The Stories They’d Tell: Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Writing Stories to Demonstrate Physical Science Concepts

Abstract

Preservice teachers enrolled in a science content-based course wrote stories that could help their future students understand a science concept. First, participants chose their topic and wrote the story with few guidelines to establish a baseline. In the next part, a different set of students were given a choice of three topics (based on force, electricity, and heat misconceptions), and collaborated to write stories with guidance from the instructor. Stories were analyzed for narrative and science units, and test scores examined. Without guidance, many students struggled to find ways to integrate science within a story. With guidance, participants wrote stories that included more narrative elements overall, and participants felt the stories helped them understand the concepts.

Keywords:

• Narrative
• Preservice elementary teachers
• Physical science misconceptions

Final versions of selected science stories can be found on the author’s Web page: http://tinyurl.com/Frisch-science-stories.

Final versions of selected science stories can be found on the author’s Web page: http://tinyurl.com/Frisch-science-stories.