edited by
J. DUDLEY HERRON Purdue Univenity West Lafoyene, Indiana 47907
The Language of Chemistry Thomas Gage Mt. Diablo Unified School District Concord, califdrnia 94519 The popular witicism "I don't know who discovered water, but I'm damm sure it wasn't a fish," conveys a message to educators in all suhject areas, especially chemistry. Because our disciplines are becoming more and more specialized, our language has become more and more technical. The 65% of the students in our classes who are not talented encounter a kind of language pollution as they move through six different classrooms a day. The teacher, wrapped up in his own suhject, is often so close to it that he is no more aware of the special language he uses than the fish is aware of the water that surrounds him. Chemistry teachers must become aware of their language and teach that language to their students. There are a t least four modes a reader should consideras he approaches the content of any textbook: reading the words, reading the lines, reading between the lines, and reading beyond the lines. Reading the words: Much information is deliberately sequential in nature; that is, the reader is to process each word as his eyes scan from left to right across the page. How to envision a chemical equation, to fill out an IRS form, to assemble a toy stove, are examples of this kind of "reading the words." The reader must take each step a t a time, sometimes regressing to earlier steps but never skimming and scanning ahead. This mode of reading is most often the reading strategy of the student in mathematics and chemistry. Reading the Lines: Since the basic unit of sense in the English language is the sentence, many educators ask their students to read content that was written for literal interpretation. This "reading a line" mode is the mode of reading that we expect students to use in nearly every subject, hut it is particularly important in science. The language is stripped bare of unnecessary adjectives. It is dense in concept-hearing words, and every sentence in a paragraph is organized in a logical relationship of superordination, coordination, and subordination. Surprisingly, this is the mode of reading that is measured in most of the tests of reading comprehension. In dozens of reading comprehension tests what is asked of the student is to read a sentence and to identify the missing word from four words a t the right of the passage. Such sentences often deal with science related subjects; for example, one such item deals with John Glenn in outer space and another deals with rattlesnakes. This type of reading rarely is encountered in the English class hut is crucial in math and quantitative chemistry passages. In this mode of reading prose the reader cannot rely on any reading skills based on context clues. Reading between the Lines: All readers are asked to read suhject matter in the mode of "reading between the lines."
I t is a strategy that is most prominent in the disciplines of social science and English. It requires the reader to probe the author's motivation for writing. He is asked to weigh the validity of information that the author provides. Teachers assigning this kind of prose ask the student to skio and scan and skim rather than read for absorhine literal meaning. Readinc Bevond the Lines: Unlike the three orevious modes of ;eading, "reading beyond the lines" suggests that the reader make analogical or associational leaps. The language is figurative and relies on the reader's imagination. The most functional reader in this mode is quite often the least functional reader when confronted withthe prose of a chemistry hook. ~ l t h o u g hevery suhject area requires students to read in varying degrees from each of these four modes, the teacher should-consider the language of his textbook to determine how he might recommend that students adjust to the appropriate mode in completing their reading assignments. Some general practices that chemistry teachers may consider are the following. 1) Reading aloud in class. The material you read might be an article you read last night, or a passage from the text. The content that you read should convey the flavor of the language of chemistry; terse, logically linked, abstract. What you want to do is get the students to develop an ear for this unique language. By selecting articles from Science Dieest. - . Chemistrv. .. Scientific American. and other simipopular acnencc journals ymr may nlso encuurage .;It,dents lo expand thew reading uf
