Engaging Students in Science Through Reading:

Biographies and Historical Narratives that Connect the NGSS & English Language Arts Practices

Christine Anne Royce, Ed.D.

2018-2019 NSTA President

ASE Conference – Birmingham, England 2019

@caroyce – caroyce@aol.com

Rationale

• The use of trade books as information sources provides avenues which allow students to make connections to the people and places of science. Through selected texts, students engage in examining science content, the lives of scientists, and the history and nature of science. Reading purposes, learning vocabulary in context, viewing narratives from different perspectives, and making personal connections are strategies discussed and modeled through selected texts.

Purpose:

• The reader will be introduced to how biographies and historical narratives about a particular person, place, event, or time can be utilized to

(1). enhance the STEM curriculum;

(2). converge with goals and objectives in the English Language Arts courses; and

(3). serve as a way to introduce students to the human characteristics, endeavors, and pursuits of scientists.

Standards Connections

• The Common Core for State Standards for English Language Arts encourages opportunities where students “seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens worldviews” (2010, p. 3).

• Providing opportunities for students to connect to the field of science, scientific endeavors, and those men and women who contributed to furthering our knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is essential.

• Reading selections that allow students to make connections which bring together science and society’s response to science not only meets goals of the CC ELA, but also allows students to see themselves in that story. Strategies and connections are presented for classroom use.

•Guiding Questions

• How can the use of biographies and historical narratives be used to introduce students to diverse perspectives and cultures?

• How can we connect the NGSS SEPs and the CC ELA Practices during instruction?

Connection Between PracticesCCSS ELA Practices NGSS Science Practices

E1. Demonstrate independence in reading complex texts, and writing and speaking about them.

S1. Ask questions and define problems

E2. Build a strong base of knowledge through content

S4. Analyze and interpret data.

E5. Read, write, and speak grounded in evidence.

S7. Engage in argument from evidence.

E7. Come to understand other perspectives and culturesthrough reading, listening, andcollaborating

S8. Obtain, evaluate and communicate evidence.

Understandings about the Nature of Science ….need to understand science is a human endeavor. • “Men and women from different social,

cultural, and ethnic backgrounds work as scientists and engineers.

• Scientists and engineers rely on human qualities such as persistence, reasoning, logic, imagination, and creativity.

• Scientists and engineers are guided by habits of mind such as intellectual honesty, tolerance of ambiguity, skepticism and openness to new ideas.

• Advances in technology influence the progress of science and science had influenced advances in technology.” (p. 100 Appendix H)

• While each of these is broadened by the time students matriculate to high school, additional key understandings that are added include:

• “Scientists’ backgrounds, theoretical commitments, and fields of endeavor influence the nature of their findings….

• Science and engineering are influenced by society and society is influenced by science and engineering.” (p. 100

Types of Writing

Biographies• In a biographical essay, you write

about the life and personality of a person who actually lived. A biographical essay should have the following characteristics:

• a real-life subject

• a thesis statement that states a specific idea about that person’s life and achievements

• an account of one or more major events in the subject’s life

• a description of the subject’s key character traits

Historical Narratives• In a historical narrative, you tell about a

historical event, blending facts with imagined characters and situations. Like nonfiction, a historical narrative describes people who actually lived and events that actually happened. However, a historical narrative also includes fictional people and details imagined by the writer. A historical narrative should have the following characteristics:

• accurate historic events and details of actual places

• one person’s point of view

• some characters and circumstances invented by the writer

• chronological organization

Deadly

HISTORICAL NARRATIVETIME FRAME: EARLY 1900S

Deadly

• A mysterious outbreak of typhoid fever is sweeping New York. Could the city’s future rest with its most unlikely scientist?

• YA medical thriller where the pursuit of an answer rests in the pursuit of science.

• Historical fiction

Why the Sign?

Typhoid Mary – Who Was She?

• Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Ireland and emigrated to the US in 1884.

• She had worked in a variety of domestic positions for wealthy families prior to settling into her career as a cook.

• As a healthy carrier of Salmonella typhiher nickname of “Typhoid Mary” had become synonymous with the spread of disease, as many were infected due to her denial of being ill.

• She was forced into quarantine on two separate occasions on North Brother Island for a total of 26 years.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

Simulation

• Please do the following:

• Locate one of the class helpers.

• Shake hands with them prior to taking some candy from the bag.

• Return to your seats and rub your hands together (just do it please).

• Test your hands with the UV light.

Spreading Infectious Diseases.

Activities for infectious diseases

now

Additional Resources

John Snow: Pioneer of Epidemiology Video

Mystery Illness in New York City Video

Mystery Solved! West Nile Virus Video

Simulation to determine how germs can be passed from one person to another.

• Research says over 80 percent of communicable diseases are spread by touching things,” she said. “It can be direct touch or indirect touch.”

• Think of direct touch as person-to-person and indirect touch as touching a contaminated doorknob, light switch or some other object. Remember, germs are invisible to the naked eye.

Which Wash Wins?

• Test Four Methods of Hand Hygiene as a Method to Prevent Disease Transmission

• Washing with water only

• Washing with regular soap and water

• Washing with antibacterial soap and water

• Washing with hand sanitizer only

• Control Group – no washing

• Sterile agar plates or red beets

Comparison of mold and bacteria growth.

http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/education/activities/pdf/3115_typhoid_01.pdf

Perspective

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/letter.html

Develop a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) argument to support Mary’s perspective or the doctor’s perspective.• I am not segregated with the typhoid patients.• There is nobody on this island that has typhoid.

Considering Different Perspectives

• Chronological• Six different perspectives

• Medicine/Science• Public Policy Makers• Law• Social Expectations• Media• Mary Mallon

Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints. (Reading Standards for Information Text 6-12)

What to do?

E2. Build a strong base of knowledgethrough content

S4. Analyze andinterpret data.

E5. Read, write, andspeak grounded inevidence.

S7. Engage inargument from evidence.

Ethical Dilemma

• After reading Deadly, provide the students with supplemental reading materials related to the sequence of events that transpired in the actual case with Mary Mallon.

• Do a comparison of the actual events to the events in the book. How close are they to the real events? What parts of the book are fictional?

• Create a timeline of events that outline the major points from the story and include the key facts that provide supporting evidence.

• Divide the class into teams to present a debate that has as the two sides the interest of the individual – Mary Mallon to be released from quarantine and as the other side the interest of the public – to be protected from the spread of a deadly disease.

Getting to the Cause of Typhoid MaryPaired Texts

Chasing Space

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LELAND MELVINNASA ASTRONAUT

TIME FRAME: EARLY 1960S TO PRESENT DAY

Chasing Space

• An astronaut’s story of grit, grace, andsecond chances.

• Young Readers Version of Biography

Connecting to the Character

Writing Prompt: What can we guess about Leland Melvin’s passions and motivations based on the personal items he chose to bring to space?

Vocabulary Four SquareVocabulary Word: Periphery

Write the definition of the word, in your own words. Provide the location and context in which it was used in the text.

The outer limits of an edge or area.

“In my periphery, I saw the fans on their feet” (pg. 26).

Use it in a new

sentence:

As I was about to

kick the field goal, I

saw my coach pacing

on the periphery of

the field.

Write a synonym & antonym:

Synonym: edge, boundary, perimeter

Antonym: center, middle

Hidden Figures

• The compelling story of how the four African American “computers” at Langley helped launch our nation into space.

• Young Readers Edition

Event from Timeline in Book Research Question

May 1943 – The Langley Memorial Laboratory establishes the first segregated computing pool for black women.

What kinds of opportunities for employment were available for African American women in the 1940s?

October 4, 1957 -The Soviet Union launches Sputnik and the dawn of the Space Age begins

How did the launch of Sputnik create interest and ultimately jobs for the US participation in the space race?

May 17, 1954 – Brown v Board of Education ruling declares separate schools for black and white students was unconstitutional.

Throughout the story, each of the women pursue education in different ways. What were some of the ways they were able to obtain educational opportunities and advancements?

Hidden Figures Chasing Space

Research the events that surrounded the experiences that Katherine Johnson had as NASA prepared to send John Glenn into orbit.

Research the events that surrounding the explosion of either the Challenger which happened during Leland Melvin’s senior year or that of Columbia which was during the time Leland was an astronaut.

During this time, Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. Research this Cosmonaut and the Russian Space Agency in the 1960s.

Leland was assigned to be a support personnel for an astronaut who would fly on the Soyuz Capsule. How are the US and Russia working together today in the exploration of space?

Compare and contrast Katherine Johnson’s life living in southern Virginia with that of Leland Melvin’s life growing up in southern Virginia.

Compare and Contrast Events

Fever

• Yellow Fever• Epidemiology• Transmission of the

Disease• Precautions

• Character Development• Nonfiction Paired Texts• Historical Perspectives• Geography

Perceived Causes of Yellow Fever in 1793

• It’s that heap of rotting coffee beans on Ball’s Wharf….It’s the source of a deadly miasma, a foul stench, indeed. There are noxious fumes all over the city. (p. 19-20)

• Them that are sick should the church visit. City folk, sinners at the dock. They don’t visit the church and God gives them the fever. (p. 28)

• This season, it’s those cursed refugees. They brought it….The mayor should quarantine them on Hog Island for a few weeks and the fever would pass. (p. 38)

An American PlagueNonfiction Example

Pairing nonfiction texts and fiction texts allows for students to • compare and

contrast• ask questions• discern fact from

fiction

TyphoidTransmitted by bacterium Salmonella Typhi.

Only in humans bloodstream and intestinal tract.

Carriers and those who are ill shed the bacteria in their stool.

Obtained by eating food or drinking beverages that have been handled by a person shedding or if contaminated sewage gets into the food or water.

Yellow Fever

Transmitted by bite of infected mosquito.

Consumption

TB is a disease caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

TB is spread through the air from one person to another.

TB is NOT spread by sharing food or drink

Medical Case Studies & Research

What ails me? (If it were limited to three diseases)

• I have a fever, and am not hungry. My stomach hurts.

• What questions would you as the doctor ask the patient to begin to determine which of the three illnesses they may have?

• Draw a flowchart that outlines your questioning strategies.

Research on Diseases: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation. (Grade 8 Research to Build and Present Knowledge)

Thank you!

Christine Anne Royce, Ed.D

caroyce@aol.com