Leslie Atkins Elliott and Kim Jaxon give a workshop about teaching writing in science.

1. NWP
WORKSHOP
materials available at:
composingscience.com

2. STRUCTURE OF WORKSHOP
• background on our course & book
• what makes reading and writing in science uniquely hard?
• what can we do about it? - examples from our course
• getting started: scientific notebooks
• Q&A

3. ABOUTTHE COURSE

4. WHAT IS UNIQUELY HARD
ABOUT SCIENTIFIC WRITING?
1.Concealment of rhetoric
• “it is not a laboratory notebook... Cleansed of messiness,
portrays knowledge as unproblematic, unambiguous,
repeatable truths...” (Collins & Shapin)
2.Use of grammatic metaphors
• turn “happenings” into “stable phenomena” (parameter-
induced stochastic resonance) (Halliday, 2004)

5. 3.Empirical evidence as a tool of persuasion
• “Observation and experiment ... are the handmaidens to the
rational activity of generating arguments in support of
knowledge claims...” (Driver, Newton & Osborne)
4.Addressivity of science texts
• high degree of intertexuality,“invites, in fact solicits, responses
from others and seeks to engage them...” (Sharma & Anderson)
5.Coordinates multiple modes
• connecting representation, mathematics, images, text
Hallmarks of scientific writing

6. EXCLUDE PARTICIPATION IN
SCIENCE:
• concealment of rhetoric:
• “final form,” a “rhetoric of conclusions” (Duschl; Schwab)
• grammatic metaphors:
• ambiguous, abstract, remote from concrete experience
• role of evidence:
• easily misunderstood as proof or goal of inquiry
• addressivity:
• requires a knowledge of the ongoing debate
• multiple modes:
• requires understanding and translating between modes

7. ...WHATTO DO?
• strategies, rubrics, standards?

8. WHY NOT DOTHAT?
• it’s not what scientists do. Practices emerge in the context of
their use.

9. NSCI 321: SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
• undergraduate Liberal Studies majors (future elementary
teachers)
• 21 women, 2 men
• engage students in scientific inquiry into perception
• co-taught with a biologist (neuroscience)
• week 2/3

10. EXPLANATIONS FOR A SPOT
OF LIGHT
tube as “blocking”
tube as “concentrating”

14. CONSTRUCTING “THE
SECONDS”
Student-constructed term:
- perceptually distinct (“fuzzy edge”)
- highly theoretical:“there’s the fuzzy edge...”“those are...”
- creates a category of objects (via nominalization of
“second”)
- experimental role in “carving at the joints”- a reason to
believe in this “happening” as a thing to be nominalized
- largely an individual effort, but a strong role of others (Dee)
- particularly dissension / skepticism

15. Explaining and diagramming “seconds”

17. SHAPING A DEFINITION
• There are thirds, fourths, fifths, etc.
• These “matter” because each successive “bounce” is dimmer
than the one before.

18. Amanda

19. “I KNEW IT WAS GOINGTO
BE A SECOND.”
• Amanda, who invented the term, recognizes that her use of it
is not as sensible as someone else’s.
• subtle change in the ontology of “second” (rays become
seconds)
• through these negotiations the ambiguities inherent in spoken
language become increasingly precise
• the diagrams, in particular provide a referent for referent and
signal for these ambiguities -- but how to resolve them?

20. Jordan Breanna Courtney

21. SHAPING A DEFINITION
• Recognition of a the social construction:“are we agreeing to call a
second...?”
• Demand for precision:“I need a more set definition before I feel
comfortable using it.”
• Pedagogical moves:
• “We need to agree on terminology...”
• “They’re calling it a second...”
• Reframing for precision:“Your question is:‘If it bounces off of the
mirror, is it a first or a second?’”

22. CHARACTERISTICS OF
DEFINITIONS
• Definitions in science as:
• socially constructed
• a nominalization (seconds)
• subject to agreement
• representational
• identified (stabilized) experimentally and gramatically
• demanding precision (intersubjectivity)

24. OPERATIONALIZING
“SECONDS”
• Definitions: a matter of convention?
• Courtney looks to instructors - is our role to help select a
definition that will prove productive?
• Pedagogical moves: nature of objects in theories
• Dee: So I guess the real question is: when it hits the
mirror is any of the light absorbed? Because to me the
definition of a second is, when it hits something, some of
the light is absorbed, so not all of it is coming back out.

25. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION
TOSSED BACKTO EXPERIMENT
• Is any light absorbed?
• Is light off of a mirror a “second”?
• In what way are mirrors and paper reflecting light “much
differently”?
• Can we distinguish 2nd, 3rd, 4ths?

26. “The transition [from talking to writing science]... is facilitated
when students are provided with opportunities to express
themselves... utilizing means of expression that bear iconic
relations with the situations they experienced and the gestures
they used...” -Roth, 2004

27. “If our knowledge is to be organized systematically (especially if this
depends on being able to measure things), we need phenomena
that are stable: that persist through time, and can readily be
grouped into classes.’’ - Halliday, 2004

28. “Scientific literacy... is the ability to make meaning conjointly with
verbal concepts, mathematical relationships, visual representations,
and manual-technical operations.” - Lemke

29. “It is more productive not to converge on a definition
until further empirical and theoretical progress points
us toward the best way to ‘cut up [nature] ... along its
natural joints.” -Elby, 2009

30. DEE’S DEFINITION IS WRONG?
• Dee:“To me, the definition of a second is when it hits and
some of the light is absorbed, so not all of it is coming back
out.”
• a negotiation with the world regarding our definitions:“carving
nature at its joints”

32. PARTICIPATION IN SCIENTIFIC
PRACTICES AS LEVER
1.concealment of rhetoric
2.Use of grammatic metaphors (nominalization)
3.Empirical evidence as a tool of persuasion
4.Addressivity of texts
5.Coordinating multiple modes

35. How do we get this started?
!
your turn!

36. SCIENTISTS WRITE.
• Latour (1990) found that when scientists were unable to
access their graphs, they “hesitated, stuttered and talked
nonsense” (p. 22) and were only able to resume the
conversation when a graph was scribbled onto whatever scrap
of paper was at hand.

37. SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
• The Premise:
• to understand scientific claims, you need to know how the
game of science is played
• to understand how the game is played, there is no substitute
for playing it
• The Goal:
• design a course where - to the degree possible - students are
“playing the game” of science instead of “doing the lesson”

38. THE GOAL
• as much as possible, the demands of “doing science”-- creating
coherent, mechanistic models of physical phenomena-- would drive
scientific practices
• operational definitions, precise language
• role of evidence (as “handmaiden”)
• experimentation as a test of theory
• precise diagrams as predictive tools
• lab notes

39. LAB NOTEBOOKS
• without a lecture, would it be clear to students that there
would be a role for notebooks?
• for taking notes on their peers’ ideas?
• their nascent ideas?
• their diagrams, data, experiments?
• more broadly, to see writing as a powerful way of learning
and knowing

40. STUDENTTASK
On the following pages are images from several famous scientists’ research
notebooks-- the notebook used to keep track of ideas, observations and
experiments as he worked. With your group, discuss what you notice
about these notebooks. Do not describe the actual work the scientist did,
but ways in which s/he took notes and organized information.
Below is a list of a few things you might notice, but be sure to generate more
observations than just these:
• what does the page look like?
• are there procedures described?
• what is the style of writing? Personal, objective, colloquial, etc.?
• how do these famous scientists’ research notebooks compare to lab
notebooks you have kept in other science classes?
• what is a scientists’ research notebook for?
Keep track of your groups’ ideas on the whiteboard you have been provided.
We will generate a rubric with guidelines and standards for keeping a
research notebook in this class based on the lists you have generated.

41. “I am astonished! It is 18 days
since I started thinking about
bottinoite. Only last night, in
bed, did I recognize that the
formula Ni(OH2)6Sb(OH)6 is
wrong. It would required SbII,
which is unlikely. It is a pale blue-
green mineral.
Two possibilities...
But I have now noticed that
(scientists) give the formulas as...
Hence all of my preceding
discussion needs to be revised.”
-Linus Pauling

42. “I think
Case must be that [in] one generation
there should be as many living as now.
To do this and to have [as] many
species in same genus (as is) requires
extinction.
Thus between A & B immense gap of
relation; C & B the finest gradation, B
& D rather greater distinction.Thus
genera would be formed, bearing
relation...”
- Charles Darwin

43. “success at put down.
Build a structure to demonstrate...
success at pick up
success at put down...
I'm really having fun!!
Do some more: successful
pickup.”
-Don Eigler (wrote the letters
IBM with 35 xenon atoms on a
nickel surface)

44. “A model:
Lonely 5 cells: cannot bind to each
other.
Lonely 21 cells: cannot bind to each
other either.
But
Happy
5+21 cells can bind with many cells,
but first come, first serve (as far as sex
is concerned).
If trypsin or BME added to 21 cells...”
- James Hicks

45. An image from Einstein’s
notebook.

46. WHAT STUDENTS NOTICE

47. ROLES OFTHE NOTEBOOK
public v. private

48. DEVELOPING A RUBRIC
if our goal is for students to do science, what should be
evidence that students are doing science?

49. NSCI 321 - Scientific Inquiry
Notebook Rubric
Your research notebook should be meaningful and useful to you-- the requirements should not feel
arbitrary or irrelevant to the work you are doing. At the same time, it should meet the standards of
scientific notebooks: this is neither a personal diary of ideas and thoughts, nor a simple
documentation of observations. This rubric should be helpful in making sure that you strike a
balance between the two.
When you submit your notebook, you should do a self-assessment of your strengths (+) and your
weaknesses (-) -- not every item needs a + or a -, but if something stands out to you as an area where
you excel or an area where you need to work harder, you should note that.
You should also indicate a few pages from your notebook that provide good evidence that you are
meeting the requirement. We will look over all of your pages when considering your grade, but it
will be helpful for us to know which pages are particularly strong examples.
If you miss a day, you should photocopy the lab notebook from one of your research team members
and include this in your notebook. This will be useful in making sure you have all the information
you need for homework and exams. If you turn your notebook in late (why would you? we don’t
know...) it’s 10% off for each day late.
Subjective requirements:
These requirements are, in general, a measure of your personality as a researcher. Does
your notebook demonstrate that you are reflecting, thinking, curious and engaged rather
than simply going through the motions and copying down the data?
Subjective requirements:
These requirements are, in general, a measure of your personality as a researcher. Does
your notebook demonstrate that you are reflecting, thinking, curious and engaged rather
than simply going through the motions and copying down the data?
Subjective requirements:
These requirements are, in general, a measure of your personality as a researcher. Does
your notebook demonstrate that you are reflecting, thinking, curious and engaged rather
than simply going through the motions and copying down the data?
Subjective requirements:
These requirements are, in general, a measure of your personality as a researcher. Does
your notebook demonstrate that you are reflecting, thinking, curious and engaged rather
than simply going through the motions and copying down the data?
requirement ✓± pages? grade
includes some notion of what you’re thinking,
expecting, and/or assuming
(what you’re thinking at the time - “know”)
includes some kind of questions about what
you’re hoping to understand/answer/show (what
you want to know)
reflection and analysis of what it is you’ve
observed, some notion of a “trajectory” of ideas
and thinking (what you have learned)
some obvious engagement, creativity,
individuality and personal expression (this could
be, for example, through your sketches, ideas,
notes in the margin -- or through your careful
attention to detail, precision, organization, etc.)
Scientific Inquiry L. Atkins & I. Salter

50. Objective requirements:
These requirements, in general, are a measure of how useful your notebook will be as a
reference for you and others in following the sequence of ideas, experiments, and
discussions from this course.
Objective requirements:
These requirements, in general, are a measure of how useful your notebook will be as a
reference for you and others in following the sequence of ideas, experiments, and
discussions from this course.
Objective requirements:
These requirements, in general, are a measure of how useful your notebook will be as a
reference for you and others in following the sequence of ideas, experiments, and
discussions from this course.
Objective requirements:
These requirements, in general, are a measure of how useful your notebook will be as a
reference for you and others in following the sequence of ideas, experiments, and
discussions from this course.
requirement ✓± pages? grade
all pages are numbered, all days are dated
titles when starting something new (use your own
sense of organization to decide when/where/how
often)
clear descriptions, including diagrams with
labels, of what you’re doing to answer your
questions/curiosities (how you’ve learned it)
detailed, accurate observations
any references (to other classmates’ work/ideas or
outside readings) are noted clearly when used
Scientific Inquiry L. Atkins & I. Salter

51. Personal relevance:
These requirements are, in general, a measure of your personality as a researcher.
Does your notebook demonstrate that you are reflecting, thinking, curious and
engaged rather than simply going through the motions and copying down the data?
Is your notebook clearly relevant to you?
requirement pages? grade
shows evidence of a “progression” of ideas and thinking,
shows how you got to your answer and why you think that
as part of this progression of ideas, mistakes and ideas that you
later disagree with are not erased; rather, these are crossed out
includes questions about what you’re hoping to understand/
answer/show, questions about what confuses you, or new
questions that your research has raised
some obvious personal expression, personality, individual
style, engagement, and creativity (for example, sketches, ideas,
notes in the margin, careful attention to detail, organization,
etc.)
space in the margins or between sections to fill in ideas later
and refer back to earlier questions and work

52. Publicly useful:
These requirements are a measure of how useful your notebook is as a reference for
others in following the sequence of ideas, experiments, and data.
requirement pages? grade
all days are dated
a sense of organization (titles/headings for different topics;
labels on diagrams)
diagrams and illustrations with labels
detailed, accurate observations
clear descriptions of experiments so that others could build off
of your work (or check on the accuracy of your findings) if
necessary

53. RESULTS
• what do we notice?

54. sketches out ideas. notes:
“Maybe the lens has nothing to
do with flipping the image. If
the lens can’t move far enough
away from the eye...:

55. ... BUT, after drawing my
prediction, I changed my
mind!...
What actually happened!...
When we blocked off half the
light... what we saw looked no
different the the beam without
the tape...

56. Without the tube, the beam
was illuminated on the
opposite side the tape was on.
This must be because of the
mirror. The tube has acted like
a mirror.

57. My group’s discussion.
We have all agreed upon the
notion that light seems to
“kush” out when it hits a
surface...

58. We were thinking this is what
happens. But Breanna’s group
pointed out that it crosses at
the pupil, so it would look like
this.

59. Epiphany!
The distance the light source is
from the lens is the same
distance the light passes the
midline on the other side of
the lens.

60. Well my group and I disagree... On if louder means
more air particles. I believe that the louder we are
the more air particles are used... although they
don’t move any faster.

61. Newton’s picture is confusing me - it bends at the
back of the lens and there is no pupil... does it not
matter? Now I am really confused. I thought I
understood what the lens was doing...

62. Group definition of sound...
!
My idea *...

63. Wikipedia

64. THOUGHTS
• the notebooks look scientific... (“procedural display?”)
• students report really valuing and keeping these notebooks - great
pride in what they are and represent
• “Hi Leslie, It’s Janeal. I just moved and was unpacking old boxes when I
found my inquiry notebook. I am so proud of that thing! I just spent an
hour explaining the human eye and pinhole theater to my boyfriend.”
• students report “I journal all the time, but it never occurred to me to
do this with my classes...”
• I love reading through them and grading them

65. QUESTIONS
• what kinds of classes would benefit from this kind of
notebook?
• what does that say?
• how to characterize writing to document v. writing to learn?

66. THANKYOU!
• session organizers
• NSF
• our students

68. READINGTOGETHER &
WRITINGTOGETHER
• annotated google docs as a
way to help students
understand texts