Teaching science writing to first graders: Genre learning and recontextualization

Science writing is integral to the work of scientists and to learning to do science. Science texts composed by emergent and beginning writers in Family Message Journals provide insights related to debates about genre instruction, writing as social practice, and writing process principles of voice and empowerment. This qualitative study of four first-graders' messages to family members explores whether the children's texts can be characterized as science writing when analyzed for conventional structural and lexicogrammatical features. It also explores how the Family Message Journal context, with its systematic instruction and familiar, responsive audience might influence children's understanding of the conventions of science writing and their ability to use them flexibly. The data demonstrate that the case study participants consistently composed texts in which they appropriated the linguistic conventions of science and that they seemed able to use these conventions flexibly, recontextualizing the genres to fit the task of a written dialogue with their families.