An Integrative Approach to Teaching Reading and Writing in a Two-Year College in New York
In:Literacy Broadsheet No 51 December 1998 pp 27-30
Barbara started teaching ESL for TAFE in 1985, specialising in ESP and soon began freelancing in the English in the Workplace program (AMES). She moved to New York in 1994, teaching ESL in a number of contexts and then specialised in Writing tor Business, English Composition, and Developmental English courses. She currently works at Plaza Business College in Queens, New York.
The college
Most teachers in New York are constantly looking for ways to engage their students, yet sometimes 1 feel I am doing this even more than most. This has partly to do with the college where I work. It is a parochial college, which means it is a business, making a profit. The education provided prepares students for careers in business; students, for example, need to type 50 words a minute to graduate. The college also emphasises accurate dress and behaviour in a way unusual for adult education. Students are addressed by their family names. At the same time, students have to fulfil the requirements for liberal arts courses and there is some tension created by the different approaches to learning and teaching styles in these subjects. Like most parochial colleges, a curriculum committee sets syllabi and teachers have much less freedom than in universities. However, as the college depends on its teachers to provide teaching that attracts students (publicity is partly by word of mouth) a successful teacher with good student evaluations enjoys the freedom to experiment with pedagogical approaches.
Developmental English classes
Many students attend "developmental' English classes as their writing skills are far below what is considered to be college level. The emphasis is on writing and students need to pass a standardised examination, at the end of the course. In order to maintain this focus on teaching writing, I therefore have to make the most of any opportunity to integrate reading into the program. Reading needs to be almost sneaked into the classwork.
Most of my students have difficult lives and negative past learning experiences. Most come to the college because it is tightly structured and offers a clear goal, an office job as well as an associate (two year) degree. Their success in the English class is crucial for their further studies, as well as for their careers.
The students as readers
This unusual educational environment challenged me to find an appropriate way to teach reading in the writing courses, as the students’ ability to read is taken for granted. When asking for the kind of material they were interested in, thinking to draw on their interests, I found out that my students do not read, full stop! Contrary to a widely held belief that reading has been replaced by watching television, on closer inspection this turned out not to be the case as the students don't watch much television either. While they are perfectly able to read easy texts (the college library subscribes to magazines like Sesame Street Parent, Ebony etc), most students are so busy with different jobs and family duties that they suffer from insufficient sleep and have little time for recreation. Many are single mothers who have been pushed by current changes in the welfare legislation to go to college, without having enough money to pay for babysitters. Many are in poor health, or have families in difficulties. Many, not all, have had encounters with violence. They do not read, but neither do they paint, or go to museums, play the piano, or... They live in a city that is world famous for its art treasures, its galleries and theatres; they have not seen any of it.
Students need teachers with nurturing and encouraging teaching styles. They also need to learn to read for meaning and to discover, step by step, that they can appropriate a text. They need to discover that reading is fun, can enrich their lives and is about people and events that matter to them. It is quite common in New York to get students to write about themselves or their interests. It seemed natural to use an integrated process which starts with writing, progresses to reading and ends in producing a book. The core strategy of this process of giving a voice to a writer as well as listening to other people's voices is reading aloud.
The first text
We start the ten-week, four hours per week course with the utterly familiar, an in-class writing assignment on a personal topic, 'The best day of my life'. No requests are made as far as length of writing, style or structure are concerned; everybody just needs to write for half an hour. Then, students read to a small group. I stop them from simply swapping their pieces and reading them quietly; everybody has to read aloud and listen to their listeners' comments. For the next class, students are encouraged to make changes to the first version, then each person reads their story to the whole class. If a student is too timid to read, I do it for them. If someone wrote a story that can be improved through the right dramatic reading, I help out to give the writer more pride in their product and to demonstrate that a written text is there to communicate something. Students listen with interest to their classmates' reading and will remember those first stories. The writers are filled with pride that they have actually found an audience who think what they have to say is worthwhile.
Discussion of Reading
The second step is a discussion, first of the feelings generated by the reading and listening experience. At this point I usually give some information about the history of reading. I talk about how people who read without mouthing the words used to be suspect; how in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, heroes and heroines of romantic novels read to one another. This leads to the next point of the discussion, that of reading habits and the importance of reading. I bring in a short article that I published a couple of years ago called Reading Aloud: Family Fun for all.
Development of observation skills
Developing a language to talk about reading is continued throughout the course. The type of reading that is required to savour stories, delight in literature and improve one’s own writing is different from the reading for information taught in the study skills course. Listening to each word, taking time to mull over meanings are the opposite of efficient reading techniques. The naturally slower pace of reading a text aloud stresses that element of pace. Students need to work through the differences in reading for different purposes and develop a language to talk about them.
We also read short newspaper comics such as Carol Lay’s Story Minute which appears in New York Press.
Stories
Reading aloud continuous through the course, mostly in small groups as there is not enough time to read all stories aloud. Exceptional stories are read to the whole class. The following story about Pearl started long discussions on family relationships and violence and how to deal with them.
Pearl
This is the story of the cat Pearl. Pearl was my mother’s pet and she was the most beautiful cat I have ever seen. My mother had her for a long time already when I got married. My husband didn’t like the cat and asked my mother to give her away. My mother said: ”How can I? Pearl is like a child in here.” So my husband thought that it would be best to cut off Pearl’s ears so hat she would no longer be beautiful. This is what he did to the little cat. My mother was very sad. Pearl is still alive and lives with my mother. Which shows you that you don’t have to be beautiful to be loved and live a long life.
Students are constantly reminded that this kind of writing is not for them alone, that they are writing for an audience and need to keep other students’reactions in mind as they live in close contact with them during their time at the college. This is to prevent possibly damaging soul-baring revelations.
Illustrations
All writing the students produce for the class is kept, nothing thrown out. All writing is considered important because it is done for readers, in this case for the teacher and classmates. Most students jump at the idea of illustrating their work. I actually threaten to throttle anyone who makes deprecating remarks about drawings so that even the most self-conscious artist end up with some illustrations. Collages and photos are also popular.
Expansion of reading materials
Finding suitable reading material is difficult on several levels. One difficulty is that the reading material has to match students’ interest as well as bring out unusual experiences. I have a fascinating collection of cat stories. Those written by students make a good read: there are many cat haters! Then, there is the degree of language difficulties to consider. The lack of adequate vocabularies in many students in two year colleges and subsequent difficulties in reading their textbooks has been well documented. Even textbook sentences in their grammar book present difficulties as the writers assume too much knowledge in too many areas removed from their experience (eg horse racing) then again, there is the time factor. Readings need to be short; no longer than what can be read aloud in 20 minutes. Ideally, the stories are to be read at dinner time as a family activity.
Producing the book
At the end of the course, students collect all their writing into one book. Most end up typing and illustrating their work and take pleasure in having a polished product they can take home. Although most will have shared their stories with their families or friends, taking the book home is fun. An important aspect of the teaching of reading is not only to make it meaningful,, but also to help students feel safe and to develop a sense that it is fun to be a member of a community of readers and writers.