
of the supportive theoretical understandings.
Frequently, classroom writing in science is directed at communicating what the writer
knows to the teacher as an informed audience, filling in the blanks or producing short responses
to teacher-generated questions and recording observations and information (Applebee, 1983;
Holliday, 1992). These activities illustrate a mode of writing that emphasizes knowledge
telling, production of text, uninteresting tasks, and transmission of recalled information. Many
 THE READING CONNECTION 885

of these writing activities lack a degree of mental engagement that promotes meaningful learn-
ing (Keystone, 1993). Santa and Havens (1991) suggested that meaningful writing should bridge
new information and old knowledge structure, provide authentic authoring tasks for an uninfor-
med audience, encourage minds-on learning, facilitate conceptual organization and restructur-
ing, and promote metacognition. They stated that “writing provides a status of [our] thoughts
and forces [us] to grapple with what [we] know and what [we] don’t know” (p. 124). Writing
should glue thinking to paper, provide a public record of thinking, promote critical thinking,
allow the transformation of vague ideas to clear conceptions, and stimulate the construction of
understandings. Howard and Barton (1986) suggested that writing is, first, a process of polish-
ing one’s thinking for self-edification and, second, communicating those thoughts to others.
They believed writing to be “(1) a symbolic activity of meaning-making; (2) a staged perfor-
mance; and (3) a tool of understanding as well as of communication” (p. 20). Such a mode of
writing emphasizes exploration, expressive inquiry, discovery, problem solving, decision mak-
ing, and knowledge construction. Success in writing-to-learn-science strategies is likely to be
based on a marriage of WAC’S momentum and the interactive-constructive notion of meaning
making (Mayer, 1992).

Barriers
The effort toward understanding writing composition has been product oriented and intu-
itive. Little consideration has been given to the internal cognitive processes that lead to more
acute understanding and insights as a result of the struggle to compose. For the past 20 years,
writing research has been moving away from a preoccupation with text production and a 19th-
century rhetoric that stressed good penmanship, standard grammars, and correct spelling and
punctuation. Recent movements have been toward a cognitive, metacognitive, social interac-
tive, and problem-solving perspective (McCarthey & Raphael, 1992). Currently, conceptions of
writing to learn appear to be embryonic and fragmented. The contemporary goals of writing to
learn science should involve (a) solving communication problems; (b) informing or persuad-
ing others; and (c) constructing understanding, enhancing personal clarity, and producing great-
er insightfulness (Holliday, 1992). Howard and Barton (1986) stated that “the first goal of
writing, like reading, is to understand, only then can one make that understanding available to
readers. In other words writing as much as silent language is an instrument to think with”
(p. 24). Unfortunately, most writing to learn research has concentrated on Communicating ideas
rather than facilitating understanding and has utilized literature and social studies as a content
focus.
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) described two types of writing: the popular knowledge-
telling mode and the less well considered knowledge-transforming mode. The dominate use of
knowledge-telling writing may have deleterious effects on how children organize and store
knowledge. According to Bereiter and Scardamalia, knowledge telling is a simplistic strategy
that proves worrisome when students begin to depend on it so much that they are no longer “able
to shape a piece of writing to achieve intended effects and to reorganize one’s knowledge in the
process” (p. 6).
Writing, like interactive-constructive reading, depends upon the writer’s prior domain and
strategic knowledge, purpose, and interest. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) described the
interactive and constructive processes involved in the knowledge-transforming model of writing
that parallels the generative model of science learning in that it involves long-term memory,
working memory, and sensory-motor activity. The knowledge-transforming model appears to be
far more interactive and recursive than linear. The tasks of goal setting and text production do
886 HOLLIDAY, YORE, AND ALVERMANN

not fully reveal the complex cognitive, metacognitive, and memory factors involved in the
retrieval of conceptual and discourse knowledge from long-term memory and the executive
control, strategic planning, and construction taking place in short-term memory. Clearly, knowl-
edge transformation involves a different set of focus issues than knowledge telling. Questions
that writers might ask themselves in the knowledge-transforming model include: What evidence
do I have? What warrants, claims, and logical argument should I use? What are the array of
alternative explanations? What do these ideas mean to the target audience? What metaphors,
analogies, or examples, will persuade my audience or provide relevant connections?
Science writing involves using a unique set of symbols and constructing a symbol system
that is internally consistent and meaningful to the creator. Vygotsky (1978) emphasized the
importance, difficulty, and higher order thinking involved in transforming experiences into
abstract symbols and the power of such a process to mediate thought. Frequently, the struggle to
construct meaning, enhance argumentation, and polish thinking cannot be fully detected by
external observers; only the writer can fully appreciate the private act of composition. In the
research literature, little consideration is given to the distinct knowledge, cognitive and meta-
cognitive demands of scientific writing and the access to the internal mental processes in writing
to learn science.
Howard and Barton (1986) described written reasoning for discovery in many of the same
ways that scientists describe plausible reasoning and critical thinking. They stated that discovery
writing “connotes exploration, speculation, intuition, imagination, risk taking, a suspicion of
doubt, a headlong plunge down new corridors of thought and experience” (p. 23). Writing to
learn science needs to emphasize knowledge-transformation models of writing that embody the
canons of evidence, plausible reasoning, interpretative frameworks, and higher order thinking.
The inherent difficulties of representing multidimensional thoughts in unidimensional written
space may put very drastic limitations on the writing to learn science process.

Promises
Many exciting theoretical inquiries (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987), classroom-based pro-
jects (Fellows, 1994; Keys, 1994), and teacher-enhancement activities (Rosaen, 1989) are
providing rich avenues of research and development. The verification of a theoretical model of
writing to learn science that fully reflects contemporary views of science learning and writing is
needed. Thus far, Bereiter and Scardamalia’s (1987) model provides the greatest alignment with
science learning as an interactive-constructive process embedded in a social context. Further-
more, Howard and Barton (1986) stressed that written reasoning to discover or construct
meaning must consider purpose, genre, and evidence; however, very little evidence clearly
illustrates the direct relationship between writing and improved science learning. However, a
growing body of literature has identified common traits among skilled writers (Engler, Raphael,
Anderson, Anthony, & Stevens, 1991). Good writers (a) consider their audiences and purposes
while writing; (b) strategically plan, draft, edit, and revise; (c) structure their writing in a way
that coherently clarifies and convinces readers; (d) typically read, listen, and speak well; and (e)
understand that language is an interactive and reconstructive process with productive motives
and goals in mind (Holliday, 1992). In addition, good writers engage in cognitively, motiva-
tionally, and affectively demanding mental processes that require problem-solving skills, atten-
tional discipline, and an awareness and monitoring of how well one’s writing is converting the
facts and principles into a language that is convincing and easily understood by the reader
(Tierney & Shanahan, 1991; Zellermayer, Salomon, Globerson, & Givon, 1991).
 THE READING CONNECTION 887

Research into the type of explicit instruction, cooperative activities, and writing tasks that
stimulate knowledge transformation and conceptual change will lead to an awareness of the
practical relationship of writing and science learning. Presently, little consensus about writing,
explicit instruction, and science learning can be detected. Like science reading research in the
1960s, science writing research appears to be text-driven and fragmented. More interdisciplin-
ary, collaborative explorations are needed.
Another promising area of inquiry is teachers’ knowledge about, attitudes toward, and uses
of, writing to learn science. Langer (1986), Langer and Applebee (1987), and Sullenger (1990)
began to delineate the type of knowledge and uses of writing made by science teachers, but
additional studies and expanded focus are needed. Rosaen (1989) provided five questions that
could inform research and teacher enhancement:

1. What is their current knowledge level of the writing process in general, and of [sci-
ence] writing in particular?
2. What is their current skill level at using their knowledge to develop effective writing-
to-learn [science] strategies?
3. To what extent are the teachers in “rnetacognitive control” . . . of the complexities
associated with implementing change in their [writing-to-learn] instruction?
4. What are their attitudes about [science] writing, and dispositions to develop and
promote its use in the classroom?
5. Which aspects of improving their [science] writing instruction are most interesting and
challenging to them? (p. 193).

Rosaen suggested that the teachers’ own science writing might be a fruitful avenue to access
their understanding and to illustrate the complexity of writing to learn science.

Concluding Remarks
The use of language to support thinking, exploring, discovering, and understanding in a
social context should not be partitioned into talking, listening, writing, and reading. The
language arts are interactive and holistic and influence one another in an integrated fashion.
Tierney (1992) described the shifts in perspective and practice for reading and writing that
would have an impact on science learning. Students studying academic subjects like science
should be productively engaged in reading what they write and writing about what they read
(Glynn & Muth, 1994; Lewin, 1992). Several projects are exploring such language-rich learning
environments. Kathleen Roth’s Literacy in Science and Social Studies (LISSS) project at Michi-
gan State University, the Benchmark School Project (Gaskins et al., 1994) and the Elementary
Science Integration Project (ESIP) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baker &
Saul, 1994) are promising examples. New projects like James Shymansky and John Dunkhase’s
Science, Parents, and Literature (Science PALS) project at the University of Iowa is attempting
to enhance science teaching, involve families, and improve scientific literacy by marrying
“challenge literature,” writing, and science inquiry. Each of these projects is collaborative with
classroom teachers and school districts, is embedded in the natural ecology of the classroom,
involves teacher enhancement as well as student learning, utilizes a variety of instructional
resources and resource people, and treats language as a dynamic whole.
Science educators and science teachers need to take note of the implications of sociocogni-
tive sciences and move away from transmission models of instruction toward interactive-
constructive models of instruction in which students become self-regulated learners. Language
888 HOLLIDAY, YORE, AND ALVERMANN

arts research has a rich tradition of sociocognitive inquiry that can inform much of the reading-
science learning-writing research. Pea (1993) described a learning situation in which this
tradition might thrive:

Instead of having a teacher in front of 30 students, imagine small groups using artefacts,
such as optical devices including mirrors, light sources, lenses, and a computer tool kit
that lets one build dynamic models of different optical situations. Imagine the students
talking animatedly with one another, comparing predictions and arguing about how to
frame and solve problems. . . . They are interacting with other groups. The teacher is an
additional resource and interpreter who comes around and who the students may request
information from when they feel blocked in their inquiries. (p. 267)

This learning environment includes inquiries into discrepant events, student-initiated predic-
tions, concrete experiences, and verbal interactions among students and between students and
teacher. If teachers add multiple information sources, integrated modes of print-based language,
explicit strategy instruction, and modern information technologies in a supportive, risk-taking
environment with an agenda and time schedule driven by problem-centered inquiries and you
will have an effective learning community.
Pea (1993) described the negotiations and appropriations of meaning within a community
of learners in which the dynamic reciprocals of construction and communication help students
examine evidence, make meaning, consider alternatives, polish arguments, share interpretative
frameworks, and enhance understanding “through successive turns of talk and action” (p. 268).
These communities of learners do, think, talk, listen, write, and read science. Pea stated:

The conversational mechanisms of meaning negotiation and appropriation provide contin-

ued opportunities for learning. But exploiting these resources for education is a more
complex design task. Making the best situations for fostering crucial learning conversa-
tions that enable significant conceptual change to transpire is at present an ill-understood
art. (p. 274)

Science classrooms infrequently reflect all details of authentic collaborative inquiry, but much
improvement can be realized by increasing depth of coverage, utilizing student-selected prob-
lems and student-designed inquiries, encouraging an interactive community of learners, and
considering historical and alternative conceptions of science events.

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