The construction of semantic waves of knowledge-building: High school students´ natural science writing

• Published in: Hermes (Århus, Denmark) Vol. 59; no. 1; pp. 139 - 152
• Main Author: Svensson, Birgitta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Aarhus Aarhus School of Business 2019; Aarhus University
• Subjects: College students; Knowledge; knowledge-building; semantic density; semantic gravity; content area literacy; writing to learn; Literacy; Secondary school students; Semantics; Student writing; Swedish language; Teaching methods; Text analysis; Writing
• ISSN: 0904-1699; 1903-1785
• DOI: 10.7146/hjlcb.v59i1.117037

This paper investigates popular science articles written by Swedish high school students as part of a project aimed at building their knowledge of the content of their natural science curriculum by integrating it with their Swedish language studies. This work, an effort to promote content-area literacy and knowledge-building, was undertaken during their project time. By analyzing the students´ texts, the purpose of the study was to access their value as knowledge-building tools. The analysis of the texts was carried out utilizing Maton´s (2013) theoretical concepts of waves of semantic density and semantic gravity, which are seen as a prerequisite for cumulative knowledge-building. The investigation extends previous studies on semantic waves since it incorporates into the analyses both linguistic features and visual elements. The students were writing in pairs and a total of six texts were analyzed. The text analyses showed three different types of semantic profiles, with four of the texts including features that served as means of cumulative knowledge-building. In a concluding section, some pedagogical implications of the study are considered.