Meeting in the middle: The challenge and promise of supporting stem learning through Language and literacy infusion

In this paper, we describe the findings of an intervention that aims to support inquiry science text reading in urban high schools in Chicago and to help teachers and students take better advantage of the learning opportunities IBLEs offer. We believe a good deal of important science learning is inaccessible to those who don’t understand how to interpret the culture of power. Here, understanding—in terms of understanding how scientists write, speak, and read—represents power. We explain how we worked to address students’ Inquiry-Based Learning Environments (IBLE) content learning and inquiry activities by providing a system of tools and routines that support students’ interaction with text and representations in science and offer evidence indicating that such support can improve IBLE learning. These strategic literacy support tools appear to make the role texts play a bit more apparent to both teachers and students. Our findings suggest strategic literacy support tools appear to be a useful contribution to activity systems in classrooms and can help learners move toward an apprenticeship into deeper science learning.