ABSTRACT
Reveles begins his chapter by asking that we consider the question of how students learn what it means to “do” school. Whether we realize it or not, this is one of the things students learn in school; they learn about the “appropriate” and “valued” ways of being a successful student. These ways of being include expectations for writing and talking in classrooms. For example, after reading this chapter you may be expected to write a reflection about what you learned and you will very likely be expected to talk about it with your classmates in relation to other course topics. The way you write a reflection for your professor might be very different than the way you write an email message that you would send to a friend. Additionally, when talking about this chapter with your classmates, you might choose a very different register of speech than you would use during a casual conversation. Scholars, like Reveles, who are interested in how students acquire their academic identities want to know more about how students make particular kinds of choices in learning how to represent themselves in relation to the subjects they are studying. Specifically, Reveles examines how students learn what it means to “do” science, as well as what it means to “be” a scientist by presenting their written work as evidence of such learning.
