Science Discourse:
In today’s modern age science is considered to be one of the fastest growing concepts. One of the best ways to acquire information of the topic is to read about it. Reading science requires certain skills to be able to fully understand each part.One must be in the Discourse of science to be able to understand its language.
In other words one must know fully about all science in order to be able to comprehend its language.There are multiple writers that incorporate the idea of Discourse, and the best would be James Paul Gee. He wrote “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction” where he goes in depth on what a discourse is.
Branching off from Gee is Darcy A. Fiano who uses Gee’s seven building tasks to evaluate a kindergarten student. These seven building tasks will be crucial in getting into the science Discourse.
Another writer Christina Haas uses a student that she examined over four years to show how the student changes throughout each year. Haas interviewed and used her work from some of her classes to show how she progressed in her reading of the sciences, specifically biology. Haas introduces some concepts like rhetorical development, rhetorical frame, and rhetorical understanding.
Tying these thoughts together with the IMRaD structure will make entering the Discourse easier. The IMRaD structure is important for science since it breaks things down for them to be better understood. In the structure is the Introduction/importance, methods, results, and discussion which all have significance to science. Making connection between each of the given artifacts will show a path into the science Discourse.
Tying them together:
Gee’s building tasks can be compared and linked with ideas from Fiano, Haas, and the IMRaD structure. In Haas’s text she talks about the rhetorical frame which includes “participants, their relationships and motives, and several layers of context” (48). These connections that can be made between the three artifacts can help one get closer to being in the Discourse.
One connection starts with the participants from Haas’s rhetorical frame. The “rhetorical frame helps the readers account for the motive underlying textual acts and their outcomes”(Haas 48). The participants are the authors, scientists, or the experiment that is being done. In other words it is anything/anyone that is doing something with the writing.
This relates it to Gee with his “Saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” (6). Specifically with the “doing” aspect of Gee’s combinations, and one of the practices one must have to get into a Discourse. The participants are the ones that are doing the aspects of what the writing is about.The practices relates this all back to the building tasks of Gee. Practices or the activities are like what the participants are doing.
Now pulling in from the IMRaD structure it seems that methods fits well within this combination. “Methods (what did you do?) are usually written in past tense and passive voice” (Carnegie Mellon University). If looking at a science reading the methods part of the writing is going to be whatever procedure that scientist took. Which is important because it shows how that certain thing, like an experiment, was done. Looking back at Haas’s rhetorical frame more connections can be picked out like with several layers of context.
Connections:
The several layers of context idea has connections throughout to start to make getting into the Discourse more clear. Haas’s several layers of context seems to be as exactly what it says, just the context of the writing. This “text is an utterance, part of an intertextual context consisting of closely and distantly related texts”(Haas 48).
This again directly relates to Gee’s concepts, but this time particularly the “saying (writing)” component. The saying (writing) or context is whatever the participant says or writes down. It is important to have this to get into the discourse because it is basically the basis of what a discourse is. Learning the language of science and understanding what it means.
These can then make many connections between aspects in the science reading. Pulling in Gee’s building tasks with the perfect match to make this connection is, connections. As Fiano said in her analysis
“The relevant connections and disconnections between things and people in a context and how these connections or disconnections are being made or implied” (67).
The saying (writing) makes the connections throughout the text of that scientific reading. The connections of the text are the doing part that Gee implies. The connections are doing things in the text that helps the reader connect all the ideas together making it easier to understand.
This again can all be tied back to the IMRaD structure, but this time specifically to the discussion.The discussion talks about what the results mean and how they are relevant. It also connects the science of the writing to other writings. Here connections of whatever the writing has found are made to further the significance of the reading, and the relationships within it.
Relationship:
Haas’s Rhetorical frame also mentions relationships and motives which again can make connections through Gee, fiano, and the IMRaD structure. The participants have a certain reason as to why they are doing something in the science field and then writing about it. This can be a value or a belief that this person has. Values and beliefs are part of Gee’s combinations of a Discourse.
They also have relationships with what they are doing or they wouldn’t really be doing it. This can be looked at the other way as well the reader being the participant has reasoning to read such a reading and also must have some sort of relationship. This again brings in the being part of Gee’s aspects.
The participant is being what they want to be in their life which most likely would have something to do with science. They are relating their love for the subject to themselves by reading about it.
Bringing in one of the seven building tasks of Gee, relationships fits well. It is basically the same meaning as finao said “ Relationships that are relevant in a context and how are they being enacted, recruited, and used”(67).
Finally again relating to the IMRaD structure the results and discussion seem to fit best to the pattern. The results are the products of the experiment or whatever the reading is about. These products have clear relations between each other. The discussion points out the specific relation they all have and why they have them. With Gee and Haas being the two biggest contributors to the Discourse they themselves also must have relationships.
The Writers:
Gee and Haas can be directly connected with the meta-understanding, or rhetorical understanding, and meta-knowledge. Haas talks about rhetorical understanding and how it is the act of students understanding the motives of science. It is the “understanding of the human enterprise of science, as well as the texts that constitute and reflect that enterprise should be bound to the learning of scientific facts”(Haas 45).
Gee also talks about a similar topic which is meta-knowledge. Is the act of a student learning more than other students. It is more information that the student is getting. Gee says that “meta-knowledge is liberation and power, because it leads to the ability to manipulate, to analyze, to resist while advancing”(13). Already talked about relations of connections, and context, doing, and being are relator of Gee and Haas as well.
The rhetorical frame integrated with Gee’s concepts and the IMRaD structure makes getting into the science Discourse more simple than before. Using the techniques of how to read and learn things will help to understand what they mean. Then one will be able to fully be in the Discourse of science.
Works Cited
Carnegie Mellon University, IMRaD Cheat Sheet. Print. 18 Nov. 2015
Fiano, Darcy A. “Reading Research Quarterly.” Primary Discourse and Expressive Oral
Language in a Kindergarten Student (2013): 61–84. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
Gee, James P. “Journal of Education.” Literacy, Discourse, And Linguistics: Introduction 171
(1989): 5–17. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Haas, Christina. “Learning to Read Biology.” Written Communication 11.1 (1994): 43–78. Sage
Publications. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
