Linking Reading and Writing
From the Writing Retreat, 2004: Reading/Writing Connections
The gist of current wisdom culled from reading research:
- Write prior to reading
- Devise interest-arousing pre-tests
- Allow collaborative groups to discuss what they know about a problem prior to reading
- Create “reading guides,” filled with key terms and context information
- Write during reading
- Marginal notes
- Answers to specific reading questions
- Reading logs
- Double-entry notebooks
- Summaries
- Commonplace Books
- Three questions one would want to ask the author
- Student-generated quiz questions
- Translations of difficult passages into their own language
- Write after reading
- Create assignments that require the reading skill developed in the pre-reading activities and the writing-during-reading.
- Explicitly talk about what it is to read, and model your expert moves
- Show what it is to look for positions and to doubt them
- Show how important it is to know about a text’s context
How might each of these stages best connect in order to improve not only reading ability and comprehension, but also writing ability?