Reading Marries Writing!

By Ellin Keene

It’s a bright autumn morning in your elementary or middle school classroom, early in the year, so much ahead—nothing quite like those early days of promise. Literacy is first up for the day. You present a short mini-lesson (keep it snappy!) in reading and hustle the children off to read independently. You feel that it has taken too long this fall to get them all into the “right” books, but finally, you are ready to dig into real conferences.

You rush to confer with as many students as possible. Just two today. You’re wondering about those three “reading” in the corner. What were they really up to over there? And what about your friend who has abandoned four books in two weeks? You meant to confer with her today to figure out what is going on there. You ask the students to share quickly with a partner as a sort of reflection. Pretty lame, you think. The kids didn’t take it seriously.

Time for writing. You are determined not to forget writer’s workshop this year! Last year it seems that writing always took a back seat to read or when kids did write, it was all response to a text. So, you roll out a carefully planned writing mini-lesson which, incidentally, is unrelated to the reading lesson. You tell the students that it’s time to apply what you’ve taught in their own writing. You try to make it sound like they’re standing on the precipice of greatness as writers. They look skeptical. Most stare at their writer’s notebooks. You dig in to confer with a student and there is so much work to be done in her writing. You’re overwhelmed. 15 minutes later, you look up and realize that the literacy block is nearly over. No time to reflect on writing today. Determined, you think, “Okay, I really will get that in tomorrow!”

You walk the students to lunch feeling that the class didn’t accomplish nearly as much as they would have liked and that time is too short to address standards requirements, much less lead students to a sense of spirited inquiry. The next day, the process plays out again in exactly the same way. Sound at all familiar? There has to be a better way.

Rethinking Readers’/Writers’ Workshop

The Readers’/Writers’ Workshop structure described above has been used for nearly four decades, yet as early as 1983, Rob Tierney & David Pearson suggested another approach. In “Toward a Composing Model of Reading” (1983), they argue that “one must begin to view reading and writing as essentially similar processes of meaning construction.” They question the wisdom of teaching reading and writing as separate processes and suggest that we view reading as a process of composing, much as we think of writing, and that whenever possible we integrate reading and writing instruction. In most classrooms, their call has gone unheeded.

In today’s literacy world, packaged programs proliferate and nearly always lead teachers down paths to separate instruction in reading and writing. Isolated reading and writing and teacher- or program-driven learning targets are the norm; students rarely set their own goals and are lucky if they have choice in what to read and write, let alone when to read and write. Too often, students experience diminished engagement and teachers know that this is hardly the way to provoke inquiry, engagement, or agency.

I’d like to offer a proposal (get it?) in which reading and writing get married. (And live happily ever after.)  Following a lovely ceremony, they adopt the name Literacy Studio!

In a Literacy Studio:

• Most reading and writing instruction is integrated.
  • If a reading learning target relates to, say, character traits and how they affect the plot, there is one whole group lesson (called a Crafting session) that incorporates reading and writing each day that the class is focused on that objective. The teacher models in mentor texts and writing, cutting in half the instruction time and offering it in a more efficient and integrated way.
• Students choose whether they will read or write following the Crafting Session.
  • During independent work time (called composing) students may choose to apply their understanding of character traits in reading and/or writing.
  • Some may write during the first half of composing time and switch to reading for the second half or vice versa.
  • Some may choose to read (or write) for the entire composing time but will choose the other for the next day’s work.
  • Students keep simple records to show whether they chose to read and/or write during a particular composing time ensuring that all spend a roughly equal independent work time on each during a given week.
  •  Whether they are reading or writing, they are focused on the class learning goal, in this example, character traits.
• Teachers confer and convene small groups.
  • During composing time, teachers have an extended opportunity to confer and meet with small groups. They have planned one lesson, there is one independent work time and one reflection. There is time to get to those kids in the corner, figure out why our friend isn’t sticking with a book and meet with a small group of students who aren’t yet applying, for example, what they know about character traits in their writing.
  • Small groups (called invitational groups) are needs-based and may include children reading and writing at a wide range of present performance level as long as they have a need in common.

• At the end of composing, students reflect.
  • In small groups, pairs or with the whole class, the students discuss how they focused on the learning target as readers and writers, sharing their insights with each other so that when, for example, a reader switches to writing the next day, he will have his classmates’ stories of writing to develop characters to propel him forward.

Let’s marry reading and writing this year!

When reading and writing get married, there is:

• One Crafting Session a day focused on reading and writing!
• One longer Composing Time for independent work and time to confer each day with readers and writers! An Invitational Group as needed!
• One Reflection Session a day that focuses on reading and writing!

Learning reading and writing together makes sense to kids. Students develop perspectives as readers and writers simultaneously leading to a dramatic increase in the quality of their thinking and work in both.

And, teaching reading and writing together makes sense for us. We gain enormous efficiency and time to focus on individual students, but most importantly, we can help kids understand the critical synergy between reading and writing—that’s a gift that will serve them for years.

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