The findings of this study support extensive calls for the utilization of diversified writingto-
learn strategies in the science classroom, and for researchers of authentic classroom
environments to understand the writing-learning connection (Rivard, 1994). Specifically, the
gains in students’ conceptual science understandings and affect toward science and science
learning provide a compelling argument for the inclusion of writing practices that engage
students in the construction of hybridized narrative genres in the science classroom. Furthermore,
the utilization of different kinds of writing tasks in science will eventuate in different kinds of
learning, and promote different views of scientific literacy. BioStories can be used to examine
how students use and produce science knowledge to respond to a need or concern pertinent to
their individual or community’s future, which better aligns with expanded goals of scientific
literacy.