Most
of the time we complain that reading and writing activities in our curriculum
are not combined or integrated, and that we do nothing except find the answers to
reading handouts, or we are unhappy that we ask the students to write about a
topic without providing any intellectual or informational basis for the essays.
One way to solve this problem, and which is also a very natural way to combine
the two activities since this is what the students are going to be required to
do in academic life, is write ups after reading and analyzing a text.
Write
ups can be used with texts that lend themselves to discussion, that introduce
interesting or controversial issues or that summarize scientific findings and
facts. Then, write ups can take the form of
The
teacher may ask the students to write just one paragraph which is
Such
activities help personalize reading and writing. It shows that reading and
writing are not done for the sake of reading and writing, or for language
learning purposes only, but serve a useful purpose too. They reduce the
distance between the learners and the language learning tasks done in the
classroom, thus helping the students feel that they are involved in the
language learning process and they are contributing something from themselves
too.
When
such writing is not graded or corrected, students may think that they are writing
for no apparent purpose at all. Resistance on part of the students may be
overcome if the teacher herself is well-convinced of the usefulness of response
writing. To provide a purpose for the reading and writing activities, these may
end with a poster or a newspaper article or a book review to be put on display
on the classroom wall.
See Critical reading
towards critical writing for a further discussion of the topic.
Written by Zeliha Gulcat, July
2004