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Christina Saidy

This piece describes an extended workshop in which reading, writing, listening, and speaking were used to build and sustain a feminist ecology intended to open up access to future lives in science for ethnically and linguistically diverse girls in an urban secondary school.

Girls Writing Science: Opening Up Access in a Girls’ Reading and Writing Group

F our ninth- and tenth- grade girls circle around me. One is holding a copy of The Immortal Life of Henri-etta Lacks. They have asked about

the book. Who is Henrietta Lacks? Who is Rebecca Sloop? Why did she write this? I begin telling them a bit about Henrietta Lacks. After a few min-utes I say, “She had cervical cancer. Do you know what that is?” They shake their heads no. “Do you know what a cervix is?” Again, no. For the next few minutes, we talk. It is part book talk, health edu-cation, and information about science writing. The girls listen intently. When we are done, they begin writing on their papers or move around the room to other posters and books. As they move, they read, write, talk quietly, and giggle some.

The girls in the description above partic-ipated in a project called Girls Writing Science (GWS) at a local urban charter school. For seven weeks, 24 girls, the majority of whom identified as Chicana/Latina, met during a 1.5- hour block at the end of the school day. GWS was designed and im-plemented in a way that put reading, writing, lis-tening, and speaking at the center of an exploration of thinking and learning about scientific fields. The girls read and wrote about science, created inter-view questions, wrote emails, interviewed women in science- related fields, and wrote profile pieces based on their interviews.

GWS brought together the language arts and the sciences to open up access via writing to scien-tific ideas, concepts, and people. Access to science- related fields for young women, especially ethnically and linguistically diverse women, is regularly

denied because of systemic sexism and racism (Bys-tydzienski and Bird; Ellis et al.; Hill et al.). While there is a pervasive myth that Latina women, and other women of color, are not interested in STEM fields (Ong et al.), research disproves this and shows women of color who persist in STEM fields often do so because of supportive peer and community in-teractions (Espinosa). In response to this research, GWS was grounded in feminist social justice ap-proaches (Bruce et al.). Via reading and writing we built and sustained a feminist ecology intended to open up access to future lives in science for the girls who participated.

Feminist Ecologies

This workshop pushed back against traditional no-tions of classroom- based writing as formulaic and structured (Applebee and Langer; Wiley) to offer opportunities for students to consider ways writ-ing is epistemic, or knowledge building. More-over, GWS opened up opportunities for students to make connections with each other, with scien-tific voices via a variety of texts, and with scientific women outside of the classroom. In this way, at the core of the workshop was an ecological approach to knowledge and writing. In the words of Kathleen J. Ryan et al., “an ecological model of knowledge regards more broadly, ‘place, embodied locatedness, and discursive independence,’ as ‘conditions for the very possibility of knowledge and action’” (2). As the young women participants moved within the classroom, within texts, and outside of the class-room to build knowledge and make connections,

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they built an ecology of knowledge about science- related information via engagement with texts.

This ecological approach to knowledge building was grounded in feminist principles, and students, teachers, researchers, and interview-ees regularly discussed and challenged traditional limits on girls’ access to scientific knowledge and

practice. Ryan et al. note, “Ecological feminism recog-nizes the diversity of women’s experiences within the shared experience of patriarchal op-pression and acknowledges that ‘values, notions of real-ity, and social practices are

related’” (9). GWS brought together younger and older women via reading, writing, talking, lis-tening, and sharing. This was more than a cross- curricular writing workshop; it was a model for ways girls come to recognize the complex interplay of texts, people, and experiences as they envision what it means to live and work as women in male- dominated fields.

Coming to the Space

This workshop developed as a product of the Na-tional Writing Project’s NSF funded Intersections grant, which sought to investigate the intersections of literacy and science via strategic partnerships. In year two of the project, two teacher participants, a language arts teacher and science teacher, along with the director and co- director of the local site of the National Writing Project (the researchers), came together at Metro Center Academy, a charter school in a large urban area in the Southwest, to implement a GWS.

Girls were invited to participate in this work-shop in one of two ways: (1) via a letter home to par-ents of girls in grades 9– 10 inviting their daughters’ participation or (2) via nomination by language arts or science teachers because of the girl’s interest in either writing or science. In total, 24 girls signed up to participate in the seven- week workshop, which took place during time designated for cap-stone— a period blending study hall, academic tu-toring, and school spirit activities. Of the 24 girls, 20 identified as Chicana/Latina, 2 as white, 1 as Fil-ipina, and 1 declined to identify. Twenty of the girls

indicated they will be the first in their families to go to college. Metro Center has a 98 percent gradu-ation rate and high number of students who enroll in two- and four- year colleges. The students came to the GWS with varying levels of understanding about their participation and a variety of goals, but they were open and interested from the start. We wanted the girls to feel like the knowledge work they did in GWS was connected, communal, and transformative. We had snacks at each meeting, we regularly shared writing and ideas, and the teachers and researchers worked together to build a commu-nity of women outside of the program with whom the students could connect.

In this article, I will detail the ways these 24 girls took part in an extended workshop that invited them to co- create and use activities often gendered female— reading, writing, listening, and speaking— to confront the limitations placed on women in scientific fields. The girls used a variety of reading and writing activities to make knowl-edge and meaning via writing in a feminist ecology and became active participants in a transforma-tional process that represented the promise of access via literacy education.

Reading Women

The anecdote that opens this article is from one of the first activities, which invited students to use reading and writing to learn about women in sci-ence. In this activity, I created posters with pictures of women scientists and their biographies. I also placed books about women in science around the room (see Tables 1 and 2 for lists of adult and chil-dren’s book resources). Students were encouraged to engage with these texts in a variety of ways: walk-ing around to a variety of stations, reading extended excerpts of texts, talking with other students or me about the texts, etc. As they made their way around the room, the girls looked for and wrote about a woman whose work you admire, a woman whose work is interesting but you don’t fully understand, and a woman whose work you know about but want to know more.

One of the explicit goals of the scavenger hunt activity was for students to use reading and writ-ing as ways to think more broadly about women in scientific fields. Another goal was for the young

The girls used a variety

of reading and writing

activities to make

knowledge and meaning

via writing in a

feminist ecology.

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TABLE 1. Books for Women- in- Science Scavenger Hunt

Title Author

Jane Goodall Dale Peterson

Lise Metner Ruth Lexin Sime

Temple Grandin Sy Montgomery

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA

Brenda Maddox

Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age

Kurt W. Beyer

Rocket Girl George D. Morgan

Madame Curie Eve Curie

The Fossil Hunter Shelley Emling

Chrysalis Kim Todd

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Elisabeth Tova Bailey

The Girls of Atomic City Denise Kiernan

Headstrong: 52 Women who Changed Science

Rachel Swaby

The Madame Curie Complex Julie Des Jardins

Nobel Prize Women in Science Sharon Bertsch McGravne

Ada’s Algorithm James Essinger

Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr

Michael A. B. Deakin

Rita Levi- Montalcini: Nobel Prize Winner

Susan Tyler Hitchcock

Rosalyn Yalow: Nobel Laureate: Her Life and Work in Medicine

Eugene Straus

Barbara McClintock Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser

TABLE 2. Picture Books for Women- in- Science Scavenger Hunt or Reading/Writing Activities

Title Author

Rosie Revere Engineer Andrea Beaty

The Fossil Girl Catherine Brighton

The Watcher Jaenette Winter

Amelia to Zora Cynthia Chin Lee

Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?

Tanya Lee Stone

The Most Magnificent Thing Ashley Spires

Sofia Scott Goes South Alison Lester

I Wonder Annaka Harris, John A. Rowe

Violet the Pilot Steve Breen

Look Up! The Story of the First Woman Astronomer

Robert Burleigh

Marvelous Mattie: How Margret E. Knight Became an Inventor

Emily Arnold McCully

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian

Margarita Engle and Julie Paschkis

Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon Jeannine Atkins

Annie Jump Cannon, Astronomer Carole Gerber and Christina Wald

Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World

Laurie Lawlor and Laura Beingessner

Me . . . Jane Patrick McDonnell

women to use talk and reflection to begin connect-ing to women in science and each other. Some girls laid on the floor reading (see Figure 1), while others made their way around in small groups. In these small groups the girls talked about what they saw, asked each other questions, and wrote down notes (see Figure 2).

As the girls read, wrote, and reflected on the lives and careers of notable women in science- related fields, they began thinking about what they knew or did not know, issues of access and equity, and ways women develop grit and determination.

Via this questioning, the girls began to position themselves in conversation with these notable women in science.

In their explorations, many of the girls ques-tioned how the women scientists broke through barriers or limitations. For example, Alicia, a stu-dent who read about Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina woman astronaut, questioned, “What were the ob-stacles you had to overcome to get where you are? What were the struggles women overcame to get into science fields, but also her personal struggles?” Alicia’s questions represented a trend in this reflec-tive writing— an understanding that barriers to women’s science careers exist. Elena, another stu-dent, wrote Lise Meitner “knew physics and her brother knew chemistry. They worked together on radioactivity. I admire this woman because I enjoy physics and chemistry.” However, Elena went on to question, “Was she bothered by her brother getting

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all of the credit?” In the majority of responses the girls wrote about barriers, boundaries, others who took credit for the work, etc., and showed a pro-found understanding of the barriers for women in science- related fields. The opportunity to use writing to express feelings and questions about these barriers is significant in a feminist ecologi-cal approach to reading, writing, and research. For the girls to see themselves in conversation with other women in science, they had to understand issues such as the systemic exclusion of women in these fields.

Additionally, the girls used this activity to re-late or express interest in the work of the women scientists. Inez, one of the girls who participated in the book talk about The Immortal Life of Henri-etta Lacks, wrote about her interest in the book and in Lacks’s story: “I chose this book because this woman had a type of cancer and I am interested in cancer.” For Inez, who was interested in oncology because a family member had cancer, Sloot’s writ-ing and Lacks’s story were particularly interesting because “[h]er cell are important for medicine.” In

FIGURE 2. Elena reads and writes during the women- in- science scavenger hunt. Elena was particularly interested in inequities for women in science. In the background three girls read, discuss, and write about women in science.

FIGURE 1. Alicia gets comfortable reading a picture book about Mary Anning during the women- in- science scavenger hunt.

this case, Inez tied together a family experience, her newfound knowledge about cells, and an expe-rience with a text about science. Elena, who read about Lise Meitner and saw the problem in Meit-ner’s brother taking credit for her work, also talked about similarities between herself and the scien-tist, writing that Meitner “knew physics and her brother knew chemistry. They worked together on radioactivity. I admire this woman because I enjoy physics and chemistry.” Elena used this writing and reflection activity as an opportunity to make con-nections between the interest of a notable woman scientist and her own interests.

In this activity, the girls experienced and participated in the beginning steps of building a feminist rhetorical ecology. They came to see many of the struggles women scientists experience as they gain legitimacy in their fields of study and made connections to the work of these women. In doing so, they could see themselves in this work

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and envision this as part of their future lives. One student, Lila, reflected on the activity saying, “It’s good to learn about a variety of topics even if you won’t go into it in the future. Maybe I will.” Lila understands that gaining a breadth of knowledge and reflecting on it opens up possibilities for her in ways she may not have been aware existed.

Expanding Ecologies: Moving beyond Text and Classroom

The goal of GWS was for girls to imagine their pos-sible lives in science via reading, writing, thinking, and speaking activities grounded in the language arts, and the curricular end goal was to have stu-dents read and write beyond the classroom in an interview activity with a woman scientist. These interviews and the corresponding profile write- up would offer access to possible lives in science and an experience of participating in a feminist ecology. Preparing students to interview women in science and write profiles required the building of a net-work of women in science willing to be interviewed and the teaching of writing, speaking, and listen-ing skills integral to the interviews.

Building and sustaining the network of women scientists was, perhaps, the most challeng-ing part of this feminist ecologies approach because it required regular communication between the stu-dents and researchers and extensive legwork by the researchers. To begin, the girls wrote notes about who they would like to interview, why this person or field, and how this was somehow connected to a life path they might pursue. This note format was important because it offered a different way for the girls to experience schooled writing— as informal and needs based. A number of publications argue that women in the workplace often fail to secure raises or promotions because they do not ask for what they need (Babcock and Laschaver; Frankel). Via the note, the girls were invited to express in-terest, need, and a vision for their futures. Some of the girls were specific. For example, Erica hoped to interview a pediatric oncologist because she had a family member who had cancer as a young child and she wanted to explore the field in the hopes of helping others the way her family member had been helped. Other notes were far more general. Carla hoped to interview an “animal researcher,”

while Rosa hoped to interview “a woman who prac-tices in the medical field.”

After reading the notes and talking with the girls, the researchers began contacting women we know in scientific fields and asking them to be inter-view subjects. This work was challenging at times. For example, nobody knew a pediatric oncologist. I tried multiple connections to no avail. I talked to physicians and nurses I knew, called a local children’s hospital and talked to the community outreach co-ordinator, and even sent emails to unknown oncol-ogists. I discussed these challenges with the girls to make transparent the work of creating this feminist ecology. Erica, who hoped to talked to a pediatric on-cologist, was happy to talk to a pediatrician who could tell her more about the dif-ferences in training, profes-sional practice, and lifestyle between a pediatrician and pediatric oncologist. Other girls were paired with in-terviewees close to their original choice. Carla, who hoped to interview an ani-mal researcher, was paired with a local zookeeper. Two girls who generally had requested to interview women in the medical field were paired with a mid-wife. At the time, neither of the girls knew what a midwife was, so this pairing offered the girls an opportunity to use reading and writing not only to access possible lives but also to more clearly under-stand women’s bodies and health.

This process of building a network of pro-fessional women was a process of reading, writing, listening, and speaking for the girls, me as a re-searcher, and the other researcher and teachers work-ing on this project. It was important the girls saw our network was co- constructed and co- created via our reading and writing processes and knew they could influence the development of this feminist ecology by expressing need and interest via writing.

Genres for Seeing and Accessing Feminist Ecologies

Once the network was created, the girls were ready and excited to use their literacy skills to gain access

It was important the girls

saw our network was

co- constructed and co-

created via our reading

and writing processes and

knew they could influence

the development of

this feminist ecology

by expressing need and

interest via writing.

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to the knowledge and experience of professional women working in fields they wanted to explore. This preparation had two parts: (1) a minilesson and corresponding peer response activity on writ-ing interview questions and (2) a minilesson and workshop on writing professional emails. These two lessons and their corresponding writing activ-ities helped the girls to learn rhetorical skills and strategies and specific genre conventions typically used in professional documents as a way to gain access. Because some of this was new, it was im-portant that the girls were learning to write emails and interview questions to supportive women in a co- created network.

For interview writing, we discussed oral and written interviews, since many of the girls planned to conduct email interviews. The girls began by generating lists of the things they wanted to know. Then, the workshop focused on specific strategies for asking good interview questions, such as do not ask yes/no questions, ask open- ended questions, and do not ask about something you could easily research. After this workshop, the girls developed their own interview questions, checked them against the gen-eral guidance given in the workshop, peer reviewed the questions, and then met with a teacher or re-searcher to revise the questions even more. This ap-proach to writing interview questions encouraged the girls to recognize the multiple layers and inputs in successful writing and see audience- focused writ-ing as an ecological connected process.

After the girls developed their interview questions, I taught a brief genre workshop on writ-ing emails. Since most of the girls do not use email for regular communication, this information was fairly new. In the workshop, I provided the girls with a sample email and used it to model specific genre elements in a professional email including formatting, stylistic elements, design elements (arrangement), tone, and developing ethos. After the workshop, the girls wrote rough drafts of their emails. They were aware the emails were going to a group of professional women in science who were committed to providing access to their fields, so they were nervous and wanted to get the emails “right.” They worked diligently to draft, offer and receive peer response, and solicit help from the re-searchers. The girls who planned to conduct oral

interviews used the email workshop to write drafts of thank- you emails.

In their emails, the girls articulated their need for information, their interests in science, and their hopes for their future lives. Lila, who interviewed the midwife, worked diligently on her email. She wrote, “I am interested in a science career, and I would like more information about your career. . . . Your responses will really help me as I plan for a career in science.” In return, she received a lengthy email about the field, educational requirements, re-wards, and challenges. In one question, Lila asked about “the biggest weakness of the profession,” and the midwife replied, “The biggest weakness of the profession for me is time. Midwifery is often a call-ing of the heart and so can be difficult to leave ‘the job’ at the office. It means time away from my fam-ily, missed birthdays, holidays, special events.” In this reply, the midwife answers honestly and truth-fully about the challenges of work/life balance, and her honesty was refreshing to Lila. Also in the reply, the midwife included a picture of herself holding a newborn immediately after birth. The descrip-tion of the challenges along with the photo of the midwife smiling at the newborn helped Lila see a woman in the medical field who finds deep satisfac-tion in her work but also must sacrifice time with her family for her work.

In nearly all of the interviews, the interview-ees spoke and wrote about the obstacles to scien-tific fields for women and the ways they overcame many of these obstacles. Elena, who was interested in archaeology, was paired with Karen, an archae-ology professor. Elena asked about Karen’s work, career trajectory, fears, and obstacles to meeting her goals. Karen wrote a lengthy and detailed message in which she talked about the challenges of being a first- generation college student, a woman studying chemistry and archaeology, and the challenges of traveling alone to Bolivia, Peru, and Chile to exca-vate archaeological sites. However, Karen also made it clear that a motivating factor for her in her career is providing access for other women. She wrote:

One thing that motivates me is the importance of being a role model as a scientist who is also a woman. I didn’t have many examples of that grow-ing up, and even in college and graduate school I wasn’t sure it was possible to be a scientist and also

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be a parent and well- rounded person. I really love being a scientist, and a woman, and a parent, so I want to show others, especially girls and women, that it is possible.

Karen’s words exemplify the goals of GWS to use reading, writing, speaking, and listening to build and sustain feminist ecologies to open up access to future lives for young women.

Conclusion

Via this experience of ecological feminism, the girls developed and honed their reading and writing skills to access information, co- create professional networks, and participate in these professional net-works as they plan for their future lives. We were committed to creating a transformative feminist experience that combined the language arts and sciences in an innovative way to not only open up access to professional skills but also help young women to build and sustain professional networks and relationships to make pathways clearer. At the end of GWS one of the girls, Clara, made a com-ment that captured the essence and the promise of this feminist workshop: “I feel like I learned a lot. And that being a girl in this field is a little difficult, but it’s a challenge I’m willing to take.”

Works Cited

Applebee, Arthur N., and Judith A. Langer. “EJ Extra: A Snapshot of Writing Instruction in Middle Schools

and High Schools.” English Journal, vol. 100, no. 6, 2011, pp. 14– 27.

Babcock, Linda, and Sara Laschever. Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation— and Positive Strate-gies for Change. Bantam Dell, 2007.

Bruce, Heather E., et al. “Feminist Pedagogy Is for Every-body: Troubling Gender in Reading and Writing.” English Journal, vol. 97, no. 3, 2008, pp. 82– 89.

Bystydzienski, Jill M., and Sharon R. Bird, editors. Remov-ing Barriers: Women in Academic Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Indiana UP, 2006.

Ellis, Jessica, et al. “Women 1.5 Times More Likely to Leave STEM Pipeline after Calculus Compared to Men: Lack of Mathematical Confidence a Potential Culprit.” PLoS One, 13 July 2016, http://journals .plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone .0157447.

Espinosa, Lorelle. “Pipelines and Pathways: Women of Color in Undergraduate STEM Majors and the Col-lege Experiences That Contribute to Persistence.” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 81, no. 2, 2011, pp. 209– 41.

Frankel, Lois P. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: Uncon-scious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers. Business Plus, 2014.

Hill, Catherine, et al. Why So Few? Women in Science, Technol-ogy, Engineering, and Mathematics. American Associa-tion of University Women, 2010.

Ong, Maria, et al. “Inside the Double Bind: A Synthesis of Empirical Research on Undergraduate and Graduate Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineer-ing, and Mathematics.” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 81, no. 2, 2011, pp. 172– 209.

Ryan, Kathleen J., et al. “Introduction: Identifying Femi-nist Ecological Ethe.” Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric, edited by Kathleen J. Ryan et al., SIU Press, 2016, pp. 1– 22.

Wiley, Mark. “The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (and Why We Need to Resist).” English Journal, vol. 90, no. 1, 2000, pp. 61– 67.

Christina Saidy is an assistant professor of English at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on writing and writing transitions with students and teachers in secondary schools and colleges. She is a lifetime member of NCTE. She can be con-tacted at Christina.Saidy@asu.edu.

READWRITETHINK CONNECTION Lisa Storm Fink, RWT

Books about science allow readers to encounter new concepts, ask new questions, and discover what we can learn simply by paying close attention to our surroundings. Tune in to this ReadWriteThink.org podcast episode to hear about an array of science books for teens, books that offer up crisp writing and memorable characters while telling a good story. You’ll hear about ecology and climate change, food production, infectious disease, ancient human history, the universe, and our power as humans for both ingenuity and destruction. http://bit.ly/1xFzVHz

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