Writing and conceptual change. What changes?

Abstract

This study was focused on elementary school students'processes of scientific understanding within aclassroom environment characterized as a community ofdiscourse. In particular, it explored the role ofwritten discourse both on the plane of knowledgedevelopment and the conceptualization and evaluationof the writing activity itself. The purposes of thestudy were: (a) to see whether students could use writingas a means to express and compare ideas, reason andreflect on them in the process of scientificunderstanding; (b) to see whether writing in the serviceof learning facilitated the understanding of the newtopic through conceptual change; (c) to see whetherwriting affected the conceptualization of the writingactivity itself. Thirty-six fourth graders divided intwo groups, experimental (writing) and control(no-writing), were involved in the implementation ofcurriculum units on plants, whose target concept wasphotosynthesis. The findings show that in theexperimental group the students reached a betterconceptual understanding of the target concept andmore advanced metaconceptual awareness of the changesin their own knowledge structures. Moreover, theconceptualization of the writing activity seemed tochange as well to some extent as writing in aconceptual change process affected the ways learnersviewed some functions of it.