Narratives as Tools in Designing the School Chemistry Curriculum

AGNETA BOSTRM
ABSTRACT: This article is based on results from a research project which focused on chemistry teachers and student narratives from lived experience. The purpose was to find a way to make abstract chemistry more meaningful. The project began with six experienced teachers who used narratives and stories as a didactic tool. These narratives stemmed from the teachers individual lived experience and thus were designed differently. Later, interviews with students showed that five adult students and six younger students all appreciated the use of narratives as a meaning-making activity to help them grasp the abstract subject. The most interesting finding was that the students revealed several narratives from their own lives where the theories of chemistry played an important role in explaining events that otherwise had been mysterious to them. Thus the teachers and students showed that the ancient human method of sharing experience through narrative is still alive and useful in chemistry education. KEYWORDS: Case studies, chemical education, context-based learning, curriculum didactic design, meaning-making, narrative, scientific discourse, school subject, story.

This article concerns the school subject chemistry and investigates how the curriculum has changed over time. Some reflection is provided on how school traditions use the scientific discourse in the chemistry curriculum. As the ROSE project (Schreiner & Sjberg, 2004; Schreiner, 2006) shows many students in the western world avoid science programs in school. New teaching approaches have been developed and introduced to provide the student with a context for learning. The Storyline method, Salters approach, and Case Methodology are based on the context of using a narrative thread. In the final part of the paper, I present some narratives stemming from my research, which emphasize how these narratives are interwoven with the chemistry courses taught, thus contributing to the learning that continuously goes on in class. School chemistry and other subjects, are defined in the curriculum and interpreted in local
Interchange, Vol. 39/4, 391413, 2008. DOI 10.1007/s10780-008-9072-1 Springer 2008

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documents and in textbooks. The final design of chemistry takes place in the classroom, where teachers and students encounter and jointly discuss their interpretation of the subject in a process where the thoughts, ideas, and values of the subject are expressed and shared in a narrative discourse. In August 2000, a Russian submarine with a crew of 118 sank in the icy waters of the Barents Sea, as described by CNN.1 A chemistry teacher realised that this dramatic episode, where the crew eventually died, also contained a lot of chemistry related issues. Did the crew die from a lack of oxygen or was it because there was much too high a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere within the submarine? The teacher, Carl, was happy with the test he had constructed, based on the tragic accident when the nuclear submarine Kursk went down. He designed questions arising from this real life narrative. The students were fascinated by questions about how long the oxygen would suffice. The stoichiometric formulas and the calculations according to the gas laws became a natural part of the narrative. The students enjoyed the test and worked hard with the solutions. Normal air contains 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, 0.3% carbon dioxide and some trace amounts of other gases. Human beings breathe oxygen and use it for combustion of food. The waste produced is carbon dioxide. In the enclosed atmosphere within a submarine, oxygen is consumed and carbon dioxide can build up to dangerous levels, if nothing is done to prevent it happening. An electrolysis cell decomposing water to hydrogen and oxygen produces the required oxygen. The hydrogen can be collected in metal sponges, absorbing it as metal hydrides. The oxygen is then collected and compressed. It can thus be bled or sourced into the submarines atmosphere. Carbon dioxide causes no ill effect at a level, below 2%. In higher concentrations, one might develop an inability to breathe (dyspnea), and experience an increased pulse rate as well as dizziness.2 In very high concentrations, it causes convulsions, loss of consciousness, and even death. Therefore the carbon dioxide must be removed on an ongoing basis. This is accomplished by processing the gas with a strong base. Carbon dioxide yields carbonic acid with water and this produces limestone with calcium hydroxide. The limestone is not soluble in basic solution, making it precipitate. All of this chemistry is inherent in the content of the chemistry syllabus in upper secondary school. Combustion reactions, electrolysis, metal hydrides, the gas laws, and

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stoichiometrics must be known, if this chemistry is to be understood. The teacher who used this narrative provided the possibility for this test to be carried out by highly motivated students who, according to him, were excited about the project. The narrative, connected to a well-known event, aroused their interest greatly. Chemistry was set in a useful context and the abstract theories were shown to have great value for human enterprises.

What is a Narrative?
Polkinghorne (1995) summarized the research about narratives or stories. He identified action and event, suggesting that a story or narrative consists of a sequence of events, organised into a whole by means of a plot. A plot is a kind of scheme, by which the meaning of individual events can be understood. The narrative is a special kind of discourse. A discourse can be defined as a form of communication where some aspects are excluded and some are included in a fashion that is governed by rules designed to deliver meaning. Polkinghorne used two simple statements to illustrate his thinking The king died. The prince cried. Isolated on their own, these statements describe two independent events. However, when connected to a story, a new level of relational significance or discursivity is created, characterised by the meaningmaking significance carried, within the plot. In a story the crying of the prince is a reaction to the fathers death and in this way the narrative creates a context for understanding the crying.

The Role of the School Subject

One aspect which is decisive for how individual school subjects in science are shaped is influenced by the teachers education as well as the traditions of the individual schools. In spite of reforms, the teaching profession during the nine-year compulsory school system in Sweden is dominated, by primarily, two traditions. One is the academic tradition; the other is the seminar tradition, both are described by Lfdahl (1987), stman (1995), and Linn (2001). What we regard as a subject in school is dependent on historical traditions. The tradition in school is to combine older knowledge with new perspectives. But comprehensive and well structured arguments for school knowledge that is included in the subject found in curricula and text books are sometimes missing. The subjects partially originate in the university disciplines which still characterize them partly in the applications in practical work. In Science the borders between the school

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subjects still are Biology, Physics, and Chemistry while late knowledge areas as Biophysics do not exist, writes Selander (2001). Didactics of science could in this context be regarded as a meeting place where the content of knowledge is reflected upon, at the same time as the conditions for learning are illuminated.

School Traditions
The science tacher in secondary school represents the knowledge tradition of her or his area and is often educated only in one academic tradition. The teachers knowledge is transformed and transferred to the next generation via the teachers thoughts and the traditions of the scientific society, and that knowledge is mediated to the students. One element often emphasized in science teaching is that researchers have generally agreed about hypotheses that have been proven to be sustainable under experimental conditions. Knowledge, based on results produced by other methods than those generally accepted, for example narratives or knowledge through experienced practice, are often considered to be unscientific and thus unacceptable by many academically trained teachers, as Duschl (1988) has pointed out. The importance of context for teachers thoughts and actions are described in teacher thought research by Goodson (1992).

The Scientific Discourse

Results and methods stemming from scientific research are often normative for how school science is taught and this is reflected in the academic tradition of upper secondary school. Wolpert (1992) and Cromer (1993) describe the communicative problems this trend implies. Solomon (1993) described how language usage, alien to students ordinary every-day language, and the existing conventions for establishing meaning and what should be awarded significance tends to influence the scientific discourse. Taking part in the scientific discourse requires, at least in scientific contexts, an acceptable way of talking about and relating to nature. stman (1998) has discussed how students are required to learn new rules for talking and behaving in order to participate in the scientific discourse.

Science for All

How the content of science teaching is chosen is a matter decided upon for the purposes and goals decision-makers implement through the school authorities. In upper secondary school there are two extreme

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approaches on the spectrum. One holds the view that theoretical school subjects should prepare students for academic studies and therefore teaching should focus on proper science. The other position holds the view that scientific understanding is a civic knowledge, necessary in a democracy. Citizens have the right to be taught science since they are supposed to understand, discuss, and vote in matters concerning environmental issues, nuclear energy, or gene technology. A representative for the latter opinion is Fensham (2000), who in a series of articles and through his actions has pleaded for science for all, asserting that scientific knowledge is a civil right. Sjberg (2000), argued for the same goals, suggesting four primary arguments for each of the scientific subjects in school. The first two stress the instrumental parts of teaching while the last two are orientated toward a more social and cultural view of education. 1) The economic argument: Science is profitable for professional life and education in a technological and science-based society. 2) The utilitarian argument: Science is necessary in order to manage and master every-day life in a modern society. 3) The democratic argument: Scientific knowledge is important in order to be able to hold initiated opinions and hence to be a responsible citizen. 4) The cultural argument: Science is an important part of the human culture. (Sjberg, 2000, p. 161)

Trends in Chemistry Education

Curriculum Matters
Representatives for chemistry education have discussed the content of chemistry but have not offered general solutions as to what to include. Gilbert, De Jong, Justi, Treagust and Van Driel (2003) stated that what and how chemistry should be taught remains yet to be satisfactorily clarified. The dynamic development occurring within chemistry makes it difficult to decide what to include in school chemistry, irrespective of its purpose. For example, an ongoing discussion concerns whether or not philosophy should be incorporated within chemistry. In a survey, 95% of a group of university students had difficulties interpreting the atomic model by Bohr. Erduran and Scerri (2003) stated that deeper philosophical reflections concerning the nature of chemistry explanations might promote students conceptual learning. Wandersee and Griffard (2003) expressed the view that the distillation of a complex course of events or models to a theme applicable to practicing teachers is in itself a veritable challenge.

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The Sputnik Effect Changed the Curriculum

How do we design a curriculum that makes chemistry interesting for students? How do we achieve an education program within the scientific area and for students that require science for the purposes of citizenship? Since 1960, the chemistry curriculum focused on chemistry as a scientific activity. Prior to the 1960s the textbooks in science contained descriptive sections. Materials concerning technological and industrial applications were included. The curriculum has reverted from being more theoretical in an effort to present a chemical knowledge base applicable for all citizens of the future, wrote Van Driel (2003). When the Soviet Union successfully implemented its space-program and launched the sputnik with the dog Laika on board in 1957, and shortly later the first cosmonaut-controlled rockets into orbit, the United States administration reacted by introducing large scale changes to their science curriculum. They required an expanded recruitment base for scientists and technicians so as to seize back the initiative in terms of space technology. DeBoer (1991) described different ideas shaping science teaching. Descriptive chemistry was abandoned at the end of the 1950s when a committee consisting of nine teachers and nine professors in the United States founded a new orientation entitled The Chemical Bond Approach. This new trend was to be of significance for both theory and experiments. Every-day applications of chemistry and industrial products as well as processes disappeared. This change in the curriculum of one of the leading nations of the West correspondingly, influenced the curriculum for the rest of the world transforming textbooks. Descriptive sections with a narrative content were removed and theoretical and abstract sections were added. Bruner (1960) chaired a 10-day curriculum conference in September 1959. Structure is the fundamental principle to illuminate a field of study argued Bruner, indicating that students should learn the structure of chemistry and physics in order to actually think like scientists. Perhaps the most basic thing that can be said about human memory, after a century of intensive research, is that unless detail is placed into a structural pattern, it is rapidly forgotten. What learning general or fundamental principles does is to ensure that memory loss will not mean total loss, that what remains will permit us to reconstruct the details when needed. A good theory is the vehicle not only for understanding a phenomenon now but also for remembering it tomorrow. (Bruner, 1960, pp. 24-25)

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Bruner was to change his opinion radically in later writings. He continued to believe that there was a need for structure for the enhancement of understanding and to ensure that memories are retained. However, he later came to change his mind and took the view that a narrative structure was the most important tool. But the viewpoint had already taken effect, textbooks had been rewritten and future teachers were being told not to use a narrative discourse.3 In the 1980s, when the curriculum reverted toward presenting a knowledge base applicable to all citizens, the case for narratives grew stronger, believed Van Driel (2003). More context-based approaches to curriculum were developed.

The ROSE Project

International concern about young peoples lack of interest in careers in the area of science and technology (S&T) became the background for the ROSE project developed in Norway. ROSE stands for Relevance of Science Education, and the project has revealed that young students in highly developed countries decline the opportunity to take S&T studies, while students in developing countries are found to be more enthusiastic. The project, based on questionnaires, has been implemented in more than 40 countries, and the first results point to the view that, although students are positive to S&T in society, they do not consider the curriculum of the school subjects to be of relevance (Schreiner & Sjberg 2004; Schreiner, 2006). In her doctoral thesis Schreiner (2006), drew some conclusions from the data, pointing to a connection between a countrys level of development and which careers are of interest to students. Students wish to become something special, exciting, and original, and clearly S&T has not been able to live up to these expectations. There seems to be a considerable requirement for change in the science curriculum and with regard to the teaching of science.

Context-Based Approaches
Narratives have been used in approaches aiming at curriculum reform, for example Problem-based learning (PBL), the Salters method, the Storyline approach, Large Context Problems (LCP), or Case studies. These approaches can also be described as being context-based.

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Problem-Based Learning
Skelton and Hammond (1998) reported how the medical curriculum is often approached narratively. This curriculum lends itself well to a narrative approach, given the tradition of storytelling in medicine, and the ability of an individual story to act as the starting-point for problembased study (p. 548). The practice of medicine is considered to be genuinely scientific, making this a good example of interweaving scientific and narrative traditions.

The Salters Method

Science; The Salters Approach (1990-92) is a textbook introducing applied chemistry. This method was developed in the United Kingdom as a curriculum alternative offering chemistry based on applications for students aged 11-18 (Campbell, et al. 1994). The authors found that teachers and students using this method experienced a better classroom atmosphere. The method has been tested in other countries. Short case studies are used. Bennett and Holman (2003) referred to two studies by Ramsden (1992, 1997) showing that students who tried a contextbased approach were satisfied with the lessons. Those who simultaneously took traditional courses were more satisfied with the new approach. Bennett, Grsel, Parchmann and Waddington (2005, p. 1521) compared teachers views on context-based teaching. Using a questionnaire they found that both groups of teachers agreed that the context-based course was more motivating and students were more likely to go to university to study chemistry. On the other hand the context-based course was considered more demanding.

The Storyline Method

A valuable way of integrating the curriculum is the storyline method, as stated by Barr and McGuire (1993).4 Storyline is a method, developed in Scotland during the last 20 years, incorporating the students enthusiasm for stories. In Sweden, the method is gaining in popularity and more and more teachers and schools seem to use it, at least in primary school. Practicing teacher educators such as Persson (2002) and Piqueras5 use the approach. Falkenberg and Hkonsson (2000) defined the storyline approach as a method consisting of thematic, problemoriented teaching episodes, where it is important that the teaching does not circle around a central subject, but proceeds as a narrative, following a storyline. The students learn by discovering, investigating, reflecting, talking, and acting. They work with the reality they know,

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enlarging it supported by how they can use their imagination, learning that their creativity and argumentation are valuable.

Large Context Problems (LCP)

Stinner and Winchester (1981) and Stinner (1980, 1993, 1995) described Large Context Problems (LCP) in teaching physics. Stinner developed Large Context Problems in response to the discovery that learning could be motivated by a context with one unifying central idea capable of capturing the students imagination. He developed Large Context Problems for different major topics in high school physics. Each LCP was designed so that all of the physics for each given major topic in physics was used. Examples of Large Context Problems are outlined in Stinner (1980) Physics and the Bionic Man and Stinner and Winchester (1981) The Physics of Star Trek.

Case Studies
Narratives are also connected to a dynamic area in teaching, namely case studies. Shulman (1992) stated that a case contains a narrative, a story, and a set of events unfolding over time in a particular place. It can include human protagonists but the central figures might also be planets, black holes, or volcanoes changing or evolving over time. These teaching narratives have certain shared characteristics: Narratives have a plot a beginning, middle, and end. They may well include a dramatic tension that must be relieved in some fashion. Narratives are particular and specific. They are not statements of what generally, or for the most part, is or has been. Narratives place events in a frame of time and place. They are, quite literally, local that is, located or situated. Narratives of action or inquiry reveal the working of human hands, minds, motives, conceptions, needs, misconceptions, frustrations, jealousies, and faults. Human agency and intention are central to those accounts. Narratives reflect the social and cultural contexts within which the events occur. (Shulman, 1992, p. 21) This description covers how narrative can be delimited. Case studies are often used in medical education. Stocklmeyer and Gilbert (2003) considered situation, context, and narrative as ingredients in successful chemical education. They discuss informal chemical education, taking place outside the scheduled and structured educational system in schools and universities. When students watch television, read books,

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papers, and journals or visit museums and science centres, the authors claim that learning takes place in three steps: 1) The learner comes into contact with interesting situations. 2) These situations are transformed to a context, where it is possible to create meaning. 3) Learning takes place when the context is connected to a narrative from someones life. Stocklmeyer and Gilbert used popular science books as Selinger (2000), Why the Watermelon Wont Ripen in Your Armpit, Schwarcz (1999) Radar, Hula Hoops and Playful Pigs and Emsley (1998) Molecules at an Exhibition as examples of their thinking. Bennett and Holman (2003) discussed context-based approaches in chemical education. They pointed to a lack of systematic research-based evaluation of these approaches. Many studies, leading to disparate results, have been made. An argument for context-based approaches is a raised motivation, leading to better understanding. It is difficult to do research in the area, claimed the authors, describing the ongoing trend to teach science in a context in the entire spectre of ages from the lower grades in compulsory school to higher levels.

Narrative Meaning-Making
One important contribution of the narratives is their influence on meaning-making; they create a context that makes chemistry meaningful. Turner (1996) claimed that our capacity for narrative imagining must have been beneficial in an evolutionary sense, explaining how it contributes to our human capacity for prediction, evaluation, planning, and explanation. Turner stated that we, who are equipped with human brains, can project image schemes, construct, and execute intricate sequences, and use recognition and imagination when we use our capacity for narrative imagining. We duck when we see someone cock an arm or throw a stone at us because we are predicting; we recognize the beginning sequence of a small spatial story, imagining the rest, and respond. Narrative imagining is our fundamental form of predicting. When we decide that it is perfectly reasonable to place our plum on the dictionary but not the dictionary on our plum, we are both predicting and evaluating. Evaluating the future of an act is evaluating the wisdom of the act. In this way, narrative imagining is also our fundamental form of evaluating.

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When we hear something and want to see it, and walk to a new location in order to see it, we have made and executed a plan. We have constructed a story taking us from the original situation to the desired situation and executed the story. The story is the plan. In this way, narrative imagining is our fundamental cognitive instrument for planning. When a drop of water falls mysteriously from the ceiling and lands on our feet, we try to imagine a story that begins from the normal situation and ends with the mysterious situation. The story is the explanation. Narrative imagining is our fundamental cognitive instrument for explanation. (Turner, 1996, p. 20)

Narratives Make Chemistry Meaningful

The teachers in my study discussed the importance of making chemistry meaningful, providing examples of how to achieve this. The arguments for using narratives were that they connected to lived experience, made chemistry meaningful, and created a context that made chemistry fun. The students also wanted chemistry to be meaningful, presenting many examples of how this could be done. They talked about the meaning-making qualities of narratives connecting with lived experience. Narratives offer an over-view and can even stimulate passions in their most dramatic form. They create contact with everyday life, create a context, and make chemistry meaningful. and make chemistry come alive. The connection to lived experience which the narratives offer seems to be important in making chemistry meaningful and worth knowing. There were close connections between making chemistry meaningful and connecting the subject itself to lived experience. Teachers think that a real life context makes students realize that learning is meaningful. Carls test, based on the Kursk accident, was one example of this. The students and the teachers lived experiences turned out to be characterized by events where chemistry played a role and could explain puzzling phenomena and they also offered several examples of this.

The Research Project

Before I became a teacher I had worked for 21 years as a chemical engineer in industry as well as in R&D funding. Teaching chemistry gave me a reason and an opportunity to further relate these experiences to others. Experiences from the real world served to expand the curricular content, making it a multi-dimensional project. Narratives from my own experience became integrated with the classroom

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discourse and contributed to the creation of meaning with school subjects sometimes experienced as being abstract and theoretical by students. With chemistry a symbolic language, expressed by formulas and stoichiometric calculations, is used. Furthermore, abstract concepts, for example, mole, amount of substance, and matter, specific to chemistry are used. Renstrm (1988), Strmdahl (1996), and Tullberg (1998) studied the consequences of these concepts in their dissertations. My experiences from the outside world were brought into my project, which started with the idea of finding out how my teacher colleagues, that did not have the same experience as I did, created meaning in a subject that often was regarded as difficult and abstract. Six chemistry teachers at the upper secondary school level were interviewed, in sequential interviews, as outlined by Lindberg (2003), with an interval of about one year between each of the two interviews. The interviews were designed in an open model inspired by a doctoral course from 2001,6 stemming from reflections presented by Kvale (1996) and Mishler (1986), and complemented with updated texts by Gubrium and Holstein (2003). An inquiry guide, consisting of seven question areas, was elaborated upon and the interviews were conducted as dialogues. During one interview, the dialogue developed into a narrative concerning how the teacher had possessed the ambition to become a teacher since she had been 12 years of age. This narrative explained how she, in spite of formal obstacles, had persisted in her ambition and ultimately succeeded. She had chosen to acquire her chemistry qualification at a technical university and because of this she encountered obstacles when she applied to the teacher education unit. The narrative itself occupied 11 out of 32 pages, of the transcribed interview. A course at the Stockholm Institute of Education, lead by Professor Agneta Linn, entitled Narratives as Tools in the Classroom and in Research, helped me make sense of the role of the narrative. Looking for patterns in the transcripts made me realize that there were many more narratives present than I had first realized. One teacher, together with her students, created a scenario concerning the life cycle of a chocolate bar. Another teacher created a test based on the accident on the nuclear submarine Kursk, in the Barents Sea. The realisation slowly grew on me, that all of the teachers used a narrative discourse as a teaching tool in one fashion or another. Their individual approaches to using narratives were clearly shown to be different. During the following months I analysed the transcripts concurrently formulating a preliminary report. Presenting this, I realized I had found the needle

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in the haystack. Teachers narratives in themselves constituted the meaning-making tools I was primarily searching for. My research focus thus eventually developed into looking at how narratives contribute to chemistry lessons, and connecting this in turn with how chemistry as a subject is actually framed. The narratives originated in the personal experiences of teachers and students encountering one another in class, and were intimately linked to personal experiences. Thus, it has become increasingly important to understand teachers own thinking about his or her work, as is also discussed by Goodson (1992) and Goodson and Sikes (2001).

Students Narratives
I have complemented the interviews with the experienced chemistry teachers by interviews with students. I interviewed five adult students participating in an evening course at a corresponding level to the chemistry course at the upper secondary school. I also conducted one group interview with four students and two interviews with the individual students, all carried out during their final year of upper secondary school. I asked the younger students to think about connections between chemistry and their own experiences in an effort to ascertain their own ideas about the use of narratives in chemistry. A later study was undertaken once I realized that many of the narratives I found resulted from interviewing adults who had longer and more established experiences. I wanted to investigate how narratives told by chemistry teachers, contributed actively to the learning process. The most interesting discovery was that the students contributed to this process with their own narratives from their individual experiences. These individual narratives illustrated and illuminated descriptively chemistry7 events, in the students own experiences, through the application of theoretical chemistry.

Examples
The stories or narratives where chemistry played such an important role constituted a way of making the subject meaningful. Britta stated that the gas laws had a function and a context as in the chocolate bar project. When she and her students realized the giant quantities of gas involved it had been an enormous experience, something which they long remembered. Using the narrative expanded the theory; the gas laws are otherwise difficult to access for many. Students learn it as a paradigmatic equation to put figures into. Brittas narrative about the

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chocolate bar apparently made the law meaningful to students; it was not just a problem for solving in textbooks. Britta was sure that the chocolate narrative had made a difference to their learning. Diana expressed her hopes for meaning-making, underlining that she wanted her students to understand the context. She wanted to give them an overall picture making them see that, it was fun, and interesting and exciting. Also, she wanted them to be able to read articles in journals and understand the content. Diana implemented this aspiration, when teaching science studies. She wanted to integrate science subjects as she felt that separating them disintegrated knowledge. As well, Diana wanted integrated textbooks in science subjects since she saw intimate connections between biology and chemistry and she wanted to elaborate on those in her teaching. She wanted chemistry to be meaningful to all. Fanny was engaged with the issues of peace and the abandonment of nuclear weapons, and was concerned about how to share the limited resources of the earth. Her teaching was permeated with these objectives. To her, chemistry bore so much more meaning than at face value and she felt it was that meaning which made it fun to teach chemistry. Fanny used narratives about the life cycles of the elements and examples from a chemistry exhibition for raising cultural and philosophical questions in class. Gustaf had encountered welding, using protective gases, for example MIG or TIG, and this made chemistry meaningful for him. He drew a comparison with the solution of equations: If the teacher offers good examples, the interest is aroused, you can absorb it. Kristian related narratives from his work particularly making chemistry meaningful by offering explanations. His job involved a situation where theoretical electro-chemistry became alive. In addition to electro-chemistry, environmental aspects, occupational safety, and health issues were involved in Kristians stories. By telling me about these he made me regard the chemistry I teach in a new light, making it more vivid and meaningful. The periodic table is no longer an abstract generalisation it is inhabited by individual and usable metals. Oscar was very specific about how a subject should be taught. He wanted theory to be embedded in a context, for example a narrative. Oscar wanted the teacher to provide a general overview of an area before going into specific details. He felt that if the subject was approached in a different way, it would become meaningless. He was

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arguing for a meaningful way of teaching. Oscar was upset about imaginary numbers that were taught without a context. Narratives helped in learning chemistry by making the subject easier to grasp, more fun and, as Nancy stated, a story was almost like a fairy-tale, enabling one to sustain a good level of concentration for a longer time. I have interpreted these statements as expressions of how narratives help to make chemistry more meaningful.

The Narrative as a Didactic Design Tool

Bruner (1986) and Polkinghorne (1988) describe two ways to organize knowledge the paradigmatic (scientific and structured) and the narrative. Bruner writes that our thinking follows two different paths, each one offering a method to organize events in order to construct reality. Illustrating this model Polkinghorne uses two simple statements. The king died. The prince cried. Isolated, these statements describe two independent events. When they are connected in a narrative a new level of relational significance or discursivity, characterizing the meaning-making quality of the plot, is created. In a narrative the crying of the prince becomes a reaction to the fathers death. In this way the narratives creates the context that makes it possible to understand the crying. Narrative cognition is aimed at the understanding of human action, writes Polkinghorne (1995). Human action is the result of interaction between earlier learning and experiences, the present situation and the aims and purposes a person maintains. These are unique and cannot totally be replicated. Separating it from paradigmatic cognition, aimed at what actions have in common, narrative cognition focuses on what is special in each action. Narrative cognition considers the temporal context and the complexity of the interactions that create each situation. Paradigmatic knowledge is saved in the form of words describing a concept while narrative knowledge is saved in narratives. The narrative knits events together and gives them context and meaning. Narrative cognition thus becomes something else with the ability to classify and see structures the backbones of paradigmatic thinking. The issue is understanding, to understand by designing context. Concerning teaching, we realize how the forms of learning are different on one hand to learn the procedure that solves an equation, on the other hand to understand the significance of the equation and its solution.

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The lives of chemistry teachers influence the chemistry taught in class. Teachers lived experience influences their teaching. The teacher Anna tells about the winding path which led to her dream position as teacher. Since she was 12, the only possible career for her was teaching. In her story about an event in her home her capacity as a narrator is evident. When removing limestone from the boiler in their house, her husband had left some of the material for her in the laundry, as he knew that she could use it in her teaching. On seeing it, her first thought was that her teenage son had left a half-eaten sandwich it was somewhat crumbly and floury. The limestone that looked like a sandwich is today kept in the chemistry department where she works, and is used as an example when carbonate chemistry is on the agenda. She also uses the narrative about the sandwich from everyday life in her classroom dialogue. Fannys life is interwoven with her engagement in the issues of peace and the disarmament of nuclear weapons and she is a teacher who talks about higher powers, mentioning God. Fannys interest in chemistry is connected with her concern about sharing the limited resources of the Earth. Her teaching is influenced by this concern and her desire to understand and explain the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, the origin of life, and the first RNA. In her class, long before it was considered proper to discuss life cycles, she had a drawing board full of maps showing where minerals and metals originate, how they are used, and where they go after use. She raised questions concerning how many millions of years it takes before a metal reverts to a mineral ore. Together with her students she visited the chemistry exhibition at the museum of technology. This initiated discussions about cosmetics and why people want to make themselves beautiful, how painting was been used in different cultures to invoke the gods, and how mushrooms were used by early peoples prior to going to war. Fanny wondered how different cultures used chemistry to invoke higher powers. She drew parallels to the physicists of our time, struggling with the expansion of the universe, mysterious dark matter, and finding Higgs particle. She often become philosophical and even religious. It is evident that Fannys personal thoughts are reflexed in her class. These examples show how individual lived experience is interwoven with teaching and the subject that is offered to students in class. Teachers lives and life stories have been studied by Goodson (1992). Issues like life stories and how individuals are constituted are interesting research fields. I connect this to Polkinghornes thoughts (1995) about narrative cognition and its direction toward human action.

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Human action, resulting from interaction between earlier learning and experiences, the present situation, and the purposes and aims of an individual I interpret as a description of the life story.

Narratives as Scientific Explanations

Finally, Eva uses narratives when she describes the atoms and their components. A redox process, oxidation of aluminum, is described and explained, showing how the agents of the narrative, got rid of their surplus electrons, or picked up some extra electrons. In order to help the students to better understand the chain of events Eva transformed it into a sequential organized narrative about oxygen molecules in the air attacking the aluminum surface, thereby transforming it into aluminum oxide. Connecting to this narrative, we might ask what it is that makes an explanation really explain something. If I ask why it rains and the answer is that water falls from heaven, I only have learned what rain is. The answer that it rains because it always rains a lot in April, only tells me that rain is common and therefore does not have to be explained further. A story about a low pressure area taking with it damp air starts to resemble what we mean by an explanation. A scientific explanation resembles a narrative, claims Ogborn, Kress, Martins, and McGillykuddy (1996). Its most important quality is that it contains a number of agents, each one with the prerequisites that make it what it is. These agents go through a series of events and these events have consequences depending on the nature of the agents. A scientific explanation has a lot in common with a narrative, even though it is not presented in the same way. In my interpretation the discussion about the consequences of events is similar to the vision that science carries on cause and effect, for example a polluted river, the life cycle of carbon, how infections are spread, or the mechanisms of heredity. In these cases the explanation can be regarded as a narrative. The narrative about carbon goes back hundreds of millions of years, describing dead tropical forests, sedimentation of decomposed plants, and the impact of extreme pressure and temperatures. Thus it creates meaning in what otherwise would be arbitrary events. A scientific explanation, regarded as a narrative, explains that things happen because matter the agent of the narrative does what is its nature to do or in other words, it follows the laws of nature.

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Narratives as Tools for Designing the Subject

The described narratives were used by the upper secondary teachers. They were connected to the content of the chemistry courses at the upper secondary level. Teachers classroom narratives constitute an integrated part of the subject that the students are offered. Chemistry teachers narratives are interwoven with their life stories, meaning that the content of the subject that they offer to the students is dependent upon their own lives. Teachers experiences are interwoven in a process that can be defined as Designing the Subject. The content and the form of the subject are designed from the teachers individual knowledge and experience and are expressed in her or his classroom narratives. Bruner (2002) summarized his work, expanding the discussion around these two types of cognition from his more youthful description of two mutually translatable mental states, to a more complex description. The paradigmatic mode is existential and declarative: there is an x of property y such that its orbit has the property z. The narrative one is normative and its mode subjunctive (p. 101). The gift of such playwrights as Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Iphigenia is that they have given us a treasury of metaphor about tragic plights, images of the possible in an imperfect world (p. 102), claimed Bruner. He was sure that we can live with both worlds, the austere but well-defined world of the paradigmatic and the darkly challenging world of narrative (p. 102), asserting that it is when we lose sight of the two in tandem that we tend to narrow our own perspectives on life. Bruner (2002), being strongly in favour of narratives, believed that they create possibilities by telling how something could be; they talk about a subjunctive world. Narratives open up more possibilities, since narratives not only tell how it is, but also describe how it might be. Narratives allow us to be more open and flexible in teaching science because we do not have to desperately attempt to strive after the correct answer and actually describe the world as we know it is. Maybe this makes it possible to discuss the modeling made in science. Could models be regarded as suitable subjects for narratives? I think they can. Internationally the discussion concerns how curricula, chemical and other scientific educational efforts should change and develop in order to attract students. The suggested changes focus on increasing the ratio of meaning-making events in education by trying different ways to make the content more concrete. One way is to connect to students lives by the use of everyday connections, another is to contextualize by methods such as Large Context Problems, and a third is to interweave historical

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or philosophical dialogues. Design tools such as textbooks and the process where the individual teacher chooses and presents her or his subject, and the narratives she or he offers the students, will in this perspective be decisive for how the individual student understands the subject. Thus teachers chemistry narratives become essential for how the subject is shaped in class.

NOTES
1. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/08/14/russia.military/ 2. http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/carbon_ dioxide/health_cd.html 3. As described by colleague teachers in oral communication. 4. The following websites give more information about The Story-line method: http://www.storyline-scotland.freeserve.co.uk/news.html http://www.storyline.nu/ http://www.acskive.dk/storyline/ 5. http://www.storyline-scotland.com/jesus.html 6. Course in Interview Methodology led by assistant professor William Pettersson at the Stockholm Institute of Education, 2001. 7. At present in Sweden two chemistry courses are included in the curriculum for the scientific program in upper secondary school. These courses are Chemistry A, containing basic chemistry knowledge concerning atoms, the periodic table, chemical bonding, acids and bases, oxidation and reduction, thermo chemistry and organic chemistry, and Chemistry B encompassing kinetics and equilibrium, more organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, and biochemistry. In the technical program and with some other programs students take Chemistry A. Because marks in the two courses are compulsory for entering higher education such as medicine, biotechnology, and other popular educational lines many students complement their qualifications with adult education.

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Authors Address: s Vuxengymnasium Box 17804 SE-11894 Stockholm SWEDEN EMAIL: agneta-bostrom@comhem.se agneta.bostrom@utbildning.stockholm.se