Teacher Notes on Description-Writing Extended Cases

Strategic Background on the Cases

The three "extended descriptive cases" linked from this part of the description-writing table of contents apply the same description-design principles and guidelines as do the focused exercises that precede them. But these last three cases differ from the others in scope: these are not themselves packaged lessons or spelled-out exercises, but instead each one offers a general framework within which you can build many lessons tailored to your specific classes and students. The annotations shared here about these cases suggest some possible ways to develop each case; there are many others.

Also note the special relevance of these three extended descriptive cases to literacy development in science classes:

• Underperforming science students are often limited by their poor note-taking techniques or weak technical presentation skills. Such limits then thwart adequate work in class science projects (or adequate communication with peers or teachers about science topics or problems). Integrating (lessons based on) these note-taking or talk-giving cases into science classes can thus directly build prerequisite science-enabling skills that make more technical work possible.
• For English language learners, science communication constraints can be especially severe, even for talented students. These three cases provide abundant scaffolding and modeling opportunities, all highly relevant to skill building for ESL science students. They address just the language areas that help ESL students gradually develop better "academic English" from their "social English" base.