A WRITING TEMPLATE for Probing Students' Botanical Sense of Place

Writing can be a powerful tool for learning biology. Writing assignments in biology could help students personalize and understand the biology knowledge they are studying. In this article, the authors present the "Botanical Sense of Place" (BSP), a convenient and easy-to-use writing template that they developed to elicit and probe students' prior experiences, associations, and knowledge about plants that they have encountered during their daily lives--from childhood through youth, and up to the present. The BSP writing template is comprised of 17 memory probes, five writing prompts, and three plant biology concept linkages. The purpose of the BSP writing template is to help students notice, see significance, and reflect upon the plant life (landscape) surrounding them. The authors have found that using the BSP is an excellent way to begin plant biology instruction. Furthermore, their self-report data show this technique is effective in winning reluctant students by identifying--and later teaching botanical lessons--with plant examples that students have supplied themselves. (Contains 1 figure.)