Integrating Reading in First Year Composition Courses
- Latasha McIver
- Mar 19, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 5, 2023
This report offers strategies on how first year compositions instructors can conduct research on how to integrate reading comprehension into their writing courses, which will ultimately increase their students' success.
Reading and writing are connected activities. Research has shown that you cannot truly be successful in one without the other. Although the connection between reading and writing seems to be a "given," reading is not a dominant force in post-secondary writing classrooms.
The absence of reading pedagogy in college can be contributed to pre-existing conceptions of students’ reading abilities although the statistics indicate that many students enter college with deficits in critical reading practices. As a result, many scholars and educators argue that reading pedagogy should be integrated in first year composition courses (FYC).
This article is for FYC instructors who are interested in integrating reading into their writing courses. These FYC instructors will be referred to as future researchers.
Why Do It
FYC instructors should not view reading and writing as disparate course activities. In fact, reading and writing work best when the two processes fuel or inform the other.
For instance, reading inspires students by introducing them to great ideas and improving their ability to think critically and analytically. In addition, reading centers class discussions, which gives students something to talk and write about beyond their own personal experiences.
At eighteen, FYC students often lack the experience and prior knowledge to come up with sophisticated subjects for their essays; texts provide these ideas. Finally, reading illustrates models of truly effective writing, thereby offering students instruction in voice, organization, syntax, and language.
Still, professors who teach writing often find themselves questioning the role of reading in the first-year writing classrooms. These professors are concerned about the amount of class time they devote to discussing readings as opposed to the amount of class time they devote to teaching writing.
They worry that the attention to reading and analyzing course materials risks crowding out writing instruction—which, they feel, should be the priority of the course. No one is disputing the research, which maintains that reading should be an integrated part of FYC courses.
The question is “What is the most effective way to implement reading pedagogy into FYC courses?”
Conducting Research
Research about integrating reading in the writing classroom has focused on how student readers engage with texts and how instructors try to shape reading activity within their classrooms.
I am not going to do the work and provide an examination of what the literature is stating about the intersections between reading and writing.
Instead, I am going to provide future researchers with strategies on how to (1) conduct meaningful research and find sources, (2) evaluate these sources for credibility and appropriateness, and (3) synthesize this information into their writing.
FYC instructors/future researchers will be able to use this skillset to continuously improve their craft as they meet the needs of their diverse student population.
Traditional Sources
In today’s information-saturated society, there is no shortage of access to information. As a result, future researchers need to make sure that they find and utilize sources that are credible and appropriate.
First of all, researchers need to use databases that are peer-reviewed and known to be credible and reliable.
Examples of these databases include:
Pedagogical institutions library database:
Journal articles
Books
Encyclopedias
Newspapers and magazines
Peer-reviewed and credible online databases such as Google Scholar
Collect relevant data from The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), North Carolina Organization for Student Success, Community College Research Center (CCRC), and similar organizations
Online educational blogs and websites such as Edutopia, Edweek, eSchool News, Inside Higher Education, etc
Researchers are not limited to the above sources; there is a wealth of online sources that can be beneficial to their research.
However, these online sources need to be evaluated for their credibility and reliability; this can be done by using the CRAP test. See Figure 1.
Figure 1
As future researchers utilize the above resources to find their sources, they need to ensure that they find appropriate and relevant information; to do so, they need to use Boolean searches to find the correct and appropriate sources that are related to their topic of interest.
The following phrases will help find the most appropriate sources/resources:
Reading and writing in college courses
Integration of reading and writing in FYC
Importance of teaching reading in writing courses
Non-Traditional Sources
Databases and online sources are traditional resources. However, I challenge future researchers to think outside of the box and utilize non-traditional resources to answer the question, “What is the most effective way to implement reading pedagogy into FYC courses?”
Contact and glean information, empirical data, and anecdotal information from other pedagogical institutions that are known to integrate reading and writing into their FYC.
Do your own research. Request permission to pilot 1-2 integrated reading and writing FYC courses at your institution; collect the data and report the findings.
Incorporating Sources
Once the research is complete, there are several ways to incorporate your findings into your research.
For the most part, researchers will quote, summarize, or paraphrase the findings of traditional and non-traditional sources to answer the research question and provide strategies on the best and most effective way to incorporate reading comprehension into composition courses.
These sources must be cited in two places within the research essay: in-text and on the bibliography page.
The intext citation must have a corresponding full reference on the bibliography page of the essay.
The citation style used depends upon the field of study.
For example, APA documentation style is used primarily in the education field as well as within social and behavioral sciences while the MLA documentation style is primarily used in humanities.
Although APA and MLA both use parenthetical in-text citations, they require different information, so researchers need to refer to the most current manual of the documentation style that they are using.
Once the credible, appropriate sources are found, evaluated, and synthesized in order to answer the research question, researchers, who are FYC instructors, need to utilize this information to guide their curriculum.
Remember, the consensus among experts is is that reading pedagogy is an important and integrated component of the writing curriculum (Anderson).
Future Readings
In order to emphasize the importance of integrating reading and writing into FYC courses, I want to provide the unique perspectives of two scholars on the intersections between reading and writing.
First, the article entitled “Teaching First-year Writers to Use Texts: Scholarly Readings in Writing-about-writing in First-year Comp” by Doug Downs proposes the question, “What place does reading comprehension have in general education classes?” He quickly suggests using first-year writing courses to set the stage for effective reading instruction. He asserts that employing a particular approach in FYC can teach transferable knowledge about reading and promote reading comprehension; this approach is coined “writing about writing” or WAW.
In the article entitled “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning,” Christina Haas and Linda Flower maintain that since reading is viewed as a constructive, rhetorical process, then educators and scholars need to rethink how college students are taught to read text; they suggest using parallels between the act of reading and the more intensively studied process of writing (167).
I strongly encourage FYC instructors to consider these sources for future readings.
When writing instructors are teaching reading pedagogy and reading strategies, students need to understand the connection between reading and writing. The key is blending reading and writing pedagogy so that students can combine critical reading with the writing process. Research suggests that when students understand the connection between reading and writing, they are more motivated to implement deep reading strategies and the likelihood that are successful in reading and writing are increased (Anderson).
References
Andersen, Rebekka. "Teaching Visual Rhetoric as a Close Reading Strategy." Composition Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2016, pp. 15.
Downs, Doug. “Teaching First-year Writers to Use Texts: Scholarly Readings in Writing-about-writing in First-year Comp.” Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy, 2010, pp. 19-50.
Haas, Christina and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 39, no. 2, 1998, pp. 167-183.
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