exploring the role of intertextuality in concept construction: urban second graders make sense of...

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 43, NO. 7, PP. 637–666 (2006)

Exploring the Role of Intertextuality in Concept Construction: Urban SecondGraders Make Sense of Evaporation, Boiling, and Condensation

Maria Varelas,1 Christine C. Pappas,1 Amy Rife2

1College of Education (M/C 147), University of Illinois at Chicago,

1040 West Harrison Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607

2Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Illinois

Received 14 July 2004; Accepted 22 February 2005

Abstract: The study explores urban second graders’ thinking and talking about the concepts of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation that emerged in the context of intertextuality within an integrated

science-literacy unit on the topic of States of Matter, which emphasized the water cycle. In that unit,

children and teacher engaged in a variety of activities (reading information books, doing hands-on

explorations, writing, drawing, discussing) in a dialogically oriented way where teacher and children shared

the power and the burden of making meaning. The three qualitative interrelated analyses showed children

who initiated or continued productive links to texts, broadly defined, that gave them spaces to grapple with

complex ideas and ways of expressing them. Although some children showed preference for a certain way

of thinking about evaporation, boiling, and condensation, the data do not point toward a definite conclusion

relative to whether children subscribe or not to a particular conceptual position. Children had multiple,

complex, and often speculative, tentative, and emergent ways of accessing and interpreting these pheno-

mena, and their conceptions were contextually based—different contexts offered opportunities for students

to theorize about different aspects of the phenomena (along with some similar aspects). Children also

theorized about aspects of the same phenomena in different ways. � 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci

Teach 43: 637–666, 2006

In this study, we explore the role of intertextuality in urban second graders’ thinking and

talking about the concepts of evaporation, boiling, and condensation. As part of an integrated

science-literacy unit on the topic of States of Matter that emphasized the water cycle, children

engaged in hands-on explorations and discussions about them, read-aloud sessions of information

Joint first authorship for the first two authors.

Contract grant sponsor: UIC Center for Urban Educational Research and Development; Contract grant sponsor: The

Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English; Contract grant sponsor: UIC Campus

Research Board.

Correspondence to: M. Varelas; E-mail: [email protected]

DOI 10.1002/tea.20100

Published online 24 May 2006 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

� 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

books on the topic, and other activities (e.g., small-group literature circle discussions that were

reported to the class, various writing [and drawing] experiences, and so forth). The teacher, Amy,

who is one of the coauthors, orchestrated collaborative, dialogically oriented discourse practices

so that children had many opportunities to offer their own ideas, comments, and questions, upon

which Amy and peers could contingently respond (Nystrand, 1997; Wells, 1999). The classroom

discourse was often filled with what Lindfors (1999) called ‘‘inquiry language acts,’’ occasions

where children engaged in sense-making.

Some of the most salient participant discourse contributions were intertextual connections—

the juxtaposition or reference that speakers made to other texts (Bloome & Egan-Robertson,

1993). Using an expansive definition of ‘‘text,’’ we have identified an intertextuality typology with

several categories (Pappas, Varelas, Barry, & Rife, 2003) that includes texts as recounting of

events (Wells, 1990), references to hands-on explorations, and connections to prior discourse. We

have seen that intertextual connections expressed in such ways often served as important catalysts

in developing scientific understandings and typical scientific registers. Furthermore, Tytler and

Peterson (2000) noted that young children’s ideas on evaporation ‘‘could only be made sense of by

moving outside traditional conceptual change interpretations to include broader notions of

appropriation of language as a cultural tool, of personal and social narrative responses to features

of the phenomena and the classroom setting, and the nature of science explanations’’ (p. 339).

Thus, our study explores children’s contributions in the context of intertextual links to trace their

ways of sharing and constructing the concepts of evaporation, boiling, and condensation—and

how they are realized linguistically—over the course of the unit.

Theoretical Framework

Conceptual Understandings

Science education researchers have been concerned over the last 25 years with the structure

and development of students’ knowledge. Thus, there is an extensive body of research on students’

conceptions about several scientific phenomena, and whether and how students change their

conceptions over time with or without instruction on particular topics. Much of this research,

known as conceptual change research, has identified conceptions that children, young and old,

hold about various phenomena and how these conceptions may differ from canonical scientific

understandings. Starting in the 1980s and continuing until now, researchers have thought of

students’ knowledge as coherent, consistent, and systematic, consisting of mental models and

conceptual frameworks (Bar, Zinn, Goldmuntz, & Sneider, 1994; Chi, Slotta, & deLeeuw, 1994;

Driver & Erickson, 1983; Norman, 1983; Venville, 2004; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992; Watson,

Prieto, & Dillon, 1997). As these frameworks are usually incompatible with scientific ways of

thinking about and explaining the world, they need to undergo conceptual change, for which

researchers have proposed conceptual change approaches and theories (Alsop & Watts, 1997;

Hewson, 1981; Hewson, Beeth, & Thorley, 1998; Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993; Posner, Strike,

Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982; Strike & Posner, 1992; Tyson, Venville, Harrison, & Treagust, 1997).

These theories have evolved over the years to include attention not only to the cognitive and

rational dimension of learning, but also to social and affective dimensions.

An alternative view of students’ knowledge is that it is more ‘‘knowledge in pieces,’’ which

diSessa (1993) called phenomenological primitives (p-prims). ‘‘These p-prims are atomistic

knowledge structures . . . [and] the basis on which a learner makes sense of a situation; a lens

through which a learner’s interpretation emerges . . . p-prims result from the learner’s experience

in the world’’ (Southerland, Abrams, Cummins, & Anzelmo, 2001, p. 329). These p-prims are

Journal of Research in Science Teaching. DOI 10.1002/tea

638 VARELAS, PAPPAS, AND RIFE

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271788768_Talk_about_Text_Where_Literacy_Is_Learned_and_Taught?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

emergent understandings and do not represent a conceptual framework resistant to change. In this

approach, children’s conceptions are much more layered than previously thought, in addition to be

more contextually based rather than consistent with a particular framework.

Furthermore, as Southerland and her colleagues pointed out, teaching has a different goal if

one or the other approach toward students’ knowledge structure is espoused. If the former

approach is espoused, namely mental models that may be incompatible with canonical science,

then a conceptual change instructional approach makes sense. Teaching should lead to the

elimination of these alternative conceptions and their replacement with more scientifically correct

ones. However, if the latter approach is espoused, namely that of p-prims, then teaching should

help students build on these, develop them further, refine them, and thus expand their thinking. In

addition, in discussing the implications of studying young children’s conceptions of living things,

Venville (2004) claimed that ‘‘a theory in transition’’ (p. 473) may be a better way to approach

children’s knowledge where their ways of making sense of the world are seen as initial, positive

steps toward constructing scientifically acceptable explanations and ways of thinking.

Most of the research that has focused on students’ conceptual knowledge is based on data

collected from students’ responses to written instruments or during interviews with investigators.

A recent notable exception is Venville’s (2004) study, which combined interviews with classroom

observations of six lessons where emphasis was placed on analyzing a few episodes, and in which

11 focal children were involved. Thus, much remains to be learned about students’ conceptions as

they unfold and are shaped during classroom instruction, especially classroom instruction that is

dialogically oriented, encouraging and supporting the students to share and articulate their

thinking with the teacher and their peers.

Focusing specifically on the concepts of evaporation, boiling, and condensation, several

researchers have investigated student conceptions at a range of grade levels. Some of this research

has been done with secondary students (Johnson, 1998; Osborne & Cosgrove, 1983) for reasons

that include curriculum suitability and grade-level appropriateness. Evaporation, boiling, and

condensation are considered sophisticated topics that necessitate cognitive differentiations that

young, primary school children may not be ready for and may not be able to construct. Thus, such

topics are usually designated for middle grades. However, a very familiar science topic in primary

grades is the water cycle and the transformations of water between different states. Evaporation,

boiling, and condensation are topics that come up naturally in such lessons. Thus, we cannot deny

children the opportunity to engage with these ideas and share and develop their thinking about

them. In addition, Tytler (2000) noted, based on his own studies, that ‘‘even quite young children

are capable of productive engagement with the water cycle image of evaporation, which makes

sense of the fact that it is a topic frequently taught at the lower levels of schooling’’ (p. 464).

Moreover, such lessons provide rich opportunities to not only explore young children’s

conceptions of these phenomena, but to also inquire into the ways that such conceptions emerge

and are shared in classroom settings with the particular characteristics that Amy was striving for in

her classroom.

Although research has most often studied older children’s conceptions, over the last decade, a

few science education researchers have focused on primary school children’s views and the

progression of understanding of the phenomena of evaporation and condensation (Bar & Galili,

1994; Bar & Travis, 1991; Tytler, 2000). As Tytler (2000) indicated, according to this research,

it seems that ‘‘there is some developing agreement concerning the fundamental ontological shifts

that drive children’s growing understandings of evaporation and condensation phenomena’’

(p. 451). Tytler’s own study compared conceptions of Year 1 and Year 6 children, and found

‘‘substantial overlap between the conceptions used . . . [but] also substantial differences in the

patterns of conceptions, the epistemological sophistication, and the structure of their


INTERTEXTUALITY IN CONCEPT CONSTRUCTION 639

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227606168_Young_Children_Learning_about_Living_Things_A_case_study_of_conceptual_change_from_ontological_and_social_perspectives?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230228959_Children's_Conceptions_of_the_Changes_of_the_State_of_Water?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

explanations’’ (p. 463). Furthermore, Tytler argued that previous research has underestimated the

conceptual sophistication of children when it comes to the phenomenon of evaporation. One of the

implications of his research is the importance of children’s everyday experiences and recounting

of events in helping them develop and express their interpretations of this phenomenon. Thus,

Amy’s classroom, with the multiple types of intertextuality that emerged, offered us a fruitful

opportunity to study young children’s conceptions of these complex phenomena and to explore the

ways in which various types of intertextuality are associated with sharing and developing such

conceptions.

Intertextuality and Hybridity

We view intertextuality as a social construction (Bloome & Bailey, 1992; Bloome & Egan-

Robertson, 1993; Egan-Robertson, 1998; Fairclough, 1992; Lemke, 1985, 1992; Pappas, Varelas,

Barry, & Rife, 2003) that centers on juxtaposing various texts. Using ideas from Wells (Wells,

1990; Wells & Chang-Wells, 1992), we view ‘‘text’’ in an expansive way. That is, text is more than

another book that a child or teacher might refer to. As Wells (1990) argued, ‘‘it is heuristically

worthwhile to extend the notion of text to any artifact that is constructed as a representation of

meaning using a conventional symbolic system’’ (p. 378). Similarly to Wells, we consider a range

of oral texts created in various speech contexts, including speakers’ ‘‘recounts’’ of previous events

or experiences. In addition, we consider intertextuality as a future phenomenon, as opposed to the

usual occasions of intertextuality when participants juxtapose a present text with a prior text.

Bloome and Egan-Robertson (1993) argued that social recognition, acknowledgment, and

social significance are criteria for identifying instances of intertextual connections. Using these

criteria to identify cases of intertextuality that arose in the classroom discourse in the States of

Matter unit, we have elsewhere specified a typology of intertextuality (Pappas, Varelas, Barry, &

Rife, 2003), summarized in Appendix A. Category I includes references to various written texts;

other texts orally shared, such as poems, rhymes, sayings, and songs; other media, such as

television/radio shows or movies; and prior classroom discourse. Category II involves

connections to hands-on explorations. Category III covers recounting of events—specific events

that participants refer to, as well as generalized ones that participants report on as having

habitually occurred with no reference to a particular instance. The last category, Category IV, is

what we call ‘‘implicit’’ generalized events, where there is no explicit personal involvement or

recounting, but participants implicitly refer to events that could or should have been habitually

experienced. We have also shown how the various categories of intertextuality can have several of

the functions that Wells (1990) identified as modes of engagement with texts and, particularly, how

they can play an epistemic role where discourse participants raise and ‘‘play with’’ tentative ideas

and words (Pappas, Varelas, with Barry, & Rife, 2004; Varelas, Pappas, & Rife, 2004).

We focus on intertextuality in the context of science instruction that foregrounds the

intersection between learning from informational text and learning from activity-based, guided-

inquiry experiences. Such science instruction that bridges between texts and activities has been

quite limited (e.g., Cutter, Vincent, Palincsar, & Magnusson, 2001; Palincsar & Magnusson, 1997;

Shymansky, Yore, & Good, 1991; Wallace, 2002). Several reasons have been offered for the

scarcity of such teaching and associated research. One is the prevalent ideology that teachers and

educators still have regarding the primacy of narrative in early education (Duke, 2000; Pappas,

1993); namely, that children learn to read (and write) first through story, and then through

expository or informational texts. Also, teachers may not realize that reading (and writing) science

is different from reading and writing narrative texts (Donovan & Smolkin, 2001; Shymansky et al.,

1991). Or, even when teachers do believe that informational texts might be helpful in fostering



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scientific understandings, they may worry that using texts too soon may constrain children’s

exploration in science activities and otherwise limit their own generation of explanations or

‘‘answers’’ as they investigate phenomena (Palincsar & Magnusson, 1997).

Another reason for the lack of integration of informational texts within the science curriculum

involves the primacy of the hands-on explorations that emerged as a reaction to the dominance of

textbook instruction. This goes along with an emphasis in the National Science Education

Standards (National Research Council, 1996) for grades K-3 on young children’s observational

skills and abilities to notice and describe patterns in data as opposed to their theorizing, engaging

with ideas, generating interpretations, and developing explanations/conceptions about how the

world works. Such emphasis misses the dialectical relationship between concepts/ideas and data

that is a critical characteristic of the practice of science (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott,

1994; O’Loughlin, 1992; Varelas, 1996).

Engagement with ideas and theorizing is necessary for understanding. As Popper and Eccles

(1977) noted, ‘‘one could say that the process of understanding and the process of the actual

production or discovery [of theories] are very much alike’’ (p. 461). In order to understand the

natural world we need to use both the empirical and the theoretical elements of scientific activity,

which are not separate from each other—the two elements interact and influence each other

significantly (Dewey, 1929; Duschl, 1990; Holton, 1988; Schwab, 1978). Thus, science teaching

and learning should involve the constant dialectic between finding out how the world works and

developing explanations of these findings. Therefore, it is important that experimentation,

observation, and hands-on experience do not become the sole elements of science teaching and

learning. This fits well with Dewey’s concept of learning through experience. For Dewey (1916):

The nature of experience can be understood only by noting that it includes an active and a

passive element particularly combined. On the active hand, experience is trying . . .On the

passive, it is undergoing. When we experience something we act upon it, we do something

with it; then we suffer or undergo the consequences . . .Mere activity does not constitute

experience. It is dispersive, centrifugal, dissipating. Experience as trying involves change,

but change is meaningless transition unless it is consciously connected with the return

wave of consequences which flow from it . . . doing becomes a trying; an experiment with

the world to find out what it is like; the undergoing becomes instruction—discovery of the

connection of things. (pp. 163–164)

In a way, Dewey’s concept of experience involves the theorizing element that is so important

in the practice of science. Thus, in our approach to teaching and learning science, we combine an

emphasis on engagement in hands-on explorations with an emphasis on children’s literature

information books. Information books—including the photographs or illustrations in them—

provide ongoing sources for prototypical explanations of scientific concepts (Ogborn, Kress,

Martins, & McGillicuddy, 1996). When children are engaged in hands-on science activities or

inquiries, they are involved in ‘‘here and now’’ experiences. Thus, the sharing (and creation) of

information books along with the engagement in hands-on explorations enables children to go

back and forth from instances of here-and-now in the activities to abstractions of general

prototypes and theoretical constructs.

The bridging between texts and activities opens up possibilities of enabling, and thus

exploring, intertextuality as a semiotic tool for teaching and learning science and literacy in the

context of classroom discourse. Discourse, according to Vygotsky (1978, 1934/1987), enables

the individual’s appropriation and mastery of higher mental functions. Discourse is the language

and the actions of a community of people, and, in our case, the community formed by the



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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37712044_Thematic_Origins_of_Scientific_Thought_Kepler_to_Einstein?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230364305_Between_Theory_and_Data_in_a_Seventh-Grade_Science_Class?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

students and the teacher in a classroom (Gee & Green, 1998; Green & Dixon, 1993; Hicks, 1995–

1996; Lemke, 1990). Discourse represents the socially situated practices that are constructed

in the varied moment-to-moment interactions (Cazden, 2001; Pappas & Zecker, 2001; Young,

1992).

Vygotsky (1934/1987) argued that thinking and speech are intimately related, influencing the

development of each other. ‘‘It would be incorrect to represent thinking and speech as processes

that are externally related to one another, as two independent forces moving and acting in parallel

with one another or intersecting at specific points and interacting mechanically’’ (p. 243).

Disciplines, such as science, represent particular ways of thinking and knowing and employ

different written linguistic registers or genres (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Geertz, 1983; Halliday &

Martin, 1993; Johns, 1997, 2002; Lemke, 1990; Martin & Veel, 1998; Swales, 1990). Scientific

explanations entail creating new conceptual entities and the wordings to express those entities

(Ogborn, et al., 1996). As Sutton (1992) articulated, learning science is based on the linkage

between a ‘‘new way of seeing’’ any science topic and a ‘‘new way of talking’’ about it. Thus,

language is a major semiotic tool to mediate intellectual activity and knowledge-building

(Halliday, 1993; Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Varelas, 1996; Varelas & Pineda, 1999; Vygoysky,

1934/1987; Wells, 1993, 1994, 1999; Wertsch, 1991).

Furthermore, exploring the various intertextuality categories we have identified, and

especially event intertextuality (Categories III and IVin Appendix A), we have come to appreciate

the different linguistic features that some of these intertextual links promote (Varelas & Pappas,

under review). Recounts of specific events (Categories III 1a and 2b) are fully narrative in nature,

for they reflect personal pronouns, past-tense verbs, and many action verbs, and indicate particular

persons, objects, and places. However, generalized events (Categories III 2a and 2b) are only

partially narrative—they include personal pronouns, but have many features of scientific

discourse, namely, present-tense verbs, especially ones that are expressed as relational processes

(e.g., is, are, become, has, are called, etc.) and material processes (i.e., the concrete, ‘‘real’’ actions

related to the topic at hand), and generic nouns referring to classes of entities and phenomena (as

opposed to particular ones). Finally, implicit, generalized events (Category IV) are expressed fully

via scientific linguistic registers—no personal pronouns, but instead general pronouns (‘‘you’’ and

‘‘we’’), plus the generic nouns, present-tense verbs, and so forth.

Vygotsky’s contemporary, Bakhtin (1981, 1986), complemented and extended Vygotsky’s

insights on the role of discourse in learning and development (Wertsch, 1991). Bakhtin’s ideas on

dialogism are especially important. For him, discourse is a social activity within which

participants take turns offering utterances that are responsive to each other. Because discourse is a

continual weaving and reweaving of responsive utterances, the meaning of any one utterance is

unstable—each depends on the discussion in which it emerged. Moreover, there is conflict in this

endeavor (Cazden, 2001). As Bakhtin (1981) noted: ‘‘Language is not a neutral medium that

passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions; it is populated—

overpopulated—with the intentions of others. Expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one’s own

intentions and accents, is a difficult and complicated process’’ (p. 294).

Bakhtin’s dialogism should also be considered together with Vygotsky’s strong emphasis

on the give-and-take between: (a) the relatively systematic and articulate system of concepts,

ideas, procedures, and strategies that have been established by others over the course of time

within cultures and practices; and (b) the relatively unstructured children’s own reasoning

and sense-making. Each of these influences the other, thus leading to learning and development.

In a Vygotskian paradigm, the teacher plays a critical role in assisting children’s construc-

tion of preexisting cultural knowledge (Becker & Varelas, 1995). Such a perspective necessi-

tates an approach to science education that is quite different from the Piagetian-inspired



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discovery learning (Driver et al., 1994; O’Loughlin, 1992). As Dewey (1938) wrote: ‘‘[Education

should be] a co-operative enterprise, not a dictation . . .The development occurs through

reciprocal give-and-take, the teacher taking but not being afraid also to give. The essential

point is that the purposes grow and take shape through the process of social intelligence’’

(pp. 71–72).

Furthermore, the concept of hybridity (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, Alvarez, & Chui, 1999;

Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Tejeda, 1999; Kamberelis, 2001; Solsken, Willett, & Wilson-

Keenan, 2000) is particularly useful in conceptualizing the nature of discourse where the

canonical understandings and linguistic registers of scientific practice (reflected in information

books) meet children’s own spontaneous personal and cultural thinking and language. Such hybrid

talk is filled with potential for both movement toward canonical forms, as well as challenging these

canonical forms and/or realizing their limitations. Hybrid discourse practices can also be seen as

generative and transformative in promoting scientific registers (Kress, 1999).

Thus, in this study, we explore how the particularly complex constructs of evaporation,

boiling, and condensation, which constitute fundamental concepts of the water cycle and weather,

are constructed and reconstructed in the midst of intertextuality that takes place during

dialogically oriented teaching wherein students and teacher share the power and the burden of this

making meaning. We examine how the conceptual understandings and linguistic registers around

these phenomena emerged during intertextual connections. Such analysis could contribute to the

limited literature on ways young children theorize about these phenomena from a particular

perspective. This perspective: (a) values evolving hybrid, collaborative thinking and language

among peers and teacher in which children’s colloquial, everyday language is employed to express

scientific concepts (Lemke, 1990); (b) provides children with spaces to share and attempt to

connect their own experiences and conceptions; and (c) attempts to understand children’s

language on its own terms without imposing adult meanings onto children’s contributions

(Johnson & Gott, 1996; Tytler, 2000).

Method

Participants

This study focuses on Amy Rife’s second-grade class. Amy’s class was in an urban

elementary school with a diverse ethnolinguistic student population, including black, Hispanic,

and white children. Almost all of the children were eligible for federally sponsored food programs.

There were 26 children in Amy’s class in the year of the study, 11 girls and 15 boys. The

ethnolinguistic breakdown of students in her class was as follows: 46% Hispanic, 31% black, and

19% white.

The year of the study was Amy’s sixth year of teaching in primary grades. She is European

American and she had been teaching in diverse classrooms her entire teaching career. Throughout

that year, Amy and a first grade teacher, Anne Barry, were meeting regularly with the other two

authors to discuss the implementation and further development of the integrated units that had

started 2 years earlier. Furthermore, excerpts of videotapes and transcripts from Amy’s and Anne’s

classes were shared during these meetings and offered opportunities for reflection and preliminary

formulation of research questions and analyses. The larger collaborative teacher research project

that evolved over these years was Amy’s first full-fledged teacher inquiry experience and her first

involvement in a collaboration between school-based and university-based educators and

researchers for a joint quest of understanding particular aspects of teaching and learning in urban

classrooms.




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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230232333_Constructivism_and_evidence_from_children's_ideas?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

Materials—The Integrated Unit

In the year of the study, Amy taught three integrated units as part of our project. These units,

usually 4–6 weeks long, incorporated the following features: (1) hands-on explorations, plus

whole-class discussions around them; (2) read-aloud sessions using a range of children’s

informational books on the topic being investigated; (3) many writing (and drawing) experiences

related to the inquiries, including students’ own illustrated information book created at the end of

the unit; (4) small-group literature circle inquiries using informational books; and (5) at-home

parent–child explorations on the topic (science activities and a related children’s literature

information book shared together) that are then reported in the classroom. The present study

focuses on the middle unit in that year, specifically the unit on ‘‘States of Matter and the Water

Cycle.’’1 The theme of the unit centers on characteristics of matter in different states, changes of

states of matter and how they take place, and how these changes are related to how rain is

produced. Discussions on weather provided one of the contexts for thinking about the latter.

Amy read the following six children’s literature information books: What’s the Weather

Today? (Fowler, 1991); What Do You See in a Cloud? (Fowler, 1996); When a Storm Comes Up

(Fowler, 1995); What Is the World Made of? All About Solids, Liquids, and Gases (Zoehfeld,

1998); Air Is All Around You (Branley, 1986); and Down Comes the Rain (Branley, 1983). There

were seven read-aloud sessions, because What Is the World Made of? was read in two parts and

other unit activities took place in between the readings. These books were chosen because they are

part of the ‘‘Rookie Read-About Science’’ and ‘‘Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science’’ series, which

reflect accurate science content and typical scientific genres.

The hands-on investigations that the children engaged in included observing and describing,

but also predicting, thinking about, and explaining associated with: stuffing a napkin or piece of

paper towel at the bottom of a cup and submerging the cup straight in one case and slanted in

another in a bowl with colored water (the napkin activity); wetting three paper towels and leaving

one hanging from a table, one laying flat on the table, and one laying on the table crumpled up in a

ball (the paper-towel activity); letting a drop of food coloring fall in cups of clear water at different

temperatures (the colored-water activity); a pop can taken out of a freezer that ‘‘sweats’’ (the pop-

can activity); ice cubes left in different settings (the ice-cube activity); and droplets being formed

on a cold cookie sheet that was placed on top of boiling water (cookie-sheet activity). In addition,

children wrote and drew in their science journals throughout the unit; engaged in small-group

literature circles (using other information books); undertook various explorations (e.g., observed

and documented the weather for a few days, classified various objects into solids, liquids, and

gases, etc.); participated in an at-home parent–child exploration, for which findings were shared

with the class; and, at the end of the unit, created their own illustrated information book on a topic

of their choice. Appendix B summarizes and provides the sequence of the read-aloud sessions and

the explorations/activities of the unit.

Analyses

In the present study we conducted three analyses (described in what follows) based on a

previous analysis that identified a typology of intertextuality (Pappas, Varelas, Barry, & Rife,

2003). The data for this study consisted of videotapes of the 11 lessons on the unit of States of

Matter that included science activities and their whole-class debriefings, and whole-class read-

aloud sessions of informational books. In order to engage with these data, we first used the

established typology to identify all intertextual links during these 11 lessons. Then, using an event

matrix (Miles & Huberman, 1984), we went over the transcripts a second time to code all

utterances that were related to ideas associated with the phenomena of evaporation/boiling and



condensation. Our coding schema included five main categories. For each of these utterances we

coded: the lesson in which it occurred, its order, and the type of intertextual link it was associated

with; whether the speaker’s contribution was an initiation of an intertextual link or a continuation

of an intertextual link that had been initiated by another speaker; and the ideas that were raised and

developed and the linguistic registers used to express them. Each of the two first authors coded the

data separately and, after discussion, agreement was achieved for all 124 identified utterances.

A qualitative, interpretive method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Wolcott, 1994) was then used to

look across all these data. Denzin & Lincoln (1994) noted that qualitative research and analysis is

especially well suited to ‘‘seek answers to questions that stress how social experience is created

and given meaning’’ (p. 4). Using an iterative constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss,

1967), we compared our analyses to create a unified set of interpretations about the discourse.

The three interrelated analyses of this study are as follows. In Analysis 1 (Unfolding of Ideas

and Registers Throughout the Unit), we explored the thinking and language relative to

evaporation, boiling, and condensation as intertextuality unfolded during the unit, by ordering all

124 contributions related to these phenomena by lesson and analyzing them. In Analysis 2

(Different Types of Intertextuality and How They Contributed to Thinking and Talking About

Evaporation, Boiling, and Condensation), we studied how the different categories of intertextuality

were used by children to express and develop scientific understandings and registers by sorting the

124 contributions by intertextuality type and analyzing them. In Analysis 3 (Meaning-Making of

Individual Students in the Process of Intertextuality), we focused on particular children who

offered most of the contributions related to these phenomena, exploring their distinctive ways of

thinking about them in the midst of intertextual connections. We specify in the relevant Results

section which children we focused on and why after we sorted the 124 contributions by

contributor. In all three analyses, we examined various aspects of the concepts being developed

and the children’s ways of dealing with them. In doing so, we were able to capture how children’s

ideas fit with each other and with the canonical understandings related to these phenomena.

We consider all three analyses necessary in order to shed light on our multifaceted research

goal, namely, to examine how young children think about, and express their thinking on the

phenomena of evaporation, boiling, and condensation in the context of intertextuality that took

place as dialogic teaching was enacted in Amy’s class. The three analyses complement each other

in several ways. Analysis 1 shows how concepts and linguistic registers surfaced and were

discussed throughout the unit, thus focusing on the ebb and flow of ideas as information books

were read and hands-on explorations took place. Analysis 2 examines how particular intertextual

categories were associated with ideas that surfaced and developed and whether initiations versus

continuations of intertextual links were the context of these ideas. For both of these analyses the

unit of analysis is the whole class as we examine the intermingling of all discourse participant

contributions. In contrast, Analysis 3 focuses on individual students, and the types of contributions

they made, to determine whether there was or was not a prevalent way that young children in

Amy’s class thought about these phenomena and expressed their understandings in terms of

intertextuality.

Results

Analysis 1: Unfolding of Ideas and Registers Throughout the Unit

The children in Amy’s class were engaged in exploring concepts related to the phenomena of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation across the unit. Table 1 shows frequencies of relevant

contributions children made over the various lessons, differentiated by type of intertextuality they

were associated with. All utterances related to the phenomena of evaporation, boiling, and



condensation took place in association with some type of intertextuality. Below, as we give

examples of the kind of ideas and registers that emerged throughout the unit, we specify (in

parentheses) the type of intertextuality that provided the context for that contribution.

In the first lesson, which was a read-aloud session of the book What’s the Weather Today?,

Timothy and Raoul, in referring to the The Magic School Bus television show, shared that ‘‘water

flows up to make clouds’’—which they called ‘‘evaporation’’ (Intertextuality OM). However,

because the class did not stay with this discussion, we do not know what conceptions Timothy and

Raoul had about how, and in what form, water ‘‘flows up,’’ or whether their use of the lexical term,

evaporation, was really correctly understood. In the beginning of the second lesson, the class

discussed the idea of fog (because it was a foggy day), and then the class continued with another

read-aloud session on the book When a Storm Comes Up. Several ideas were taken up by the

children. They talked about the relationship between fog and clouds, properties of fog, and when

fog happens. Pamela changed her mind about the relationship between fog and clouds. She first

shared that ‘‘fog will go up in the air and turn into big clouds’’ (Intertextuality PD), but later she

indicated the reverse process, indicating that fog is formed as ‘‘clouds like they’re dripping . . . like

little pieces of clouds . . . they like come down and they spread around’’ (Intertextuality SE). For

two other children, Roberto and Ayanna, fog is clouds (‘‘fog is clouds down near the floor . . . like

the drips of rain are invisible . . .won’t be able to feel the rain’’ [Roberto, Intertextuality PD], ‘‘fog

is clouds hanging low’’ [Ayanna, Intertextuality SE]). Roberto and Ayanna described the fog as:

‘‘soft,’’ ‘‘kinda clear,’’ ‘‘can’t see nothing,’’ and ‘‘like air because you walk through fog,’’ and

Mitch thought of it ‘‘like smoke because you can’t see no one cause smoke’s blocking them’’

(Intertextuality PD). Jewel associated fog with a hot day—‘‘when it’s a foggy day it’s hot’’

(Intertextuality PD).

By the third lesson, which was another read-aloud, children’s contributions related to

evaporation, boiling, and condensation continued to increase. During this read-aloud on the book

What Do You See in a Cloud?, children mostly recounted generalized events (Intertextuality GE)

as they tried to make sense of relevant concepts and, in doing so, they also used more scientific

language, although not necessarily canonical vocabulary. Children shared different models.

Elena thought that ‘‘clouds are made of rain when it rains rain falls down and then I think the wind

Table 1

Frequencies of intertextual links where ideas around evaporation, boiling, and condensation arose

Type of Intertextuality

Lessons in States of Matter Unit

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

COW (Children’s OwnWriting)

1

OM (Other Media) 2PD (Prior Discourse) 6 6 6 1 1 1HOE (Hands-On

Explorations)11 41 1 7 3

SE (recounting ofSpecific Events)

3 2 1

GE (recounting ofGeneralized Events)

12 3

IGE (ImplicitGeneralized Events)

7 1 4 3 1

Total 2 9 28 1 0 11 51 6 10 1 5



makes the rain go back up’’ (Intertextuality COW). In contrast to Elena’s ‘‘transportation’’ model

(Varelas & Pappas, under review; Varelas, Pappas, Barry, & O’Neill, 2001),2 Timothy used, in his

talk, verbs that signify transformations of states of matter, such as ‘‘turns into,’’ and adjectives that

differentiate various forms of water, calling one of them ‘‘invisible water.’’ He said: ‘‘Invisible

water flies into the sky, the water turns into bubbles and then it makes clouds’’ (Intertextuality PD).

Yet, Pamela thought that ‘‘the air gets smooshed up together and makes a cloud’’ (Intertextuality

PD). Thus, although these ideas were expressed in typical scientific language (use of relational

verbs, present-tense verbs, generic nouns, and so forth), they also sometimes relied on vocabulary

(e.g., ‘‘gets smooshed up together’’) that Lindfors (1999) called ‘‘reaching devices.’’ That is, they

employ analogy, comparison, metaphor, and other imaginative wordings to stretch what they

know to ‘‘what they sense beyond it . . . [thus, to] carry creative thinking forward’’ (p. 171).

A plethora of everyday experiences were shared as children attempted to make sense of the

phenomena of evaporation, boiling, and condensation. Pamela talked about her mother boiling

water to make tea (Intertextuality GE). Important concepts associated with boiling came up—that

the water is very hot, bubbles are everywhere and are popping out, bubbles rise on the water

surface, and there was steam. Similarly, Roberto talked about boiling water and cooking hot dogs,

highlighting the bubbles that are in the water and eventually come up and pop and noting that

‘‘there’s steam flying out’’ (Intertextuality GE). In between these two boiling examples, however,

Elena talked about taking a shower with the water being really hot and noticing that mirrors have

‘‘little spots on them,’’ and that ‘‘the whole bathroom is filled up with steam’’ (Intertextuality GE).

To that, Pamela added that ‘‘You can’t see the mirror . . . it’s kind of like part of clouds or

something . . . it’s kind of like a baby cloud.’’ And Roberto made sure that he talked about the

coldness of the mirror—‘‘it’s like the bubbles that Pamela said when it comes up it’s like the

mirror, the mirror when it’s cold it turns into a cloud’’ (Intertextuality PD). This condensation

example was complemented with another one by Roberto who shared that his little brother

breathes (and writes) on a cold train window in order ‘‘to practice his ABCs’’ (Intertextuality GE).

These children’s contributions support the interpretation that the different contexts and everyday

experiences that the children raised and discussed brought up different but sometimes similar

aspects of the phenomena explored and focused on. Boiling events centered on bubbles popping up

with steam in them, whereas condensation events made explicit the necessary difference between

temperatures—the water needs to be hot and the condensation surface needs to be cold. In the

context of these habitual generalized events that the children recounted, they expressed ideas using

scientific registers.

In the fourth and fifth lessons, children did not contribute ideas around evaporation and

condensation. The two read-alouds, What Is the World Made of?—Part 1 and Air Is All Around

You, did not lend themselves to such connections. The first part of the book What Is the World Made

of? presents examples and properties of each of the three states of matter (solids, liquids, and

gases) but does not refer to any changes from one state to another, which is the focus of the second

part of the book. Air Is All Around You presents ideas about the nature of air and its effect on life,

and shows and explains why a paper towel stuffed at the bottom of a cup that gets inverted into a

bowl of water does not get wet. Contributions around evaporation and condensation appeared

again in the sixth lesson where the students were engaged in two hands-on explorations, only to

reach their peak in the seventh lesson with three more explorations. In both these lessons, children

continued to explore models that they had brought up earlier, but they also added different models

and details. Antonio and Craig revealed anthropomorphic models for evaporation with the clouds

and the sun as causal factors: ‘‘The sun doesn’t make it go it’s the clouds that need more water’’

(Antonio); and ‘‘’cause the sun it wants more water so it can bring the water back down’’ (Craig)

(Intertextuality HOE).



Kristina thought about condensation and offered an analogy: ‘‘It was like so hot like . . .people when they’re . . . out in the summer all the heat . . . goes on them . . . they get all

sweaty’’ (Intertextuality GE). With her analogy, Kristina attempted to understand the ‘‘sweating’’

of the cookie sheet (which she observed in one of the hands-on explorations) using her sense of

people’s sweating in the summer. She focused on a commonality between the two phenomena,

namely how the kettle and the steam are hot and how hot it is in the summer. Although our sweating

is a complex phenomenon not explained by condensation as the sweating of the cookie sheet is,

this analogy represents an example of a reaching device to make sense in science. The analogy that

Kristina used, and the other analogies that we discuss in this study, are not merely ‘‘decorative or

helpful’’ in thinking, but they constitute thinking and meaning-making (Ogborn et al., 1996).

In these lessons children pondered: (a) what steam is; (b) how it changes into water; and (c)

what is needed for clouds to form. In the context of intertextual links to hands-on explorations

(Intertextuality HOE), Kristina thought that ‘‘vapor is like the air coming from water,’’ Brittany

thought that steam ‘‘is water vapor,’’ and Elena highlighted that ‘‘steam is water.’’ Julio made an

effort to incorporate in his thinking and talk the difference in temperatures that makes steam

‘‘visible,’’ by remarking that ‘‘steam’s made out of hot water and cold water’’ (Intertextuality PD).

Referring to a hands-on exploration in the classroom (Intertextuality HOE), Kristina focused on

changes from steam to liquid water—‘‘I think the water vapor is going on the cookie sheet and it’s

so hot and it looks like the water again on the cookie sheet but when the water vapor is coming

out . . . is coming up it looks like smoke or something . . . like if you put water in a teapot like that

and then the water vapor comes up the water is turning into a gas.’’ Brittany called the change into

liquid water ‘‘sweating’’ of the cookie sheet, and Mitch clarified Kristina’s point ‘‘because the

smoke is water . . .when you put your hand over it makes it water.’’ Finally, as several children

spoke about what is needed for clouds to be formed, different children brought up different

conceptual positions (in the context of Intertextuality HOE). Timothy highlighted that the sun is

needed to evaporate the water, Mitch spoke about how invisible little bubbles turn into clouds, and

Raoul noted how cold it needs to be for clouds to be formed (‘‘it doesn’t have the cold that’s why it

can’t make the clouds’’).

The children brought up an everyday experience, namely, the fogging up of a bathroom mirror

during a hot shower, which had been brought up earlier, and a new one that Elena initiated as she

talked about a humidifier used by people who have trouble breathing. As they talked about both of

these everyday experiences, the children mostly dealt with the invisibility of gases and the

visibility of liquids as they kept theorizing and wondering about what it is that they see and what

they do not or cannot see. The issue of visibility/invisibility became much more salient in these

lessons compared with the earlier ones.

In lessons 8, 9, and 10, as the class engaged in three more read-alouds (What Is the World

Made of?—Part 2, Down Comes the Rain, and Where Does Water Come From?) and the children

reported on their home exploration, more opportunities arose to consider evaporation, boiling, and

condensation. In these lessons, the children made references to the hands-on explorations they had

experienced, as, at the same time, they referred more frequently to implicit, generalized events

(Category IV), which reflect mostly scientific registers. The major characteristic of these sessions

was the questions the children asked. They wondered where the water goes if you wash your hands

and they dry, how come we don’t feel the water vapor, whether juice will evaporate if you leave it

on the table, and whether hot water evaporates faster than warm water. All these questions were

related to evaporation/boiling and show how the children used various intertextual links to wonder

about understandings they had not questioned so far. Similarly, in the last session (lesson 11),

Brittany, discussing the food coloring activity that was not directly related to evaporation or

condensation, asked: ‘‘How come the warm water has a little bit of fog around inside the cup and



the cold water doesn’t?’’ (Intertextuality HOE)—a question related to the children’s sense-making

around condensation.

In summary, this first analysis allows us to see how Amy’s class used intertextuality to reveal,

explore, and share understandings and registers about the phenomena of evaporation/boiling and

condensation throughout the unit. We saw that the children started out with references to a popular

TV show (i.e., The Magic School Bus), moved to discuss a particular weather condition present

that day (i.e., fog), and started offering a few models about how water gets to clouds and how rain is

made by recounting everyday experiences they had with water, vapor, melting, boiling,

temperature changes, etc. As the hands-on explorations started to take place in their classroom,

they used them to situate their understandings, and continued to offer models and analogies,

building at times on everyday experiences already brought up. Finally, they posed several

questions that were triggered by the multiple intertextual links that the children had witnessed or

contributed.

Analysis 2: Different Types of Intertextuality and How They Contributed to Thinking and

Talking About Evaporation, Boiling, and Condensation

We now turn to analyzing the various types of intertextuality and how they were related to the

children’s ways of thinking and talking about concepts related to evaporation, boiling, and

condensation. Table 2 shows counts of children’s contributions related to the phenomena of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation by type of intertextuality. We now also differentiate

between contributions that initiated (INI) a particular intertextual connection and those that

continued (CON) intertextual connections that were initiated by other speakers (another child or

Amy, the teacher). The types of intertextuality where contributions to these three phenomena

(evaporation, boiling, and condensation) were realized covered all main categories of

intertextuality shown in Appendix A (I1, I3, I4, II, III1, III2, IV) except I2 (other sayings,

poems, etc.).

Table 2 reveals that three types of intertextuality were salient in thinking and talking about

evaporation, boiling, and condensation. First, about half of the children’s contributions to these

concepts were associated with connections to hands-on explorations (HOE)—mostly those that

children were engaged with in class and some that they proposed as future explorations.

Generalized event intertextuality (a combination of recounting of generalized events [GE] and

implicit, generalized events [IGE]) was the next most frequent type of contribution made (with

about half as many contributions as HOE). Such combining makes sense in light of the similarities

that these two intertextuality categories share—similarities in terms of the linguistic registers

usually used to express such links, namely, timeless present-tense verbs typical of scientific

linguistic registers, generic nouns, and general ‘‘you’’ pronouns (as noted in the Theoretical

Table 2

Frequencies of intertextual links where ideas around evaporation, boiling, and condensation arose during

all the lessons of the States of Matter unit

Types of Intertextuality

COW OM PD HOE SE GE IGE Total

INI 0 1 5 6 4 11 14 41CON 1 1 16 57 2 4 2 83Total 1 2 21 63 6 15 16 124

Key: INI, initiation; CON, continuation.



Framework). Finally, links to prior classroom discourse (PD) was next in prevalence (with a third

as many contributions as HOE).

With regard to the breakdown between initiations versus continuations, continuations

dominated for both the HOE and PD categories, whereas initiations were most prevalent for

generalized event intertextuality. Amy was the more frequent initiator of HOE and PD intertex-

tuality, which offered children opportunities to engage with ideas as they explored data and prior

conversations. In contrast, her children made most of the initiations of all types of event

intertextuality (recounting of specific events [SE], recounting of generalized events [GE], and

implicit generalized events [IGE]).

Hands-On Exploration Intertextuality. As indicated earlier, intertextual links to hands-on

explorations were the most frequent contributions related to evaporation and condensation, both as

the children were describing what they saw, what happened, and when they attempted to explain

why these happened. Although spontaneous moves of theory-building emerged as the children

were engaged in observing and discussing particular explorations, Amy made most of the explicit

invitations of theory-building. She asked: ‘‘Any ideas why this one’s foggy and this one isn’t?’’;

‘‘How does a cloud get on the can?’’; ‘‘It’s turning back to liquid, how is that happening?’’; ‘‘Why

did that one lose more?’’ Two children also made requests for explanations:

Kristina: How come that thing [teapot] isn’t making clouds?

Brittany: How come the warm water has a little bit of fog around inside the cup and the

cold water doesn’t?

There were also occasions when children offered their theory without being asked explicitly

to do so. For example, children theorized when Amy asked them what they had noticed about the

jars, or what they had noticed about the pop can while at their desks, or what they had thought

would happen to the three paper towels, or which one of the jars had less water.

As children continued or initiated connections to hands-on explorations, they explored ideas,

such as:

� The ‘‘coldness’’ needed for condensation. Kristina said: ‘‘The cold like the cold air

comes out . . . it’s sort of like the vapor from the water comes out of the cup and goes

around.’’ Although Kristina did not seem to think of the vapor in the air as she tried to

explain why the cup of water with the ice in it was foggy, while the cup with only water

(no ice) was not, she played around with the idea of water vapor and ‘‘coldness.’’ Raoul

explained that the water boiling in a teapot ‘‘doesn’t have the cold, that’s why it can’t

make the clouds.’’

� The idea that water needs to stick somewhere to form clouds. Brittany said: ‘‘when you

take the cooking tray from over it, it can’t make clouds because it doesn’t . . . have

anything to make it stick together.’’

� The nature of vapor. As she was describing what she saw coming out of the kettle,

Kristina said: ‘‘vapor is like air coming from water.’’ Although researchers (e.g.,

Johnson, 1998) have documented that children (even older ones, i.e., ages 11–14) think

of vapor as air, and thus do not portray substance conservation when it comes to

evaporation/boiling, we should consider an alternative interpretation of Kristina’s

contribution. Kristina said that vapor is like air. Thus, air, for Kristina, may represent

her linguistic term for gases, exhibiting a potential appreciation that vapor is a gas that

is associated with water. We do not know whether she thought that vapor is water.

However, her contribution reveals her developing concept of the gaseous state. Another

child, Mitch, described what came out of boiling water as ‘‘air water.’’ His hybrid



concept of ‘‘air water’’ comes close to gaseous water—that is, his use of a familiar

wording (‘‘air’’) may signify for him something in the gaseous state.

Generalized Event Intertextuality. As indicated earlier, generalized events were the second

most frequent type of intertextuality used, with children initiating most of them. In generalized

event intertextuality, both recounting of generalized events and implicit generalized events,

children engaged in a variety of ‘‘inquiry acts.’’ Julio wondered about the relationship between the

bathroom being filled up with steam and the fact that ‘‘the water in the bathroom doesn’t boil.’’

Michele offered an analogy: ‘‘When it’s hot in the summer we sweat like the shower and the steam

goes up on the mirror.’’ Craig eventually spoke about the bathroom mirror being foggy ‘‘’cause

when I get out of the shower and I turn off the water it be gas all over, it’s like air and gas, you can

see the gas.’’ Although Craig does not seem to realize that you cannot see the gas, he does seem to

know that what fills the bathroom is gas. However, perhaps because gas was a new word for him,

he co-joined it with air, a lexical term that he was more familiar with. Pamela spoke of bubbles

filled with steam while water was boiling. Khalif spoke about the breaking up of the fog, ‘‘you see

it go away and it goes in pieces it like breaks out and disappears.’’ Bringing up a humidifier, Elena

shared that ‘‘you can see the water,’’ and linked that with seeing the water on the cookie sheet that

sits on top of boiling water. Martin wondered, ‘‘If you wash your hands and they dry where do the

water go?’’ Ayanna told him that it is evaporating to a cloud. Mitch theorized about getting a

pop from the pop machine—‘‘the air all around us makes it warm and it gets all that foggy stuff on

it’’—which was conceptually a different line of reasoning from the canonical scientific

explanation.

Prior Discourse Intertextuality. References to prior discourse—the third frequent intertex-

tual category, used and initiated mostly by Amy—offered further opportunities for children to

express their understandings and attempt to make meaning of developing ideas and linguistic

registers. For example, as a continuation of Amy’s link to prior classroom discourse (‘‘Did we say

gases are invisible?’’), Craig claimed, ‘‘But when I get out of the shower I can see it.’’ His remark

then prompted Brittany to argue ‘‘you’re seeing the fog and the breath, you’re seeing the hot water

fog.’’ Craig seemed to be struggling between the idea of gas invisibility and the fact that he sees

something in the bathroom that he thought was a gas. Brittany, on the other hand, negotiated this

tension by thinking about fog, which she seemed to see as different from a gas.

In summary, the children in Amy’s class used various semiotic resources to make sense of

evaporation and condensation and to communicate their ideas/concepts around these phenomena.

They did not have particular canonical words as available lexical terms, but they used what they

had to reason and theorize about these phenomena. As Kress (2000) noted:

Our interests in interpretation and communication at a particular point are never readily

matched by the existent semiotic resources, but rather . . .we choose the most apt forms,

the forms already most suited by virtue of their existing potentials, for the representation of

our meanings. As there is never a total ‘‘fit,’’ the resources are always transformed. (p. 155)

Two examples highlight this point. As the class was discussing how the rain dries up, a child

(who we could not identify) offered that ‘‘it melts.’’ During a later lesson, Kristina shared with the

class that she had told her mom that the air around the glass with ice and water, shown in the read-

aloud book Down Comes the Rain, ‘‘attaches and it sort of freezes and it sticks onto the glass.’’

Both these children theorized about phenomena using terms that scientists use for different

phenomena. The first child described evaporation using melting. Kristina described condensation



using freezing. In both cases, the children chose terms from processes young children are usually

more familiar with. However, what is worth noting is that they chose processes that involve a

similar transformation to the process they were describing. In other words, for evaporation, the

transformation from liquid to gaseous state, the first child used melting, the transformation from

solid to liquid, a process that involves changing to a more unstructured and more dynamic state,

like the process of evaporation. Similarly, for condensation, the transformation from gaseous to

liquid state (the reverse process of evaporation), Kristina used freezing (the reverse process of

melting), the transformation from liquid to solid, a process that involves changing to a more

structured state by taking away heat, like condensation does. Such substitutions of lexical terms

show children’s attempts to talk and make sense of science using the thinking and the language

associated with experiences they have already amassed. As the children communicated their ideas

they used words that had certain meanings for them. These words took new meanings as the

children tried to use them to explore evaporation and condensation. Ogborn and colleagues (1996)

noted: ‘‘Communicating necessarily implies both newness and sameness. Signs get meaning from

their contrasts with others, yet make those contrasts anew each time’’ (p. 59).

Analysis 3: Meaning-Making of Individual Students in the Process of Intertextuality

In the two preceding analyses, our lens was first on the scope and progression of intertex-

tuality regarding evaporation, boiling, and condensation over the course of the unit, and then on the

particular categories of intertextuality (those raised as initiations and continuations) that were

the most salient in the unit. In our discussion of these analyses, we used children’s ideas and

wordings to illustrate the patterns that emerged. We now focus on particular children. Of the 124

contributions that the children made related to evaporation, condensation, and boiling during the

11 lessons, 113 were contributed by children who we were able to identify in the videotapes

and their transcripts. Nineteen children made the 113 contributions that ranged from 1 to 15

contributions per child. The mean number of contributions per child was 5.9. Examining the

distribution of these contributions, we found that the four top contributors together offered 50

contributions, a little less than half of all the contributions we could attribute to particular children.

Therefore, we selected these four children to develop detailed profiles for each one of them of both

the concepts and the linguistic registers used to express and further develop these concepts. It turns

out that the list of the four top contributors was split equally between girls and boys—Ayanna and

Brittany with 11 and 15 contributions, respectively, and Mitch and Roberto with 12 contributions

each.

Ayanna. Ayanna, a black girl, made 11 contributions relevant to the phenomena of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation. Most of them were initiations of intertextual links from a

range of intertextuality categories.

She mostly used typical scientific registers—timeless present-tense, generic nouns, the

general pronouns ‘‘we’’ and ‘‘you.’’ She seemed to struggle throughout the unit to describe and

understand what she saw. Early on she noted that she could not see anything with fog and she

talked about it as being soft and clear (meaning, for her, colorless) and ‘‘clouds hanging down.’’

She associated fog with what happens in the bathroom mirror when hot water is running. This

pushed her to claim that ‘‘you can see the steam.’’ She brought up ‘‘bubbles’’ as the entity that gets

transported on the mirror and the cookie sheet. But, as Amy read more of the information books

and paraphrased students’ ideas, helping children see the phenomena in more scientifically

accepted ways, Ayanna tried to coordinate her own conceptions with those Amy was bringing to

the class. She asked: ‘‘Is water vapor everywhere? How come we can’t feel it? How come we can’t

see the water when we’re boiling it?’’ She also wondered about the difference in the rate of



evaporation of different temperature water: ‘‘If you put hot water and you leave it there . . . like if a

hot and like warm . . .which would go faster?’’

Almost all of Ayanna’s contributions (except her questions, of course) included an ‘‘I think’’

structure in them, which may reflect several different tendencies. Such a structure may indicate

uncertainty on her part as one who feels the need to qualify her contributions. Or, it may indicate a

style that uses ‘‘I think’’ as a preface to mark the ideas as tentative and revisable, thereby inviting

contributions by other speakers to join in the theorizing. Or, it may portray a speaker who is not

afraid of or reserved about making her thoughts public, possibly signaling debate and discussion.

In some ways, Ayanna’s contributions seemed to fit all these tendencies. As Ayanna tried to make

sense of evaporation and condensation, she showed ambivalence, but she also took risks by sharing

her ways of thinking about these phenomena and associated ideas, and her contributions generated

further sharing by other children and by Amy.

Brittany. Brittany, a black girl, made 15 contributions relevant to the phenomena of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation. Most of them were continuations of intertextual links that

either Amy or other children had initiated. Also, most of these links were references to hands-on

explorations that were done in class or hypothetical ones that she or other children wondered

about.

Brittany played around with several ideas as she was making sense of evaporation, boiling,

and condensation. She thought that the sun takes the water (transportation model), and she

indicated that heat had something to do with evaporation. She even wondered about what would

happen if you combine heat and ‘‘coldness,’’ so to speak—‘‘What would happen if you had juice in

a cup and you put it in the refrigerator and the refrigerator had light in would the juice evaporate?’’

She appeared to have the seeds of thinking about condensation but she did not quite put them

together. She claimed that water needs something to stick to in order to form clouds, and she also

thought that the cookie sheet ‘‘sweats’’ because ‘‘the water starts to get cold.’’ However, she could

not use these ideas to explain why the cup with the ice in it ‘‘drips.’’ She seemed to be content to

claim that the cup must be wet to start with. She said: ‘‘I think the reason why when you put ice in

the cup and before you put ice in the cup and it’s on the sink I think that because when you wash the

cup and then when you wash the dishes and you put the cup on the sink and it’s still wet and then

you put ice in the cup I think that’s what makes the cup drip.’’ Thus, Brittany consistently did not

refer to changes of states of matter. Her ways of thinking about how rain gets formed and why the

cold can gets wet fit the transportation model she held. But, she wondered during the food coloring

activity, ‘‘How come the warm water has a little bit of fog around inside the cup and the cold water

doesn’t?’’ Brittany differentiated evaporation from boiling in terms of the temperature of water.

She also knew that steam is water vapor. She only used the ‘‘I think’’ structure in three of her

contributions. She used scientific registers to explicate her ideas.

Mitch. Mitch, a white boy, made 12 contributions having to do with the phenomena of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation. Most of them were continuations of intertextual links that

Amy (and on only two occasions, other children) generally initiated. Most of these links were

references to hands-on explorations that were done in class.

Mitch often used unconventional words to describe evaporation, boiling, and condensation—

words that might signal problematic understandings. However, his hybrid registers captured his

attempt to articulate intuitions and understandings that are close to those that are scientifically

accepted. Mitch shared, ‘‘Fog is like smoke because you can’t see no one ’cause smoke’s blocking

them.’’ Although, on the surface, Mitch seemed to be confusing fog with smoke, his explanation

showed that he used a particular function of smoke (blocking) as a similarity with fog. Later,

describing what he saw coming out of the kettle in the cookie-sheet exploration, he shared, ‘‘Since

the water is boiling it gets hot and it makes water come out and it makes smoke . . . [smoke is]



water.’’ Also, he showed that he knew that water was formed on the cookie sheet that was put close

to the boiling water. He constructed his own term, ‘‘air water,’’ to describe what was on the cookie

sheet, and he later continued that the water was turning back to liquid on the cookie sheet, ‘‘First

when the water goes up it’s like a drop of air and then when it goes up it turns to little bubbles and

you can’t see it and then it turns to clouds.’’ He used linguistic registers that signified different

states of matter—‘‘bubbles’’ and ‘‘air water,’’ indicating water in the gaseous stage that eventually

‘‘turns to’’ clouds. Mitch thought that, when water boils, ‘‘it makes water come out and it makes

smoke.’’ Keeping in mind Mitch’s overall reasoning, we can interpret his use of ‘‘smoke’’ as

meaning water vapor. Thus, Mitch shared, through intertextual connections, a scientifically

sound understanding of evaporation and boiling. However, he had a limited understanding of

condensation. For him, instead of the ‘‘coldness’’ that is significant in condensation, warmth

was a salient element: ‘‘[The warm water cup is foggy in the food coloring activity] because

the warm is making steam and it goes on the cup’’; ‘‘When you get the pop from the pop

machine the air all around us makes it warm and it gets all that foggy stuff on it.’’ Mitch did not use

the ‘‘I think’’ structure. Furthermore, his language had all the typical elements of the scientific

genre.

Roberto. Roberto, a Hispanic boy, made 12 contributions regarding the phenomena of

evaporation, boiling, and condensation. Most were initiations of different types of intertextual

links—recounting of specific and generalized events and implicit generalized events, references to

prior classroom discourse, and references to hands-on explorations. Event intertextuality was

slightly more pronounced than the others.

Over time, Roberto’s thinking addressed important aspects of evaporation, boiling, and

condensation. At the beginning he agreed with other students, including Pamela, that ‘‘fog is

clouds down near the floor,’’ but he struggled to coordinate that with his experience that fog does

not feel the same as rain. ‘‘It’s like the drips of rain are invisible or something . . . but we won’t be

able to feel the rain.’’ Roberto used the term ‘‘invisible’’ to express this lack of feeling and not

necessarily lack of seeing. He negotiated the ‘‘invisibility’’ of fog by treating it as air: ‘‘Fog is like

air because you can walk through fog.’’ Later, when Amy referred to the invisibility of the water

that goes up to form rain by acknowledging another student’s (Timothy’s) contribution referring to

other media (i.e., The Magic School Bus television show), Roberto spoke about invisibility as the

inability to see, ‘‘[Water going up is invisible because] it’s clear and far away and it’s small.’’

He offered reasons to explain the invisibility, none of which are canonical and scientific, but,

nevertheless, show his theorizing in the midst of intertextuality. Furthermore, discussing specific

events, Roberto referred to boiling water and spoke about ‘‘bubbles that come up . . . they

pop . . . and it’s like they disappear . . . and it’s like somebody’s hitting them and then there’s steam

flying out.’’ And he made an analogy between boiling water and taking a shower. As he referred to

condensation situations, he explicitly talked about the ‘‘coldness’’ of the environment and/or

surface: ‘‘It’s like the mirror, the mirror when it’s cold it turns into a cloud’’ and ‘‘Sometimes when

me and my little brother and my mom are on a train he breathes when it’s cold he breathes on the

window to practice his ABCs.’’ In the midst of his theorizing about how a cloud gets on the cold

pop can, he added: ‘‘[A cloud is not formed on the teacher’s hand] because it’s not cold.’’ None of

Roberto’s contributions included ‘‘I think.’’

In summary, our analysis of the four top child contributors with regard to evaporation, boiling,

and condensation further helps us see the children’s knowledge of concepts and registers as

dialogic, interactional, and distributive. Their understandings of these concepts evolved over

time as the members of Amy’s class talked about them as a joint endeavor. Each of the children we

analyzed offered different aspects of the science phenomena, yet their contributions shared some

similarities. Thus, we see a dynamic interplay between convergence and divergence of ideas.



The contributions that these children made were what Cope and Kalantzis (2000) called

‘‘polymorphous’’ reconstructions. These contributions reflected each child’s own representational

resources based on his or her unique mix of various life-world experiences, but among these four

children we see a multiplicity of modes of meaning-making. As the children brought up networks

of ideas, their thinking and talking seem emergent, fluid, adaptive, and dynamic.

Conclusions and Discussion

Amy’s goal was to engage her students as agents in their own thinking. Initiations and

continuations of intertextual links offered the children opportunities to begin to fathom and

exercise their own capabilities to theorize and engage in scientific activity. Intertextuality offered

them opportunities to make ideas salient and to reveal and develop relationships within a system of

concepts. They talked about properties, characteristics, details, and various ways of making sense.

It was this polyphony of ways of looking at these phenomena that constituted their understanding

and engagement with science. Intertextuality allowed, enabled, and fostered meaning-making

and grappling with conceptual understandings. It facilitated articulation that involves making

salient certain aspects of one’s thinking about the world and naming these aspects and their

characteristics. Intertextuality offered students opportunities to problematize situations they

have experienced in one way or another and wonder about them or aspects of them. Thus,

intertextuality, as it was played out in Amy’s dialogically oriented teaching, was a semiotic

resource, a tool that promoted the Vygotskian interaction between the children’s spontaneous

ways of theorizing and making sense and science’s mature ways of understanding the phenomena

of evaporation, boiling, and condensation.

In all three analyses, we see children grappling with complex ideas. Initiating or continuing

constructive and productive links to texts, broadly defined, gave them spaces to grapple with these

complex ideas and ways of expressing them. The children in Amy’s class seemed interested in

these complex ideas, with sustained interest over time. They engaged with the ideas at their own

level and, although at times their ideas seemed ‘‘naive’’ and non-canonical, they portray, we

believe, a deep and worthwhile attempt to understand, to make meaning, and to go back and forth

between data and ideas. Children showed a wealth of knowledge that did not have a ‘‘tidy’’

structure, yet it was shared and developed in subtle and deeply contextualized ways. Their

knowledge of the evaporation, boiling, and condensation phenomena seems like a ‘‘jungle, with

luxuriant growth [but] weak in fibrous strength’’ (Atkin & Black, 2003, p. 139). Their inventions

around these phenomena had intellectual mileage and rigor that they can build on as they explore

these topics further in higher grades.

Thus, our study supports Tytler’s (2000) and Tytler and Peterson’s (2000) finding that

previous research has underestimated young children’s conceptual sophistication around these

phenomena. However, unlike Tytler’s (2000) finding that the Year 1 children did not use personal

episodes to make sense of these phenomena (at least they used them much less frequently than

Year 6 children), our study revealed a plethora of personal experiences and episodes that our

second graders brought in the classroom discussions around read-alouds and hands-on

explorations for making sense of the phenomena of evaporation, boiling, and conversation. This

discrepancy further highlights the need to go beyond interviews as a data collection method if we

are to understand what children may do, think, and talk of if given space to engage with multiple

texts, broadly defined, and attempt to make multiple connections.

Our study further shows that, in the midst of various types of intertextuality, children

predominantly used scientific genre and registers to express and develop their understandings

about evaporation, boiling, and condensation. Typical scientific wordings were seen—timeless



present-tense verbs, generic nouns, third-person (rather than personal) or the general ‘‘you’’

pronouns, and ‘‘if– or when–then’’ and ‘‘because’’ constructions. Even in the context of links to

hands-on explorations and to prior discourse, both of which encourage students to refer to their

specific actions or past events, children used mostly scientific language. However, several of the

registers they used—mostly their lexical use—differed from the typical, canonical scientific

registers. Nevertheless, they represent children’s complex and sophisticated, at times, attempts to

theorize using their everyday, colloquial language, or creating inventive ‘‘reaching devices’’

(Lindfors, 1999). Like Kress (2000), we see the children’s emerging and hybrid thinking and

language as a strength that needs to be celebrated as opposed to an inadequate competence, or as

Kress called it a ‘‘pathology,’’ which needs to be remedied.

As noted in the Theoretical Framework, a characteristic of scientific practice is the dialectical

relationship, the interplay, between theory and data—between developing a network of concepts

and processes that are logically linked and have explanatory power, and examining empirical

evidence collected through observations and experiments. The many intertextual links that the

children either continued or initiated, that hosted their contributions regarding evaporation,

boiling, and condensation, dealt with the data level of scientific practice. Such contributions

centered on links to hands-on explorations that the class had been engaged in, or events that

children brought up where relevant ideas were involved. However, as this empirical evidence was

brought up, Amy and the children engaged in thinking about ‘‘why’’—why a particular event

happens, what it means and what would happen in a different case, all of these being important

aspects of theorizing, developing ways to explain these events, and understanding them using

conceptual networks that justify these empirical data. Thus, intertextuality was many times the

catalyst for the ‘‘theory–data dance’’ that the class engaged in.

Furthermore, as the children in Amy’s second grade class engaged in intertextuality they

opened themselves to observing, recounting, explaining, and imagining. As Medawar (1982)

explained:

Scientific reasoning is therefore at all levels an interaction between two episodes of

thought—a dialogue between two vices, the one imaginative and the other critical; a

dialogue . . . between what might be true and the actual, between proposal and disposal;

between what might be true and what is in fact the case. (p. 46)

As at several times, the children in Amy’s class used ‘‘I think’’ discourse offerings, they

promoted progressive dialogic inquiry that allowed for many other viewpoints to be considered

(Wells, 1999). Also, as the viewpoints were articulated, even without the scientifically appropriate

registers, opportunities were unfolding for children to be engaged in Medawar’s ‘‘proposal’’ and

‘‘actual.’’ What appeared particularly powerful in Amy’s class was the role that the intertextual

links to hands-on explorations and generalized event intertextuality (as a way of thinking in the

world) played in children’s engagement with concepts and registers. It was the experiences that the

children had that allowed them to construe a context in which concepts/ideas and language could

be explored. Furthermore, there were multiple paths that this community of learners took to share

and produce knowledge throughout the unit.

Thus, we see this study as contributing to the slowly increasing research that addresses

Calabrese Barton, Ermer, Burkett, and Osborne’s (2003) call for ‘‘centering on what youth

bring—rather than what they lack—[thus refocusing] how we think about . . . science education’’

(p. 33). The children used their own experiences as important science events—occasions integral

to grappling with scientific ideas (Heath, 1982, as cited in Calabrese Barton et al., 2003). They

activated their resources within the classroom community that Amy had developed in her



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245919622_Dialogic_Inquiry_Towards_A_Sociocultural_Practice_and_Theory_of_Education?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-1d1e0952-cfcc-417b-9ab4-66f902205a68&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyOTcyODgxODtBUzoxNDcxNTMxMTI1MzkxMzZAMTQxMjA5NTQ0NDE5OQ==

classroom where dialogic, collaborative interactions between teacher and children, and among

children themselves, were the norm. Their individual resourcefulness added up to something

bigger. Various children brought up various ideas and various contexts, and they also referred to

and used other children’s and Amy’s ideas and contexts. Although some children showed

preference for a certain way of thinking about evaporation, boiling, and condensation, our data do

not point toward a definite conclusion relative to whether children subscribe or not to a particular

conceptual position. What is clear from our data is that children had multiple, complex, and often

speculative, tentative, and emergent ways of accessing and interpreting these phenomena—a

finding that is in agreement with those of Tytler and Peterson (2000). Moreover, our results support

their conclusion that children’s conceptions are contextually based—our study showed that

different contexts offered opportunities for students to theorize about different aspects of the

phenomena (along with some similar aspects). However, we also showed that various students

may theorize about aspects of the same phenomena in different ways. Thus, our investigation

underscores the variation in children’s conceptual positions—the complexity of their thinking—

within a particular context. In this way, our findings seem to lend more support to diSessa’s (1993)

construct of children’s knowledge as knowledge in pieces as opposed to coherent and stable

conceptual frameworks and models.

The data of this study also portray an ownership of ideas. As they contributed to

intertextuality, the children and Amy stretched, bent, and at times moved closer to canonical

meanings, as they also extended their own meanings and created new ones. Many unplanned

opportunities arose, large and small. As they took up these opportunities, children showed courage

and confidence that reflected openness and risk-taking. In some ways, as they wondered and

thought about their own everyday experiences and the hands-on explorations they had engaged

in in the classroom, they made their experiences ‘‘strange’’ in order to cast new light on them.

They made their experiences problematic, challenging the mere acceptance of them, and thus

attempting to understand how different aspects of them fit together and the reasons behind them.

Thus, the findings of this study highlight the need to enter the students’ world if we are to

fathom what they know and how we might reach them. We challenge Macbeth’s (2000) assertion

that ‘‘what students already know of their everyday worlds is an enormous resource for classroom

instruction and academic success in other content areas . . . but, prior knowledge tends not to act

this way in matters of science education, and what are assets elsewhere prove to be liabilities’’

(p. 233). What we need is increased sensitivity to understand whether or not children are making

sense and what sense they are making. We need to listen to them, draw them out, and have genuine

conversations about their attempts to understand. This is exactly what dialogic, collaborative

teaching at its best can really afford us. Otherwise, children’s ideas and potential understandings

may remain undetected and unexamined. We need to listen to young children’s thinking and value

their ideas and their talk, and eventually become more attuned to their various and complex ways

of speaking and thinking about advanced concepts in complex phenomena. Kohl (2002) wrote

about the ‘‘attunement’’ and the ‘‘topsy-turvies’’ that teachers need to make all the time in the

service of their students. He wrote: ‘‘Teaching is a blessedly complex activity which requires

complex and continual attunement, and in which the upside downs of topsy-turvy life in the

classroom are one of the great joys and privileges of spending a life with children’’ (p. 161). The

three interrelated analyses in the present study show examples of the plethora of children’s

complex ways of thinking and speaking that we need to be attuned to and to begin to see in a new

light.

An earlier version of this work was presented at the annual conference of the American

Educational Research Association (AERA), April 2003, Chicago, IL. The data presented,

statements made, and views expressed herein are solely the responsibilities of the authors.



Notes

1The first unit was about how things move, addressing and developing ideas about various types of

motion defined by constructs such as direction, speed, acceleration, and forces that lead to changes in motion.2We have given the label ‘‘transportation model’’ to the way of thinking about evaporation as a process

where liquid water is ‘‘transported’’ to the clouds due to various agents (sun, wind, air), instead of the

scientifically accepted way of thinking of rain formation as a process that involves transformation of states of

matter—namely, liquid water changing to water vapor (evaporation) that rises, and then water vapor changing

back to liquid water (condensation) in the clouds.

Appendix A

Categories of intertextuality identified in the States of Matter unit.

Type of Intertextual Connection Definition of Connection Examples

Category I(1) Written texts

(a) Information books in unit Refers to a particular informationbook by title, or by noting otherinformation books in the unit.

Ooh, lightning. We’re going to reada book called Flash, Crash, Rumble,and Roll and that one has some stuffabout lightning [G2, WTWT, TI]

(b) Text around classroom(on charts, board, etc.)

Refers to a written text foundon charts, the board, etc.

Remember how I did that on the board toshow. That’s kind of just to show yousomething that’s invisible, okay?[G2,DCTR, TI]

(c) Other books available(in or outside of classroom)

Refers to other books in oroutside the classroom.

Now, I’m going to go over to get a book. Infact, Alejandro, no, Manuel, you go overand get the Emperor Penguin book. [G1,WSCU, TI]

(d) Children’s own writing (and/ordrawings)

Refers to children’s ownwriting (and/or drawings).

Just like we’ve done for the last couple ofdays I’m going to give you your datasheet . . . You’re going to draw andyou’re going to write about what’s theweather like today. [G1, WDYSC, TI]

(2) Other texts (orally shared)Poems, rhymes, sayings, songs Refers to a poem, rhyme, saying,

or song, by orally sharingsome part or all of it.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man issnoring. [G1, WTWT, CI]

(3) Other mediaTV/radio shows or movies Refers to a television/radio

show or a movie.I was watching Ms. Frizzle it was like it was

raining and the wind was blowing in thewater and it was like the windn flew upand made the clouds. [G2, WTWT, CI]

(4) Prior classroom discourse(a) In current read-aloud session Refers to prior discourse in the

current read-aloud session.You know, probably in the month

of March just like Alexandra said.[G1, WSCU, TI]

(b) In unit, but outside presentsession

Refers to prior discourse in theunit, but not in the presentsession.

The other day Julio was kind of describingthem [tornadoes] as having hands thatcan pick things up, right? ’Causethey’re so strong. [G2, WSCU, TI]

(c) Outside unit Refers to prior discourse relatedto previous units or othercurriculum outside unit.

Remember we talked about the equatorand people who live around the middlepart of the earth are always warm.[G1, WTWT, TI]

(Continued )



Appendix A (Continued)

Type of Intertextual Connection Definition of Connection Examples

Category IIHands-on explorations

(1) Within unit in classroom Refers to classroom explorationswithin the unit.

Now one half of the class yesterday wasup here in front with me and we wereheating up the teapot and we wereseeing the exact thing, right? [G2,WIWMO, TI]

(2) Other explorations Refers to other explorations(at-home explorationsdeveloped for other units, otherexplorations conducted athome or at other settings).

[Students had done evaporationexperiments using water.] If you leftlike juice on the table would itevaporate?[G2, DCTR, CI]

Category IIIRecounting events

(1) Specific events(a) Personal, specific events Refers to a personal, specific

event.Last time I poured cold water in my plate

cause I was gonna use my mom’s waterand I seen (***) and I seen air comingup. [G1, AIAAY, CI]

(b) Personally related, othersinvolved specific events

Refers to specific events in whichspeakers are not personallyinvolved, but others who theyknow are.

One time everybody was asleep and mylittle cousin she woke up early and thenshe was looking out the window andthen she’s like ‘‘Mommy, Mommy!’’ andthey all looked out the window. It was atornado [G2, WSCU, CI]

(c) Impersonal specific events Refers to specific events in whichspeakers do not indicate anypersonal involvement, but areknown to them and arereported on.

It’s 65. We’re breaking records. It’s notsupposed to be 65. It’s supposed to bethe 30s. It’s still winter. [G1,WDYSC, TI]

(2) Generalized events(a) Personal, generalized events Refers to personal, generalized

events that are habitual actions.This is what I do in the bathtub. [He takes

the cup, pushes it in the water upsidedown, and then lets go of it.] [G2,AIAAY, CI]

(b) Personally related, othersinvolved generalized events

Refers to generalized, habitualevents in which speakers arenot personally involved, butothers they know are.

Like my brother, he goes downstairs, that’shis room, got to go downstairs.[G1,WSCU, CI]

Category IV‘‘Implicit’’ generalized events Refers to generalized events in

which speakers do notindicate any explicit personalinvolvement. However, theyseem to implicitly refer toevents they could/should havehabitually experienced.

Like when you leave your milk for a longtime in the refrigerator it will becomethick. [G2, WIWMO, CI]

Key: G1, first grade; G2, second grade. Read-aloud book: WTWT, What Is the Weather Today?; WSCU, When a Storm

Comes Up; WDYSC, What Do You See in a Cloud?; WIWMO, What Is the World Made Of?; AIAAY, Air Is All Around You;

DCTR, Down Comes the Rain. CI, child-initiated; TI, teacher-initiated.



Appendix B

Sequence of read-alouds and unit explorations/activities. Note: The explorations/activities

listed occurred the day of the read-aloud or subsequently.

Information Book Read-Aloud Other Explorations/Activities

RA1—What’s the Weather Today? Begin weather charts/logs(worked on over several days).

RA2—When a Storm Comes UpRA3—What Do You See in a Cloud? Set up of class evaporation exploration

(occurred over the course of the unit, wherestudents periodically observed and wrote upon-going findings)

[Four similar jars with colored tap water: two on awindow sill (one with and one without a lid), onein cold dark closet, one by a heater. All jars havetape-marked level of water and date.]

RA4—What Is the World Made of? All aboutSolids, Liquids, and Gases, Part I (pp. 1–16)

Small-group exploration: Categorizing items (e.g.,box of juice, eraser, paper clip, balloons with airand helium, hand lotion, empty cup, container ofhoney, etc.)

RA5—Air Is All Around You Teacher demonstration of cup with napkinexploration; then small-group exploration[Napkin stuffed in cup submerged first straightdown in bowl of colored water, then submergedslanted.]

Explorations on melting:Half of class (in small groups)—ice melting incups of water in different temperatures(hot and cold)Half of class (in small groups)—ice melting indifferent ways, in a bowl, in your hand(ice in baggie)

Whole-class evaporation exploration: paper toweldrying

[Three wet paper towels were placed in threeconditions: in crumbled ball; laying on flatsurface; hanging up.]

Explorations on condensation: Half of class(in small groups)—pop can taken out of freezer.

Half of class (teacher demonstration)—steam andcold cookie sheet

RA6—What Is the World Made of? All aboutSolids, Liquids, and Gases, Part II (pp. 17–end)

Exploration: Acting out of molecule model.[Whole-class exploration with childrenpretending to be molecules of a substance indifferent states of matter. Children wiggled ormoved around and held hands (or not) tosymbolize molecule bonding in solids, liquids,and gases.]

RA7—Down Comes the Rain Parent–Child Home Exploration Project:

� Book: Down Comes the Rain� Exploration: Paper towel

drying/evaporation—exploring ways to foldthem, and places to put them.

� Writing: Child Booklet and Parent Page.� Class reporting on home project.

(Continued )



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Appendix B (Continued)

Information Book Read-Aloud Other Explorations/Activities

Exploration: Food coloring dropped in cup ofroom-temperature water.

Small-group exploration (at separate tables) witheach child observing and depicting (throughdrawing on handouts) how food coloring getdispersed in water over time.

Teacher demonstration of same exploration intwo cups—one with hot water and one withcold water; children observing and depicting(via drawing on hand-outs) dispersion of foodcoloring.

Small-group literature circles with children’s lit-erature information books, which are then sharedwith whole class:

� Feel the Wind (Dorros, 1989).� Snow Is Falling (Branley, 1986).� Water (Canizares & Chanko, 1998).� What Will the Weather Be? (DeWitt, 1991).

Writing of own illustrated, information book.Students wrote (and drew) in science journals across the whole unit.

Students engaged in whole-class discussions around hands-on explorations across the whole unit.



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