The Effect of Using Different Multi Modal Representations within Writing to Learn Activities on Learning Force and Motion Unit at the Middle School Setting

Conventional writing strategies tend to support copying the information rather than re/representation of the information (Gunel, Hand, & Prain, 2007). However, it was stressed that writing activities should be adapted to science courses in such a way to help students to understand fundamental ideas of science and the value of writing in science (Holiday, Yore, & Alverman, 1994). Since this activity and writing awareness include and require internal negotiation of the students about science, technology and environmental issues and the interaction of the students with different levels of the society, the writing activity becomes different from conventional forms of writing (Yore, Hand, & Prain, 2002). Prain and Hand (1996) devised a framework for the use of writing to learn in science. This framework provides opportunity to students to think deeply and express their ideas of science through use of writing. Aligned with the research findings in their theoretical framework, Prain and Hand concluded that in writing to learn activities in the area of science, writing should include five critical elements. These elements include writing objectives, writing types, the audience, subject matter containing concept clusters and method of text production (Hand & Prain, 2002). Critical combination of those elements can yield meaningful science learning. Further, they argued that language especially writing has an essential role in doing science as well as learning science. Norris and Phillips (2003) reported that language has two main roles in science literacy. The first role is that reading and writing are not only simple tools providing communication and storage of information in science. As the fundamental components of science, reading and writing have an integrative role. These structures are among the primary components that form the whole. The second view about literacy is the fundamental view of scientific literacy. This fundamental view requires understanding, interpreting, analyzing and criticizing a the whole that makes science. Lemke (2004) reported that “scientific literacy does not mean understanding scientific phenomenon and concepts. Instead, it means the ability of forming collective meaning with visual representations, mathematical relationships, manual or technical operations and verbal concepts” (p.38). Hand, Gunel and Ulu (2009) enhanced this scientific literacy view with different modes of representation. Since modes of representation are not directly understood like reading and writing but are integrated parts of reading and writing, it is necessary to understand function of the modes. In other words, science is not only the perception of the written part of the text. Literature includes a limited number of studies on the use of multi modal representation within writing to learn activities.