Like Elisa, I've been a bit timid about jumping in on this thread which fascinates me (and I'm behind on reading). However, a little lack of knowledge has never stopped me. For me, a big part of the connection involves thinking, and I mean really critical thinking (one of my favorite words is 'delve'). I loved it when Katie Wood Ray advised us to teach readers to 'think like writers' and writers to 'think like readers,' but I never figured out how to be specific enough...how to give kids the leg up to understand this--it wasn't enough to keep saying it, LOL, and I know because I tried that. The closest I've come is through Calkins' and Rays' genre studies--and taking the genre into reading at the same time. We did this a bit 2 years ago and, when we saw the results, more heavily last year. As we immersed ourselves in one genre as readers AND writers, we began to breathe it. As Jennifer said, my wonderful third graders and I really considered "the negotiation" (brilliant, Jennifer!) between readers and writers. Sometimes we even did the same lesson in reading and writing, considering story mountains or leads or poetic line breaks from the perspective of a reader and then as a writer. When we studied a genre in both areas at the same time, we found lines blurred and in our discussions kids were actually saying, "Wait, do you mean that as a writer or a reader?" And then we got to the good stuff: how is it different? Now remember, third graders aren't the most sophisticated, but their responses approached what I call critical thinking in that they found that writers have to make it work and readers have to figure out how it works. But then they considered how readers put themselves in the place of writers and writers put themselves in the place of readers and came to the conclusion that they really must be both to successfully do either. It then becomes my job to challenge them and support them to become better in each so that the crossover succeeds. I sure hope this makes sense to somebody besides me, Judy (judy3ca)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Waingort Jimenez, Elisa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Special Chat List for "To Understand: New Horizons in ReadingComprehension"" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2008 6:05 AM Subject: Re: [Understand] Reading/writing connection Hi Joy and Jennifer, At the risk of simplifying this discussion I am going to plunge in and say that what we write always has the potential of being read and what we read is always written by someone else. Therefore, there is a strong connection between reading and writing. I have often used writing as a starting point for kids who are struggling with reading. We retell and rewrite familiar stories, use stories with patterns as jumping off points for writing new stories, and write on familiar topics that the child chooses. Then, I retype these stories and and the child uses them for reading. Sometimes I ask the child if she or he wants to copy the typed text in his neatest handwriting for publication. Either way I know this has helped children learn to read. This is a powerful connection that we all need to explore further. Elisa Elisa Waingort Grade 2 Spanish Bilingual Dalhousie Elementary Calgary, Canada Joy I had to think a while before responding to your post. (Dwell in the ideas, maybe??? LOL) The reading- writing connection is something I have wondered a lot about, too. Why did so many of my first grade kids learn to write before they learned to read? Why were the strongest readers often the best writers? It was, and still is, something of a mystery. A few years back, I was asked to teach a graduate level summer course on the reading/writing connection and I said yes...but I was terrified because I didn't feel I understood the mechanics behind it very well myself. I agreed to teach it because I thought it would help me come to grips with how the reading/writing connection worked. Well...not enough people signed up for the course, so it was canceled. I was really relieved but also a little disappointed and have not really wrestled with this topic since then. Your question challenges me to think about this one more time, this time in light of what I have learned about the deep and surface structure systems from Ellin and our discussions on this listserv. I think you have hit upon something that is important to Ellin's philosophy of literacy. I wonder if the reason she changes the names for the aspects of reading and writing workshop is because of the strong connection between reading and writing. Think of what the term"composing" lends itself to in people's minds. Reading comprehension is really a composition...the meaning we create in our own minds using our background knowledge and the author's words. It becomes a dialogue between you and the author and just as something you write (like this email) becomes a dialogue between the writer (me)and readers (you and others on the list). The only difference between the two is who initiates the "dialogue;" both are attempts to create meaning using language. In thinking about both the deep and surface structure systems, they are all related to language...the use of and the understanding of language. In surface structure--there are the sounds that make up language. You use your phonics to speak, read and to write. You use the lexical system to remember what words look like to read them fluently to understand some one else's message or to recall their spelling to communicate your message. With semantics...we use that system to understand the connotations and denotations of the words authors use...subtle differences in meaning make such a difference in what we understand. And when we write, we choose our words carefully...trying to anticipate what effect they will have in the readers minds in order to communicate what we want to say. As we use our comprehension strategies during reading we build our background knowledge which in turn helps us to write more clearly... Reading reinforces writing and writing reinforces reading because, I am thinking, they are both ways to use language. I used to think that reading was receptive language and writing is expressive, but I think that reading is also expressive because of how much of the meaning is constructed in our own minds. We don't receive understanding by taking in the author's words...meaning is constructed with input from ourselves as the readers. In a fashion, we are writing the text along with the author. The same with writing---when we write we express our ideas we are anticipating how others will react to and understand what we write. We think about how others will be understanding it...receptively and write accordingly. Once again, it is a negotiation of sorts between the writer and the readers. Does this make sense? Just some Fourth of July weekend ponderings. I would love to hear what others think... Jennifer In a message dated 7/3/2008 6:47:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm wondering about the reading/writing connection. Ellin talks about them together in her discussion of the six structure systems. I'd like to explore this further. How does reading support writing, and how does writing support reading? I've seen this, but would like to understand the mechanics better. **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. 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