Writing in Inquiry Stage One
In this stage, writing in a science notebook supports engagement and exploration through jotting brief notes, recording impressions, and describing phenomena. Students might make lists of words that describe the phenomenon or object, make drawings, or record what they think they know about a phenomenon and what they would like to find out. They may speculate about how an object might change over time or react to an event.
Resources for Writing in Inquiry Stage One
Primary Science: Taking the Plunge by Wynne Harlen. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 2001.
This book offers detailed advice to elementary school teachers on how
to support children’s understanding of science through inquiry.
Chapter 8, “Helping Children to Communicate,” focuses on supporting
children as they begin to represent their scientific knowledge and ideas.
The first section of the chapter focuses on verbal communication, but
is followed by sections with good suggestions about how to help children
represent their thinking through writing, drawing, and painting, all of
which are relevant to writing in Inquiry Stage One.
The New Science
Literacy: Using Language Skills to Help Students Learn Science
by Marlene Thier with Bennett Daviss. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
This book illustrates and explains how children’s experiences in
inquiry-based science can increase reading, writing, and language skills
and, in turn, describes how these literacy skills can help children understand
science. Written for teachers of grades 4–10, the book is filled
with examples of techniques and strategies that strengthen student achievement.
Chapter 5, “Writing—Paths to Clear Expression,” covers
presentational as well as exploratory writing. The author discusses the
science journal as a record of reflections and speculations. She describes
students writing to and for themselves, using words to mold the facts
and concepts they have learned into personal understandings. The chapter
provides a list of performance expectations for exploratory writing, and
discusses how the keeping of science journals aids students’ process
of reflection (metacognition). The chapter covers many types of entries
into science notebooks, but it is most relevant to writing skills at Inquiry
Stage One.
The Languages
of Learning by Karen Gallas. New York: Teachers College
Press, 1994.
This book provides insight into the various ways that early elementary
students communicate their ideas and understandings about the world. The
author gives accounts of students in her class and how they use all forms
of expression (talking, writing, dancing, drawing, and singing) to share
and refine their knowledge of the world. Chapters 5 and 6 of this book
include a theoretical discussion of the role of language (both spoken
and written) in science understanding. The theories are supported by the
analysis of one first grader’s entries into a science journal over
several months that document his emerging understanding of what “science”
is. These sections would be helpful to teachers who are interested in
learning to understand and interpret the very early science writing in
Inquiry Stage One.
Investigate
Nonfiction by Donald H. Graves. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
1989.
This book is one in a series of volumes that help teachers understand
and incorporate different styles of writing into their classroom activities.
The focus of this volume is on the many uses of nonfiction reporting in
children’s literacy repertoires. Chapter 5, “Transitions from
Oral Forms to Reading and Writing,” gives suggestions for how teachers
can encourage children to talk and then write about “how things
work.” Through early examples of record keeping, this chapter shows
how record keeping has been used to keep track of “what happened”
and to document students’ emerging understanding of the power of
writing things down. This chapter is particularly helpful in describing
the process of writing in Inquiry Stage One.
