Living the Language of Science: Examining Relationships Between Epistemic Dialogue and Student Writing

The role of language in science is often viewed as communicative or replicative, instead of as an epistemic resource for students to draw upon. Epistemic dialogic practices, such as argumentation and negotiation, shift this thinking to a framework that emphasizes the role of dialogue and language in knowledge generation and construction. This descriptive comparative classroom case study explores student engagement in epistemic dialogic practices alongside features of their written work to examine how different forms of language were associated with students’ opportunities to develop and express scientific ideas. Using classroom video data and student writing samples, we explore patterns in the nature of students’ dialogic engagement and elements in their written work, such as multimodal competency and the depth of their text. Findings indicate a pattern of association between students’ engagement in epistemic dialogic practices and features of their written work. In particular, instances of more substantive dialogic engagement, such as whole-class argumentation, coincided with more detailed and unprompted instances of writing and multimodal work.