Reading Assignment 4: Reading-Writing Connections

The article, Reading-Writing Connections, is generally based on the relationship between reading and writing. I have always thought that it was strange the way reading and writing were taught separately from each other. In my school that I am student teaching at, the class has reading in the morning and writing at the very end of the day. Whenever they write, they are writing about something totally irrelevant to what they are reading and when they read, they are reading about something they will never write about. I agree completely with the article that states that children should be invited to write about what they are reading and read about what they are writing.

The article detailed ways in which we can create environments for reading and writing. It suggested that teachers should encourage students to write about things that are relevant to their interests and needs. Even though the article states that children rarely are at a loss for what to write, I have to disagree. My brother has always struggled with writing and coming up with a topic to write about. I feel strongly that not everyone in your class is going to be able to say “Oh! I know what I want to write!” Some of the children are going to have to sit there a long time and think about what exactly they would like to write about. Thinking now about a possible solution to a problem like this I’ve come up with an idea. Perhaps the teacher could create an “idea bucket” in the classroom. Encourage students to write on a small piece of paper and dump any extra ideas they have into the idea bucket. Whenever a child can’t think of an idea for writing, tell them that they could go up to the idea bucket and pick out one of their classmate’s ideas. I would reward students that frequently contribute ideas to the bucket.

Out of all the things I did during my time in elementary school, the thing I remember most has to be my pen pal. I recall being thrilled every time the letters came. I would rip mine open and read it faster than anything else and then immediately pick up my pen and start writing back. I feel that having a pen pal is one of the best occasions to connect both reading and writing. I believe that the use of a pen pal can and should be used significantly more than it is now. Theoretically, why couldn’t students have a pen pal for every single grade in elementary school? I personally feel that it would be nothing but beneficial to students overall reading and writing skills.

Buddy journals and dialogue journals are excellent ways to have students connect reading and writing skills. If your class is doing dialogue journals, it is important to keep in mind that you are purely trying to scaffold reading-writing interactions through informal conversation. The article encourages students to write in their journals everyday. As a teacher, I’m somewhat skeptical to whether or not something like this is plausible. I feel like there wouldn’t be enough time for the teacher to have an ongoing written conversation every night with 25 students. Did anyone else feel the same way? Perhaps students could write for a whole week and then the teacher could respond at the end of the week?

I always struggled with the idea of editing when I was in elementary school. I would always be racing through a writing assignment just so I could be like, “Yes! Finally done!” The article teaches us to steer away from this and consider that drafting, revising, and editing are all part of the writing process and should be taught together. I feel that schools are getting better in the ways that they incorporate the different stages of writing. In my classroom where I’m student teaching, I observed students spending a whole period just on editing and revising their papers.