Overview & Description with Embedded Unit Rationale
Collaborating between a 10th grade English and biology classroom, this interdisciplinary unit explores the effects of our interconnectedness, the existence of individual worth, and the necessity of accountability through ecology and several short story and poetry pairings. To address disciplinary literacy, the English section narrows in on multiple facets of characterization through character relationships, name analysis, and longitudinal character studies. But as a direct nod to its interdisciplinary partnership, it integrates popular science articles on ecology topics that enhance its short story character analyses (i.e. helps critic the believability of a protagonist’s actions; expands a man v. man conflict). To further blend cross-curricular content with disciplinary literacy, the English classroom’s subsequent poems rely on diction and another literary element – either allusion or imagery – to illuminate an environmental threat previously discussed in science class (i.e. plastic pollution in oceanic gyres; smog and industrial pollution). Although the English class texts touch upon man’s relationship with the natural world and value in the animal kingdom, they also contemplate human interconnectedness and the worth of man to avoid just a “parallel connection” with the science classroom’s thematic approach (Noskin, 1997, p. 60).
Before launching a student-driven research project on an endangered species for “empowering education” (Alvermann, 2001, p. 8), the biology classroom addresses discipline-specific, “academic science genres” – specifically, lab reports and the textbook (Parkinson, 2000, p. 372). However, it pairs them with popular science articles, primary sources, and fiction to confront the inadequacy and constraints of disciplinary literacy in teaching science, constructing well-rounded case studies for key scientific concepts – like invasive species and niche – that reap the affordances of those “popular science genres” (i.e. the personalization and modernization of science that showcases the scientific process) (Parkinson, 2004, p. 392). Ultimately, while attending to their own specialized literacies, the two disciplines work together to humanize science, expose the scientific accuracy of fiction and establish it as a source of information, build vocabulary awareness, and develop students’ persuasive writing skills and their navigation of the cause/effect text structure.
“Ready-Made Hooks in Prior Knowledge” and Scientific Accuracy in Fiction
Bull and Dupuis (2014) suggest that by physically staggering the onset of two disciplines in an interdisciplinary unit, students have time to build “ready-made hooks in prior knowledge” that can be “activated and used” by the other discipline to reinforce the original content and add new meaning to its own curriculum (p. 73). Because they come together to develop students’ vocabulary awareness, both the English and science classroom use the first day of this unit to establish the same “generic” vocabulary activities (i.e. a Cross-Curricular Venn Diagram Word Wall, Four-Square Vocabulary Cards, and “Tune In to Interesting Words” with an AlphaBoxes extension). Therefore, although seemingly minor, the one day head start for the science classroom prevents curricular redundancy. Instead, the English class reinforces the overlapping vocabulary activities the day after the science classroom introduces them, capitalizing on students’ prior exposure so its introductory lesson can be more interactive (i.e. “We do” modeling) instead of the “I do” approach taken in science class. Slightly adapting Bull and Dupuis’s idea (2014), this small start date discrepancy is met with a more extensive network of internal scheduling that orders both curriculum’s texts and lessons in a way that allows appropriate background knowledge to be built before it is needed in the opposite discipline.
Since the science classroom mostly pulls from Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” to supplement its curriculum, the short story launches the English section. Its early integration in the English classroom allows the science class to have access to its key terms and plot points in a reasonable amount of time, which prevents the science classroom from unnaturally reordering its curriculum just to delay instruction in the scientific concepts it wishes to pair with the short story – which would be an unfavorable planning decision, according to Noskin (1997), who stresses the importance of not “working around the other subjects” in an interdisciplinary unit (p. 60). Due to the early accessibility of “A Sound of Thunder,” the science classroom references “chaos theory” to teach two separate scientific concepts – invasive and keystone species – after the English classroom uses the term to label Travis’s fears about time travel. The biology unit goes on to highlight the specific copy of “A Sound of Thunder” used by the English classroom. With its pages broken up by “pull quotes,” the short story introduces students to the idea of text features and leads into a mini-lesson on the science textbook’s nonfiction text features. The English classroom’s label for the Time Safari, Inc. advertisement in “A Sound of Thunder” – “propaganda” – comes into play when a primary source document about internal air pollution can also be understood as such in the science classroom. Lastly, deep into the science unit, students revisit the relationship between Time Safari, Inc. and the government to apply their newly differentiated knowledge of hunting and poaching to classify the business. These myriad appearances of Bradbury’s short story in the science classroom keep “A Sound of Thunder” in students’ minds, combating how the first text in a unit of several is often only vaguely recalled by the end. Teaching “A Sound of Thunder” before the three other primary English texts serves a didactic purpose for the English classroom as well; therefore, the science classroom is also not the “guiding force” for the English curriculum (Noskin, 1997, p. 59). The scheduling benefits both disciplines. Bradbury’s lower-level science fiction short story precedes the more advanced piece of Gothic fiction, “Joy Williams’s “The Girls,” to scaffold students’ ability to navigate characterization in the short story format.
Since “A Sound of Thunder” begins the English section, its three other primary texts are pushed further down into the unit. However, because those three English texts mostly pull from the science classroom – instead of the science classroom pulling from them, as is the case for “A Sound of Thunder” – the time slot given to Bradbury’s short story gives the science classroom more than a week to create the “ready-made hooks of [scientific] prior knowledge” that the other three texts need to access their cross-curricular potential (Bull & Dupuis, 2014, p. 73). By illuminating the scientific undertones of literary elements and character relationships in all four of its primary texts, the English classroom often requires that students use their prior knowledge from biology to determine the validity of the embedded science themselves. And according to Czerneda (2006), fiction should be used to reinforce science not by having students pick out the flaws in the text’s science, but by showing students good examples of accurate science in fiction texts (p. 39). Joy Williams’s “The Girls” pairs with a popular science article about domestic cats to substantiate a statistic Arleen recites about their bird killing habits. However, the interdisciplinary overlap about invasive species does more for the fictional work than just prove the accuracy of its science content. It also characterizes Arleen as intelligent and expands her man v. man conflict with the daughters. The imagery of a Sunflower and train yard in Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” accurately portrays the effects of smog on nature (i.e. discoloration), but it also uses industrial pollution metaphorically to insinuate the cumulative effects of environmental negligence.
Ezra Pound’s “Portrait d’une Femme” accurately alludes to the trash accumulation effect of oceanic gyres, but students are tasked to manipulate their knowledge of plastic pollution as learned in the science classroom to apply it the unique way the literacy context uses it: a metaphor for how humans pollute one another. And even with “A Sound of Thunder” as the first primary text of the English unit, it is still able to draw from the biology unit and prove its scientific accuracy. Conveniently, food chains – an aspect in the short story – are the natural launching point for an ecology unit, so students are able to assign scientifically accurate trophic levels to Travis’s hypothetical food chain and use a popular science article about the T. rex’s place in the prehistoric food chain to evaluate not only the believability of the protagonist’s reaction to the dinosaur, but to determine the scientific accuracy of Bradbury’s description of it. Through these four scientifically accurate texts, the English unit shows students that fiction can be a source of truth and information, an important understanding that will bridge the disciplines of science and English in general (Lightman & Goldstein, 2011; Kesler, 2012, p. 341).
On one occasion – a case study on honeybees to teach the concept of keystone species – the science classroom assumes the task of proving the scientific accuracy of fiction. Students cross-compare the fictional presentation of bee extinction by Bethany Wiggins in an excerpt from her YA novel, Stung, to several nonfiction texts (i.e. infographic and short video documentary). And since “fictitious examples provide entertaining and easy-to-understand scenarios” for students (Bixler, 2007, p. 337), the scientifically accurate fiction integration also clarifies the hypothetical situation of bee decline.
Interdisciplinary Explicit Instruction for “Generic” Reading Strategies
Similar to how the disciplines come together to provide students a standard pre-reading activity – semantic webs – to activate their prior knowledge, the English and science classroom also work together to develop students’ persuasive writing skills, and navigation of the compare/contrast text structure, and vocabulary awareness. Since the science content area often lacks needed explicit reading strategy instruction (Fang & Wei, 2010; Grant, 2004), direct instruction on “generic” reading strategies aid the disciplines’ teaching of these cross-curricular skills.
Starting in the English classroom when students analyze the persuasive language of the Time Safari, Inc. advertisement and ending in the science classroom through its summative assessment – a persuasive research letter to the primary threat against a self-selected endangered species – students develop their persuasive writing skills through activities in each discipline that require them to analyze persuasive texts and create their own, a two-fold learning process advocated by Bull and Dupuis (2014, p. 77). To supplement their Time Safari, Inc. advertisement analysis in English class, students write a persuasive argument on whether outdoor domestic cats are an invasive species through the lens of a character from Joy Williams’s “The Girls” - the daughters or the therapist – as inspired by the short story’s paired popular science article. A persuasive writing strategy mini-lesson on “loaded words” guides students during the two-day student debate and becomes applicable to the science classroom’s subsequent persuasive writing assignments. In science class, students analyze Joy Williams’s persuasive essay, “Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp,” and write a persuasive letter as their industrial oil pollution lab report conclusion that partially mimics the science classroom’s persuasive summative assessment to provide lower-risk practice. Although it may seem that for the science classroom’s final project to serve as the cumulative evaluation of students’ persuasive writing development as achieved through instruction in two disciplines it would deteriorate its ability to assess science’s disciplinary literacy, a persuasive research letter is actually a highly appropriate format for the summative assessment as science is a “unique mix of inquiry and argument” (Fang & Wei, 2010, p. 262).
More informally – since the subject areas come together through graphic organizers, not explicit reading strategy instruction – English and science incorporate texts that operate around the cause/effect text structure and explicitly map out that reoccurring text structure in hopes that it will enable students to recognize cause and effect’s more abstract operation in the definitions of several key terms and concepts in the English and science units – like chaos theory, keystones species, and invasive species. Through the standard flow chart and a Campfire Metaphor graphic organizer, students diagram the cause/effect text structure to make several classroom texts – like The Simpsons episode in English and Spider-Man 3 clips and Bethany Wiggins’s Stung except in science - more comprehensible.
Although vocabulary instruction’s heavy presence in this interdisciplinary unit is obvious by both discipline’s introductory lessons in which several cross-curricular vocabulary strategies and activities are established, the vocabulary instruction underlines the reading assignments and becomes a noninvasive end-of-class routine in the classroom, softly aiding vocabulary acquisition because “in theme-based courses…working out the meaning of new vocabulary, etc. is subsidiary to this major topic” (Parkinson, 10000, p. 374). Just as vocabulary knowledge accounts for as much as 80% of reading comprehension – making a case for vocabulary instruction in the English classroom – one of the main ways scientific language differs from everyday language is in its vocabulary – making a case for explicit vocabulary instruction in the science classroom (Parkinson, 2000, p 370). While key terms – like literary elements and scientific jargon, as well as external concepts that enhance the texts’ meaning (i.e. disillusionment in English class and “dehumanization” in science class) – recorded on a cross-curricular Venn Diagram Word Wall, Four-Square Vocabulary Cards provide personal access to the key terms. Each index card is started in class, acting as a definition recording sheet on which students complete the top half: word and definition. So students interact with the key terms beyond the initial in-class exposure and so teachers can informally assess the quality of the vocabulary’s in-class instruction, students complete the bottom half of the index cards for homework: illustration and example.
On all reading assignments – in-class and homework – students circle “interesting words” through the CAFE strategy, “Tune In to Interesting Words,” and record the words on a set of AlphaBoxes, one for each discipline. A basic exit ticket at the end of every class period prompts students to interact with the Venn Diagram Word Wall or their AlphaBoxes (i.e. use a word in a sentence, define two words, etc), so neither the word wall nor the homework vocabulary collection becomes an untouched fixture in the interdisciplinary unit. Additionally, each discipline incorporates three Greek/Latin element mini-lessons. And the benefit of the six morphemes explicitly taught is not confined to the key unit term to which each is immediately associated – or even to this unit (i.e. “MICRO-” as grounded in “mircoclimate” in the science classroom can be transferred to English when reading William Goldings’s Lord of the Flies, a traditional 10th grade text to which “microcosm” is usually applied). Vocabulary-building activities unique to each discipline to supplement these cross-curricular strategies also exist (i.e. a kinesthetic “vocabulary drama” for nice and invasive species in science; and “vocabulary self-awareness” charts for both poems in English).
Because explicit reading strategy instruction “can help students learn to makes sense of difficult texts and tough vocabulary” (Grant, 2004, p. 35), these cross-curricular vocabulary strategies are set up in the beginning so that they can be employed throughout the unit. And because science texts use “high levels of…technical” and “impersonal” language (Parkinson, 2000, p. 381; Parkinson, 2004, p. 381) and yet there is a “need for students to develop an understanding of the language scientists use as they read, write, and talk” (Plumer & Kuhlman, 2008, p. 96), they play a large – but subtle – role in the unit because even with so many strategies working together to form the interdisciplinary unit’s vocabulary instruction, it never overwhelms any individual lesson.
Parkinson (2004) “criticizes science for being overly impersonal” because of its unique language (p. 392). The textbook “buries the individual researcher” and its dense language is disengaging and complex (Parkinson, 2004, p. 382) Therefore, Plummer and Kulhman (2006) stress that the textbook alone is inadequate to teach science (p. 96-97). So while the explicit vocabulary instruction addresses the difficulty students will encounter with these traditional science reading genres, the addition of five popular science articles add another dimension to the science classroom’s reading experience. Kesler (2012) describes an effective nonfiction text as one that “animate[s] its subject, infuse[s] it with life” (p. 340) and Parkinson (2000) adds that motivational texts are ones that have “relevant content, grounded in reality” (p. 373), both of which are missing components in academic science genres, like the textbook. Popular science articles fill in those gaps by detailing contemporary examples of “science in the making” instead of the polished finished project that textbooks report, include double the amount of human participants as textbooks – and everyman scientists instead of just the iconic ones found in textbooks – and “function as narrative of research” (Parkinson, 2004, p. 390). So – with the motivational and life-giving nonfiction attributes called for by Kesler (2012) and Parkinson (2000) - popular science articles are valuable supplements to the textbooks and lab reports of the unit.
While the English section offers only its version of Bradbury’s short story to aid the science classroom’s analysis of nonfiction text features, it allots two lessons in its own unit to pair a popular science article with each of its short stories and give students cross-curricular practice with its associated reading strategy, CHoMP. However, its integration of popular science articles is not an example of the English curriculum bending to cater to the science curriculum, a mistake described by Noskin (1997). Instead, the popular science articles serve several indispensible purposes for the English unit that may actually make their benefit to the science classroom a secondary benefit. Their addition helps the English teacher meet the Common Core State Standard’s push for more informational texts in all content areas. And the articles offer text-to-text connections that enhance the English classroom’s short story characterizations.
Summative Assessments
Different writing assignments make up the three main projects in this interdisciplinary unit because “writing about science concepts assists internalization of science content” (Plummer & Kuhlman, 2008, p. 103) and the integration of reading and writing “reinforces the other and can lead to improved comprehension and retention of the subject area content” (Alvermann, 2001, p. 11). To varying extents, each project also resembles successful interdisciplinary assessments described in research articles to reap their benefits.
Broken up into two smaller summative assessments, the English unit evaluates students after Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” and at the end of the unit. Similar to how Peterson et al. (2006) introduced a narrative writing assignment on simple machines with a model (p. 33), students watch an episode from The Simpsons – “Time and Punishment” – to gain an understanding of their first major project: creating an original short story about “chaos theory” piecemeal on a blog, alternating days with several group members to contribute nonconsecutive paragraphs to a collaborative story. To guide their writing slightly, the project requirements make students confine their setting to a specific biome – as learned in science class – and include a character from Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder.” The assessment aligns with how Czerneda (2006) states that “having students consider a potential impact through writing science fiction lets them work through different points of view in a meaningful way” (p. 42). With a collaborative exposition and independent body paragraphs, the project holds every student individually accountable while still fostering a “community of practice” (Grisham & Wolsey, 2006, p. 648). A more traditional project concludes the English unit: a thematic essay in which students must use three of the four primary texts to discuss whether our interconnectedness is positive or negative, grounding their discussion of the texts in the literary elements discussed over the course of the unit. It is the only main project without an explicit cross-curricular component. But such a setup allows students to make their own connections “which is the ultimate form of integration” (Noskin, 1997, p. 60). Howes, Hamilton, and Zaskoda (2003) loosely back Noskin’s (1997) bold assertion by mentioning that students’ self-generated questions “work better for interdisciplinary work” than those planned by the teacher(p. 503). Similar to Noskin (1997), this English unit “focused more deeply on the literature than on the [interdisciplinary themes] themselves” (p. 62), so the final project provides students a platform to share how their interpretations of the literature reflect the themes.
The biology unit concludes with a more multifaceted, dense summative assessment. However, extensive practice throughout the unit – in both disciplines – with CHoMP (a required component of the final project for which students should have developed self-efficacy in over the course of the unit) and an allotted week of in-class time makes the project more manageable. After selecting an endangered species of their choice, student conduct online research through a list of recommended websites and databases to collect at least four popular science articles to synthesize into a persuasive letter to the main threat driving them to extinction. As its second, out-of-class component, students must create either a wanted poster of public service announcement for their species. But with examples of both forms virtually omnipresent throughout the science section – “Nab the Aquatic Invader!” wanted profiles, Bethany Wiggins’s honey reward poster in Stung, the plastic pollution PSA, etc. - students have plenty of models from which to work.
The conservation poster requirement borrows from Furlan, Kitsan, and Andes’s (2007) rationale behind their chemistry-poetry posters: “beauty, elegance, and emotional enjoyment are often the sources that inspire and enthuse us to engage, learn, overcome, and discover” (p. 1625). Therefore, by having students interact with their endangered species more aesthetically, the conservation poster will associate “beauty, elegance, and emotional enjoyment” to the research study that can affectthe quality of students’ persuasive research letters, since, as British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote, “Persuasion — the highest form of persuasion at any rate — cannot be achieved without a sense of beauty.” The unusual letter format of the summative assessment does not reflect any target science writing genre, but it grants students the ability to understand the “real-life functions of text” (Vasquez & Felderman, 2011, p. 263) and how the science unit strove toward “empowering education” that fully unfolded in its final project because it shows students that they can have “power and authority” in the conservation world, that they are not too unlike the everyday scientists seen in the popular science articles (Alvermann, 2001, p. 8).
Before launching a student-driven research project on an endangered species for “empowering education” (Alvermann, 2001, p. 8), the biology classroom addresses discipline-specific, “academic science genres” – specifically, lab reports and the textbook (Parkinson, 2000, p. 372). However, it pairs them with popular science articles, primary sources, and fiction to confront the inadequacy and constraints of disciplinary literacy in teaching science, constructing well-rounded case studies for key scientific concepts – like invasive species and niche – that reap the affordances of those “popular science genres” (i.e. the personalization and modernization of science that showcases the scientific process) (Parkinson, 2004, p. 392). Ultimately, while attending to their own specialized literacies, the two disciplines work together to humanize science, expose the scientific accuracy of fiction and establish it as a source of information, build vocabulary awareness, and develop students’ persuasive writing skills and their navigation of the cause/effect text structure.
“Ready-Made Hooks in Prior Knowledge” and Scientific Accuracy in Fiction
Bull and Dupuis (2014) suggest that by physically staggering the onset of two disciplines in an interdisciplinary unit, students have time to build “ready-made hooks in prior knowledge” that can be “activated and used” by the other discipline to reinforce the original content and add new meaning to its own curriculum (p. 73). Because they come together to develop students’ vocabulary awareness, both the English and science classroom use the first day of this unit to establish the same “generic” vocabulary activities (i.e. a Cross-Curricular Venn Diagram Word Wall, Four-Square Vocabulary Cards, and “Tune In to Interesting Words” with an AlphaBoxes extension). Therefore, although seemingly minor, the one day head start for the science classroom prevents curricular redundancy. Instead, the English class reinforces the overlapping vocabulary activities the day after the science classroom introduces them, capitalizing on students’ prior exposure so its introductory lesson can be more interactive (i.e. “We do” modeling) instead of the “I do” approach taken in science class. Slightly adapting Bull and Dupuis’s idea (2014), this small start date discrepancy is met with a more extensive network of internal scheduling that orders both curriculum’s texts and lessons in a way that allows appropriate background knowledge to be built before it is needed in the opposite discipline.
Since the science classroom mostly pulls from Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” to supplement its curriculum, the short story launches the English section. Its early integration in the English classroom allows the science class to have access to its key terms and plot points in a reasonable amount of time, which prevents the science classroom from unnaturally reordering its curriculum just to delay instruction in the scientific concepts it wishes to pair with the short story – which would be an unfavorable planning decision, according to Noskin (1997), who stresses the importance of not “working around the other subjects” in an interdisciplinary unit (p. 60). Due to the early accessibility of “A Sound of Thunder,” the science classroom references “chaos theory” to teach two separate scientific concepts – invasive and keystone species – after the English classroom uses the term to label Travis’s fears about time travel. The biology unit goes on to highlight the specific copy of “A Sound of Thunder” used by the English classroom. With its pages broken up by “pull quotes,” the short story introduces students to the idea of text features and leads into a mini-lesson on the science textbook’s nonfiction text features. The English classroom’s label for the Time Safari, Inc. advertisement in “A Sound of Thunder” – “propaganda” – comes into play when a primary source document about internal air pollution can also be understood as such in the science classroom. Lastly, deep into the science unit, students revisit the relationship between Time Safari, Inc. and the government to apply their newly differentiated knowledge of hunting and poaching to classify the business. These myriad appearances of Bradbury’s short story in the science classroom keep “A Sound of Thunder” in students’ minds, combating how the first text in a unit of several is often only vaguely recalled by the end. Teaching “A Sound of Thunder” before the three other primary English texts serves a didactic purpose for the English classroom as well; therefore, the science classroom is also not the “guiding force” for the English curriculum (Noskin, 1997, p. 59). The scheduling benefits both disciplines. Bradbury’s lower-level science fiction short story precedes the more advanced piece of Gothic fiction, “Joy Williams’s “The Girls,” to scaffold students’ ability to navigate characterization in the short story format.
Since “A Sound of Thunder” begins the English section, its three other primary texts are pushed further down into the unit. However, because those three English texts mostly pull from the science classroom – instead of the science classroom pulling from them, as is the case for “A Sound of Thunder” – the time slot given to Bradbury’s short story gives the science classroom more than a week to create the “ready-made hooks of [scientific] prior knowledge” that the other three texts need to access their cross-curricular potential (Bull & Dupuis, 2014, p. 73). By illuminating the scientific undertones of literary elements and character relationships in all four of its primary texts, the English classroom often requires that students use their prior knowledge from biology to determine the validity of the embedded science themselves. And according to Czerneda (2006), fiction should be used to reinforce science not by having students pick out the flaws in the text’s science, but by showing students good examples of accurate science in fiction texts (p. 39). Joy Williams’s “The Girls” pairs with a popular science article about domestic cats to substantiate a statistic Arleen recites about their bird killing habits. However, the interdisciplinary overlap about invasive species does more for the fictional work than just prove the accuracy of its science content. It also characterizes Arleen as intelligent and expands her man v. man conflict with the daughters. The imagery of a Sunflower and train yard in Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” accurately portrays the effects of smog on nature (i.e. discoloration), but it also uses industrial pollution metaphorically to insinuate the cumulative effects of environmental negligence.
Ezra Pound’s “Portrait d’une Femme” accurately alludes to the trash accumulation effect of oceanic gyres, but students are tasked to manipulate their knowledge of plastic pollution as learned in the science classroom to apply it the unique way the literacy context uses it: a metaphor for how humans pollute one another. And even with “A Sound of Thunder” as the first primary text of the English unit, it is still able to draw from the biology unit and prove its scientific accuracy. Conveniently, food chains – an aspect in the short story – are the natural launching point for an ecology unit, so students are able to assign scientifically accurate trophic levels to Travis’s hypothetical food chain and use a popular science article about the T. rex’s place in the prehistoric food chain to evaluate not only the believability of the protagonist’s reaction to the dinosaur, but to determine the scientific accuracy of Bradbury’s description of it. Through these four scientifically accurate texts, the English unit shows students that fiction can be a source of truth and information, an important understanding that will bridge the disciplines of science and English in general (Lightman & Goldstein, 2011; Kesler, 2012, p. 341).
On one occasion – a case study on honeybees to teach the concept of keystone species – the science classroom assumes the task of proving the scientific accuracy of fiction. Students cross-compare the fictional presentation of bee extinction by Bethany Wiggins in an excerpt from her YA novel, Stung, to several nonfiction texts (i.e. infographic and short video documentary). And since “fictitious examples provide entertaining and easy-to-understand scenarios” for students (Bixler, 2007, p. 337), the scientifically accurate fiction integration also clarifies the hypothetical situation of bee decline.
Interdisciplinary Explicit Instruction for “Generic” Reading Strategies
Similar to how the disciplines come together to provide students a standard pre-reading activity – semantic webs – to activate their prior knowledge, the English and science classroom also work together to develop students’ persuasive writing skills, and navigation of the compare/contrast text structure, and vocabulary awareness. Since the science content area often lacks needed explicit reading strategy instruction (Fang & Wei, 2010; Grant, 2004), direct instruction on “generic” reading strategies aid the disciplines’ teaching of these cross-curricular skills.
Starting in the English classroom when students analyze the persuasive language of the Time Safari, Inc. advertisement and ending in the science classroom through its summative assessment – a persuasive research letter to the primary threat against a self-selected endangered species – students develop their persuasive writing skills through activities in each discipline that require them to analyze persuasive texts and create their own, a two-fold learning process advocated by Bull and Dupuis (2014, p. 77). To supplement their Time Safari, Inc. advertisement analysis in English class, students write a persuasive argument on whether outdoor domestic cats are an invasive species through the lens of a character from Joy Williams’s “The Girls” - the daughters or the therapist – as inspired by the short story’s paired popular science article. A persuasive writing strategy mini-lesson on “loaded words” guides students during the two-day student debate and becomes applicable to the science classroom’s subsequent persuasive writing assignments. In science class, students analyze Joy Williams’s persuasive essay, “Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp,” and write a persuasive letter as their industrial oil pollution lab report conclusion that partially mimics the science classroom’s persuasive summative assessment to provide lower-risk practice. Although it may seem that for the science classroom’s final project to serve as the cumulative evaluation of students’ persuasive writing development as achieved through instruction in two disciplines it would deteriorate its ability to assess science’s disciplinary literacy, a persuasive research letter is actually a highly appropriate format for the summative assessment as science is a “unique mix of inquiry and argument” (Fang & Wei, 2010, p. 262).
More informally – since the subject areas come together through graphic organizers, not explicit reading strategy instruction – English and science incorporate texts that operate around the cause/effect text structure and explicitly map out that reoccurring text structure in hopes that it will enable students to recognize cause and effect’s more abstract operation in the definitions of several key terms and concepts in the English and science units – like chaos theory, keystones species, and invasive species. Through the standard flow chart and a Campfire Metaphor graphic organizer, students diagram the cause/effect text structure to make several classroom texts – like The Simpsons episode in English and Spider-Man 3 clips and Bethany Wiggins’s Stung except in science - more comprehensible.
Although vocabulary instruction’s heavy presence in this interdisciplinary unit is obvious by both discipline’s introductory lessons in which several cross-curricular vocabulary strategies and activities are established, the vocabulary instruction underlines the reading assignments and becomes a noninvasive end-of-class routine in the classroom, softly aiding vocabulary acquisition because “in theme-based courses…working out the meaning of new vocabulary, etc. is subsidiary to this major topic” (Parkinson, 10000, p. 374). Just as vocabulary knowledge accounts for as much as 80% of reading comprehension – making a case for vocabulary instruction in the English classroom – one of the main ways scientific language differs from everyday language is in its vocabulary – making a case for explicit vocabulary instruction in the science classroom (Parkinson, 2000, p 370). While key terms – like literary elements and scientific jargon, as well as external concepts that enhance the texts’ meaning (i.e. disillusionment in English class and “dehumanization” in science class) – recorded on a cross-curricular Venn Diagram Word Wall, Four-Square Vocabulary Cards provide personal access to the key terms. Each index card is started in class, acting as a definition recording sheet on which students complete the top half: word and definition. So students interact with the key terms beyond the initial in-class exposure and so teachers can informally assess the quality of the vocabulary’s in-class instruction, students complete the bottom half of the index cards for homework: illustration and example.
On all reading assignments – in-class and homework – students circle “interesting words” through the CAFE strategy, “Tune In to Interesting Words,” and record the words on a set of AlphaBoxes, one for each discipline. A basic exit ticket at the end of every class period prompts students to interact with the Venn Diagram Word Wall or their AlphaBoxes (i.e. use a word in a sentence, define two words, etc), so neither the word wall nor the homework vocabulary collection becomes an untouched fixture in the interdisciplinary unit. Additionally, each discipline incorporates three Greek/Latin element mini-lessons. And the benefit of the six morphemes explicitly taught is not confined to the key unit term to which each is immediately associated – or even to this unit (i.e. “MICRO-” as grounded in “mircoclimate” in the science classroom can be transferred to English when reading William Goldings’s Lord of the Flies, a traditional 10th grade text to which “microcosm” is usually applied). Vocabulary-building activities unique to each discipline to supplement these cross-curricular strategies also exist (i.e. a kinesthetic “vocabulary drama” for nice and invasive species in science; and “vocabulary self-awareness” charts for both poems in English).
Because explicit reading strategy instruction “can help students learn to makes sense of difficult texts and tough vocabulary” (Grant, 2004, p. 35), these cross-curricular vocabulary strategies are set up in the beginning so that they can be employed throughout the unit. And because science texts use “high levels of…technical” and “impersonal” language (Parkinson, 2000, p. 381; Parkinson, 2004, p. 381) and yet there is a “need for students to develop an understanding of the language scientists use as they read, write, and talk” (Plumer & Kuhlman, 2008, p. 96), they play a large – but subtle – role in the unit because even with so many strategies working together to form the interdisciplinary unit’s vocabulary instruction, it never overwhelms any individual lesson.
Parkinson (2004) “criticizes science for being overly impersonal” because of its unique language (p. 392). The textbook “buries the individual researcher” and its dense language is disengaging and complex (Parkinson, 2004, p. 382) Therefore, Plummer and Kulhman (2006) stress that the textbook alone is inadequate to teach science (p. 96-97). So while the explicit vocabulary instruction addresses the difficulty students will encounter with these traditional science reading genres, the addition of five popular science articles add another dimension to the science classroom’s reading experience. Kesler (2012) describes an effective nonfiction text as one that “animate[s] its subject, infuse[s] it with life” (p. 340) and Parkinson (2000) adds that motivational texts are ones that have “relevant content, grounded in reality” (p. 373), both of which are missing components in academic science genres, like the textbook. Popular science articles fill in those gaps by detailing contemporary examples of “science in the making” instead of the polished finished project that textbooks report, include double the amount of human participants as textbooks – and everyman scientists instead of just the iconic ones found in textbooks – and “function as narrative of research” (Parkinson, 2004, p. 390). So – with the motivational and life-giving nonfiction attributes called for by Kesler (2012) and Parkinson (2000) - popular science articles are valuable supplements to the textbooks and lab reports of the unit.
While the English section offers only its version of Bradbury’s short story to aid the science classroom’s analysis of nonfiction text features, it allots two lessons in its own unit to pair a popular science article with each of its short stories and give students cross-curricular practice with its associated reading strategy, CHoMP. However, its integration of popular science articles is not an example of the English curriculum bending to cater to the science curriculum, a mistake described by Noskin (1997). Instead, the popular science articles serve several indispensible purposes for the English unit that may actually make their benefit to the science classroom a secondary benefit. Their addition helps the English teacher meet the Common Core State Standard’s push for more informational texts in all content areas. And the articles offer text-to-text connections that enhance the English classroom’s short story characterizations.
Summative Assessments
Different writing assignments make up the three main projects in this interdisciplinary unit because “writing about science concepts assists internalization of science content” (Plummer & Kuhlman, 2008, p. 103) and the integration of reading and writing “reinforces the other and can lead to improved comprehension and retention of the subject area content” (Alvermann, 2001, p. 11). To varying extents, each project also resembles successful interdisciplinary assessments described in research articles to reap their benefits.
Broken up into two smaller summative assessments, the English unit evaluates students after Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” and at the end of the unit. Similar to how Peterson et al. (2006) introduced a narrative writing assignment on simple machines with a model (p. 33), students watch an episode from The Simpsons – “Time and Punishment” – to gain an understanding of their first major project: creating an original short story about “chaos theory” piecemeal on a blog, alternating days with several group members to contribute nonconsecutive paragraphs to a collaborative story. To guide their writing slightly, the project requirements make students confine their setting to a specific biome – as learned in science class – and include a character from Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder.” The assessment aligns with how Czerneda (2006) states that “having students consider a potential impact through writing science fiction lets them work through different points of view in a meaningful way” (p. 42). With a collaborative exposition and independent body paragraphs, the project holds every student individually accountable while still fostering a “community of practice” (Grisham & Wolsey, 2006, p. 648). A more traditional project concludes the English unit: a thematic essay in which students must use three of the four primary texts to discuss whether our interconnectedness is positive or negative, grounding their discussion of the texts in the literary elements discussed over the course of the unit. It is the only main project without an explicit cross-curricular component. But such a setup allows students to make their own connections “which is the ultimate form of integration” (Noskin, 1997, p. 60). Howes, Hamilton, and Zaskoda (2003) loosely back Noskin’s (1997) bold assertion by mentioning that students’ self-generated questions “work better for interdisciplinary work” than those planned by the teacher(p. 503). Similar to Noskin (1997), this English unit “focused more deeply on the literature than on the [interdisciplinary themes] themselves” (p. 62), so the final project provides students a platform to share how their interpretations of the literature reflect the themes.
The biology unit concludes with a more multifaceted, dense summative assessment. However, extensive practice throughout the unit – in both disciplines – with CHoMP (a required component of the final project for which students should have developed self-efficacy in over the course of the unit) and an allotted week of in-class time makes the project more manageable. After selecting an endangered species of their choice, student conduct online research through a list of recommended websites and databases to collect at least four popular science articles to synthesize into a persuasive letter to the main threat driving them to extinction. As its second, out-of-class component, students must create either a wanted poster of public service announcement for their species. But with examples of both forms virtually omnipresent throughout the science section – “Nab the Aquatic Invader!” wanted profiles, Bethany Wiggins’s honey reward poster in Stung, the plastic pollution PSA, etc. - students have plenty of models from which to work.
The conservation poster requirement borrows from Furlan, Kitsan, and Andes’s (2007) rationale behind their chemistry-poetry posters: “beauty, elegance, and emotional enjoyment are often the sources that inspire and enthuse us to engage, learn, overcome, and discover” (p. 1625). Therefore, by having students interact with their endangered species more aesthetically, the conservation poster will associate “beauty, elegance, and emotional enjoyment” to the research study that can affectthe quality of students’ persuasive research letters, since, as British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote, “Persuasion — the highest form of persuasion at any rate — cannot be achieved without a sense of beauty.” The unusual letter format of the summative assessment does not reflect any target science writing genre, but it grants students the ability to understand the “real-life functions of text” (Vasquez & Felderman, 2011, p. 263) and how the science unit strove toward “empowering education” that fully unfolded in its final project because it shows students that they can have “power and authority” in the conservation world, that they are not too unlike the everyday scientists seen in the popular science articles (Alvermann, 2001, p. 8).
Addressing Assessment Fallibility
Through student choice, repeated – but varied and cross-curricular – practice of the same skill (i.e. persuasive writing, persuasive text analysis, ChoMP note-taking, characterization) for a semi-longitudinal study of student performance, cross-curricular lesson activities and summative assessments to evaluate key concept comprehension at two levels of student understanding (in-context and out-of-context), and groupwork that evolves into independent accountability, this interdisciplinary unit’s assessment structure attempts to reduce assessment fallibility while maintaining active awareness of its inevitability and the probable need for real-time revisions and flexibility.
Through student
choice, repeated – but varied and cross-curricular – practice of the same skill
(i.e. persuasive writing, persuasive text analysis, ChoMP note-taking,
characterization) for a semi-longitudinal study of student performance, cross-curricular
lesson activities and summative assessments to evaluate key concept
comprehension at two levels of student understanding (in-context and
out-of-context), and groupwork that evolves into independent accountability,
this interdisciplinary unit’s assessment structure attempts to reduce assessment
fallibility while maintaining active awareness of its inevitability and the probable
need for real-time revisions and flexibility.
Assessing Two Levels of Student Comprehension: In-Context and Out-of-Context
Despite their cross-curricular components, the unit’s two primary assessments are grounded in one discipline: the collaborative creative writing project in the English classroom (a “chaos theory” short story blog); and the independent research project in the science classroom (a persuasive letter and conservation poster). The projects require students to employ science concepts in a literary context, and vice versa. This summative assessment setup allows the overall unit to assess student comprehension of key unit concepts and terms at two levels of understanding: in-context and out-of-context (cross-curricular). Each summative assessment requires students to apply key concepts and terms from the discipline in which the project is not grounded. Therefore, upon arrival to each summative assessment, students have already been tested on its cross-curricular concepts in their native content area (i.e. through informal and formal formative assessments that would gauge general, in-context understanding of them). However, since the key concepts and terms reappear not only outside of those native lessons, but outside of their native discipline, through these primary assessments, students are also assessed on whether they understand the concepts well enough to apply them outside of the context in which they learned them (which signifies an ability to transfer knowledge – an ability more indicative of information mastery, since it reveals that comprehension of a concept or term is not confined to the specific context in which it was learned. Students can successfully manipulate the knowledge, not just regurgitate it). For example, in the English classroom’s collaborative blog project, students must apply the scientific concept of biomes to the setting and characters of their “chaos theory” short story. While the biome lesson in science class assessed students’ understanding of the concept in-context through several formative assessments (i.e. biome-specific food chain “nesting cups” and a textbook-based graphic organizer), the cross-curricular component of the English class’s project assesses whether students understand a specific biome well enough to consistently and accurately recreate it – and adhere to it - in a fictional story. Similarly, the science classroom’s final persuasive letter requires students to use the ideas in literature to explain why animal conservation is necessary.
Cross-Curricular Lessons: A Second Opportunity to Demonstrate Knowledge
To scaffold students to these summative and independent cross-curricular applications of knowledge, the entire unit pushes students to transfer their knowledge outside of the original context in which it was learned and is typically associated. Therefore, embedded cross-curricular lesson activities not only reinforce the opposite discipline’s curriculum, but provide students with another opportunity – a second chance - to prove their comprehension of key unit concepts and terms if the first, in-context assessment did not adequately demonstrate their understanding (i.e. due to an internal flaw in the original formative assessment or due to student underperformance). For example, students can showcase their knowledge of trophic levels not only through biome-specific “nesting cup” food chains in science class, but through a subsequent food chain activity for Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” in English class. After being read in the science classroom, Joy Williams’s essay, “Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp,” appears in the English classroom to contrast Allen Ginsberg’s poem, “Sunflower Sutra.” Furthermore, if students fall short on their explanation of “chaos theory” in terms of Eckels’s butterfly (English class), they can recover by discussing the real-life examples of “chaos theory” provided by keystone and invasive species (science class). Students can show comprehension of symbiotic relationships through Spider-Man 3 in science class and by sorting, in English class, the character relationships in Joy Willaims’s “The Girls” into commensalistic, parasitic, and mutualistic classifications. Lastly, both environmental threats – ocean plastic pollution and industrial pollution – explored in the science classroom crop up in the English classroom’s poetry choices. Each time either teacher utilizes cross-curricular concepts and terms to teach his or her own curriculum, he or she provides a second opportunity for students to gain and prove understanding of them.
Gradual Release of Responsibility: Independent Accountability with Peer Support
For both summative assessments, students receive a given period of time to work together to explore and experiment how to go about fulfilling the project requirements. Before assuming individual responsibility for a task, students hear and see others' ideas on how best to approach the assignment. They can then use their peers’ ideas to improve their independent approach to the requirements. The group time also allows students to work through any misconceptions and gain a better understanding of the curriculum and requirements of a particular assignment before tasked to navigate them independently. While the English class’s short story assignment embeds group work into the beginning of the project, the science classroom’s entirely independent persuasive letter project uses the unit’s entire duration as sporadic, preparatory group practice time. For the English class’s summative assessment, students must first write a collaborative introduction in which they set up their biome-specific setting and create an inciting event for their example of chaos theory. Therefore, before students must uphold and extend the setting portrayal and chaos theory plotline in individual paragraph contributions, they explore how to do so together. Peer support lies outside of the science class summative assessment. Throughout the unit, students work in groups on assignments similar to components of the final project. Before using CHoMP on their four research articles for the final project, students read popular science articles and apply CHoMP in whole-class and group settings. Before designing an “I Matter Because…” card for the endangered species they chose to research for the final project, students design “I Matter Because…” cards in groups for the keystone species they explored in science class. To scaffold them to their persuasive letter and conservation poster, students receive several opportunities during the unit to work with others to write and design similar persuasive texts (i.e. the invasive species debate in English class, and the elephant Public Service Announcement in science class). Therefore, students are ultimately held accountable for their own knowledge of key unit terms and skills, but they receive time to use one another as resources to gain that independent capability. The Four-Square Vocabulary Card setup also allows for the teacher to gauge student comprhension of the day's lesson on an independnt level,
Student Choice: Putting Students in Control of their Own Learning
To increase motivation, personal interest/investment, and self-efficacy, both summative assessments include open-ended requirements. For the English classroom’s collaborative blog project, students design their own homework schedules, deciding for themselves on which night’s they must contribute to the short story. Therefore, students can claim dates that work best for them and avoid conflictions with familial obligations, extra-curricular activities, and due dates in other classes that may lower the quality of their contributions. Allowed to pick the endangered species they wish to research and able to choose between two conservation poster options (i.e. Wanted Poster or Public Service Announcement), the science class’s project accommodates individual tastes and learning styles.
Lower-Risk Practice, Practice, Practice with Teacher Feedback
Since the science classroom’s summative assessment is the larger of the two main projects, both disciplines come together to scaffold students to its requirements. Although it is a dense project, it is multifaceted in its density, so there are many ways for students to display understanding. The extensive amount of in-class time allotted to the project allows students to use the teachers as a resource (i.e. catering to the fact that after-school extra-help sessions are usually underutilized) and allows teachers to track individual student performance (i.e. noting students’ “off” days and their exceptionally productive days). Although required to implement CHoMP on all four of their articles for the final project, students received whole-class and group practice with the strategy on popular science articles in both disciplines (twice in the English classroom, three times in the science classroom). Therefore, students receive extensive, lower-risk practice with the strategy prior to independent implementation. Through informal assessment during those practice sessions (i.e. skimming student work), the teacher can loosely track student progress with strategy and thus better assess the quality of the student’s independent performance (i.e. how much of an improvement are the student’s independent CHoMP notes from his first attempt at the strategy in English class?). Additionally, students analyze different forms of persuasive texts in both disciplines (i.e. Time Safari, Inc. advertisement, the Public Service Announcements, and Joy Williams’s essay) and receive multiple, cross-curricular opportunities to create persuasive texts: the invasive species debate, the “Dear Shell…” lab report letter, and the elephant conservation poster. Teachers provide feedback on these formal formative assessments, giving students a chance to understand and fix their mistakes, misconceptions, and/or confusions. Teacher feedback allows students to improve their performance if they listen to the constructive criticisms and implement the teacher suggestions on subsequent, parallel assignments – like the persuasive writing component in their science class final project.
Assessing Two Levels of Student Comprehension: In-Context and Out-of-Context
Despite their cross-curricular components, the unit’s two primary assessments are grounded in one discipline: the collaborative creative writing project in the English classroom (a “chaos theory” short story blog); and the independent research project in the science classroom (a persuasive letter and conservation poster). The projects require students to employ science concepts in a literary context, and vice versa. This summative assessment setup allows the overall unit to assess student comprehension of key unit concepts and terms at two levels of understanding: in-context and out-of-context (cross-curricular). Each summative assessment requires students to apply key concepts and terms from the discipline in which the project is not grounded. Therefore, upon arrival to each summative assessment, students have already been tested on its cross-curricular concepts in their native content area (i.e. through informal and formal formative assessments that would gauge general, in-context understanding of them). However, since the key concepts and terms reappear not only outside of those native lessons, but outside of their native discipline, through these primary assessments, students are also assessed on whether they understand the concepts well enough to apply them outside of the context in which they learned them (which signifies an ability to transfer knowledge – an ability more indicative of information mastery, since it reveals that comprehension of a concept or term is not confined to the specific context in which it was learned. Students can successfully manipulate the knowledge, not just regurgitate it). For example, in the English classroom’s collaborative blog project, students must apply the scientific concept of biomes to the setting and characters of their “chaos theory” short story. While the biome lesson in science class assessed students’ understanding of the concept in-context through several formative assessments (i.e. biome-specific food chain “nesting cups” and a textbook-based graphic organizer), the cross-curricular component of the English class’s project assesses whether students understand a specific biome well enough to consistently and accurately recreate it – and adhere to it - in a fictional story. Similarly, the science classroom’s final persuasive letter requires students to use the ideas in literature to explain why animal conservation is necessary.
Cross-Curricular Lessons: A Second Opportunity to Demonstrate Knowledge
To scaffold students to these summative and independent cross-curricular applications of knowledge, the entire unit pushes students to transfer their knowledge outside of the original context in which it was learned and is typically associated. Therefore, embedded cross-curricular lesson activities not only reinforce the opposite discipline’s curriculum, but provide students with another opportunity – a second chance - to prove their comprehension of key unit concepts and terms if the first, in-context assessment did not adequately demonstrate their understanding (i.e. due to an internal flaw in the original formative assessment or due to student underperformance). For example, students can showcase their knowledge of trophic levels not only through biome-specific “nesting cup” food chains in science class, but through a subsequent food chain activity for Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” in English class. After being read in the science classroom, Joy Williams’s essay, “Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp,” appears in the English classroom to contrast Allen Ginsberg’s poem, “Sunflower Sutra.” Furthermore, if students fall short on their explanation of “chaos theory” in terms of Eckels’s butterfly (English class), they can recover by discussing the real-life examples of “chaos theory” provided by keystone and invasive species (science class). Students can show comprehension of symbiotic relationships through Spider-Man 3 in science class and by sorting, in English class, the character relationships in Joy Willaims’s “The Girls” into commensalistic, parasitic, and mutualistic classifications. Lastly, both environmental threats – ocean plastic pollution and industrial pollution – explored in the science classroom crop up in the English classroom’s poetry choices. Each time either teacher utilizes cross-curricular concepts and terms to teach his or her own curriculum, he or she provides a second opportunity for students to gain and prove understanding of them.
Gradual Release of Responsibility: Independent Accountability with Peer Support
For both summative assessments, students receive a given period of time to work together to explore and experiment how to go about fulfilling the project requirements. Before assuming individual responsibility for a task, students hear and see others' ideas on how best to approach the assignment. They can then use their peers’ ideas to improve their independent approach to the requirements. The group time also allows students to work through any misconceptions and gain a better understanding of the curriculum and requirements of a particular assignment before tasked to navigate them independently. While the English class’s short story assignment embeds group work into the beginning of the project, the science classroom’s entirely independent persuasive letter project uses the unit’s entire duration as sporadic, preparatory group practice time. For the English class’s summative assessment, students must first write a collaborative introduction in which they set up their biome-specific setting and create an inciting event for their example of chaos theory. Therefore, before students must uphold and extend the setting portrayal and chaos theory plotline in individual paragraph contributions, they explore how to do so together. Peer support lies outside of the science class summative assessment. Throughout the unit, students work in groups on assignments similar to components of the final project. Before using CHoMP on their four research articles for the final project, students read popular science articles and apply CHoMP in whole-class and group settings. Before designing an “I Matter Because…” card for the endangered species they chose to research for the final project, students design “I Matter Because…” cards in groups for the keystone species they explored in science class. To scaffold them to their persuasive letter and conservation poster, students receive several opportunities during the unit to work with others to write and design similar persuasive texts (i.e. the invasive species debate in English class, and the elephant Public Service Announcement in science class). Therefore, students are ultimately held accountable for their own knowledge of key unit terms and skills, but they receive time to use one another as resources to gain that independent capability. The Four-Square Vocabulary Card setup also allows for the teacher to gauge student comprhension of the day's lesson on an independnt level,
Student Choice: Putting Students in Control of their Own Learning
To increase motivation, personal interest/investment, and self-efficacy, both summative assessments include open-ended requirements. For the English classroom’s collaborative blog project, students design their own homework schedules, deciding for themselves on which night’s they must contribute to the short story. Therefore, students can claim dates that work best for them and avoid conflictions with familial obligations, extra-curricular activities, and due dates in other classes that may lower the quality of their contributions. Allowed to pick the endangered species they wish to research and able to choose between two conservation poster options (i.e. Wanted Poster or Public Service Announcement), the science class’s project accommodates individual tastes and learning styles.
Lower-Risk Practice, Practice, Practice with Teacher Feedback
Since the science classroom’s summative assessment is the larger of the two main projects, both disciplines come together to scaffold students to its requirements. Although it is a dense project, it is multifaceted in its density, so there are many ways for students to display understanding. The extensive amount of in-class time allotted to the project allows students to use the teachers as a resource (i.e. catering to the fact that after-school extra-help sessions are usually underutilized) and allows teachers to track individual student performance (i.e. noting students’ “off” days and their exceptionally productive days). Although required to implement CHoMP on all four of their articles for the final project, students received whole-class and group practice with the strategy on popular science articles in both disciplines (twice in the English classroom, three times in the science classroom). Therefore, students receive extensive, lower-risk practice with the strategy prior to independent implementation. Through informal assessment during those practice sessions (i.e. skimming student work), the teacher can loosely track student progress with strategy and thus better assess the quality of the student’s independent performance (i.e. how much of an improvement are the student’s independent CHoMP notes from his first attempt at the strategy in English class?). Additionally, students analyze different forms of persuasive texts in both disciplines (i.e. Time Safari, Inc. advertisement, the Public Service Announcements, and Joy Williams’s essay) and receive multiple, cross-curricular opportunities to create persuasive texts: the invasive species debate, the “Dear Shell…” lab report letter, and the elephant conservation poster. Teachers provide feedback on these formal formative assessments, giving students a chance to understand and fix their mistakes, misconceptions, and/or confusions. Teacher feedback allows students to improve their performance if they listen to the constructive criticisms and implement the teacher suggestions on subsequent, parallel assignments – like the persuasive writing component in their science class final project.