my relationship with reading and writing essay

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Personal Literacy Narrative: My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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My Evolving Relationship with Writing

I didn’t always enjoy writing.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: how ironic that the blog writer didn’t always enjoy writing.  Well, it’s true.  My relationship with writing has been an emotional rollercoaster, with soaring highs and disheartening lows.  However, by some chance it has led me to where I’m at today, and for that I am most happy.

I first started writing in elementary school.  Like the other students, my writing was pretty basic and rudimentary.  However, I developed a keen interest for it.  My stories were a method for putting my thoughts and daydreams into reality.  I based all of my stories off of the 2001 hit movie Spy Kids .  The plot was essentially the same for all of my stories: my best friend, Stephen, and I, would have to solve a mystery, save the world, and defeat the bad guys.  Pretty cliché, I know, but evidently my teacher took notice, and one day the principal of my school came into the classroom, gathered around all of the students, and read my stories to the class.  A principal, reading MY stories, to my classroom?!  At the time, this was roughly equivalent to winning the lottery, to me.  I was so ecstatic, and my excitement about writing grew tenfold.  My mind was then set; I was going to grow up and become a writer.

Soon enough I was in middle and high school, and I absolutely could not stand writing.  What my elementary school teachers failed to tell me was that as I progressed through the grades, writing wouldn’t continue to be fictional and fun.  No, writing was now all about research, analysis, and using facts.  There was hardly any wiggle room for creativity or self-expression, and this was most certainly not my cup of tea.  Like any other situation, I was able to assimilate and adjust my writing style to succeed in this new form of writing, but my passion for storytelling decreased to an all-time low.  I can honestly say that at the time, academia caused the breakup between writing and me.

Only a year ago, I was a freshman here at UD.  As I stepped into my Honors Colloquia writing course, Fantasies of Contagion, I have no idea what to expect.  I had just completed ENGL 110 the previous semester, which was all about academic writing (just like middle and high school).  However, I was surprised when I saw in the syllabus the assignment, “Create a fictional work that includes one of the concepts discussed in class.”  I could hardly contain myself because I was so gleeful.  Finally, after years of hating writing, I was back to doing what I love: writing about what interests me.  I spent more time on that paper than I had on any other in a long time.  I truly cared about how it turned out because (here’s the crazy part) I actually enjoyed writing it and didn’t mind that I stayed up until one in the morning writing it.  It didn’t feel like work to me; it felt…right.  I ended up receiving an A, and my professor suggested that I submit it to a literary magazine.  Yes, it was a struggle, and some feelings were hurt, but writing and I got back together and formed a happy union once again.

Today, I can thankfully say that I still love writing.  I have since increased my writing involvement by becoming a writer for this blog as well as a contributing writer for DEconstruction Magazine.  Also, I am in the process of applying to be a Writing Fellow.  As for the future, I have no idea what it holds.  This hobby of mine could very well turn into a successful career.  It could also become a lifelong hobby, or it could go back to being as painful as it once was.  I can’t gaze into a crystal ball, so I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts.  Be on the lookout for more – I look forward to writing many more stories for your enjoyment!

Scott Eisenhart

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Explaining the Symbiotic Relationship Between Reading and Writing

Students who understand how reading relates to writing and vice versa can develop into better writers.

For elementary school teachers, the saying is, students learn to read and then read to learn. At the middle and high school levels, teachers may experience the relationship of first writing to read, and then reading to write. Although this expression is not so common, there are resources that point to such a relationship, including ” Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading ” or books such as The Write to Read .

While the relationship of “writing to read” and “reading to write” represents a symbiotic one, there is a distinct difference that may help us better understand what we are teaching students.

Writing to Read

When a student is writing to read, they are using writing as a tool to truly understand the reading. Writing to read is driven by the text the student is studying.

Examples of writing to read

• Write a high-level summary to remember and consolidate the content of the reading.
• Write a claim about the reading, and use three pieces of evidence to support it.
• Respond to open-ended questions about the reading as a way to connect to or analyze the text.
• Write an essay on a book to illuminate a particular theme or provide evidence to trace tonal shifts in the piece.
• Write about the content of a particular text or texts to understand, analyze, or evaluate the text(s) at a deeper level.
• Annotate during reading to capture important terms, ideas, or content.
• Fill in graphic organizers or take notes to track the reading.
• Write in response to a prompt.
• Write an essay about a particular literary device or critical feature of the text(s).

Reading to Write

When a student is reading to write, they are using reading as a tool to improve their writing. Reading to write occurs when students first learn how to imitate their favorite authors, historians, scientists, or researchers. This is the deliberate use of mentor texts to mold a student’s writing ability.

Examples of reading to write

• Read memoirs or personal essays to prepare to write a college essay.
• Read several articles from a particular journal or newspaper to increase knowledge of stylistic expectations in preparation to write a piece for publication.
• To help relieve writer’s block, use reading to think about different ways to write.
• Read widely on a topic to consider one’s own writing approach and background knowledge.
• Review multiple texts to write for a particular purpose or on a specific topic.
• Read a lot to write more by picking out the ideas that spark thinking.
• Maintain an annotated bibliography of mentor texts that serve as a writing coach.

Moving Toward Reading to Write

The developmental progression from reader to writer is specific to each student’s experience; however, we do know that in order to strengthen their ability to write, students must continue to read more.

Reading feeds writing. When writing dries up or stalls, the best way to revitalize it is to feed your brain with more reading. Reading may be compared to eating the nutrients we need for the energy to write. Reading feeds the writer with ideas for structure, rich language, literary moves, and compelling ways to illuminate a writer’s purpose.

After filling our brain with reading, turning back to writing typically gives one the energy needed to continue. This is one reason why writing to read is so important early on, then gradually becomes just as important as reading to write. As students develop confidence and competence as readers as the content and vocabulary become much more sophisticated, they build capacity to see the text as both a reader and a writer.

There are potential benefits of looking at the writing-to-read and reading-to-write relationship as teachers continue to challenge themselves with the best way to teach students how to write. Many times at the middle and high school levels, experience with writing to read is the dominant one. If this is the case, it might be a good time to rethink instructional goals and associated assessments.

Here are some practical suggestions for how to weave the two more seamlessly so that students grow into stronger writers.

Assignments that Weave in Reading to Write

After students complete a writing-to-read activity, have them complete a second activity that asks them to use the same text as a reading-to-write activity. (Models and research on how to use mentor texts can be found in books by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell .) The second activity may be practice captured in the writer’s notebook for the student to use as a resource to support their writing throughout the year. Some examples of such activities may include the following:

• Write a high-level summary of the text, then pick sentences from the text that use punctuation or sentence structure in a way that is powerful.
• Write a claim along with supporting evidence, then look at the text to pick out the best use of transitions.
• Annotate a book to trace character development, then pull out parts of the book that were written with vivid, descriptive language.
• Write an essay on the theme of a book, then write a reflection on the author’s craft.
• Write a response to reading to analyze the author’s line of reasoning, then break down the formal structure of the argument.

After high school, students contribute even more to society, so they need to know how to cogently express their thinking to others. Empowering students as writers requires practice, and it’s important that students understand how writing to read and reading to write serve them in markedly different ways.

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The Relationship between Reading and Writing: An Overview

From talking to writing: teaching oral, reading, and writing skills simultaneously through understanding the relationship between reading and writing.

Spoken language mastery is essential for reading and writing. Some of the most influential cognitive abilities that provide a foundation for speaking, reading and writing are: attention , verbal working memory, executive functioning and processing speed . These cognitive abilities are closely related and share common functions.  For example, students need to pay sustained attention to speech sounds as well as recognize and manipulate speech sounds in words.  Learners demonstrate this ability in reading while decoding words whereas in writing, this ability is revealed through spelling.  Another example is verbal working memory .  This cognitive skill is limited to the amount of material working memory can hold and in the length of time the manipulation of language can be expressed. When students are reading text, they often hold a completed sentence in working memory and then reread the preceding sentence to enhance their understanding.  During writing while composing phrases, sentences and paragraphs, writers are using verbal working memory.  A third cognitive ability is executive functioning whereby students need to plan, self-monitor and alter plans during language tasks.  For instance, both readers and writers need to self-monitor for visually similar words (of/off) and homonyms (sail/sale). Last but not least is processing speed , the rate at which learners are able to retrieve information and execute plans.  Proficient readers and writers are able to rapidly name several elements of a given category while students with slower processing speed may be accurate in their responses, but their production is almost always very slow.  In order for students to develop fluent reading or written expression, they need structured teaching as well as enough practice using their reading and writing skills .

Reading and writing are not identical skills but do share the cognitive abilities mentioned previously.  Before actual reading begins and as an aid to comprehension, two pre-reading exercises can help to support the reader’s ability to focus attention on the reading material.  One such exercise is to recall background knowledge, internalized from life experience about a topic, and then match that knowledge to the text.  Another is to identify new and unfamiliar words from the assigned text and learn their meanings from the words and phrases around them.  Once this is completed, the actual reading begins.  A competent reader engages in the following:

• activates phonological awareness skills (how letters and sounds correspond)
• recognizes how the sounds blend together to form words
• decodes the words printed on the page
• realizes word recognition
• attaches meaning to those words
• reads with fluency
• comprehends what has just been read

A main component of fluent reading is word recognition, the ability to recognize written words correctly and automatically. This ability helps to ensure writing words correctly as students learn to represent letter forms in memory as well as the strategies for their automatic retrieval from memory.  Students who read effortlessly over time enjoy successful wide-reading experiences.  As a result, they are at an advantage for being exposed to learning more words and growing their vocabulary.  This word exposure not only enhances their reading comprehension but also creates better spellers.  In addition, children who develop good understanding of what they read may display a greater interest in writing.  They become aware of the word relationships in a variety of sentence patterns and how authors structure text along with the rules that govern it.

When looking at the relationship between reading and writing, writing is the act of scribing words and sentences on paper.  Therefore, it is necessary to have facts and experiences to share.  Prior to writing both at the sentence and paragraph levels, the writer needs to consider the topic and summon background knowledge and ideas in support of that topic.  Following that, students should exhibit a clear understanding of sentence structure as well as the rules for correct grammar.  Additionally, it is important for writers to construct a plan that structures and organizes their paragraph-level writing.

Such a plan ensures that each sentence links logically with the preceding sentence to produce a smooth flow or cohesion.  Writing, which incorporates word recognition and reading comprehension, places the greatest demand on verbal working memory and relies on the skills that follow:

• mechanics: handwriting
• phonology: speech sounds that make up words (e.g., bit = “b”+“i”+“t”)
• semantics: word meanings and concepts
• morphology: meaningful parts of words (roots, affixes, and inflections such as -ed verb endings that indicate past action)
• syntax: rules for the order of words in sentences (simple to complex) and grammar rules
• discourse: narrative structure versus expository structure

In consideration of the relationship between reading and writing, even more than reading, writing depends on the mastery of the most basic skills such as spelling and hand- writing. Through direct and explicit instruction, teachers need to systematically teach a hierarchy of formal spelling rules that transition from short and long vowel patterns to irregular word spelling. Without this instruction, writers who struggle with spelling may lose track of their thoughts as they try to spell a specific word used in context or process sound-symbol relationships (phonology and morphology).  In addition, it is important and necessary for students to receive handwriting instruction. The development of legible handwriting enhances spelling, aids writing fluency and frees mental energy for higher order cognitive skills, especially at the multi-sentence or paragraph level.

In closing this article on the relationship between reading and writing, the underlying cognitive abilities, attention , verbal working memory, executive functioning and processing speed are critical in their support of learning to read and write and need to be considered as linguistic skills are taught. Although it appears plausible that the features of reading and writing are the same, it is evident that they are not totally equal.  What is most important to remember is that the automatization of reading and writing skills is essential.  Students benefit most when instruction is direct and explicit, and sufficient review and practice are provided.

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Reading and Writing for Understanding

• Posted July 21, 2005
• By Sarah O'Brien Mackey

Secondary school students can benefit enormously when teachers of all subjects integrate reading and writing strategies into their instruction, according to  Harvard Graduate School of Education Lecturer Vicki Jacobs . These strategies, typical of "reading and writing to learn" and "reading and writing across the curriculum," are problem-solving activities designed to help students move from simply knowing a fact to understanding a fact's significance. Helping students make that leap — from knowing to understanding — represents the very heart of the educational enterprise.

This summary is based on Jacobs' article, " Reading, Writing, and Understanding, " which appeared in the November 2002 edition of Educational Leadership .

Reading to Learn

Jacobs explains that students learn and practice beginning reading skills through about the third grade, building their knowledge about language and letter-sound relationships and developing fluency in their reading. Around fourth grade, students must begin to use these developing reading skills to learn — to make meaning, solve problems, and understanding something new. They need to comprehend what they read through a three-stage meaning-making process.

Stage One: Prereading

It's not uncommon for a struggling secondary reader to declare, "I read last night's homework, but I don't remember anything about it (let alone understand it)!" According to Jacobs, "How successfully students remember or understand the text depends, in part, on how explicitly teachers have prepared them to read it for clearly defined purposes."

During the prereading stage, teachers prepare students for their encounter with the text. They help students organize the background knowledge and experience they will use to solve the mystery of the text. To do so, they must understand the cultural and language-based contexts students bring to their reading, their previous successes or failures with the content, and general ability to read a particular kind of text. Based on this assessment, teachers can choose strategies that will serve as effective scaffolds between the students' "given" and the "new" of the text.

Asking such questions as, "What do I already know and what do I need to know before reading?" or "What do I think this passage will be about, given the headings, graphs, or pictures?" helps students anticipate the text, make personal connections with the text, and help to promote engagement and motivation. Brainstorming and graphic organizers also serve to strengthen students' vocabulary knowledge and study skills.

Stage Two: Guided Reading

Students move on to guided reading, during which they familiarize themselves with the surface meaning of the text and then probe it for deeper meaning. Effective guided-reading activities allow students to apply their background knowledge and experience to the "new." They provide students with means to revise predictions; search for tentative answers; gather, organize, analyze, and synthesize evidence; and begin to make assertions about their new understanding. Common guided-reading activities include response journals and collaborative work on open-ended problems. During guided reading, Jacobs recommends that teachers transform the factual questions that typically appear at the end of a chapter into questions that ask how or why the facts are important.

The ability to monitor one's own reading often distinguishes effective and struggling readers. Thus, guided-reading activities should provide students with the opportunity to reflect on the reading process itself — recording in a log how their background knowledge and experience influenced their understanding of text, identifying where they may have gotten lost during reading and why, and asking any questions they have about the text. As with prereading, guided-reading activities not only enhance comprehension but also promote vocabulary knowledge and study skills.

Stage Three: Postreading

During postreading, students test their understanding of the text by comparing it with that of their classmates. In doing so, they help one another revise and strengthen their arguments while reflecting and improving on their own.

Writing to Learn

Writing is often used as a means of evaluating students' understanding of a certain topic, but it is also a powerful tool for engaging students in the act of learning itself. Writing allows students to organize their thoughts and provides a means by which students can form and extend their thinking, thus deepening understanding. Like reading-to-learn, writing can be a meaning-making process.

Research suggests that the most effective way to improve students' writing is a process called inquiry. This process allows students to define and test what they would like to write before drafting. To help students prepare their arguments, teachers guide them through the three stages of writing-based inquiry:

• Stating specific, relevant details from personal experience;
• Proposing observations or interpretations of the text; and
• Testing these assertions by predicting and countering potential opposing arguments. Through inquiry, students discover and refine something worth writing about.

Writing-to-learn activities can include freewriting (writing, without editing, what comes to mind), narrative writing (drawing on personal experience), response writing (writing thoughts on a specific issue); loop writing (writing on one idea from different perspectives) and dialogue writing (for example, with an author or a character.) "Not surprisingly," writes Jacobs, "writing-to learn activities are also known as 'writing-to-read' strategies — means by which students can engage with text in order to understand it."

Reading, writing, and understanding

The relationship among reading, writing, and understanding is clear. Students engaged in reading-to-learn will also be prepared to write well. In turn, students who are engaged in writing-to-learn will become more effective readers. Through both approaches, students will gain a better understanding of material and a greater ability to demonstrate that understanding.

Staff Development

Jacobs recommends that teachers who are considering whether to implement reading-to-learn and writing-to-learn strategies into their classroom first define their own instructional goals. If teachers decide that their goals for students' learning include "understanding," then they might ask themselves such questions as, "What strategies do I use to prepare my students to read a text?" or "How explicitly do I share with students the purpose of an assignment?" As Jacobs sees it, "Only after teachers have examined whether teaching for understanding suits their instructional goals and after they have defined their role in facilitating understanding can they consider how the principles and practices of reading-to-learn and writing-to-learn might support their instruction."

For those teachers who decide that teaching for understanding does indeed suit their instructional goals, the framework offered in Jacobs' article can help them skillfully integrate reading-to-learn and writing-to-learn strategies across their instruction.

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The Relationship Between Writing and Reading

Lisa Fink 12.17.17 Writing

Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing , written by a committee of the NCTE Executive Committee, pinpoints 10 key issues in the effective teaching of writing. Over the next few weeks, we will unpack each one. This week, we will look at:

“Writing and reading are related.”

Research has shown that when students receive writing instruction, their reading fluency and comprehension improve. NCTE provides many resources that emphasize the reading and writing connection.

The NCTE Policy Brief on Reading and Writing across the Curriculum states that “discipline-based instruction in reading and writing enhances student achievement in all subjects … Without strategies for reading course material and opportunities to write thoughtfully about it, students have difficulty mastering concepts. These literacy practices are firmly linked with both thinking and learning.”

Katie Van Sluys, in her book Becoming Writers in the Elementary Classroom: Visions and Decisions , shares ways in which young people have the opportunity to become competent, constantly growing writers who use writing to think, communicate, and pose as well as solve problems.

Nancy Patterson, in a Voices from the Middle article raises the point, “If the whole idea behind English language arts classes is to foster a love of reading and a thirst for human experience and ideas represented through text, then we have to think critically about not only the kinds of reading our students do, but also the kinds of writing they do.” Read more in “ Form and Artistry: The Reading/Writing Connection .”

“ A Snapshot of Writing Instruction in Middle Schools and High Schools ” by Applebee and Langer provides a detailed look at schools and data, interviews with teachers and administrators, and a national survey of teachers on the changes in the teaching of writing.

Bob Fecho, author of Writing in the Dialogical Classroom: Students and Teachers Responding to the Texts of Their Lives , argues that teachers need to develop writing experiences that are reflective across time in order to foster even deeper explorations of subject matter. He creates an ongoing conversation between classroom practice, theory, and research to show how each informs the others.

Designing Writing Assignments by Traci Gardner offers practical ways for teachers to develop assignments that will allow students to express their creativity and grow as writers and thinkers while still addressing the many demands of resource-stretched classrooms.

In Everyday Genres: Writing Assignments across the Disciplines , the author, Mary Soliday, calls on genre theory to analyze the common assignments given to writing students in the college classroom, and to investigate how new writers and expert readers respond to a variety of types of coursework in different fields.

How do you use the NCTE Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing in your classroom?

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1.1 Reading and Writing in College

Learning objectives.

• Understand the expectations for reading and writing assignments in college courses.
• Understand and apply general strategies to complete college-level reading assignments efficiently and effectively.
• Recognize specific types of writing assignments frequently included in college courses.
• Understand and apply general strategies for managing college-level writing assignments.
• Determine specific reading and writing strategies that work best for you individually.

As you begin this chapter, you may be wondering why you need an introduction. After all, you have been writing and reading since elementary school. You completed numerous assessments of your reading and writing skills in high school and as part of your application process for college. You may write on the job, too. Why is a college writing course even necessary?

When you are eager to get started on the coursework in your major that will prepare you for your career, getting excited about an introductory college writing course can be difficult. However, regardless of your field of study, honing your writing skills—and your reading and critical-thinking skills—gives you a more solid academic foundation.

In college, academic expectations change from what you may have experienced in high school. The quantity of work you are expected to do is increased. When instructors expect you to read pages upon pages or study hours and hours for one particular course, managing your work load can be challenging. This chapter includes strategies for studying efficiently and managing your time.

The quality of the work you do also changes. It is not enough to understand course material and summarize it on an exam. You will also be expected to seriously engage with new ideas by reflecting on them, analyzing them, critiquing them, making connections, drawing conclusions, or finding new ways of thinking about a given subject. Educationally, you are moving into deeper waters. A good introductory writing course will help you swim.

Table 1.1 “High School versus College Assignments” summarizes some of the other major differences between high school and college assignments.

Table 1.1 High School versus College Assignments

This chapter covers the types of reading and writing assignments you will encounter as a college student. You will also learn a variety of strategies for mastering these new challenges—and becoming a more confident student and writer.

Throughout this chapter, you will follow a first-year student named Crystal. After several years of working as a saleswoman in a department store, Crystal has decided to pursue a degree in elementary education and become a teacher. She is continuing to work part-time, and occasionally she finds it challenging to balance the demands of work, school, and caring for her four-year-old son. As you read about Crystal, think about how you can use her experience to get the most out of your own college experience.

Review Table 1.1 “High School versus College Assignments” and think about how you have found your college experience to be different from high school so far. Respond to the following questions:

• In what ways do you think college will be more rewarding for you as a learner?
• What aspects of college do you expect to find most challenging?
• What changes do you think you might have to make in your life to ensure your success in college?

Reading Strategies

Your college courses will sharpen both your reading and your writing skills. Most of your writing assignments—from brief response papers to in-depth research projects—will depend on your understanding of course reading assignments or related readings you do on your own. And it is difficult, if not impossible, to write effectively about a text that you have not understood. Even when you do understand the reading, it can be hard to write about it if you do not feel personally engaged with the ideas discussed.

This section discusses strategies you can use to get the most out of your college reading assignments. These strategies fall into three broad categories:

• Planning strategies. To help you manage your reading assignments.
• Comprehension strategies. To help you understand the material.
• Active reading strategies. To take your understanding to a higher and deeper level.

Planning Your Reading

Have you ever stayed up all night cramming just before an exam? Or found yourself skimming a detailed memo from your boss five minutes before a crucial meeting? The first step in handling college reading successfully is planning. This involves both managing your time and setting a clear purpose for your reading.

Managing Your Reading Time

You will learn more detailed strategies for time management in Section 1.2 “Developing Study Skills” , but for now, focus on setting aside enough time for reading and breaking your assignments into manageable chunks. If you are assigned a seventy-page chapter to read for next week’s class, try not to wait until the night before to get started. Give yourself at least a few days and tackle one section at a time.

Your method for breaking up the assignment will depend on the type of reading. If the text is very dense and packed with unfamiliar terms and concepts, you may need to read no more than five or ten pages in one sitting so that you can truly understand and process the information. With more user-friendly texts, you will be able to handle longer sections—twenty to forty pages, for instance. And if you have a highly engaging reading assignment, such as a novel you cannot put down, you may be able to read lengthy passages in one sitting.

As the semester progresses, you will develop a better sense of how much time you need to allow for the reading assignments in different subjects. It also makes sense to preview each assignment well in advance to assess its difficulty level and to determine how much reading time to set aside.

College instructors often set aside reserve readings for a particular course. These consist of articles, book chapters, or other texts that are not part of the primary course textbook. Copies of reserve readings are available through the university library; in print; or, more often, online. When you are assigned a reserve reading, download it ahead of time (and let your instructor know if you have trouble accessing it). Skim through it to get a rough idea of how much time you will need to read the assignment in full.

Setting a Purpose

The other key component of planning is setting a purpose. Knowing what you want to get out of a reading assignment helps you determine how to approach it and how much time to spend on it. It also helps you stay focused during those occasional moments when it is late, you are tired, and relaxing in front of the television sounds far more appealing than curling up with a stack of journal articles.

Sometimes your purpose is simple. You might just need to understand the reading material well enough to discuss it intelligently in class the next day. However, your purpose will often go beyond that. For instance, you might also read to compare two texts, to formulate a personal response to a text, or to gather ideas for future research. Here are some questions to ask to help determine your purpose:

How did my instructor frame the assignment? Often your instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading:

• Read Chapter 2 and come to class prepared to discuss current teaching practices in elementary math.
• Read these two articles and compare Smith’s and Jones’s perspectives on the 2010 health care reform bill.
• Read Chapter 5 and think about how you could apply these guidelines to running your own business.
• How deeply do I need to understand the reading? If you are majoring in computer science and you are assigned to read Chapter 1, “Introduction to Computer Science,” it is safe to assume the chapter presents fundamental concepts that you will be expected to master. However, for some reading assignments, you may be expected to form a general understanding but not necessarily master the content. Again, pay attention to how your instructor presents the assignment.
• How does this assignment relate to other course readings or to concepts discussed in class? Your instructor may make some of these connections explicitly, but if not, try to draw connections on your own. (Needless to say, it helps to take detailed notes both when in class and when you read.)
• How might I use this text again in the future? If you are assigned to read about a topic that has always interested you, your reading assignment might help you develop ideas for a future research paper. Some reading assignments provide valuable tips or summaries worth bookmarking for future reference. Think about what you can take from the reading that will stay with you.

Improving Your Comprehension

You have blocked out time for your reading assignments and set a purpose for reading. Now comes the challenge: making sure you actually understand all the information you are expected to process. Some of your reading assignments will be fairly straightforward. Others, however, will be longer or more complex, so you will need a plan for how to handle them.

For any expository writing —that is, nonfiction, informational writing—your first comprehension goal is to identify the main points and relate any details to those main points. Because college-level texts can be challenging, you will also need to monitor your reading comprehension. That is, you will need to stop periodically and assess how well you understand what you are reading. Finally, you can improve comprehension by taking time to determine which strategies work best for you and putting those strategies into practice.

Identifying the Main Points

In college, you will read a wide variety of materials, including the following:

• Textbooks. These usually include summaries, glossaries, comprehension questions, and other study aids.
• Nonfiction trade books. These are less likely to include the study features found in textbooks.
• Popular magazine, newspaper, or web articles. These are usually written for a general audience.
• Scholarly books and journal articles. These are written for an audience of specialists in a given field.

Regardless of what type of expository text you are assigned to read, your primary comprehension goal is to identify the main point : the most important idea that the writer wants to communicate and often states early on. Finding the main point gives you a framework to organize the details presented in the reading and relate the reading to concepts you learned in class or through other reading assignments. After identifying the main point, you will find the supporting points , the details, facts, and explanations that develop and clarify the main point.

Some texts make that task relatively easy. Textbooks, for instance, include the aforementioned features as well as headings and subheadings intended to make it easier for students to identify core concepts. Graphic features, such as sidebars, diagrams, and charts, help students understand complex information and distinguish between essential and inessential points. When you are assigned to read from a textbook, be sure to use available comprehension aids to help you identify the main points.

Trade books and popular articles may not be written specifically for an educational purpose; nevertheless, they also include features that can help you identify the main ideas. These features include the following:

• Trade books. Many trade books include an introduction that presents the writer’s main ideas and purpose for writing. Reading chapter titles (and any subtitles within the chapter) will help you get a broad sense of what is covered. It also helps to read the beginning and ending paragraphs of a chapter closely. These paragraphs often sum up the main ideas presented.
• Popular articles. Reading the headings and introductory paragraphs carefully is crucial. In magazine articles, these features (along with the closing paragraphs) present the main concepts. Hard news articles in newspapers present the gist of the news story in the lead paragraph, while subsequent paragraphs present increasingly general details.

At the far end of the reading difficulty scale are scholarly books and journal articles. Because these texts are written for a specialized, highly educated audience, the authors presume their readers are already familiar with the topic. The language and writing style is sophisticated and sometimes dense.

When you read scholarly books and journal articles, try to apply the same strategies discussed earlier. The introduction usually presents the writer’s thesis , the idea or hypothesis the writer is trying to prove. Headings and subheadings can help you understand how the writer has organized support for his or her thesis. Additionally, academic journal articles often include a summary at the beginning, called an abstract, and electronic databases include summaries of articles, too.

For more information about reading different types of texts, see Chapter 12 “Writing a Research Paper” .

Monitoring Your Comprehension

Finding the main idea and paying attention to text features as you read helps you figure out what you should know. Just as important, however, is being able to figure out what you do not know and developing a strategy to deal with it.

Textbooks often include comprehension questions in the margins or at the end of a section or chapter. As you read, stop occasionally to answer these questions on paper or in your head. Use them to identify sections you may need to reread, read more carefully, or ask your instructor about later.

Even when a text does not have built-in comprehension features, you can actively monitor your own comprehension. Try these strategies, adapting them as needed to suit different kinds of texts:

• Summarize. At the end of each section, pause to summarize the main points in a few sentences. If you have trouble doing so, revisit that section.
• Ask and answer questions. When you begin reading a section, try to identify two to three questions you should be able to answer after you finish it. Write down your questions and use them to test yourself on the reading. If you cannot answer a question, try to determine why. Is the answer buried in that section of reading but just not coming across to you? Or do you expect to find the answer in another part of the reading?
• Do not read in a vacuum. Look for opportunities to discuss the reading with your classmates. Many instructors set up online discussion forums or blogs specifically for that purpose. Participating in these discussions can help you determine whether your understanding of the main points is the same as your peers’.

These discussions can also serve as a reality check. If everyone in the class struggled with the reading, it may be exceptionally challenging. If it was a breeze for everyone but you, you may need to see your instructor for help.

As a working mother, Crystal found that the best time to get her reading done was in the evening, after she had put her four-year-old to bed. However, she occasionally had trouble concentrating at the end of a long day. She found that by actively working to summarize the reading and asking and answering questions, she focused better and retained more of what she read. She also found that evenings were a good time to check the class discussion forums that a few of her instructors had created.

Choose any text that that you have been assigned to read for one of your college courses. In your notes, complete the following tasks:

• Summarize the main points of the text in two to three sentences.
• Write down two to three questions about the text that you can bring up during class discussion.

Students are often reluctant to seek help. They feel like doing so marks them as slow, weak, or demanding. The truth is, every learner occasionally struggles. If you are sincerely trying to keep up with the course reading but feel like you are in over your head, seek out help. Speak up in class, schedule a meeting with your instructor, or visit your university learning center for assistance.

Deal with the problem as early in the semester as you can. Instructors respect students who are proactive about their own learning. Most instructors will work hard to help students who make the effort to help themselves.

Taking It to the Next Level: Active Reading

Now that you have acquainted (or reacquainted) yourself with useful planning and comprehension strategies, college reading assignments may feel more manageable. You know what you need to do to get your reading done and make sure you grasp the main points. However, the most successful students in college are not only competent readers but active, engaged readers.

Using the SQ3R Strategy

One strategy you can use to become a more active, engaged reader is the SQ3R strategy , a step-by-step process to follow before, during, and after reading. You may already use some variation of it. In essence, the process works like this:

• Survey the text in advance.
• Form questions before you start reading.
• Read the text.
• Recite and/or record important points during and after reading.
• Review and reflect on the text after you read.

Before you read, you survey, or preview, the text. As noted earlier, reading introductory paragraphs and headings can help you begin to figure out the author’s main point and identify what important topics will be covered. However, surveying does not stop there. Look over sidebars, photographs, and any other text or graphic features that catch your eye. Skim a few paragraphs. Preview any boldfaced or italicized vocabulary terms. This will help you form a first impression of the material.

Next, start brainstorming questions about the text. What do you expect to learn from the reading? You may find that some questions come to mind immediately based on your initial survey or based on previous readings and class discussions. If not, try using headings and subheadings in the text to formulate questions. For instance, if one heading in your textbook reads “Medicare and Medicaid,” you might ask yourself these questions:

• When was Medicare and Medicaid legislation enacted? Why?
• What are the major differences between these two programs?

Although some of your questions may be simple factual questions, try to come up with a few that are more open-ended. Asking in-depth questions will help you stay more engaged as you read.

The next step is simple: read. As you read, notice whether your first impressions of the text were correct. Are the author’s main points and overall approach about the same as what you predicted—or does the text contain a few surprises? Also, look for answers to your earlier questions and begin forming new questions. Continue to revise your impressions and questions as you read.

While you are reading, pause occasionally to recite or record important points. It is best to do this at the end of each section or when there is an obvious shift in the writer’s train of thought. Put the book aside for a moment and recite aloud the main points of the section or any important answers you found there. You might also record ideas by jotting down a few brief notes in addition to, or instead of, reciting aloud. Either way, the physical act of articulating information makes you more likely to remember it.

After you have completed the reading, take some time to review the material more thoroughly. If the textbook includes review questions or your instructor has provided a study guide, use these tools to guide your review. You will want to record information in a more detailed format than you used during reading, such as in an outline or a list.

As you review the material, reflect on what you learned. Did anything surprise you, upset you, or make you think? Did you find yourself strongly agreeing or disagreeing with any points in the text? What topics would you like to explore further? Jot down your reflections in your notes. (Instructors sometimes require students to write brief response papers or maintain a reading journal. Use these assignments to help you reflect on what you read.)

Choose another text that that you have been assigned to read for a class. Use the SQ3R process to complete the reading. (Keep in mind that you may need to spread the reading over more than one session, especially if the text is long.)

Be sure to complete all the steps involved. Then, reflect on how helpful you found this process. On a scale of one to ten, how useful did you find it? How does it compare with other study techniques you have used?

Using Other Active Reading Strategies

The SQ3R process encompasses a number of valuable active reading strategies: previewing a text, making predictions, asking and answering questions, and summarizing. You can use the following additional strategies to further deepen your understanding of what you read.

• Connect what you read to what you already know. Look for ways the reading supports, extends, or challenges concepts you have learned elsewhere.
• Relate the reading to your own life. What statements, people, or situations relate to your personal experiences?
• Visualize. For both fiction and nonfiction texts, try to picture what is described. Visualizing is especially helpful when you are reading a narrative text, such as a novel or a historical account, or when you read expository text that describes a process, such as how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
• Pay attention to graphics as well as text. Photographs, diagrams, flow charts, tables, and other graphics can help make abstract ideas more concrete and understandable.
• Understand the text in context. Understanding context means thinking about who wrote the text, when and where it was written, the author’s purpose for writing it, and what assumptions or agendas influenced the author’s ideas. For instance, two writers might both address the subject of health care reform, but if one article is an opinion piece and one is a news story, the context is different.
• Plan to talk or write about what you read. Jot down a few questions or comments in your notebook so you can bring them up in class. (This also gives you a source of topic ideas for papers and presentations later in the semester.) Discuss the reading on a class discussion board or blog about it.

As Crystal began her first semester of elementary education courses, she occasionally felt lost in a sea of new terms and theories about teaching and child development. She found that it helped to relate the reading to her personal observations of her son and other kids she knew.

Writing at Work

Many college courses require students to participate in interactive online components, such as a discussion forum, a page on a social networking site, or a class blog. These tools are a great way to reinforce learning. Do not be afraid to be the student who starts the discussion.

Remember that when you interact with other students and teachers online, you need to project a mature, professional image. You may be able to use an informal, conversational tone, but complaining about the work load, using off-color language, or “flaming” other participants is inappropriate.

Active reading can benefit you in ways that go beyond just earning good grades. By practicing these strategies, you will find yourself more interested in your courses and better able to relate your academic work to the rest of your life. Being an interested, engaged student also helps you form lasting connections with your instructors and with other students that can be personally and professionally valuable. In short, it helps you get the most out of your education.

Common Writing Assignments

College writing assignments serve a different purpose than the typical writing assignments you completed in high school. In high school, teachers generally focus on teaching you to write in a variety of modes and formats, including personal writing, expository writing, research papers, creative writing, and writing short answers and essays for exams. Over time, these assignments help you build a foundation of writing skills.

In college, many instructors will expect you to already have that foundation.

Your college composition courses will focus on writing for its own sake, helping you make the transition to college-level writing assignments. However, in most other college courses, writing assignments serve a different purpose. In those courses, you may use writing as one tool among many for learning how to think about a particular academic discipline.

Additionally, certain assignments teach you how to meet the expectations for professional writing in a given field. Depending on the class, you might be asked to write a lab report, a case study, a literary analysis, a business plan, or an account of a personal interview. You will need to learn and follow the standard conventions for those types of written products.

Finally, personal and creative writing assignments are less common in college than in high school. College courses emphasize expository writing, writing that explains or informs. Often expository writing assignments will incorporate outside research, too. Some classes will also require persuasive writing assignments in which you state and support your position on an issue. College instructors will hold you to a higher standard when it comes to supporting your ideas with reasons and evidence.

Table 1.2 “Common Types of College Writing Assignments” lists some of the most common types of college writing assignments. It includes minor, less formal assignments as well as major ones. Which specific assignments you encounter will depend on the courses you take and the learning objectives developed by your instructors.

Table 1.2 Common Types of College Writing Assignments

Part of managing your education is communicating well with others at your university. For instance, you might need to e-mail your instructor to request an office appointment or explain why you will need to miss a class. You might need to contact administrators with questions about your tuition or financial aid. Later, you might ask instructors to write recommendations on your behalf.

Treat these documents as professional communications. Address the recipient politely; state your question, problem, or request clearly; and use a formal, respectful tone. Doing so helps you make a positive impression and get a quicker response.

Key Takeaways

• College-level reading and writing assignments differ from high school assignments not only in quantity but also in quality.
• Managing college reading assignments successfully requires you to plan and manage your time, set a purpose for reading, practice effective comprehension strategies, and use active reading strategies to deepen your understanding of the text.
• College writing assignments place greater emphasis on learning to think critically about a particular discipline and less emphasis on personal and creative writing.

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Literacy Narrative Explained

Literacy Narrative Examples for College Students

A literacy narrative is quite simply that: it is a story of how you became literate and how it has affected your life. To create a literacy narrative, you just need to find your story and use  descriptive text  to bring it to life. Learn how to write a literacy narrative through exploring original and famous examples.

Breaking Down a Literacy Narrative

A literacy narrative is a personalized story of your relationship with language. Not only do literacy narratives discuss memories, but they also walk through a person’s discovery, trials and triumphs with reading, writing and speaking a language.

This doesn’t have to be English either. It could be your experiences  learning a second language  and the impact that it has had on you. The point is simply to tell the world about your struggles and growth with language and communication. Literacy narratives can have different  themes , topics, styles,  moods  and  tones  that you can work to make your own.

Key Features of a Literacy Narrative

To start, a literacy narrative is a personalized story.

• Hook:  Begin with a hook  to draw the reader in. This could be your first experience with books or how reading and writing define you.
• Focus: Rounding out your first paragraph, you’ll want to give a short thesis that tells the reader the whole point of your story.
• Meaning: Throughout the remainder of your narrative, you’ll use stories and  vivid descriptions  to explore the meaning of this journey to you. You might discuss how your poetry has grown or your love of reading has turned into writing.
• Challenges: Explore the challenges that you’ve faced in your journey and how you’ve overcome them, along with how your ideas and thoughts have transformed.

Example: Relationship with Words

Explore how to write a literacy  narrative essay  through an original example for college level students. The following example is written by  Jennifer Betts .

Words were like a puzzle that I couldn’t quite solve. Listening to the teachers read the jumbled-up letters on the page, I was fascinated by how they could easily bring the pictures to life. The first day that I truly became literate, it was like another world opening up. My fingers couldn’t find books fast enough. My relationship with words has been a powerful, fantastical and even sometimes disastrous journey.

I would like to say that I’ve always known the power of words, but that simply isn’t true. The power that a word can hold jumped at me like a thief in the night the first time I encountered my own personal bully. They took the words that I’d proudly written and made them less meaningful than trash. However, it was that bully that forced my reading and vocabulary to grow. They made me realize the power that a few sentences could hold in an instant. Like swords in battle, they can quickly cut and decimate your opponent. Mastering the tactics of battle, you turn from the opponent to the victor. The need to be the victor drove me to books. And books opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking.

I have that bully to thank for leading me to the  children’s book  Harry Potter. The moment I slid open those silken pages, my eyes couldn’t devour them fast enough. The story pushed the limits of my vast imagination and truly allowed me to soar. The moment the journey was over, I missed it. And there hasn’t been another book since that has truly satisfied that high.

While I had dabbled in writing my own love stories a time or two, my need to find another fantasy that consumed me like the Harry Potter series pushed me into trying my own hand at writing. The moment my fingers hit the keys, the words just started pouring out of me at a rate that even I couldn’t control. Who knew that the shy, introverted child had so much to say?

While my relationship with written words are the things of dreams, my plunge into speaking often has disastrous consequences. Never have I been a good public speaker. In school, it was the day that I dreaded. Despite my preparation, I would trip and stumble to the podium only to repeat my performance in my carefully planned words. While they say practice makes perfect, in my case, practice has made mediocre. But to get the world to hear your words, sometimes you need to find the courage to speak them.

Even if the delivery isn’t perfect.

Though my journey with words started in frustration, it turned to fascination and wonder in a minute. Even with many years of reading under my belt, I’m still humbled by the power that a single word can hold if used the right or even the wrong way. Sharper than knives or softer than a silk, finding the right words is always an interesting journey.

Famous Examples of a Literacy Narrative

Literacy narratives can make an impact. Going beyond a short essay, a literacy narrative can even become an entire book that explores your literacy journey. To get your creative juices flowing, look at a few excerpts from famous examples of literacy narratives.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.

In “ The Writing Life ,” Annie Dilliard uses short essays to explore her journey with literacy and writing. Using her own unique style, Annie helps you to explore how and why she is a writer and what a rough and exciting journey it can be. You follow how writing can be torturous and transcendent all in the same moment.

Literacy Narrative by Kiki Petrosino

I wish to put my blackness into some kind of order. My blackness, my builtness, my blackness, a bill. I want you to know how I feel it: cold key under the tongue. Mean fishhook of homesickness that catches my heart when I walk under southern pines. And how I recognized the watery warp of the floor in my great-grandma’s house, when I dreamed it. This is what her complaining ghost said: Write about me.

Culture and writing and how culture affects writing are explored in “ Literacy Narrative ,” a personal essay by Kiki Petrosino. Kiki uses her experiences as a black woman and her history to show her relationship with words. She explores how her African American heritage drives her writing and how, through her journey with  descriptive poetry , she intermingles her poetry and race to create a compelling work.

Bird by Bird Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

Anne Lamott takes you through a hilarious and witty ride to finding her story in “ Bird by Bird .” Through showing you her journey into becoming a writer and finding literacy, she tries to help others find their own story in this  personal narrative . Starting with some words of wisdom from her father, this literacy narrative takes you through her entire journey with writer’s block and pushing your limits. This is a great example of the impact and depth that a literacy narrative can take.

Finding Your Words

Everyone has a literacy story. It can even be how you don’t like to read. In college, you often have to explore your personal literacy story through an essay. Using these tactics and examples, you can dive into the fun world of  personal expression  and exploration. If literacy narratives aren’t your jam, you might give poetry a try. There are several  poetry genres  perfect for personal exploration and introspection, too.

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Blast from the Past: How Can We Take Advantage of the Reading-Writing Relationship?

This blog first appeared on February 22, 2020. It has been a while since I have written about how writing instruction can boost reading achievement. When I first started writing about that (almost 50 years ago), it was virtually an unknown topic. These days, most teachers tell me that they agree that writing can improve reading, though they don’t seem to have much understanding of the concept and quite often they skip the writing because of pressures to get higher reading scores. So it goes. Given recent experiences with such conversations, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the topic. There was nothing to change or update here but the original had no references, so I cited some of my contributions in this arena. I still believe that a quarter of your language arts instruction should focus on writing – and this entry provides practical advice to help you accomplish that in ways that can build both reading and writing. RELATED:  What Does Brain Science Have To Say About Teaching Reading? Does It Matter?

Teacher question:  

Everyone says reading and writing are connected. But our school focuses on only reading. We have a reading program (we don’t have a writing program). We test the students three times a year in reading, but never in writing. Writing isn’t even on our report card, though I guess it is part of Language Arts. What should we be doing with writing?

Shanahan response:

You came to the right place.

I think your school is making a big mistake not devoting sufficient attention to writing.

When I was a teacher my primary grade kids wrote every day. When I became a researcher, I conducted studies on how reading and writing are related. As director of reading for Chicago, I required 30-45 minutes per day of writing in all our classrooms.

There are, of course, a lot of good reasons why someone should learn to write. Many jobs, mine included, require it – and often jobs that require a lot of writing pay better (I’m sure many nurses would disagree with that last point). Of course, writing is also an important form of self-expression. Just as there are people who play musical instruments, dance, sing, paint, knit, cook, and so on, many use writing as a form of self-expression and to preserve memory. All those are terrific reasons for teaching writing.

I’m going to guess that the reason your school is ignoring writing is because someone thought that might help raise reading scores. That’s a mistake because writing can be a path to higher reading achievement, so your kids (and your school) are missing out. Instead of elevating the reading scores, your school is probably squashing them.

So, there are lots of reasons for teaching writing, and this entry focuses on one of them: how writing can help kids to become measurably better readers.

Research has identified three important ways reading and writing are connected – and all three deserve a place in your curriculum.

First, reading and writing draw upon the same body of knowledge and skills. If you want to be a reader you must perceive the separable phonemes within words, recognize the most common spelling patterns, link meanings to the words in the text (vocabulary), understand the grammar well enough to permit comprehension, trail cohesive links accurately, and recognize and use discourse structure (texts are organized and recognizing this in a text improves comprehension). Of course, background knowledge plays a role in reading comprehension, too, so the more readers know about their world the better they may do in reading. Yep, learning to read requires all of that.

But think about it. That knowledge is integral to writing too. If kids can’t hear the phonemes, match sounds and letters, and remember spelling patterns, they won’t be able to get words on the page. The same can be said about all those other linguistic and content features of text needed for reading. That means when you are teaching the foundations of reading, you are also teaching the foundations of writing.

It is the same knowledge base, and yet, they play out differently because readers and writers start in different places. A reader looks at the author’s words and starts decoding—matching the phonology in their head to the author’s orthography. The writer thinks about the words he/she wants to write, thinks about the phonemes, and tries to remember what letters or patterns will represent those. The same thing happens with the other elements, too – one starts with ideas and turns them into written language, and the other marches in the opposite direction.

What is my advice about taking advantage of this overlap? Teach the reading skills that you teach now, but then think hard about them. How would kids use that skill in reading  and  writing? For example, when you teach letter sounds, you should be teaching kids to use those sounds to sound out words. It is a pathetic phonics lesson that includes no decoding practice. But also have your students try to write the words. Many programs include dictation, and that’s great.

I’m partial to invented spelling because it provides such extensive and supportive practice with the sounds. Look at this simple K-1 message:

Hermet Krabs liv in shels sum tims tha lev on the bech. 

[Hermit crabs live in shells. Sometimes they live on the beach.]

This piece of writing didn’t take long to produce, but to accomplish it the student had to analyze 38 phonemes. He got most of them reasonably right, too. The most ambitious phonemic awareness lessons usually would NOT have any individual child practicing 38 phonemes, so encouraging this kind of writing is smart teaching.

You can do the same with older kids when you teach informational text structure. For reading, that would usually entail teaching how problem-solution texts are organized, and then having the students read texts with that structure to gin up comprehension. That can be even more effective if the kids try to compose their own problem-solution texts – and what a great opportunity to review science or social studies content at the same time.

Second, reading and writing are communication processes. Studies show that writers think about their audiences and what they need to tell their readers to communicate effectively. That might not be surprising, but there are also studies showing the value of having readers think about authors and authors’ perspectives (this is emphasized in educational standards and is essential for reading history and for certain approaches to literary text, too).

Writing approaches that involve kids in reading and responding to each other’s texts are beneficial in improving the quality of kids’ writing. There are any number of ways that teachers can facilitate this kind of sharing and heighten awareness that texts are written by somebody. Doing this can sensitize young authors to the kinds of things that may confuse or entice their readers. Writing conferences, writer’s workshop, and revision circles are just a few ways this can be done.

On the reading side, it can help to read texts in which authors have a strong voice and/or style. It is terrific when kindergarteners find that they can recognize Dr. Seuss books or when third graders can distinguish a Beverly Cleary from a Barbara Cooney with their eyes closed. I like to have these students write imaginary biographies of the authors, based only on the content and tone of the texts we are reading. Of course, as kids get older, these kinds of things are addressed by having students read primary source text sets in their social studies classes and evaluating the trustworthiness of this material based on who the authors are and when they recorded their ideas.

Being author can give students insights into what is happening off-stage (what is the author doing back there?), which can boost critical reading ability. Likewise, being a thoughtful writer gives writers insights into what their readers might need.

The third way that reading and writing can connect is through combined use. Reading and writing can be used together to accomplish goals. Most research on combined uses emphasize two specific academic goals, so I’ll limit my comments to those; specifically, studying or learning from text and composing synthesis papers, like school reports.  

In the first, writing is added to reading to increase understanding or improve memory. Research finds that writing about what one is trying to learn from text is beneficial. Often when students read for a test, they read and reread and hope for the best. Studies show that reading and writing summaries, analyses/critiques, or syntheses of the information has a powerful and positive impact on learning. We should be teaching students how to use writing in concert with reading to improve comprehension, increase knowledge, and conquer academia.

The second body of research explores synthesis writing. Teaching students how to collect information appropriately from text sources enables easier and more effective syntheses. Instead of just having kids write a report with three sources or something like that, guide them to plan a paper with a particular purpose or structure and then help them to read the texts in ways that will facilitate this writing. For instance, if students are to write some kind of comparison of sources, provide a summarization guide that facilitates the collection of comparable information from the two texts (such as charting which points on which the texts agree and disagree). Reading the texts in that way should enhance the writing.

Too many principals think that ignoring and even discouraging writing frees up time better devoted to higher reading scores. Too many teachers are anxious about writing because of the limited preparation they receive in this area. But having kids writing every day – in any and all of the ways described here is a good idea.

Not doing so leaves reading achievement points on the table.

As Vivian says in Pretty Woman: “BIG MISTAKE!”

Fitzgerald, J., & Shanahan, T. (2000). Reading and writing relations and their development. Educational Psychologist, 35, 39–51.

Shanahan, T. (1984). Nature of the reading-writing relation: An exploratory multi­variate analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology , 76 , 466–477.

Shanahan, T. (1997). Reading-writing relationships, thematic units, inquiry learning… In pursuit of effective integrated instruction. The Reading Teacher, 51, 12–19.

Shanahan, T. (1998). Readers’ awareness of author. In R. C. Calfee & N. Spivey (Eds.), The reading-writing connection. Ninety-seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (part II, pp. 88–111). Chicago: NSSE.

Shanahan, T. (2004). Overcoming the dominance of communication: Writing to think and to learn. In T. L. Jetton & J. A. Dole (Eds.), Adolescent literacy research and practice (pp. 59–74) . New York: Guilford.

Shanahan, T. (2006). Relations among oral language, reading, and writing development. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 171—186). New York: Guilford Press.

Shanahan, T. (2016). Relationships between reading and writing development. In C A. MacArthur, Steve Graham, & Jill Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2 nd ed., pp. 194-210). New York: The Guilford Press.

Shanahan, T. (2019). Reading-writing connections. In S. Graham, C.A. MacArthur, & M. Hebert (Eds.), Best practices in writing instruction (3 rd ed., pp. 309-332). New York: Guilford Press.

Shanahan, T. (Ed.). (1990). Reading and writing together: New perspec­tives for the class­room . Nor­wood, MA: Christopher Gordon.

Shanahan, T. & Lomax, R. (1986). An analysis and comparison of theoreti­cal models of the read­ing-writing relationship. Journal of Educational Psychology , 78 , 116–123.

Shanahan, T., & Lomax, R. (1988). A developmental comparison of three theoretical models of the reading-writing relationship. Research in the Teaching of English , 22 , 196–212.

Shanahan, T., & Tierney, R. J. (1990). Reading-writing connections: The relations among three re­search traditions. In J. Zutell & S. McCormick (Eds.), Literacy the­ory and research: Analyses from multiple paradigms . (Thirty-ninth Yearbook of the Na­tional Reading Confer­ence, pp. 13–34). Chicago, IL: National Reading Con­ference.

Tierney, R., & Shanahan, T. (1991). Reading-writing relationships: Proc­esses, transac­tions, out­comes. In P. D. Pearson, R. Barr, M. Kamil, & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Hand­book of Reading Research (vol. 2, pp. 246–280). New York: Longman.

Here is a link to the original posting of this blog in case you would like to see the 26 comments that were made in response to it.

https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/how-can-we-take-advantage-of-reading-writing-relationships

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See what others have to say about this topic.

I teach world languages and took a "Science of Reading" course, because I believe that reading is central to learning anything. Listening and reading are the two receptive skills. Speaking and writing are the two expressive skills. In order to meaningfully communicate in the outside world, all of those skills are a part of the puzzle. The OP's school is teaching to a flawed test and is setting up those students to fail. I used to work in a school system that told teachers to teach to the test. I always have believed to teach beyond the test. The goal is to produce students who can solve problems in the real world, not wait for someone to give them the answer. The field of medicine, among many others, is full of people who are problem solvers.

So glad you reposted this topic. The "Writing to Read" research guide (Graham & Hebert, 2010) highlights multiple ways that writing supports reading. The first recommendation is to have students write personal reactions to text, learn to take notes from text, and answer/create questions about text in writing. Summarizing is also a key recommendation, something that we have long known supports comprehension, and was also identified in the "Writing Next" research guide (Graham & Perin, 2007) as one of the 11 instructional practices that improve student writing. In my book "The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects" and in the two professional development courses I developed for Keys to Literacy (Keys to Early Writing, Keys to Content Writing), I emphasize the importance of integrating writing and reading instruction. This includes using model texts that students "read as writers" to analyze with the teacher and then emulate in their writing. The focus of these sample texts should be specific and purposeful, such as how to write a claim for an opinion piece, how to use transitions, or how to write a good paragraph topic sentence. I have also long emphasized the importance of using writing to learn, which can be simple quick writes, teaching students to use two-column notes, and writing summaries about something read, said or done in the classroom. For followers of your blog, there is a large collection of free resources at the Keys to Literacy website, including blog posts I have written related to writing, and free archived webinars: https://keystoliteracy.com/free-resources/ and https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/ My Feb 2023 post was "Teaching Text Structure to Support Writing and Comprehension."

Of course, we need to address the elephant in the room! How can so many teachers and administrators be so clueless as to the important relationships between reading and writing that you so expertly describe? Could it be that the woeful colleges of education fail to help teachers make these critical connections before releasing them to the schools? Could it be that education leaders allow too much autonomy in what gets taught in their classrooms? Could it be that it takes too much work and writing expertise for teachers to assess student written work with written descriptive feedback to help children improve their writing? The reality is that classroom walls should be filled with student writing aligned to specific learning targets with careful descriptive feedback from the teacher. Additionally the history of student writing should also be included to demonstrate student writing improvement over time! This instructional practice would go a long way in improving student writing and yes reading skills as well. Will it ever happen systematically? Not until there is a total transformation of K-12 education. Highly unlikely. We will have to live with special case successes! Read The Fog of Education.

Great post. So important to do both. Carol Chomsky was a professor of mine (invented spelling) and I have found having kids tap spell before writing the word is so powerful, especially if they first tap phonemes to see how many taps, and then articulating the graphemes within those taps. This way they know "hmmm sigh has two taps but hmmmm si doesn't look right let me check that". It is useful to have a reference for the spelling of phonemes. Keeping charts, "graphemes that represent the phoneme _____" works well and can be added to as new spellings are discovered as the child/class progresses. "Hmmm sie? sy? sigh? Can't be i__e because there is no consonant." Even if they ultimately choose the wrong one in their piece they are learning the possible graphemes that respresent that phoneme.

Tim, the letter I wrote that was published last week in The New York Times (January 11) is on this very topic.--Best wishes, Allen Berger, Heckert professor of reading and writing emeritus, Miami University (Ohio)..

Oh thank you for reposting on this important topic! I teach all future and current teachers the importance of writing, how to analyze a child's writing and developmental spelling, and employ writing to support emergent readers in conceptual understanding and use of the alphabetic principle. I have developed multiple grade level clustered online courses (free and asynchronous) in writing development for my state. It is a huge lost opportunity and missing link in a speech to print approach (expressive to receptive) to reading foundations and so much more! Thanks to you for your continued advocacy for the importance of writing and to Joan for a useful teacher friendly new text on the nuts and bolts. In classrooms I visit, copying from board or book is often called "writing." No words for how frustrating this is understanding the depth of this lost learning opportunity. All reading foundational skills are richly practiced in the act of writing.

Miriam P. Trehearne In August 2022 I posted a review of Shifting the Balance 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates: Having written six successful literacy focused professional books for teachers, having been a classroom teacher, an Early Childhood and Early Literacy Specialist, Program Specialist (exceptional needs students) Literacy Coach, and University Associate and having worked with teachers and administrators around the world, I am aware of the politics and the challenges involving the “reading wars”. They are numerous. Pendulum swings often disenfranchise teachers, students, and parents. Many experienced teachers suffer as they continue to live through pendulum swings (e.g. whole language versus phonics, as if the two are, or ever were, mutually exclusive). The review focused on one very key area which was omitted and provided the research-base behind it. Burkins and Yates did not include writing when discussing the Balanced Literacy Classroom. This is a serious omission. The research described by Bill Teale in his article “The Curriculum Gap Ensures a Continuing Achievement Gap” (2007) is important. This research indicates that writing is one of three key areas often neglected in early literacy classrooms. This curriculum gap means that many young children are being shortchanged and will suffer the consequences in later grades (Teale, 2014). In her landmark research, Dolores Durkin (1966) discovered that the parents and caregivers of children who had learned to read before coming to kindergarten had read with their children. However, they did more than this. They gave their children many writing opportunities. It became clear that early readers generally are very interested in writing, and many write long before they read. Writing often provides a foundation for reading. Many experienced teachers have seen young children develop both reading skills and the love of reading, in part, through writing. In a study of beginning literacy learning, kindergarteners’ writing behaviors were found to be predictive of subsequent (Grade 1) reading achievement, even after controlling for the effects of IQ (Shatil, Share and Levin, 2000). A complex theory of literacy learning acknowledges that writers have to know how to do certain things that overlap with things that readers have to know or do. The two processes are concurrent sources of learning and contribute to each other in early literacy learning. Reading and writing are reciprocal and interrelated processes (Marie Clay 2001). Canadian researchers, Harrison, Ogle, McIntyre, and Hellsten (2008), reviewed K–3 studies on early writing conducted in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The findings, published in a paper titled “The Influence of Early Writing Instruction on Developing Literacy,” indicated that early writing ---Supports the development of phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, and phonics ---Enhances early reading (word identification, decoding, passage comprehension, and word reading) and often precedes early reading. The quality of writing support for 4-year-olds is highly related to their language and literacy growth at the end of Kindergarten and Grade 1 (Dickinson and Sprague 2001). Writing is an activity that promotes alphabet letter knowledge, phonological awareness, phonics, concepts of print, including the fact that the end of a line is not always the end of a thought (Snow, Burns, and Griffin 1998). So, writing (including drawing) helps children to make sense of their world. And finally, the evidence from a meta-analysis shows that having students in Grades 2-12 write about material they have read, enhances their comprehension of it. This was true for students in general and students who were weaker readers and writers, in particular (Graham and Hebert, 2011). “Learning to write assists children in their reading; in learning to read, children also gain insights that help them as writers. But writing is more than an aid to learning to read; it is an important curricular goal. Through writing children express themselves, clarify their thinking, communicate ideas, and integrate new information into their knowledge base.” —Every Child a Reader, CIERA 1 And Tim, (2017) you sum it up beautifully with: Reading-writing relations start when reading and writing start. Many folks delay writing until a solid reading base is established. Research doesn’t support that: kids are able to draw reading benefits from the beginning. When young children first try to write, they have to think hard about print concepts. When young children first try to spell, they have to think hard about phonemic awareness. The impact of writing on reading must be considered part of any acceptable definition of science of reading instruction (Shanahan 2020). So, how can writing be eliminated from the Balanced Literacy Classroom when shifting the balance? Clearly the instructional practices identified by Burkins and Yates are too narrow and not complete. Thanks, Tim, for again providing a clear research-based and proven posting supporting the reading-writing connection, at all grade levels. Miriam Trehearne

My fairly large urban district has not had a writing program in over 10 years. For the last 5 years they have used an expensive purchased CORE curriculum which has a teacher reading out loud a grade level chapter book to students; "discussing something" and then writing this discussion together to be copied from the projector where it was typed. These are collected and made into a book for that topic. This happens 1-5 grades. No handwriting. NO spelling. NO sentence analysis or practice, No paragraph etc. No vocabulary help from the program. Because there is an enforced pacing guide and testing, teachers are loathe to add and teach anything other than what is presented in the manual. One topic for 4th grade for a lesson: compare and contrast the American historical fiction genre with another type of historical fiction genre. I sent this topic around to high school English teachers, none of whom could do it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on this. Classes are heterogeneous and our El's are to remain in the classroom and be "supported" during this instruction. This is for 45-60 min daily. Phonics time lasts 30-40 minutes. It consists of a 10-15 minute "conference" with an individual student while the entire rest of the class reads from leveled books, alone. The teacher can conference with about 3 kids per day. After much yearly agitation from experienced teachers, we are now allowed to "conference" with small groups of the lowest students more often. I would love to have reactions to this!

ARD-- Except for the phonics time, this sounds horrible to me. tim

We spend tons of time writing in my class. I don't see how people don't, but based on conversations with other teachers at my school, writing is the FIRST to go. For me, we are doing writing, reading, math and writing EVERYday.. At the beginning of the year ...I read these kids writing and I'm just like....absolutely not, we need to improve this. I remember being in college and knowing adults who had no idea how to structure an essay. this kind of thing starts early. The curriculum my district provides...is not the best IMO. It's focused on genre, but mainly on kinda the free right, workshop approach....which is fine for some kids. but I've realized that a lot of kids need structure or they literally won't write, or they will and it'll be...concerning. I started using the writing revolution's techniques and I've been having tons of success. the kids know what to expect when we do writing, and because of the structure I've taken care to provide, they know what to do and there isn't as much anxiety

I think we just became best friends! "BIG MISTAKE...HUGE!"

As a third grade teacher, I struggled to teach writing until I took a class on using a writer’s workshop method to teach writing. This time became the most exciting and effective part of our language arts class. Not only did my students test scores increase, but they couldn’t wait until the next lesson came to work on their writing pieces. We treated those pieces like a painting. It was YOUR piece and you made the decisions on how to communicate your ideas. As a result, we ALL learned to read like writers. We discussed how writers chose to communicate their ideas and thoughts. Reading scores increased and their desire and knowledge of different types of books soared! I actually became an avid reader myself once I started reading like a writer. Time spent on teaching writing is essential for all schools.

What Are your thoughts?

Leave me a comment and I would like to have a discussion with you!

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

The Relationship Between Reading and Writing

F or many years reading and writing were (and sometimes still are) taught separately. Though the two have almost always been taught by the same person (the English/Language Arts teacher) during the Language Arts period or block, educators rarely made explicit connections between the two for their students. Over the last ten years research has shown that reading and writing are more interdependent than we thought. The relationship between reading and writing is a bit like that of the chicken and egg. Which came first is not as important as the fact that without one the other cannot exist. A child’s literacy development is dependent on this interconnection between reading and writing.

Basically put: reading affects writing and writing affects reading. According to recommendations from the major English/Language Arts professional organizations, reading instruction is most effective when intertwined with writing instruction and vice versa. Research has found that when children read extensively they become better writers. Reading a variety of genres helps children learn text structures and language that they can then transfer to their own writing. In addition, reading provides young people with prior knowledge that they can use in their stories. One of the primary reasons that we read is to learn. Especially while we are still in school, a major portion of what we know comes from the texts we read. Since writing is the act of transmitting knowledge in print, we must have information to share before we can write it. Therefore reading plays a major role in writing.

At the same time practice in writing helps children build their reading skills. This is especially true for younger children who are working to develop phonemic awareness and phonics skills. Phonemic awareness (the understanding that words are developed from sound “chunks”) develops as children read and write new words. Similarly, phonics skills or the ability to link sounds together to construct words are reinforced when children read and write the same words. For older children practice in the process of writing their own texts helps them analyze the pieces that they read. They can apply their knowledge about the ways that they chose to use particular language, text structure or content to better understand a professional author’s construction of his or her texts.

Harnessing the Reading-Writing Relationship to Help Children Learn

Simply knowing that reading and writing are intimately connected processes isn’t enough. In order to help children develop these two essential skills, parents and teachers need to apply this knowledge when working with them. Here are a few strategies for using reading and writing to reinforce development of literacy skills.

Genre Study

One of the most effective ways to use the relationship between reading and writing to foster literacy development is by immersing children in a specific genre. Parents and teachers should identify a genre that is essential to a grade level’s curriculum or is of particular interest to a child or group of children. They should then study this genre with the child(ren) from the reading and writing perspectives. Children should read and discuss with adults high quality examples of works written in the genre focusing on its structure and language as well as other basic reading skills including phonics and comprehension. Once children have studied the genre to identify its essential elements, they should be given opportunities to write in the genre. As they are writing, adults should help them apply what they have learned from reading genre specific texts to guide their composition. This process should be recursive to allow children to repeatedly move between reading and writing in the genre. In the end children will not only have a solid and rich knowledge of the genre, but will also have strengthened their general reading and writing skills.

Reading to Develop Specific Writing Skills

Parents and teachers do not have to engage in an extensive genre study to foster their children’s reading and writing abilities. Texts can be used on limited basis to help children learn and strengthen specific writing skills. Parents and teachers should first identify writing skills that a particular child or group of children need support in developing. For example, many students in a seventh grade class might have difficulty writing attention getting introductions in their essays. One of the most effective ways to help children build specific writing skills is to show and discuss with them models that successfully demonstrate the skill. Adults should select a number of texts where the authors “nail” the area that they want to help their children grow in. For our sample seventh graders we’d want to find several pieces of writing with strong, engaging introductions and read and analyze these with the students. Once children have explored effective models of the skill, they should be given opportunities to practice it. They can either write new pieces or revise previous pieces of writing emulating the authors’ techniques.

Integrating “Sound” Instruction in Reading and Writing

Phonemic awareness and phonics are two of the pillars of reading. Without understanding the connection between sounds and letters, a person cannot read. The connection between reading and writing can help solidify these skills in young readers. Parents and teachers should help children “sound out” words in both their reading and writing. When a child comes to a word in their reading that is unfamiliar, the adult(s) working with her can model or guide her in sounding out the word using knowledge of phonemes (sound “chunks”). Similarly, if a child wants to write a new word the adult(s) can use the same technique to help her choose which letters to write. If the child is younger, accurate spelling is not as important as an understanding of the connection between particular sounds and letters. Therefore helping the child pick letters that approximate the spelling is more appropriate than providing him with the actual spelling. If the child is older and has an understanding of some of the unique variations in the English language (such as silent “e”), the parent or teacher should encourage him to use that knowledge to come up with the spelling of the word.

Choice in Reading and Writing

Another effective method for using the relationship between reading and writing to foster literacy development is simply giving children the choice in their reading and writing experiences. We learn best when we are motivated. If children are always told exactly what to read and what to write, they will eventually either come to see reading and writing as impersonal events or will “shut down”. Often in classrooms, teachers allow children to select their own books to read during independent reading time, but they rarely give them the opportunity to pick their own writing topics. In order to encourage ownership over their reading and writing, children should be given chances to read and write what is interesting and important to them.

Talk About It!

While it may seem like common sense to adults that reading and writing have a lot to do with each other, the connection is not always as apparent to young people. Parents and teachers should explain how the two skills reinforce and strengthen each other. Young people (especially adolescents) often ask their parents and teachers, “Why do I have to learn this?” Here is a perfect opportunity to show the relationship between two essential academic and life skills.

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Personal Experience — Reading And Writing Over My Younger Years: My Personal Narrative

Reading and Writing Over My Younger Years: My Personal Narrative

• Categories: Literacy Personal Experience

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Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 844 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited:

• Carson, D. A. (1999). The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism. Zondervan.
• Chow, I. (2018). My journey through the valley of the shadow of death. The Daily Californian.
• C.S. Lewis. (2002). Mere Christianity. HarperCollins.
• Keller, T. (2008). The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Dutton.
• McDowell, J. (2017). More Than a Carpenter. Tyndale House Publishers.
• Moreland, J. P. (2014). The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters. Moody Publishers.
• Nabeel Qureshi. (2014). Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity. Zondervan.
• Piper, J. (2006). Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Multnomah.
• Rookmaaker, H. (1970). Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. Crossway.
• Schaeffer, F. (2008). The God Who Is There. IVP Books.

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Linkage between Reading and Writing

The linkage between reading and writing is a reciprocal relationship where each skill complements and strengthens the other. When students engage in reading, they encounter various texts, absorb information, and observe different writing styles and techniques. This exposure to written language and textual structures provides a foundation for their own writing. Simultaneously, writing enhances reading skills by requiring students to apply their understanding of language, organization, and coherence.

Here are some key aspects of the linkage between reading and writing:

• Vocabulary and Language Development: Reading exposes students to a wide range of vocabulary, sentence structures, and writing conventions. When students encounter new words in their reading, they expand their vocabulary and deepen their understanding of word meanings and usage. This expanded vocabulary then becomes available for use in their own writing, allowing them to express themselves more precisely and effectively.
• Comprehension and Critical Thinking: Reading comprehension and critical thinking skills are closely intertwined with writing. When students read, they engage with the text, make connections, and analyze information. This active reading process helps develop critical thinking skills such as inference, interpretation, evaluation, and synthesis. These same skills are crucial in writing, where students must analyze information, develop coherent arguments, and support their ideas with evidence.
• Textual Structures and Organization: Reading exposes students to different genres and text structures, such as narratives, expository texts, persuasive essays, and more. By observing how authors organize their ideas, use transitions, and structure their sentences and paragraphs, students gain insights into effective writing techniques. They learn how to structure their own writing, develop clear introductions and conclusions, and use appropriate organization within their paragraphs.
• Writing Style and Voice: Reading allows students to explore different writing styles and voices. By examining the works of various authors, students can identify distinctive writing styles, word choices, and tones. This exposure helps students develop their own writing style, find their unique voice, and experiment with different techniques to convey their ideas effectively.
• Audience Awareness and Purposeful Writing: Reading helps students develop an understanding of different audiences and writing purposes. When students read, they encounter texts intended for various readerships and written with different goals in mind. This exposure allows students to analyze how authors adapt their writing style and tone based on the intended audience and purpose. Such awareness helps students become more purposeful in their own writing, as they learn to consider their audience, choose appropriate language, and achieve their desired goals.
• Editing and Revising Skills: The act of writing requires students to revise, edit, and refine their work. Reading plays a crucial role in developing these skills. By reading their own writing or the writing of others, students become more attuned to issues such as grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and coherence. Reading helps students recognize errors, identify areas for improvement, and refine their writing through the editing and revising process.

The reciprocal relationship between reading and writing fosters a deep understanding of written language, enhances critical thinking skills, and develops effective communication abilities. By engaging in both activities, students expand their vocabulary, comprehend complex texts, recognize different writing techniques, and develop their own writing skills. The linkage between reading and writing is essential for fostering literacy proficiency and enabling students to become effective communicators in various contexts.

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Amanda Hoover

Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI

Students have submitted more than 22 million papers that may have used generative AI in the past year, new data released by plagiarism detection company Turnitin shows.

A year ago, Turnitin rolled out an AI writing detection tool that was trained on its trove of papers written by students as well as other AI-generated texts. Since then, more than 200 million papers have been reviewed by the detector, predominantly written by high school and college students. Turnitin found that 11 percent may contain AI-written language in 20 percent of its content, with 3 percent of the total papers reviewed getting flagged for having 80 percent or more AI writing. (Turnitin is owned by Advance, which also owns Condé Nast, publisher of WIRED.) Turnitin says its detector has a false positive rate of less than 1 percent when analyzing full documents.

ChatGPT’s launch was met with knee-jerk fears that the English class essay would die . The chatbot can synthesize information and distill it near-instantly—but that doesn’t mean it always gets it right. Generative AI has been known to hallucinate , creating its own facts and citing academic references that don’t actually exist. Generative AI chatbots have also been caught spitting out biased text on gender and race . Despite those flaws, students have used chatbots for research, organizing ideas, and as a ghostwriter . Traces of chatbots have even been found in peer-reviewed, published academic writing .

Teachers understandably want to hold students accountable for using generative AI without permission or disclosure. But that requires a reliable way to prove AI was used in a given assignment. Instructors have tried at times to find their own solutions to detecting AI in writing, using messy, untested methods to enforce rules , and distressing students. Further complicating the issue, some teachers are even using generative AI in their grading processes.

Detecting the use of gen AI is tricky. It’s not as easy as flagging plagiarism, because generated text is still original text. Plus, there’s nuance to how students use gen AI; some may ask chatbots to write their papers for them in large chunks or in full, while others may use the tools as an aid or a brainstorm partner.

Students also aren't tempted by only ChatGPT and similar large language models. So-called word spinners are another type of AI software that rewrites text, and may make it less obvious to a teacher that work was plagiarized or generated by AI. Turnitin’s AI detector has also been updated to detect word spinners, says Annie Chechitelli, the company’s chief product officer. It can also flag work that was rewritten by services like spell checker Grammarly, which now has its own generative AI tool . As familiar software increasingly adds generative AI components, what students can and can’t use becomes more muddled.

Detection tools themselves have a risk of bias. English language learners may be more likely to set them off; a 2023 study found a 61.3 percent false positive rate when evaluating Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exams with seven different AI detectors. The study did not examine Turnitin’s version. The company says it has trained its detector on writing from English language learners as well as native English speakers. A study published in October found that Turnitin was among the most accurate of 16 AI language detectors in a test that had the tool examine undergraduate papers and AI-generated papers.

Andy Greenberg

Matt Burgess

Caroline Haskins

Jessica Rawnsley

Schools that use Turnitin had access to the AI detection software for a free pilot period, which ended at the start of this year. Chechitelli says a majority of the service’s clients have opted to purchase the AI detection. But the risks of false positives and bias against English learners have led some universities to ditch the tools for now. Montclair State University in New Jersey announced in November that it would pause use of Turnitin’s AI detector. Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University did the same last summer.

“This is hard. I understand why people want a tool,” says Emily Isaacs, executive director of the Office of Faculty Excellence at Montclair State. But Isaacs says the university is concerned about potentially biased results from AI detectors, as well as the fact that the tools can’t provide confirmation the way they can with plagiarism. Plus, Montclair State doesn’t want to put a blanket ban on AI, which will have some place in academia. With time and more trust in the tools, the policies could change. “It’s not a forever decision, it’s a now decision,” Isaacs says.

Chechitelli says the Turnitin tool shouldn’t be the only consideration in passing or failing a student. Instead, it’s a chance for teachers to start conversations with students that touch on all of the nuance in using generative AI. “People don’t really know where that line should be,” she says.

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Kurt Cobain and Me: The Gen X poster child and rock legend is my Gen Z hero, too

My parents love nirvana, too. but i have my own relationship with cobain's music and persona, by gabriella ferrigine.

The boys spilled out of the locker room in a gnashing horde.

They pitched their bodies into the air and flung clumps of sweaty hair from their faces, headbanging in line with the stomping bass that had just cracked across the gym’s sound system. 

Full of flowing hormones and covered in dried sweat, the entirety of my high school gym class began to move to the music — each individual in their own way — enraptured by its energy and still thrumming with adrenaline from 2v2 basketball scrimmages. 

For a few fleeting minutes, social stratification was entirely dismantled by one rotating guitar riff. Sports jocks, guys who stuffed their bottom lip with dip in the back of class, girls who smelled like vanilla and bright artificial fruit, and reticent wallflowers, all churning together.

By the time the bell rang, prodding us toward precalc or a quiz on “The Sound and the Fury,” it did, in fact, smell like teen spirit. 

We filed out of the gym, buzzing and bedraggled. A shared ecstasy lingered, if only until the next period began. 

Experiencing that subtle, shimmering solidarity, the threading of different social subgroups together, is intrinsic to my attachment — as a member of Gen Z , not X — to Kurt Cobain, frontman of the iconic '90s grunge rock band Nirvana. 

Since the genesis of the band in 1987 — and Cobain’s subsequent, seismic fame, then tragic death by suicide — he’s functioned as something of a talismanic leader for generations of morose, angsty and disaffected fans. Some of this posthumous cultural longevity is surely due to his premature death, which preserved him in amber, devoid of a flop era and safe from cancellable offense. But that doesn't entirely explain his enduring appeal. Cobain’s emotional melancholy is something members of Gen Z — widely understood as prone to trauma-dumping on the internet and hyper-sensitivity — can find particularly relatable. 

Raised by Gen X parents like mine whose early adulthoods were largely defined by Nirvana and Cobain, his music became part of a shared, familial identity they could pass down to us. In a recent essay for The Guardian, writer Hannah Ewens opines that “Just as the Beatles defined the construct of a rock band, Nirvana redefined what a band was — both in the public consciousness and to other musicians: unpretentious, tough and sensitive, embraced by the system while threatening it.” It's not particularly rebellious to embrace your parents' definition of good music, but over time, I forged my own relationship with Kurt Cobain, distinct from theirs. 

In all honestly, I’ve always felt several standard deviations away from what feels normal (an entirely subjective term). I know this sounds moderately insufferable, but bear with me. My life has been overwhelmingly positive in so many ways. And yet, setting aside personal conflicts and a heady amalgam of ADHD and anxiety, much of it has also felt very different to me than how it’s appeared outwardly to others. I don’t have a complex, philosophical explanation for this discrepancy. I don’t think you always need one. Cobain's music gives me a language for reconciling my own contradictions. We aren't the same by any means: I've had no meteoric rise to fame, no heroin addiction. But there was still a person named Kurt before all that happened to him. 

During my first years of college, like many, I struggled with finding my sense of self. Flush with insecurities of every kind, I tried on different personalities (and some bad outfits) in an effort to, if not wholly reinvent myself, at least discover something about myself that I actually liked or felt secure about. It was a process that ultimately backfired — by trying to be someone I wasn’t, I inadvertently jettisoned some of the most fundamentally defining pieces of myself. And all the while, I was still as sullen and angsty as ever. That all changed on Christmas Day, 2018, when my parents gave me my first pair of Doc Marten boots. 

Laugh if you will, but getting my Docs was like finding my glass slipper. At nearly 6 feet tall, I’d always felt something like Cinderella’s stepsisters, trying to cram my oversized foot into a tiny, dainty, acceptably pretty and interesting shoe. I wear them most days now. Aside from being comfortable, they're equipped with a steel-toed tenacity ideal for navigating New York’s perpetually crusty streets. 

And yes, Docs were a subcultural fashion item of the ‘90s — my dad still owns the pair he wore moshing at a Nirvana show with my mom at the now-shuttered Roseland Ballroom in New York in 1993. While Cobain wore Converse for that particular performance, I’m certain he laced up his boots often too. I often find myself gravitating toward those looks: slouchy pants, oversized jackets and knitwear, the occasional grandpa cardigan. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become increasingly confident in myself and my fashion choices, aware that the old adage is true: What you wear is truly a reflection of who you are. I’m sure that’s what Cobain was trying to convey every time he opted for a skirt or floral-patterned dress for a live performance. That has always been an inspiring exemplar of unabashed confidence to me.

But carrying yourself with confidence in public doesn’t necessarily equate to comfort with — or suitability for — fame, as Cobain's conflicted relationship to the celebrity status that accompanied his artistic success showed me. Regardless of whether he sought to be an international star before it happened, the “slings and arrows” of fame that writer Michael Azerrad wrote about in part for the 2021 New Yorker essay, “My Time With Kurt Cobain,” underpinned the rocker’s mental and emotional health struggles. 

It's not particularly rebellious to embrace your parents' definition of good music, but over time, I forged my own relationship with Kurt Cobain, distinct from theirs. 

In all likelihood, I’ll never be famous, and that’s OK. It’s not exactly something I aspire toward. But the essence of Cobain’s fame has always been incredibly relatable to me. There’s something so vulnerable and real — in an attention economy that demands performance from us all — about someone trying to keep a firm foothold in two warring worlds simultaneously, straddling the ever-oscillating line of what the public sees and what it can't. (“I’m not like them, but I can pretend,” resonates.)

This tension that seems innately bound into Cobain's persona — and Nirvana more broadly — is accurately reflected in the band’s lyrics. Dark, atmospheric themes abound — anger, personal struggles, violence, real and figurative — and while the sometimes disturbing subject matter can be difficult to take, I found the messages braided into them intriguing. His lyrics reflected Cobain’s chaos and mystique, which is to say, I didn’t necessarily understand them all, especially as a kid. All I knew was — mingled with his raspy voice and the band’s splintering sounds — they made me feel at an entirely unprecedented level. And some latent part of me was drawn to that brooding sentiment.

It came as no surprise to me when I learned that he was also a Pisces. 

Whether you believe in astrological signs or find it all to be a bit hokey, I find that Cobain embodied the compassion, sensitivity and emotional profundity that have come to be associated with the symbol of two fish swimming in opposite directions. That division between fantasy and reality — a liminal space I constantly turn to — is one that Cobain ostensibly occupied just as frequently. It’s something like the Vitruvian man, constantly splayed in different directions by our thoughts and ever-shifting emotions. It’s an identity Cobain internalized so intensely that he even carried it with him into his death in April of 1994, writing in his suicide note that he was a “sad little, sensitive, unappreciative Pisces, Jesus man.”

I’ve always known that finding comfort in the music and fashion of my parents’ generation, specifically the elements of it that have since become canonical, is a byproduct of my close-knit and large immediate family. It’s an idiosyncratic, shared existence — something that makes me feel comforted and protective at once. And yet, I’m my own person. While I would be remiss to ignore the inescapability of influence, my relationship with Cobain and his work could never precisely mirror theirs. And I think that’s part of his legacy. He was able to transcend space and time so seamlessly, so acutely, that his aura — which has spoken to my mom and dad for nearly 40 years — now screams to me from a stage set in an entirely different void. 

So consider me influenced, if that’s what becoming secure in my tastes and personhood means. I won’t be running from that anytime soon. 

If you are in crisis, please call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

about Nirvana

• I'm not like them, but I can pretend (Obviously, this is an essay about Kurt Cobain and Nirvana)
• Kurt Cobain's daughter marks the 30th anniversary of his death with a loving tribute
• "Nevermind" 30 years on — how Nirvana's second album tilted the world on its axis

Gabriella Ferrigine is a staff writer at Salon. Originally from the Jersey Shore, she moved to New York City in 2016 to attend Columbia University, where she received her B.A. in English and M.A. in American Studies. Formerly a staff writer at NowThis News, she has an M.A. in Magazine Journalism from NYU and was previously a news fellow at Salon.

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AI Prompt Engineering Isn’t the Future

• Oguz A. Acar

Asking the perfect question is less important than really understanding the problem you’re trying to solve.

Despite the buzz surrounding it, the prominence of prompt engineering may be fleeting. A more enduring and adaptable skill will keep enabling us to harness the potential of generative AI? It is called problem formulation — the ability to identify, analyze, and delineate problems.

Prompt engineering has taken the generative AI world by storm. The job, which entails optimizing textual input to effectively communicate with large language models, has been hailed by World Economic Forum as the number one “job of the future” while Open AI CEO Sam Altman characterized it as an “amazingly high-leveraged skill.” Social media brims with a new wave of influencers showcasing “magic prompts” and pledging amazing outcomes.

• Oguz A. Acar is a Chair in Marketing at King’s Business School, King’s College London.

Partner Center

8 Sample Letters To Your Husband Who Hurt You

You and your husband are going through a whole new level of bumpy . 

Whatever’s going on between you, though, one of the best ways to deal with it is to write it out.

Put your thoughts and feelings into words. 

Journaling is one way to do this.

But writing a letter to your husband, who shares responsibility for your marriage, can get you even closer to a solution . 

So, where do you begin?

Letter-Writing Dos: 

Letter-writing don’ts: , 1. letter to husband who hurt you, 2. letter telling your husband you are not happy., 3. letter to my boyfriend during difficult times, 4. a letter to my husband about our relationship, 5. sample letter to husband about feeling unwanted, 6. encouragement letter to my husband, 7. letter to my husband about starting couple’s counseling. , 8. lonely wife letter to husband.

• When and How to Give Your Emotional Letter to Your Husband 

Why Write a Letter to Your Husband?

Writing a letter to your husband might sound quaint in today’s digital age, but it's a potent tool for enhancing your relationship. This simple act can be transformational, promoting healing, boosting self-awareness, and fostering compassion.

Here are several compelling reasons why you should consider writing a letter to your husband:

• Clarity and Honesty: Letters allow you to articulate your feelings and thoughts clearly. This format helps you be direct and specific about what you’re feeling and why, which can be more challenging in verbal exchanges.
• Conflict Resolution: A letter gives your partner the space to process your words without the immediate need for a response. This can prevent the escalation common in face-to-face arguments, paving the way for understanding and compromise.
• Emotional Safety: Writing can serve as a buffer, softening the initial impact of a conversation about sensitive topics. It opens the door to more calm and focused verbal discussions later.

The ultimate goal of writing to your husband should be to improve your relationship, not to exacerbate issues. It’s important to approach this task with the right intentions, avoiding criticisms or passive-aggressive tones. Instead, focus on expressing:

• Healing and forgiveness
• Empathy and vulnerability
• Intimacy and kindness
• Understanding and respect
• Love and connection

A well-crafted letter can be a constructive way to express needs, ask for changes in behavior, or communicate boundaries in a respectful and caring way. It's a profound tool for nurturing your relationship and ensuring both partners feel heard and valued.

How Do I Write An Emotional Letter to My Husband? 

Troubled relationship letters aren’t necessarily a harbinger of doom.

More times than not, they’re an invitation to discuss the problems in your relationship and to get on the same page. 

With that in mind, let’s get some dos and don’ts out of the way: 

• Do be honest about how you feel, and don’t leave out anything important. 
• Do remember to show appreciation for something he’s said or done.
• Do try to read it from your husband’s perspective before revising it.
• Don’t use this letter to accuse, blame, or criticize your partner. 
• Don’t write the letter when you’re tired, angry, or intoxicated.  
• Don’t skip the revision process.

[Sidebar]: You might consider the Couples Communication Course.  In this online course, learn healthy communication skills and build the intimacy you’ve always wanted in your relationship .

Letter to My Husband During Difficult Times: 8 Sample Letter Ideas for Different Situations 

Look through the following example letters for ideas on what to write to your husband or boyfriend regarding whatever you’re facing together.

Make a note of the points you want to make and anything you’d like to add to make your letter more personal. 

Dear Husband/[Name], 

I know you’ve come to dread the words, “We need to talk,” so I’m trying a letter this time. I don’t want to leave you wondering why I’ve been pulling away from you lately, so it’s best just to be honest with you about something that happened the other day. 

[Describe what happened in neutral language, without making assumptions about anyone’s intentions and without projecting your emotions on anyone. The way you see the incident in question is probably not how others perceive it.]

I’m writing this because I believe you would want to know if something you said or did has hurt me, so I’m letting you know. Please return the favor if there’s something I’ve said or done that has caused you pain. 

I love you!

I don’t know what you’ve noticed in my behavior lately, and I’d like to hear any questions you might have. 

Whatever we’re both going through right now—separately and as a couple—I want to be honest with you about what I’m feeling and what I’d like to do about it. 

So, I’m writing this to let you know I am struggling. While I don’t blame you for this, I haven’t been happy for months now, and I’m still trying to pin down the reasons why. 

What would really help me right now is if we could talk for at least an hour at a time at least once a week to check in with each other. I want to know where you are, too, because I want us both to be happy. 

If you agree, what time works for you?

Your wife/[Your Name]

Dear Boyfriend/[Name]: 

You’ve always had a way of knowing when I need a hug , and I love that about you. Now that we’re going through this together, I’m gonna need more of those than ever. 

I knew this situation would be challenging, but I doubt I could get through this without you. There’s no one else in the world I’d rather have with me.  

I trust that, whatever happens, we will find a way together to work through it. And I hope you know I’m ready to do my part. Let’s talk about what we each need, and I’m committed to helping you get your needs met.

This situation has been so painful for both of us, but I hope you won’t withdraw. As we work this out (and I know we can), please keep me at your side instead of leaving me behind.  

You have my trust and my whole heart. 

Your girlfriend/[Your Name]

I’ve noticed some changes in our marriage and would like to talk to you about them. Our regular check-in talks with each other have become far less frequent, and I’d like to reverse that trend and spend more time connecting with you. 

I’ve been grateful for the connection we have, and I want us to spend time each week not only keeping it alive but making it stronger. I believe that’s possible because the foundation is still there. 

I know we disagree on some things, but at our core, we make a phenomenal team. I know life can get in the way of couple-time, but this is me pushing back. I want to spend more time with you because you’re still my favorite person. 

Please let me know what day and time work for you for an hour of talking (and whatever that might lead to). 

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Dear Husband/[Name]: 

It’s not easy to write a letter about this, especially when I’m not sure whether writing this letter will lead to anything I want. But you need to know that I’ve been feeling not only taken for granted but even unwanted by you. 

I remember the way you used to look at me, and that look isn’t there anymore. What I see more often now is boredom, distraction, condescension, or annoyance. I don’t remember the last time you looked genuinely happy to see me. 

I know you’re busy with work and with everything else on your plate. But if you’ve fallen out of love with me or grown tired of me, please just tell me — with as much kindness as honesty. I won’t break. 

So, talk to me, please. Let me know where we stand. 

I wanted to write this letter to tell you what I’ve noticed in you, which has helped me feel stronger despite the added stress and exhaustion we’re both feeling. 

You seem to have just taken everything in and, with your trademark combination of intelligence and humility, reached a decision we can both feel good about, even though it’s not an easy one. 

I have complete trust that, whatever happens, we’ll draw some good from it. Thank you for always hearing my input and considering my suggestions when you have such a tough decision to make. It’s one of the many things I love about you. 

I hope this letter serves as a reminder of my trust in you. You’ve more than earned it. I love you and am continually impressed by you. 

Love, your wife/[Your Name]

I don’t want every conversation we have about our marriage to turn into an argument. We need a skilled and patient referee to help us work through our challenges. I’ve done some digging and found someone I think we’ll both like, and she has an opening. 

We have a tentative appointment set, but I can change it if a different time would be more convenient. Please talk to me after you finish reading this letter so I can tell you the date and time, and you can tell me whether you can be there. 

If getting our marriage headed in a better direction is still something you want, I really hope you’ll be as ready to try this as I am. 

I love you! 

I often think about our early marriage days and all the fun times we spent together. Remember when spent that one rainy day talking for hours about our future and our dreams about a house and where we wanted to travel?

Life has become so busy for both of us, but especially for you with the demands of your job. I know it's taking a toll on you, but it's taking a toll on me, too — and on our marriage. I feel so lonely sometimes and miss the connection and fun we used to have.

I know you have to put in extra hours right now, but even when you're with me, it feels like you're somewhere else. You're on your phone or computer at home more and more these days.

For the sake of our marriage and happiness, I need us to discuss this situation and how we can find more time to connect and be together — without distractions. When can we talk this week?

I love you so much and want to have the best marriage possible.

When to Write a Letter to Your Husband Who Hurt You

When you're feeling hurt, it can be really tough to get your words out right in the heat of the moment. Writing a letter to your husband offers a quieter, more reflective way to let him know how you feel. It's like having a heart-to-heart without the pressure of an immediate reaction. Here are some situations where putting pen to paper might just be the best approach:

• After a Betrayal: If your trust has been broken, a letter can help you express the depth of your hurt and the impact of his actions, facilitating a starting point for healing.
• Following a Major Argument: When a significant disagreement leaves you feeling misunderstood or disregarded, writing can clarify your perspective and express your feelings without interruption.
• When Feeling Neglected: If you feel overlooked or taken for granted, a letter can highlight your feelings of neglect, helping your husband understand your need for more attention and appreciation.
• During Ongoing Disagreements: For recurring issues that seem to circle without resolution, a letter can break the cycle by outlining your thoughts and expectations clearly, opening the door to potential solutions.

How to Give Your Emotional Letter to Your Husband 

Here are some ideas on the timing and presentation of your letter: 

• Try to avoid presenting it when he’s exhausted or agitated about something.
• Don’t present the letter right before bedtime or as he’s leaving for work.
• Find a calm time when you’re together to offer the letter and be present while he reads it.
• Don’t pester him to read it or quiz him on its contents.
• Let him decide when to read it and when to talk about it with you.
• If he avoids responding to it, ask for a specific time you can talk together.
• You can also use a shared notebook so that he can write a response.

You know your husband/boyfriend better than we do, and you probably have some idea of the best (or least worst) timing. Just remember to put your heart into your letter, keep it honest, and don’t try to guess how he’ll respond to it. 

Final Thoughts

Navigating the choppy waters of marriage can be challenging, but remember that communication is the lighthouse guiding you to safety. Writing an emotional letter to your husband can be a cathartic and transformative experience.

In this letter, pour out your heart, express your deepest feelings, and reaffirm your commitment to the journey ahead. Be honest yet compassionate, highlighting both your love and your concerns. This isn't just a letter, but a bridge built with words, spanning the gap between hearts.

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Guest Essay

The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex

By Peggy Orenstein

Ms. Orenstein is the author of “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity” and “Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape.”

Debby Herbenick is one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behavior. The director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of the pointedly titled book “Yes, Your Kid,” she usually shares her data, no matter how explicit, without judgment. So I was surprised by how concerned she seemed when we checked in on Zoom recently: “I haven’t often felt so strongly about getting research out there,” she told me. “But this is lifesaving.”

For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as choking. Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.

As someone who’s been writing for well over a decade about young people’s attitudes and early experience with sex in all its forms, I’d also begun clocking this phenomenon. I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.

I started to ask more, and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens . As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

Choking, Dr. Herbenick said, seems to have made that first leap in a 2008 episode of Showtime’s “Californication,” where it was still depicted as outré, then accelerated after the success of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” By 2019, when a high school girl was choked in the pilot of HBO’s “Euphoria,” it was standard fare. A young woman was choked in the opener of “The Idol” (again on HBO and also, like “Euphoria,” created by Sam Levinson; what’s with him ?). Ali Wong plays the proclivity for laughs in a Netflix special, and it’s a punchline in Tina Fey’s new “Mean Girls.” The chorus of Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for six nonconsecutive weeks this winter and has been viewed over 99 million times on YouTube, starts with, “I’m vanilla, baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby.” How-to articles abound on the internet, and social media algorithms feed young people (but typically not their unsuspecting parents) hundreds of #chokemedaddy memes along with memes that mock — even celebrate — the potential for hurting or killing female partners.

I’m not here to kink-shame (or anything-shame). And, anyway, many experienced BDSM practitioners discourage choking, believing it to be too dangerous. There are still relatively few studies on the subject, and most have been done by Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues. Reports among adolescents are now trickling out from the United Kingdom , Australia , Iceland , New Zealand and Italy .

Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction. But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men. Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences. (In a separate study , Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.) Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks. For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it. No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, reporting that it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault . Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained. The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples. “It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner). It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good.

“Personally, my hypothesis is that this is one of the reasons young people are delaying or having less sex,” Dr. Herbenick said. “Because it’s uncomfortable and weird and scary. At times some of them literally think someone is assaulting them but they don’t know. Those are the only sexual experiences for some people. And it’s not just once they’ve gotten naked. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ve only tried to make out with someone once because he started choking and hitting me.’”

Keisuke Kawata, a neuroscientist at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, was one of the first researchers to sound the alarm on how the cumulative, seemingly inconsequential, sub-concussive hits football players sustain (as opposed to the occasional hard blow) were key to triggering C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease. He’s a good judge of serious threats to the brain. In response to Dr. Herbenick’s work, he’s turning his attention to sexual strangulation. “I see a similarity” to C.T.E., he told me, “though the mechanism of injury is very different.” In this case, it is oxygen-blocking pressure to the throat, frequently in light, repeated bursts of a few seconds each.

Strangulation — sexual or otherwise — often leaves few visible marks and can be easily overlooked as a cause of death. Those whose experiences are nonlethal rarely seek medical attention, because any injuries seem minor: Young women Dr. Herbenick studied mostly reported lightheadedness, headaches, neck pain, temporary loss of coordination and ear ringing. The symptoms resolve, and all seems well. But, as with those N.F.L. players, the true effects are silent, potentially not showing up for days, weeks, even years.

According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. Kawata and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy.

The hemispheres in the choked group’s brains, too, were badly skewed, with the right side hyperactive and the left underperforming. A similar imbalance is associated with mood disorders — and indeed in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys girls and women who had been choked were more likely than others (or choked men) to have experienced overwhelming anxiety, as well as sadness and loneliness, with the effect more pronounced as the incidence rose: Women who had experienced more than five instances of choking were two and a half times as likely as those who had never been choked to say they had been so depressed within the previous 30 days they couldn’t function. Whether girls and women with mental health challenges are more likely to seek out (or be subjected to) choking, choking causes mood disorders, or some combination of the two is still unclear. But hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation — judging by what research has shown about other types of traumatic brain injury — could be a contributing factor. Given the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young women, that warrants concern.

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up. Among those who’ve been choked, the rate of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion. All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us. Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough. Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love.

By now I’m guessing that parents are curled under their chairs in a fetal position. Or perhaps thinking, “No, not my kid!” (see: title of Dr. Herbenick’s book above, which, by the way, contains an entire chapter on how to talk to your teen about “rough sex”).

I get it. It’s scary stuff. Dr. Herbenick is worried; I am, too. And we are hardly some anti-sex, wait-till-marriage crusaders. But I don’t think our only option is to wring our hands over what young people are doing.

Parents should take a beat and consider how they might give their children relevant information in a way that they can hear it. Maybe reiterate that they want them to have a pleasurable sex life — you have already said that, right? — and also want them to be safe. Tell them that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.

Dr. Herbenick suggests reminding them that there are other, lower-risk ways to be exploratory or adventurous if that is what they are after, but it would be wisest to delay any “rough sex” until they are older and more skilled at communicating. She offers language when negotiating with a new partner, such as, “By the way, I’m not comfortable with” — choking, or other escalating behaviors such as name-calling, spitting and genital slapping — “so please don’t do it/don’t ask me to do it to you.” They could also add what they are into and want to do together.

I’d like to point high school health teachers to evidence-based porn literacy curricula, but I realize that incorporating such lessons into their classrooms could cost them their jobs. Shafia Zaloom, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recommends, if that’s the case, grounding discussions in mainstream and social media. There are plenty of opportunities. “You can use it to deconstruct gender norms, power dynamics in relationships, ‘performative’ trends that don’t represent most people’s healthy behaviors,” she said, “especially depictions of people putting pressure on someone’s neck or chest.”

I also know that pediatricians, like other adults, struggle when talking to adolescents about sex (the typical conversation, if it happens, lasts 40 seconds). Then again, they already caution younger children to use a helmet when they ride a bike (because heads and necks are delicate!); they can mention that teens might hear about things people do in sexual situations, including choking, then explain the impact on brain health and why such behavior is best avoided. They should emphasize that if, for any reason — a fall, a sports mishap or anything else — a young person develops symptoms of head trauma, they should come in immediately, no judgment, for help in healing.

The role and responsibility of the entertainment industry is a tangled knot: Media reflects behavior but also drives it, either expanding possibilities or increasing risks. There is precedent for accountability. The European Union now requires age verification on the world’s largest porn sites (in ways that preserve user privacy, whatever that means on the internet); that discussion, unsurprisingly, had been politicized here. Social media platforms have already been pushed to ban content promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide — they should likewise be pressured to ban content promoting choking. Traditional formats can stop glamorizing strangulation, making light of it, spreading false information, using it to signal female characters’ complexity or sexual awakening. Young people’s sexual scripts are shaped by what they watch, scroll by and listen to — unprecedentedly so. They deserve, and desperately need, models of interactions that are respectful, communicative, mutual and, at the very least, safe.

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity” and “Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape.”

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An earlier version of this article misstated the network on which “Californication” first appeared. It is Showtime, not HBO. The article also misspelled a book and film title. It is “Fifty Shades of Grey,” not “Fifty Shades of Gray.”

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