I write you today to request your consideration to integrating the reading and writing courses at the college. My research on best practices theory and helping our students to succeed academically has made clear the need for integration.
We Read to Write and Write to Read
Reading and writing are complementary activities and are intertwined; you cannot do one without affecting the other. Each activity is not done in isolation but with an eye towards the other activity. When we read, we are actively thinking about writing and presentation. When we write, we consider the reader's interpretation of our writing; it does not happen in a vacuum.
According to Van Woerkum:
The writer may develop a more refined and vivid
representation of the act of reading as
a point of reference for his writing that can steer his
design of the text and the process of formulating sentences.
On the other hand, the writer could be motivated to trigger
the readers in their active role. The writer can make active
readers even more active, with the benefit of greater involvement,
a prerequisite for attention as well as comprehension.
There is a communication with the text, whereby the reader poses questions and considers opposing viewpoints. This can help their abilities as a writer. Readers become active readers with the texts, and this stimulates their brainstorming, an important skill in writing.
We are currently in a period of "Engaged Learning" (Alexander). Engaging students in the readings makes them active participants in the learning process, and this allows them to reflect more fully on the readings - a precursor to brainstorming for their written assignments.
The Need for Integrated Reading and Writing
Sugie Goen and Helen Gillotte-Tropp in "Integrating Reading and Writing: A Response to the Basic Writing Crisis" relate the problem in colleges and universities whereby an overwhelming majority of students are in remedial reading and writing courses. They based the creation of their IRW courses on several key themes:
1) Integration: "better writers tend to be better readers" and that "better writers tend to read more than poorer writers"
2) Time: "Learning and improvement in reading and writing develop gradually" therefore we need courses that are higher unit and intensive than we currently offer. Perhaps offering them as a year-long sequence would be of benefit to our students.
3) Development: Again, it takes time for the skills to develop.
4) Academic Membership: students are part of the mainstream, as opposed to being "remedial" and the enhances their place in the college.
5) Sophistication: The course would be indistinguishable from the mainstream of courses on campus, and the additional time would allow instructors to properly scaffold activities so students can be sure to understand them.
6) Purposeful Communication: Instead of drills, students learn from meaning, that is what drives linguistic competence. According to Kutz, Groden and Zamel, currently in many basic skills courses the "focus in on language itself, on teaching its parts abstracted from meaningful contexts, in a prearranged order of skills development".
Goen-Salter and Gillotte-Tropp also posit certain objectives for these courses, which I believe we should also push for in our school:
1) To understand the way that readers read and writers write - by exposing students to different forms of writing across the disciplines, we can prepare them for the real world after they leave our college.
2) To develop a metacognitive understanding of the processes of reading and writing. By helping students understand their own processes and strategies for learning, they come to be in-tune with their own educational journey. One useful example of this is K-W-L+, a reading strategy where students gather what they know about a topic, what they would like to know, what they learned and any other questions they have.
3) To understand the rhetorical properties of reading and writing, including purpose, audience and stance. Writing activities are designed to develop essays and to support points of view, and for reading, to improve reading rate and comprehension and to do so with the reading-writing relationship closely experienced.
4) To understand and engage in reading and writing as a way to make sense of the world, to experience literacy as problem solving, reasoning and reflecting
5) To develop enjoyment, satisfaction and confidence in reading and writing
The foregoing curriculum and the theories backing it were found to be hugely successful at San Francisco State University. At the end of the year, retention rates were at 81%, which is higher than our current college success rates. According to Goen-Salter and Gillotte-Tropp, "the data from the first year of the program offer compelling evidence that students in the integrated course can meet the cognitive challenges of learning to write as readers and read as writers, and that they can perform these tasks at a level of competence that places them fully into the mainstream of intellectual life at the university."
Based on the foregoing, I recommend your committee consider an integrated reading and writing curriculum. We will see higher retention and success rates, student confidence and utilize tested and successful practices for our students. This will further our college mission of student access and social justice. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Jim Nguyen
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