Why Do I Need to Know This? The Use of Authentic Text to Foster Student Engagement and Provide Relevance for the Major Understandings of Regents Chemistry

Abstract

This project provides a review of the literature that supports instructional strategies for the use of relevant expository text in the science classroom to promote student motivation, reading comprehension, and writing-to-learn. Following the review of the literature thirty carefully selected text passages that encompass specific aspects of the Regents Chemistry curriculum and are relevant to students’ lives are included. Each text passage is aligned with a reading and writing strategy to guide students in extracting information from the text. Further implications of this project, such as the effect using authentic text to provide relevance and foster student engagement, are discussed in the final section of the project.