SISL units are organized intentionally to support linguistically diverse students’ participation in scientific inquiry and collaborative sense-making. Each unit is organized into five clusters. Each cluster is a sequence of 4–6 lessons that engage students in investigating a guiding question related to the unit’s anchor phenomenon (e.g., "What happens to materials in a landfill?"; "Are falling stars actually stars?"). The clusters take students through an inquiry process using the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices to make sense of the guiding question.
We have intentionally organized each cluster in the following sequence to support students in constructing knowledge and developing language:
Throughout the units, students spiral through using the different Science and Engineering Practices.
Our intention is that teachers purposefully lead students through this sequence, enabling them to construct meaning and develop language through a series of intentionally sequenced experiences. Teachers are facilitators, thoughtfully structuring students’ engagements with key experiences and inputs and prompting thinking and discussion. This instructional sequence can be applied to any science unit, or to students’ learning of other disciplines.
In addition, for each type of activity, such as reading a text or engaging in a science talk, SISL uses similar routines to scaffold students’ engagement. We describe these routines and their rationale in the Guide to Using the SISL Curriculum. Because these routines are used repeatedly over time, students develop more competence and independence with the science practice and the language and literacy skills involved with it (e.g., how to engage in a scientific discussion, how to approach and learn from a science text, how to create a clear scientific model).
Additional Components of the SISL Approach