A bridge too far? : what classroom observations reveal about disciplinary literacy instruction in three science classrooms
Keywords: Education.

In order for students to learn science, they must be able to read and communicate science. Yet, in science classrooms, teachers are not providing the necessary instruction in disciplinary literacy so that students can become active members of the discourse community. In the research for this thesis, I examined how three highly regarded teachers approached disciplinary literacy teaching by classroom observations of their science instruction. I observed thirty units each of a mixed fourth and fifth grade general science classroom, an eighth-grade integrated science classroom, and a ninth-grade biology classroom. These observed classrooms were part of a critical case sampling of classrooms where I could learn what the best-case scenarios were for teaching towards NGSS were in linguistically diverse and heterogeneous urban public school settings. Ninety units of classroom data was collected over the course of nineteen weeks (January to May 2018) as three teachers transitioned toward Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). For each teacher, I observed one to three class sessions a week based on the availability and constraints of the three teacher schedules at their school sites. End of study interviews were also conducted with each teacher. Case study methodologies were used in analyzing the classroom fieldnotes, instructional artifacts, and interviews using an analytic framework that examined how students used language towards science learning. The major finding that emerged was that students are provided limited direct guidance as to how to navigate the complex semiotic modalities such as models, graphs, and multimedia tools that are omnipresent within science classrooms. Instruction that was targeted at developing students' disciplinary literacy practices was also rare because there was a greater priority and urgency to cover the content, and therefore tended toward a superficial treatment of the practices. Students were afforded plenty of opportunities to engage with linguistically less demanding practices such as following instructions, describing, and explaining, but had limited practice with more linguistically complex language functions such as questioning, argumentation, interpretation, and evaluation. The findings from this study reaffirm much of what we know about the challenges of standards-based reform and its influence on instruction: a mismatch between the problem of practice and the solution offered, combined with a lack of infrastructure organized and aligned to support the reform goals. Greater attention toward disciplinary literacy demands in science are more likely to come to fruition through incremental changes in science teachers' beliefs about the purposes of instruction, in the creation of curricular and assessment materials that prioritize language and literacy development, and ultimately in changes to what constitutes the everyday portfolio of classroom practices available to support the acquisition of science content and inquiry—in short, changes in what teachers know, believe, and do.