Page 1 |
Save page Remove page | Previous | 1 of 170 | Next |
|
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
large ( > 500x500)
Full Resolution
All (PDF)
|
This page
All
Subset |
ACADEMIC WRITING IN A CORPUS OF 4TH GRADE SCIENCE
NOTEBOOKS: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENT LANGUAGE USE AND
ADULT EXPECTATIONS OF THE GENRES OF SCHOOL SCIENCE
by
Alberto Esquinca
_________________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(EDUCATION)
December 2006
Copyright 2006 Alberto Esquinca
Object Description
| Title | Academic writing in a corpus of 4th grade science notebooks: an analysis of student language use and adult expectations of the genres of school science |
| Author | Esquinca, Alberto |
| Author email | esquinca@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Education (Curriculum & Instruction) |
| School | Rossier School of Education |
| Date defended/completed | 2006-07-18 |
| Date submitted | 2006 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2006-03-06 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Rueda, Robert |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Yaden, David Silva-Corvalán, Carmen |
| Abstract | This is a study of language use in the context of an inquiry-based science curriculum in which conceptual understanding ratings are used split texts into groups of "successful" and "unsuccessful" texts. "Successful" texts could include known features of science language. 420 texts generated by students in 14 classrooms from three school districts, culled from a prior study on the effectiveness of science notebooks to assess understanding, in addition to the aforementioned ratings are the data sources. In science notebooks, students write in the process of learning (here, a unit on electricity). The analytical framework is systemic functional linguistics (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; Eggins, 2004), specifically the concepts of genre, register and nominalization. Genre classification involves an analysis of the purpose and register features in the text (Schleppegrell, 2004). The use of features of the scientific academic register, namely the use relational processes and nominalization (Halliday and Martin, 1993), requires transitivity analysis and noun analysis. Transitivity analysis, consisting of the identification of the process type, is conducted on 4737 ranking clauses. A manual count of each noun used in the corpus allows for a typology of nouns. Four school science genres, procedures, procedural recounts reports and explanations, are found. Most texts (85.4%) are factual, and 14.1% are classified as explanations, the analytical genre. Logistic regression analysis indicates that there is no significant probability that the texts classified as explanation are placed in the group of "successful" texts. In addition, material process clauses predominate in the corpus, followed by relational process clauses. Results of a logistic regression analysis indicate that there is a significant probability (Chi square =15.23, p <.0001) that texts with a high rate of relational processes are placed in the group of "successful" texts. In addition, 59.5% of 6511 nouns are ref |
| Keyword | academic language and literacy; genres of school science; science literacy; systemic functional linguistics; language use in the content-areas; inquiry-based science |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m61 |
| Rights | Esquinca, Alberto |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Esquinca-20061003 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-Esquinca-20061003.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | ACADEMIC WRITING IN A CORPUS OF 4TH GRADE SCIENCE NOTEBOOKS: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENT LANGUAGE USE AND ADULT EXPECTATIONS OF THE GENRES OF SCHOOL SCIENCE by Alberto Esquinca _________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (EDUCATION) December 2006 Copyright 2006 Alberto Esquinca |
Comments
Post a Comment for Page 1
