Early Childhood Education Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2001

Emergent Environmental Literacy in the NonnarrativeCompositions of Kindergarten Children

Susan J. Britsch1,2

This article shows how links between science and literacy offer kindergarten children the opportu-nity to create and express their individual understandings about environmental change throughemergent environmental literacy. This article reports on one of the science experiences in a kinder-garten classroom in which the children explored the phenomenon of environmental change. Thekindergarten science program can help children learn how scientists look at the world; youngchildren can express these concepts through nonnarrative compositions. The article concludes withsuggestions for teaching practice in the kindergarten science program.

KEY WORDS: early literacy; kindergarten; science learning; science writing; environmental literacy.

INTRODUCTION ingly, however, attention is being called to the need toexpand children’s acquaintance with nonnarrative forms

An emergent approach to literacy development seesof literacy, not only because of the primacy of nonnarra-children as engaged in the construction of understand-tive writing in current society (Moss, Leone, & DiPillo,ings and uses of graphic symbols–both pictures and1997) but also because children who may seem to showwritten language–even before schooling begins. Play,low levels of literacy development and interest may findtalk, listening, drawing, and writing are all valued aspurpose and curiosity through an acquaintance with non-channels and media for developing and using knowledgenarrative genres. Emergent forms of science reports,about written and oral language and one channel rarelyclassifications, arguments, and descriptions help chil-operates independently of the others (e.g., Dyson, 1989;dren express the links they are making between immedi-Morrow, 1997; Owocki, 1999; Schickendanz, 1999).ate experience, past experience, and prior knowledge.This very individual process often involves both draw-Children express their perceptions about factual topicsing and the word spellings that children derive as theythrough nonnarrative compositions: amalgams of talk,gradually attempt to “represent experience through letter

graphics” (Dyson, 1982, p. 379). drawing, writing—even play. Children need opportuni-Previously, the study of emergent literacy and the ties to use talk and graphics for nonnarrative purposes

teaching process has concentrated heavily on children’s (Green, 1992; Harvey, 1998), but the compositions ofstories—oral, written, and dramatized narratives—as very young children will be emergent in form and notthe primary forum for the expression of children’s de- fully conventional. We may see labels, lists (Newkirk,veloping literacy capacities (e.g., Britsch, 1992; Cooper, 1989), diagrams, charts, depicted everyday scenes, and1993; Dyson, 1989; Paley, 1981; Rowe, 1994). Increas- dictated exposition that graphically display children’s

perceptions of classroom science experiences that in-volve environmental change, for example.

In reading and writing different kinds of texts, we1Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. look for certain features because this helps us to under-2Correspondence should be directed to Susan J. Britsch, Purdue Uni-

stand how people who work in this discipline see theversity, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 1442 LAEB, WestLafayette, Indiana 47907-1442; e-mail: sbritsch@purdue.edu world; the writing done by scientists, for example, or-

1531082-3301/01/0300-0153$19.50/0 2001 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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ganizes reality based on the ways in which scientists course of one academic year in a half-day, public schoolkindergarten. The elementary school was located in asee the world (Martin, 1993). The kindergarten science

program can acquaint children with a scientific world middle-class area of a small Midwestern community.Eighteen children attended this kindergarten programview (Martin, 1993): It can help children to learn what

to pay attention to in ways that a scientist would. In this daily. Five of the children were of Asian or SoutheastAsian backgrounds; 1 child was of African Americanway, the transition from “common sense” to “science”

(Martin, 1993, p. 170) means the ability to recognize as descent; the other 12 children were Anglo-European.The socioeconomic background of the children was pri-important certain properties or occurrences and to orga-

nize reality differently—by classifying, as Martin marily middle- to upper middle-class.Data were collected by videotaping children’s ac-pointed out. For example, although much of scientific

thought and writing is based on organizing the world by tivity throughout the science activities that took place inthe classroom, duplicating all graphic products createdmeans of classification, scientists also concern them-

selves with processes. Thus, geology is not merely the in their science journals, informal interviews with thechildren to clarify their understandings and uses ofclassification of rocks and minerals, but also has to do

with the process of change, its results, and the reasons graphics, and intermittent teacher interviews to elucidatethe teacher’s view of the children’s journal use. The sci-why certain changes come about (Martin, 1993).

Roth (1992) has defined two of the goals of envi- ence activities in this kindergarten typically lasted 2 to3 days. On Day 1, the children participated in a whole-ronmental literacy as the ability to (a) constantly seek

“connections and interconnections between objects and group discussion about what they already knew aboutthe science phenomenon in question. Then they movedevents” and to (b) routinely look for “the seeds of

change” (p. 8). These aims are the same as those of a to the classroom tables where, seated in groups of four,they drew or wrote about this prior knowledge in sciencekindergarten science program that seeks to link chil-

dren’s perceptions of their world with their knowledge journals. The journals were made up of blank pages sta-pled into manila folders. At the top of the first page usedand experiences. This kind of emergent science literacy

creates an understanding of nature as well as “an aware- in each science experience was the question, “What doI know about (name of phenomenon)?” On Day 2, theness of the interactions between human social systems

and other natural systems” (p. 21). In terms of environ- children engaged in practice; at their tables or on outingsoutside the classroom, they explored the topic using ma-mental literacy, even very young children can create an

interaction between the drawn and written symbols they nipulative materials or activities such as a leaf walkthrough which they gathered artifacts that exemplifiedhave selected as tools and the environment of which

they are a part. environmental change. Then they returned to their tablesin the classroom and again drew or wrote in their jour-How can links between science and literacy offer

young children the opportunity to create and express nals on a page headed, “What have I learned about?” Finally, those children who wished to do sotheir individual relationships with nature through the de-

velopment of an emergent environmental literacy? could share their findings and their journal pages as “Su-per Scientists” in a whole-group sharing time.Teachers of young children can help them to become

part of these ways of seeing the world through nonnarra- Methods of qualitative data analysis were used toderive a comprehensive interpretation of all science ac-tive composition. This article reports on one of the sci-

ence experiences in a kindergarten classroom in which tivities (Genishi, 1982). The researcher searched for pat-terns in the children’s use of their science journals andthe children explored the phenomenon of environmental

change. in the ongoing child–child and teacher–child talk thataccompanied this journal use. Three themes emerged.The children couched their science understandings in

STUDYING EMERGENTother contexts, conveying these (a) by creating imagi-

ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACYnary contexts through stories, (b) by representing previ-ous experiences on the journal page and relating theseThe examples of emergent environmental literacy

in this article are taken from a study of the use of sci- to the science topic, or (c) by graphically representingthe materials and process of the classroom science expe-ence journals by kindergarten children (Shepardson &

Britsch, 1997). The aim was to examine the ways in rience itself. The next section of this article details someof the children’s nonnarrative journal compositions.which children were constructing and conveying their

understandings of science phenomena through the use Through these, the children interpreted and individuallycontextualized a school science experience focusing onof science journals in situated science activities in their

classroom. Data for this study were collected over the environmental change.

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WHAT CHANGED? composition incorporating his drawing, his talk, and hisuse of the initial letters of words. “The leaf is falling

One morning, the 18 children in this kindergarten. . . falling . . . falling (‘F F F’),” he explained. When it

took a nature walk with their teacher in a park near theirgets to the bottom, it shows leaf veins (‘S L V’). Then

school. The teacher explained that they were going to. . . compost (‘C P’).” The leaves in Eric’s drawing

take a “nature trip” and that they were going to takechange from green (at top) to pencil-colored (second

along paper bags in order to “gather some objects of leaf) to simple alphabet letters as the leaf itself fadesnature.” In the park, the children collected items of inter- (Fig. 1).est to them, including a number of skeletonized leaves. Eric’s composition foregrounds elements of theThroughout the walk, the teacher drew the children’s group’s discussion about decayed leaves and decompo-attention to items that showed evidence of having been sition. He used his observational skills, his ability toin the environment for a long time and items that had think about change over time, and his developing liter-changed over time. In particular, the teacher picked up acy capabilities to chronicle his notion of environmentala number of skeletonized leaves and pointed out the leaf change. All of these serve as ways of making concrete,veins, explaining that these remained as the leaf decayed making visible, the understandings that children con-or changed. She also pointed out the difference between struct of quite abstract notions, such as environmentalthese decaying leaves and those still on the trees or just change, that require an understanding of physical trans-fallen. Later, in the classroom, whole-group time was formations that take place over time (Brewer, 1995).devoted to examining some of the things collected on In this study, science journals enabled the childrenthe nature walk. Ellen, for example, brought up a skele- to contextualize the science experience on the page bytonized leaf. The teacher explained that such a leaf drawing external contexts into internal ones. Childrenleaves “a little imprint in the dirt,” something like a such as Eric (see Fig. 1 above), drew the focal science“fossil.” She asked the children if the leaf were dead oralive. Because some of the children said it was alive,she held up a live, green leaf and compared it with the“decayed, dead leaf.” When the teacher asked what hadhappened before the leaf was like this, Ellen explained:“I think it was really green and then winter came and itfell down and the snow covered it up and then when thespring came, all of its skin fell off.”

When the teacher asked if the leaf had any purposenow, Matthew said, “It helps the soil grow.” The teacherthen talked briefly about how the leaf would now beeaten by “decomposers” in the soil to start the “chain oflife” again. As the class looked at a wild onion andtalked about how an onion could be found growing inthe park, Jake piped up, “Did you know dinosaur bonesare different?” Perhaps the idea of things going into theground had struck a chord with him.

“You mean they’re each different from one an-other?” the teacher asked.

“But,” Matthew added, “if it’s the same kind ofdinosaur, it should be the same kind of skull.”

Jake gave a confirming nod.After the teacher commented about the children’s

good ideas, she announced that they were going to usetheir science journals. “Put down ways that we have ob-served changes,” she instructed the children. She re-minded them of the items they had collected and added,“Draw some things about how they were. What has hap-pened? How did it get the way it looks?” She wrote,“What changed?” on the blackboard.

Eric conveyed his answer through a nonnarrative Fig. 1. Eric’s falling leaf.

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experience itself (here, a nature walk and gathered (Martin, 1993). Nick’s nonnarrative composition aims todepict a process but actually takes the form of a compo-leaves) into their journal pages, combining it with past

experience to draw comprehensive portraits of an indi- sition that separates previous environments from exist-ing ones. It shows the criteria that distinguish the twovidual relationship with life-cycle change, in this case.

Nick, on the other hand, drew on the accumulated through detailed drawing and written labels. It repre-sents a starting point for investigating what did occurknowledge of a previous unit on dinosaurs and fossils to

link the central idea of the leaf walk for him—an older, between the two states Nick has recognized. Now wecan ask, “What happened?” and use other resourcesnonexistent world we can no longer see—with his own

familiar, ongoing, and observable experience. Jake’s (e.g., classroom visitors, museum visits, teacher–childcooperative book reading) to find answers that willcomment during whole group time about dinosaur bones

might also have lingered with Nick (Fig. 2). make sense to Nick.Lola’s journal page conveyed a human communityNick’s graphic and written interpretation of envi-

ronmental change depicted a Tyrannosaurus Rex (la- that was perhaps creating a destructive relationship withthe natural environment (Fig. 3). Previously, the classbeled “T”) and an Ankylosaurus (both labeled “D” and

designated with arrows) to represent his understanding had explored environmental pollution and the effect ofhumans on the world that we experience daily. Lola re-of an ancient world with a depiction of a human waiting

at a traffic light to cross the street. His letter graphics sponded with a nonnarrative composition made up of asimple drawing of a human standing on blue waveslabeled these encapsulations of change in environments

which were most salient to him: the dinosaur era was laced with brown. These elements spotlighted her focuson environmental change as a kind of damage, as didlabeled, “50000 YERS AGO” and the street scene oc-

curs, “TODAY,” both of these written designations rep- her dictated nonnarrative text: “First the water was blue,then it became brown.” When her teacher asked whyresenting generic, not specific, identifications of each

era. It shows little, however, about what took place be-tween the prehistoric and modern states he depicts. Nei-ther does it address what could have happened to causethese changes; this would be the focus of scientists

Fig. 3. Lola’s pollution composition.Fig. 2. Nick’s dinosaurs and traffic light.

157Environmental Literacy

this occurred, Lola responded, “From people.” The Deana tied the cycle together with a small drawing ofthe “road” with yellow traffic cones along it (placed bydrawing, showing clean water becoming dirty, taken to-

gether with Lola’s oral language describing the nature the construction worker), “to keep people from gettinghurt.” Deana saw environmental change as an immediateof the change and the agent form the beginnings of true

expository text. Lola, as author, takes a stand against and possibly dangerous change from the familiar—astreet she usually crossed now contained somethingthis kind of negative change that dirties the environment

(Green, 1992). new. She provided an example of such an environmentand described its elements through her drawing; she ex-For other children, immediate experience provided

a frame for an expression of environmental concern and plained the function of these elements with her talk.These 5- and 6-year-old children used drawing,environmental change based on repair of damaged

pieces of her experienced world. The primary symbol of writing, talk, and dictated exposition in order to pull anunfamiliar external context (a new context that camenatural change, for Deana, was embodied in a chunk of

asphalt she picked up on the way to the park. Without from without) toward a more familiar, internalized con-text (a context that was already present). For example,the use of letter graphics, she represented change over

time as beginning with a detailed drawing of the asphalt elements of a previous experience—such as dinosaursor even walking across a street—often appealed to thechunk itself, including black and white spots that con-

veyed the mottled quality of the surface of the chunk. children imaginatively, and functioned in an interplaythat defined a relationship they had perceived. At otherBeside this, a construction worker (with moustache) rep-

resented, in essence, the human agent effecting change times, the science investigation evoked elements of ex-perience that personalized their work with manipulativeby repairing the street (Fig. 4). Below the asphalt chunk,materials and contextualized these external elements ofthe world in an internal, remembered scene that con-nected the immediate with the remembered. The journalpage, then, provided a forum for these children to con-solidate their own visions of what constituted environ-mental change, bringing the scenes that were most sa-lient for them into the context of the page. Thiscombined a display of both data and personal findingsthat demonstrated an interplay between themselves asinterpreters of significant changes in their environmentand as participants in the human community that some-times effects change.

SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING

To give real significance to a school science experi-ence about environmental change, these kindergartenchildren needed to pull the visible, external source of thescience experience (i.e., materials or phenomena) into aninternal context of their own experience, knowledge orinterest. In this way they reinterpreted the immediate ex-perience on the journal page. As the children linked theirexperience, their imaginations, and their investigation ofnature to the use of their emerging literacy capabilities,they created different ways of recontextualizing or par-ticipating in the event itself. The science journal pages,then, functioned as mirrors of internal contexts, as dis-plays of what the children already know about the pro-cess of environmental change (Ochs, Taylor, Ru-dolph, & Smith, 1992). These journal entries showed thechildren’s ability to create nonnarrative compositionsabout environmental change using talk and drawing.Fig. 4. Deana’s street scene.

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Teachers might notice, for example: The piled up leaves became skeletonized and resembledcompost from his point of view. His nonnarrative com-

• whether the children’s talk includes technical terms (e.g., ox-position incorporated both talk and drawing, along withygen);his own invented spelling that chronicled the process of• whether the children’s talk or drawing builds an accurate de-

scription of relevant relationships (e.g., between a leaf and a decay with his written labels for the objects he depicted.tree); Although conventional science texts would not in-

• whether the children’s physical activity also communicates clude an oral component, they certainly include dia-their own view of themselves as teaching other children.

grams and labels to reflect written text. Newkirk (1989)has pointed out that children’s early nonnarrative writ-The kindergarten teacher can watch for and record

the kinds of concepts expressed through children’s talk, ing, such as labels and lists, can function as an interme-diate form before children develop more sophisticatedplay, and drawing. Table I shows a way to record chil-

dren’s ideas about the environment and the media forms of nonnarrative writing. On this view Eric’s la-bels, like Nick’s, reflect an overall structure for his oralthrough which these are expressed.and visual composition. His understanding of these tem-poral and visual changes could become part of a dictatedIt is sometimes assumed that the preoperational

stage of kindergarten children’s development limits their description of a sequence or process, structured by hislabels and supported by his drawing (Martin, 1993).ability to understand science concepts. On the contrary,

children in the preoperational stage are constantly ex- Lola, on the other hand, has already begun to dictateexplanations using a conventional structure (Derewi-panding their abilities to symbolize their understandings,

trying out all of the resources and media at their disposal anka, 1990, p. 61):Phenomenon: “First the water was blue, then it be-in order to express the results of their logical thinking

based on what is familiar to them. This includes their came brown.”Explanation: “From people.”own past experiences, their talk, their play, their draw-

ing, hearing and pretend-reading of science texts, and A teacher might help Lola to expand this dictatedexplanation, first by reflecting some of the details al-their emergent science writing. These media contain and

symbolize children’s thinking and knowledge about sci- ready contained in her drawing, such as the change inthe color of the water. Further investigation might focusence concepts. For example, Eric’s talk about the leaves

“falling . . . falling . . . falling” illustrated the repetitive on naming pollution itself as a cause. A more elaboratedexpository composition—drawn, written, and/or dic-and extended nature of the process. His drawing re-

flected this talk quite closely, depicting the leaves over tated—might take a more explicit stand on this issue(Green, 1992) based on effects of dirty water that a childand over as they fall from the top of the tree to the

bottom. Eric’s talk conveys the nature of the falling might see and understand as harmful in her own life andenvironment. Other children’s nonnarrative composi-leaves as well as the results of this change over time.

Table I. Assessing Children’s Understandings About Environmental Change

Child’sname Oral language Drawings Written language Genre

Eric Conversation: “The leaf is falling Leaf repeated as it falls from top Labels: ongoing falling action of Chronicles a process. . . falling . . . falling. When it to bottom of tree. Color changes leaf + final state using initialgets to the bottom, it shows leaf as leaf dies. consonantveins. Then . . . compost.”

Nick None Contrasts human at traffic light Labels: dinosaurs using initial Classificationwith dinosaurs consonant + temporal labels

(word level) to show change

Lola Dictated text: water color Human on blue waves laced with None Explanation; indirectlychanges. brown expositoryConversation: humans arenegative change agents.

Deana Construction worker places Asphalt chunk with human None Description/explanationtraffic cones to “keep people worker as change agentfrom getting hurt.”

159Environmental Literacy

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