ERIC Number: EJ782986
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007
Pages: 24
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0898-5898
EISSN: N/A
Negotiating Discourses: Sixth-Grade Students' Use of Multiple Science Discourses during a Science Fair Presentation
Gomez, Kimberley
Linguistics and Education: An International Research Journal, v18 n1 p41-64 Spr 2007
This study offers important insights into the coexistence of multiple discourses and the link between these discourses and science understanding. It offers concrete examples of students' movement between multiple discourses in sixth-grade science fair presentations, and shows how those multiple discourses in science practices illuminate students' understanding of science and offer insights into how they engage in the complex thinking and communication of the New Literacies. The findings suggest that classroom teachers should recognize and incorporate students' everyday science talk as a useful tool in instilling basic scientific concepts. Teachers should also help students develop awareness of the value and appropriateness of drawing on life circumstances in talking about science and the benefit of knowing and talking about scientific phenomena along a continuum of science understanding. Teachers should also build their own understandings of the value of discourse in encoding students' science understandings.
Descriptors: Science Activities, Scientific Concepts, Science Fairs, Literacy, Teachers, Discourse Analysis, Grade 6, Science Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 6
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A