Academic Reading and Writing

ACADEMIC READING

Readers are expected to figure out implicit links in complex texts (Rose, 1997). If they do not, the logic of the text is lost. For example, a text might say “Supplies were minimal since several bridges had been destroyed. The general wondered if the soldiers would remain to fight.” Students must link the destroyed bridges to the lack of supplies, which might cause the soldiers to complain and leave. To make these connections, students must be able to quickly learn new words and continually organize and condense information. In many cases, long, nominalized subjects at the beginning of a sentence require a reader to quickly pack a lot of information into the subject position, while looking for the main verb.

The reader needs to infer these many links and be able to work with the abstract ideas that are being described. This often amounts to the process of translating the abstract and complex messages into more concrete and simple terms. This is especially true when students who come from very different backgrounds try to read an academic text where the author has condensed, semantically and grammatically, ideas from previous text or has assumed the reader can figure out the condensed clause. I see this often when a teacher reads a highly academic passage aloud and then translates it to students.

Comprehension Processes

To understand any sentence or paragraph, a reader must know and do several things, often all at once. First, the reader needs to know the meaning of words that align enough with the author's meanings for them. Often there are many abstract and figurative expressions that a reader must adapt in order to figure out the text in question (e.g., deal with, a knowledge base, inform theories, mute). This cognitive flexibility to quickly adapt an expression from the concrete to abstract is a key academic reading skill.

Second, a reader needs to understand and condense (chunk) what came before in the text. This is because authors condense the ideas of previous sentences into complex nominal groups, which become subjects of the sentence.

Third, a reader must be able to determine the importance in a sentence, analyzing its clauses to understand the main participants, processes, and circumstances (Schleppegrell & Oliveira, 2006). Many academic sentences begin and end with subordinate clauses that are used to add information and detail but do not carry the main subject or verb of the sentence. When speaking or reading aloud (and even as we read silently), we often deal with these clauses with a lower tone, slightly quicker pace, and less emphasis.

Fourth, the abstractness of academic texts often requires readers to connect to existing knowledge and come up with their own examples. We must train students to make their own connections and applications when they read abstract and general texts.

Finally, a reader must recognize the author's purposes, structure, and commitment in a text. This means being in a constant state of “meta-reading,” thinking at a level above the basic goal of getting information. Most students see reading primarily as a conduit for transferring basic information from those who know much to those who know less. But when we equip students to meta-read, to look for the underlying themes, and to analyze and critique the writing, students gain important insights into how language is used in academic ways. It helps to tell students to “read as a writer” and then “write as a reader.”

ACADEMIC WRITING

Writing, particularly academic writing, is not just spoken words written down. Many students think this is the case, and such thinking hinders them. Rather, academic writing in each discipline has its own set of language rules, expectations, and quirks. For academic writing, students must learn new ways to organize and present language (Johns, 1997). Students must learn to write more like the stuff (genres) that they read in school. They must expand their vocabulary, vary their sentence structure, and learn how to use dependent clauses.

Most teachers have a general sense of the basic differences between oral and written language. Most often, we simply notice when writing is not academic enough, even though we can't say exactly why. But our students, particularly after fourth grade, are still developing this sense. They must learn to make vocabulary and grammatical choices in their writing that differ from what might naturally occur in speaking. For this reason, writing depends much more on teaching and school experiences than speaking does.

Academic writing usually requires the thinking skills of analysis, causal reasoning, argumentation, and evaluation (Schleppregrell, 2004). Students must progress from the temporal sequencing of narrative descriptions in younger grades to the logical structures of explaining a concept in upper grades. More technical vocabulary must be used, along with more varied sentences. And in interpretive and argumentative pieces, the writer must create abstract premises that are then developed and supported by evidence that has been evaluated for its effectiveness.

Expository genres

Writing in school takes multiple forms called genres. Examples include stories, poems, mathematical proofs, historical accounts, case studies, essays, letters, and so on. Each content area genre carries with it certain expectations about organization, thinking, grammar, and word use.

The writing of narrative genres, which is emphasized in lower grades, decreases in later grades as the writing of expository (i.e., nonfiction, informational) genres increases. Stories and poems give way to non-fiction texts, or as some say, “students in upper grades need to write to learn rather than learn to write.” They still need to do both, of course. Expository genres include biographies, lab reports, responses to literature, essays, articles, and persuasive letters. Expository writing is challenging for many diverse students because they: 1) have not seen many examples of the products they are asked to create, 2) rarely practice it outside of the classroom walls, and 3) tend to use their informal language patterns which don't line up with school expectations.

Expository writing generally means the writing of non-fiction, non-narrative text. Expository writing places more complex organizational and cognitive demands than narrative writing, which largely depends on a plot for structure. Students must learn the rules of how information is organized, connected, and categorized in order to write expository pieces. Most expository genres, for example, present a main point and support it with arguments. While narratives shape the thoughts and language of primary grade students, older students must quickly acquire expository ways of thinking through reading and school activities. Yet this doesn't happen “quickly” for many diverse students. Just when they start to understand the notion of sequence and story line in narratives, the rules change and they have to write some five-paragraph thing with an abstract thesis supported with reasons and evidence.

Dissecting and analyzing

One of the most important activities for developing academic writing language is the process of dissecting other texts. The texts must include good models, but can also include not-so-good models to critique and fix. Guided by you, students analyze model texts (e.g., articles, letters, essays) to see what the authors did (or lacked) to make the writing effective. Model texts should be at the level of students or slightly above. (For this reason remember to make copies of student work for use as models in future years.)

As you analyze model texts, you can develop a checklist of features that can eventually become a rubric. As students pick out the author's thesis, supporting arguments, conclusive remarks, transitions, and other writing techniques, several things happen. First, they acquire the words and phrases that the author used. Second, they learn about the author's organizational and grammatical strategies. Third, they develop language to talk about writing (lingo used by writing teachers) to help them as they discuss and think about their own writing. Fourth, students get to interact with other students on an academic level, critiquing another's work and evaluating its strengths, just as readers do outside of school.

(Condensed from Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms)