I
have a question that I think
you can help me answer. I live
on a hill. My yard looked terrible,
so yesterday we removed
all the grass and prepared the sandy
soil for planting. But this morning I
heard the weather forecaster say that
we might get a light rain for most of
today and maybe even into tomorrow.
Is there a way to find out how this will
affect my yard?
We began the first day of a unit on
erosion by posing this authentic
problem and question to a mixed
fourth and fifth grade English language
learner (ELL) class to engage
students in thinking about erosion.
We knew the students had prior
knowledge of rain, sandy soil, and
model-making. After posing the initial
problem and question, we used
questioning to scaffold the conversation
toward a class decision. After
much debate, the students determined
that constructing a model of
the yard would be the best way to
explore ideas about how rain would
affect the yard. What followed was a
12-day study of erosion in which the
students used stream tables (Figure
1) from the Landforms FOSS kit
as they explored ideas, developed
explanations about the concept of
erosion, and expanded their current
understanding. In addition, exploration
required the use of process
skills and the essential features of
scientific inquiry. What made our
unit unusual was the intentional integration
of science and language instruction.
The students were recent
immigrants to the United States
and were learning English and science
content. The instructional
model blended selected strategies
proposed by the science education
community with selected strategies
from the language education community.
Through this careful integration,
the science class became a
safe and sheltered place to use language
and to demonstrate scientific
knowledge regardless of the level
of English proficiency. Thus, this
could be an excellent unit to begin a
new school year.
General Unit Strategies
Throughout the unit, we entered our
lessons “with questions about how
things happen in the world” (Lemke
2004, p. 33) and engaged the students
with ideas as well as with actual
phenomena. The shared hands-on
experience helped provide the children
with a context to build meaning
and new language. We planned for
and built into the lessons essential
features of inquiry (posing a question,
developing a plan, making evidence-based
arguments, revising and
clarifying student ideas).
Counter to prevailing strategies
to support language and content