California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

Whenever a student is approaching new material or a new type of material there should always be building blocks in which the student can use their current knowledge to reach the next step. One thing that is difficult for many students to achieve is successfully reading and writing through connecting the two elements together. Students writing about literature or informational texts is a different process than a student tackling a creative writing project which means they need to be taught to approach it in a different way.

Before a student can even read a text, informational or literary, they need to make sure they can understand the concepts in the text. Reading something once is also important when there is language that a student does not fully understand. Whenever a student approaches new vocabulary they should familiarize themselves with said vocabulary and then reread the portion of text it was included in to give them contextual understanding before moving on. The students’ goal should not be to read the text for the sake of reading, when connecting it to writing analysis, but rather they should read the text in order to better understand the topics that are being presented to them.

The most important element when it comes to connecting writing to text is making sure there is evidence to support whatever claim your essay will be making. In order for a student to successfully make an argument for or against something in a text there must be textual evidence backing up your statement. Digging through the text and making those connections between the work and your own work is imperative for a strong essay. This is where the reading to understand comes in great importance.

The connection between reading and writing seems like an obvious one to some people. However, there is a process in which a writer must go through to make this connection successful. This process takes instruction and much practice for a student to be successful but once the building blocks have been put into place the rest will follow easily.