The Tomato Pip's Story: Creative Narratives as Bridging Cultural and Science Discourses for Indigenous Students

Abstract

This article reports on what happened when a Rumaki pūtaiao kaiako (Science) teacher at a New Zealand high school trialled the use of creative narratives with her Year-10 students as a way of developing their understanding of the human digestive system. These students were members of the school's Māori immersion unit, and creative narratives were in part utilised as a bridge between science discourse and the cultural knowledges these students brought to their learning. In this case study, students developed ‘Tomato Pip’ narratives through four versions, which told the story of a tomato pip travelling through the human digestive system. Word-count data based on these versions and from a summative test were analysed and correlations found between test scores and three categories of word-count total (total words, total science words and total discrete science words). A discourse analysis of one student's narratives identified two distinct voices in these texts: the personal narrator and the emerging biologist. Questionnaire and focus-group data indicated that the use of creative narratives was both motivational to these students and effective as a bridge into science discourse mastery. It is argued that the findings have implications for disciplinary literacy theory, Indigenous education and science instruction.

Supporting Indigenous Students in Science and STEM Education: A Systematic Review

“…One was an Indigenous teacher's action research in her own classroom. In this article, Shortland and Locke [28] reported that an Indigenous science teacher used creative narratives with her high school students as a way of developing their understanding of the human digestive system. The other four were implemented by non-Indigenous teachers such as Lee et al [29].…”

“…In another program (Guzey et al [25]), students designed and built devices to catch and store wind energy with the aim to solve the energy issues faced by their local community. Also, five studies (21%) focused on students' literacy practice, such as teaching and engaging students in creative and narrative writing and storytelling [28], and assisting students in building and using science disciplinary vocabularies [32]. Involvement of technology was emphasized in four studies (17%).…”