At the End: Moving Towards Reading and Writing Integration in High School Language Arts

P. L. Thomas
Woodruff High School

Nancy Atwell's In the Middle (1987) provides teachers of students from first through eighth grades practical, effective, and manageable strategies for integrating reading and writing. Yet--whether due to curriculum restraints or a variety of undetermined roadblocks--reading and writing instruction in secondary language arts flounders in the dichotomous past. With slight adaptations, Atwell's workshop approach to integrating reading and writing is applicable and effective in the secondary classroom.

In her The Connection of Writing to Reading and its Effect on Reading Comprehension (1985), Sarah S. Whyte details the evolution of research supporting the effectiveness of integrating reading and writing. She notes that as early as 1912, Baker and Thorndike "found reading and writing to be simbiotic [sic]" (4). A number of separate studies from the late sixties through the seventies (Barbig and La Campagne, 1968; Zeman, 1969; Evanechko, Ollila, and Armstrong, 1974; Heil, 1976; Grobe and Grobe, 1977; Kroll, 1977; Falk and Hayes, 1979, 1980) support that superior reading and superior writing are clearly related and that improvement in one often translates into improvement in the other (Whyte 4-5). Whyte adds: "That good readers become good writers (and vice versa) was again emphasized in the 1980's when a new type of study emerged, observing reading and writing behavior during the act of reading and writing" (5). In the eighties, researchers (Miller, 1983; Bissex, 1980 1981; Perl, 1980; Atwell, 1981; Birnbaum, 1982; Graves and Murray, 1983; Calkins, 1983; Baghban, 1984) identified specific patterns and skills that justify pursuing reading and writing integration (Whyte 5).

Next, as in Mary F. Heller's How Reading and Writing Are Related: From Theory to Practice (1991), researchers and educators have accepted that reading and writing integration is "efficient and effective in our classroom instruction, across all grade levels and content areas" (1-2). Heller notes that both readers and writers need "script knowledge," "knowledge and understanding of text structure," and "knowledge and understanding of text genre, or form" (8-9). She also refers to "James Squire's (1983) model of how reading and writing are related." She explains, "Both readers and writers are involved in similar, if not identical thought processes during . . . comprehending and composing (Squire, 1983)" (11). Readers and writers are "actively involved both intellectually and emotionally in reconstructing the author's meaning [reading]" and "in constructing meaning [writing]," Heller notes (11). She offers two other connections as well. She explains that "reflective thought is important to both reading and writing processes" and that reading and writing are social--"our shared need to be literate people" (12-13). Secondary language arts must implement such research and discard the traditional division between grammar (of which writing is often a sub-set) and literature.

Timothy Shanahan's first chapter, "Reading and Writing Together: What Does it Really Mean?" in Reading and Writing Together: New Perspectives for the Classroom (1990) offers additional research on integration, but adds a discussion of the significance of implementing reading and writing for all language arts teachers. Shanahan believes integration fosters better readers and writers; it teaches reading and writing more efficiently as "teaching them [reading and writing] together can require less instructional time and effort"; it "extend[s] and deepen[s] awareness and control of the knowledge and processes of written language"; and it allows "`double practice'" that "should be linked" (3-4). His argument for integration goes beyond the cold facts of research: "We must teach children to use reading and writing in concert in powerful ways that extend their abilities to accomplish their goals and solve their problems," and ultimately, "we can make better the lives of the children" (5).

Integration has not only aided the students but also the educators. Shanahan feels "the most obvious educational changes brought about by reading-writing relationship views have been improvements in instructional methods or techniques" (7). Such changes, he specifies, are

invented spelling (Clark, 1989), language experience approach (Stauffer, 1980), use of pattern books (Cramer and Cramer, 1975), story grammar activities . . ., process discussions (Graves, 1983), DRTA's (Stauffer, 1980), reader's logs, probable passages (Wood, 1984), open-ended workbook pages that stress writing for emphasizing reading skills (Scheu, Tanner and Au, 1989), [and] book publishing (D'Angelo, Korba & Woodworth, 1981). . . . (9)

These instructional approaches have grown from the understanding that "reading and writing require knowledge of many of the same features of written language," specifically "letter sound relations, print format, vocabulary, and syntax," Shanahan explains (8). As well, he notes that reading and writing "depend upon many of the same cognitive processes," as with "purpose- setting, self-awareness of success, use of different sources of information, and so on" (8). The result is a focus on a total understanding of language as communication. Shanahan adds,

In a classroom designed to stress the communicative aspects of reading and writing one would expect to see more evidence of classroom mail services, the reading of multiple books by the same authors, authorship (Lamme, 1989), discussions of author intentions, dialogue journals (Gambrell, 1985), author's chair activities (Graves and Hansen, 1983), and the like. Such activities are valued from a reading-writing perspective, not because they provide additional practice, but because they offer children a unique opportunity for using literacy in social ways that consider the needs, perspectives and values of others. (13)

For secondary language arts teachers, Shanahan's message is certainly applicable. He concludes by justifying reading and writing integration as "child-centered" and with asserting "few activities foster as much self-awareness as reading and writing" (14-15). Shanahan also opens the door for secondary language arts to adopt reading and writing integration by noting that applying integration "does not mean that a teacher should never select a story or require that a particular novel be read, or even that a teacher should not assign written topics" (16). In short, reading and writing integration is the most effective--though not the only--instructional procedure for the teachers and the students, and it needs to be adopted as the central philosophy of programs that use a variety of instructional strategies.

After understanding the interconnectedness of reading and writing, after accepting the effectiveness and efficiency of integration, secondary language arts teachers must face actually implementing such practices. Although it is not applicable in its pure form in high school English classes, Atwell's In the Middle is indispensable as a primer for understanding the essentials of practicing reading and writing integration. She reveals actual strategies for establishing reading and writing workshops. Most importantly, she offers her central concept: "Like writers in the writing workshop, all readers--all learners- -need Mary Ellen Giacobbe's three basics of time, ownership, and response" (156). In short, students must have adequate time to read and write (and to re-read and rewrite); they must have some degree of choice in what they read and write; and they must respond to each other and with the teacher about what they read and write. Such are the tenets of practicing workshops.

Next, teachers must assess the obstacles that will impede applying workshops. In most high schools, classes are guided by curriculum guides--which mandate reading lists and types and amount of grammar to cover--and state requirements--Basic Skills in South Carolina and required literature for certain grades, American literature in eleventh and British literature in twelfth. Ideally, curriculum guides and state requirements will be amended with integration in mind, allowing time, ownership, and response; but until then, teachers will have to adapt the philosophy into the existing system.

Although not specifically aimed at secondary classes, Lea M. McGee and Donald J. Richgel offer "five characteristics of effective learning strategies" integrating reading and writing (166). They stress that learning strategies should include as many of the following as possible: "(1) promoting critical understanding, (2) using revision, (3) promoting students' use of prior knowledge, (4) involving students personally, and (5) promoting students' responding with their feelings" (160). They also provide specific instructional procedures for each criteria (149-61). With McGee and Richgel's criteria in mind, high school teachers can implement reading and writing workshops by allowing varying degrees of choice in reading and writing assignments, a less structured time limitation for completion of projects, and a dialogue journal/mini-lesson approach to direct instruction.

For a writing workshop, teachers should share responsibility for topics. The teacher can assign the type of works--persuasive, narrative, expository, descriptive--until all students have been exposed to all required forms, then allow the students to choose the content. During a unit on Emerson and Thoreau, the teacher can let students use "Civil Disobedience," for example, as a model and motivation for students' own persuasive essays--which may range from direct essays supporting or rebuking Thoreau to a call for more senior privileges. The teacher can provide mini-lessons on both Emerson's and Thoreau's works as the discussions guide them, along with mini-lessons on the writing problems and strengths exposed by the essays. After all types of writing required by the curriculum guide and state guidelines are covered in a year, the teacher is free to allow students full choice, probably occurring later in the year when the students are best able to handle the freedom. The efficiency of the workshop method, utilizing mini-lessons, is derived from the focus on student interests and needs. Presenting everything to every student every year is ineffective and uninteresting for the students and teachers.

Most important to adopting a writing workshop in secondary language arts classrooms is allowing students more time to complete and rewrite assignments; by allowing more time, the teacher also makes response more practical. Like professional writers, students need weeks and many rewrites to complete a competent draft, and during those drafts, students should be sharing and responding to each other's works and with the teacher. As well, students must be treated as writers to become writers. For instance, even the greatest writers do not produce perfect writing every time they write; even the greatest writers do not excel in all forms of writing; even the greatest writers occasionally cannot produce a piece by tomorrow. So why should we expect such all the time from students, young people just learning to write? Atwell uses journals and letters for responses to writing assignments, and she is flexible about the number of assignments students complete, but the philosophy of time, ownership, and response is more important than the specific course requirements each teacher feels comfortable with assigning.

Peer-editing and revision must be accepted by secondary teachers as primary tools for learning--especially since the traditional red-pen method has proven time and again not to affect positively the ability of students to write well. Workshops produce writers; assigning an essay, grading it with a large red "D," then having the student place the paper in a folder produces a static, vapid process that can foster only negative results. Also, a writing workshop gives students a purpose. They choose their topics and are evaluated by peers and the teacher while they have had the opportunity to compare their own works among themselves. Students may discover they are much better writers than they previously thought, or they may come to realize they do need improvement and, most importantly, will be given the time and guidance needed to learn and to grow as writers and thinkers. Great writers from Tolstoy to John Gardner were afforded the basics of time, ownership, and response; our secondary students deserve at least as much.

The reading workshop approach faces its greatest challenge in high school English classes. Curriculum guides often mandate specific works to be covered each year in literature; such precludes two of the components of the workshop--time and ownership. Secondary language arts teachers must take a stand concerning the restructuring of reading curriculum guides. We must ask ourselves if reading as a skill and as a worthwhile pursuit is more important than specific works of literature, and if it is (and I think it is, though a focus on reading does not necessarily preclude literature, whereas the traditional focus on literature often does squelch students' desire to read), we must cast aside mandatory reading of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for all tenth graders throughout the U. S., throughout modern history, and help students learn to read well and to love reading so they become more likely to choose to read Julius Caesar on their own. When responding through journals to students about their readings, teachers may still recommend the classics, and teachers may still teach certain classic novels to the entire class, but students must be allowed ample time and choice to discover the importance of reading for themselves, to discover authors and novels they love. When a twelfth grader chooses to read a book, enjoys the work, and then writes a journal entry to four other students recommending the book, the workshop method has already far outdistanced the traditional classroom where teachers assign works that are never read except in Cliffs Notes form.

Atwell found that allowing students to choose what they wanted to read did not signal the demise of the classics. Many students chose classics from her crowded shelves of paperbacks, and many accepted her recommendations--as not only a teacher, but also as a fellow reader and lover of books--of classic works. Again, as pointed out by Shanahan earlier, traditional works and practices do not have to be thrown out completely, but the workshop method must become the crux of the program, the heart of the instructional strategies that allow students to learn to become better and eager readers and writers.

Secondary language arts teachers, along with all educators, must come to accept reading and writing integration through workshops as the effective system that it is. The research and real-world applications have shown that integration fosters better readers, better writers, and, most importantly, better young people than the traditional dichotomy found in many classrooms beyond the ninth grade.

Works Cited

Atwell, Nancy. In the Middle. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1987.

Heller, Mary F. How Reading and Writing are Related: From Theory to Practice. New York: Longman, 1991.

McGee, Lea M. and Donald J. Richgels. "Learning from Text Using Reading and Writing." Reading and Writing Together: New Perspectives for the Classroom. Ed. Timothy Shanahan. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon, 1990. 145-68.

Shanahan, Timothy. "Reading and Writing Together: What Does it Really Mean?" Shanahan, ed., 1-18.

Whyte, Sarah S. The Connection of Writing to Reading and Its Effect on Reading Comprehension. Lesley College, 1985. ERIC ED 278, 940.

Secondary Source

McCarthey, Sarah J. and Taffy E. Raphael. Alternative Perspectives of the Reading/Writing Connection. East Lansing: The Institute for Research on Teaching, 1989.