The Stories of Science: Integrating Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening into Science Instruction, 6-12

Story powerfully integrates science and literacy

Stories are powerful connectors for people, information, and ideas. When you integrate stories into instruction, your students are more likely to actively engage and remember what they learn.

The Stories of Science explores how the power of story can strengthen your instruction by weaving literacy into what you already teach. The strategies in this book will deepen content understanding and prepare students to be effective science communicators as well.

Three types of powerful science stories

Janet MacNeil, Mark Goldner, and Melissa London use their extensive teaching experience to show how literacy skills fit with all types of science content. You’ll learn how to teach students to craft three types of science stories:

• Explanation stories that make meaning from student-collected data.
• Informational stories that answer complex questions by synthesizing the research of others.
• Personal stories that tell about the lives of scientists, their discoveries, and how scientific thinking has changed over time.

The authors also present strategies for using story to frame a complete unit or your entire year of study.

Guidance for getting started with science stories

Filled with ready-to-use lesson ideas and examples of student work, The Stories of Science is a guide for connecting science and story in ways that support your students’ literacy development while also creating an authentic context for deeper understanding.

Janet MacNeil is the coauthor of The Stories of Science: Integrating Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening into Science Instruction. She has extensive experience developing science and engineering curriculum, as well as providing hands-on professional learning for teachers. Her focus is getting teachers and students excited about science and literacy.

Follow her on Twitter: @curiouslearner8

Visit her website: The Curious Scientist

Mark Goldner is the coauthor of The Stories of Science: Integrating Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening into Science Instruction. He has taught project-based middle and high school science for more than 25 years, with a focus on integrating science and literacy. He has a special interest in bringing polar and climate research into the classroom.

Follow him on Twitter: @sciencegold

Melissa London is the coauthor of The Stories of Science: Integrating Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening into Science Instruction. She has more than 20 years of experience as a classroom teacher, where she leverages her love of language and science to engage all learners with high-interest, high-impact lessons.

Follow her on Twitter: @MsLondon6L