• "This course makes writing easier to understand by taking what we do in reading and then reinforcing it in the writing class. It helps to pick up on what they're teaching."
• "I would explain this course by telling students that it makes writing easier to understand. By taking what we do in reading and then reinforcing it in the writing class, it helps pick up on what is being taught."

The teaching of reading and writing as separate skills or as interactive processes has been researched and theorized for several decades. Researchers in language and literacy on adults, as well as those who are responsible for putting in place programs for elementary schools, agree that the processes are intertwined and transactions between the reader and writer are connected. Integrating the curriculum increases the student's understanding of the learning. Whole language and integrated curriculum imply an interconnectedness which makes learning reflect life.

The practice of separating classes for reading and writing has been established in the public schools for many years. In several school districts this has now shifted to providing whole language as a single unit of instruction. Some states have mandated the teaching of whole language and integrated curriculum at the K-12 levels. Most colleges address the teaching of these skills by providing separate classes. In addition to other core content, reading classes teach identification of comprehension skills, some of which are main idea, major/minor details, and inference as well as vocabulary.

Students in writing are taught the writing process from brainstorming to a final copy, basic grammar skills to cover the major usage errors, as well as incorporating main ideas, major/minor details, and inferences. In the writing class, they are given prescriptive process assignments that incorporate the descriptive skills taught in the reading class.

According to McLaughlin and Price, Mike Rose, Anthony Petrosky, and David Bartholomae have published criticisms of the traditional reading and writing courses. Rose expounds that underprepared college students need "carefully thought-out, appropriate, undermeaning pedagogies that introduce them to the conventions of academic inquiry." Bartholomae and Petrosky have designed a theory-based reading and writing curriculum, and it is described in Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts: Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course (1986). This curriculum is built upon contemporary literacy theory and research: reading and writing are taught transactionally in contexts meaningful to students. In grades K-12, this method is known as the whole language approach.

This whole language approach can be used for teaching reading and writing at a college level as well. In this environment, reading and writing are not taught separately as in the traditional courses. The students are taught concepts by using interesting, thought-provoking essays with vocabulary, outlining and summarizing, and comprehension checks; then the students write responses, reactions, and short essays which deal with and demonstrate the concepts taught in both classes, such as the use of the vocabulary that has been taught, underlining or highlighting the main idea, and creating and using outlines for their writing assignments. The skills are then extended to other reading materials and writings.

by Zanette Douglas
Reading Instructor

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Some of the comments of former students that have elected to take this course are:

"An advantage to this class being taught as a unit is that when I read something in reading class, I will also talk about it when I go to writing, and I will write about what I have read instead of a whole new subject."

"This class is two different classes with one book and one grade. I read and talk about the same stories in both classes, but in one class I talk about the reading and in the other I talk about the writing."

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Students, if you are interested in taking this type of course and you need to take College Reading 0504 and Beginning Writing 0153, see your advisor and ask about our combined reading and writing course.