Literacy Outreach to Science Students Through Their Teachers

by T.R.Girill
STC Fellow

One way to expose more high-school students to the skill-building benefits of technical writing is to help their teachers blend text design activities into on-going classes. This includes science teachers. School structure encourages them to regard writing as "someone else's problem," yet weak literacy skills often prevent adequate student performance in science classes. Since Devil Mountain Views published its last report on the EBSTC literacy project (Spring, 2005), we have pursued several unusual opportunities to introduce technical writing to local science teachers.

ETEC

The Edward Teller Education Center (ETEC) aims to improve the quality of precollege science instruction. Originally sponsored by the University of California Office of the President (and now also by several philanthropic foundations), ETEC brings California science teachers to UC Davis classrooms in Livermore for four levels of practical professional development.

During July, 2005, and again in July, 2006, ETEC director Stan Hitomi decided to try something new. He inserted technical writing into the week-long ETEC "Level III" enrichment activities. So first for eight science teachers (2005), then for 16 (2006), I presented two 90-minute workshops explaining the value that technical writing can add for underperforming science students:
• The teachers were pleasantly surprised to find just how much solid empirical research (in linguistics, cognitive psychology, information science, and human-factors engineering) underlies current techniques for developing effective nonfiction text.
• Together we explored reliable ways to integrate communication design with standard California science activities by reviewing the EBSTC literacy project's classroom-tested exercises for writing sound instructions and useful descriptions.
• Finally, the teachers applied these same technical writing techniques to the journal articles, abstracts, proposals, or white papers that they sometimes want to draft on their own behalf.

The invigorating theme of all this teacher training is perhaps best captured by the title of biologist Robert Barrass' notable little handbook Scientists Must Write.

Granada High School

Science Department Head Frankie Tate offered a parallel outreach opportunity during Granada High School's own on-campus professional development day on November 4, 2005. At her invitation I explained the benefits of technical writing beyond English class to nine members of the GHS science faculty. This compressed tour through the same issues (and handouts) used with both sets of ETEC teachers was the first time that an entire California high-school department explored technical writing as a literacy-building instructional strategy.

The Granada connection offers great potential. This high school now has an ambitious renewal project underway, including a state curriculum-improvement grant and a new science building. Granada has also begun requiring a forensic-themed general science course for every freshman. All of this creates many new opportunities for science teachers to offer and for their students to try technical writing in an authentic technical context.

Two strands connect these teacher development efforts. One is reach. Each teacher influences 100 to 200 students every year, so faculty awareness of technical writing possibilities can reach many learners indirectly. The other is value. Technical communication must earn scarce time in the busy science teacher's day, and all of these workshops strove to show how it can.

If you are interested in literacy outreach, please contact T.R. Girill (trg@llnl.gov) to explore ways that you can contribute to EBSTC's continuing project.