Literacy Practices in the Middle School Biology Class

• Published in: Enunciación 2016-07, Vol.21 (2), p.272-287
• Main Authors: Diana Marcela Buitrago Díaz, Erika Alejandra Naranjo, Nubia Johana Cifuentes Baquero, Emilce Moreno Mosquera
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Subjects: conocimiento científico; enseñanza de la biología; escritura; escuela secundaria; Lectura
• ISSN: 0122-6339; 2248-6798
• DOI: 10.14483/udistrital.jour.enunc.2016.2.a07

This paper analyzes the reading and writing practices in the biology class of the seventh grade in two different institutions. The aim of this research is to know how literacy practices are on this subject, and what differences are between them in relation to the disciplinary field. Therefore, this study locates in the disciplinary literacy framework. In this article, the authors observe and analyze the school’s reading and writing practices articulated in the social world beginning on certain ways of acting, feeling, believing and thinking. Ten observations were made and the teachers in the subject were interviewed. As result, the most common practices and literacy events were identified and interpreted by the following categories: disciplinary literacy, literacy event, discourse community, and the subject domain by the student. On the other hand, other finding is  among the conceptions of the teacher about the importance of reading and writing that such practices are associated with the use of reading as a research resource; the use of writing as a meaning of production from internalizing concepts and biology teaching as a possibility to way scientific thinking.