The Organic Integration of Reading and Writing Through Thematic Journeys

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The organic integration of reading and writing through thematic journeys

 | July 27, 2016 in Higher  Education


Male college student lying on the grass and writing in notebook
After an enthusiastic, full-house session at NADE Anaheim, we brought our discussion of the organic integration of reading and writing to a Pearson webinar this past April. It was an inspiring event, with over 60 participants online from coast to coast. We were awed by the host of challenging questions that came our way during the Q&A period. We got the sense that many instructors were eager to examine the content question of the relatively new world of integrated reading and writing courses. 
What was most rewarding for us about this webinar was having the opportunity to lay out our vision of integrated thematic journeys. In our presentation, we used the example of a unit focused around the academic discipline of criminal justice, but thematic journeys can also revolve around other academic areas such as psychology, environmental science, sociology, business, etc.
A two to three week thematic unit engages students with an exploration of an academic theme through multiple modalities.
Each thematic journey:
  • Introduces a particular reading skill (thematically linked)
  • Reinforces a parallel writing skill
  • Offers further exploration online with videos and preliminary research
  • Integrates an essay question with overarching thematic readings
  • Includes a debate presentation on a controversial issue within the given discipline
Imagine the level of student engagement as they enter the world of criminal justice through exploratory questions, such as:
  1. Do you generally believe in America’s criminal justice system? Do you believe the system is fair?
  2. Do you believe that DNA testing completely eliminates the possibility of innocent people being wrongly convicted of a crime? If yes, explain how this type of evidence reduces the margin of error.
  3. In your opinion, is it a good idea for members of a community to form their own neighborhood-watch policing units? Why or why not? 
The students will want to keep discussing these provocative questions well after the end-of-class bell has rung. Informal writing is then activated through reacting to these questions and to responding to fellow students’ postings on a class blog. Discipline-specific vocabulary is integrated into the curriculum through word-storming (three minutes to come up with as many vocabulary terms related to criminal justice as they can), and through context-based vocabulary exercises. 
The possibilities for the integration of reading content are limitless. Students are assigned high-interest readings related to the theme of criminal justice. In addition, students are given the task of doing online research to find a reading of their choice to present to the class. 
Students have multiple opportunities to work on their writing skills from blog posting to composing summaries of unit readings and finally to drafting an academic essay, which integrates some of the thematic readings. 
This is true integration at work, and much more stimulating than the skills-focused curricula of the past. Our webinar lays out many of the components included in our new integrated text: Read Think Write, and offers a fresh vision for integrated course redesign. 


About the Authors
Jilani Warsi
Dr. Jilani Warsi
Dr. Jilani Warsi earned an MA in English at Patna University with emphasis on descriptive linguistics, historical linguistics, and language teaching. He pursued an MA in applied linguistics at California State University in Northridge (CSUN). After receiving his master’s degree in linguistics from CSUN, he taught English as a Second Language (ESL) at the same university. He joined the doctoral program in applied linguistics at Boston University and received his PhD in May of 2001. He has taught in all of these locations, as well as at Salem State, Fisher, and Newbury Colleges; in the Framingham State University’s International Education Program in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland, Costa Rica, Honduras, South Korea, Northern Marianas Islands, and Taiwan, in the Institute for English Language Programs (IEL) at Harvard University where he taught Integrated Skills, Academic Discussion, Professional Communication Workshop, Communication in Business Seminar, and Academic Writing. He currently teaches academic reading and writing in the Department of Academic Literacy at Queensborough Community College, City University of New York. He has co-authored Read to Succeed: A Thematic Approach to Academic Reading; Read to Achieve: Gateway to Academic Reading; and Read Think Write: True Integration of Reading and Writing through Academic Content. His areas of interest are second language acquisition, inter-language phonology, psycholinguistics, and morphology.
David Rothman
David Rothman
David Rothman is a native New Yorker. He earned a BA in U.S. History and English and an MA in English and linguistics at the University of Wisconsin. David has studied overseas in Sweden and has taught abroad in both Spain and the Czech Republic. As a doctoral candidate in Linguistics at the CUNY Graduate Center, he has presented his research at international conferences in both Switzerland and Scotland. Professor Rothman has presented on developmental education pedagogy at many national conferences with his partner-in-crime, Jilani Warsi. He has co-authored two national-edition reading textbooks with Jilani Warsi: Read to Succeed: A Thematic Approach to Academic Reading and Read to Achieve: Gateway to Academic Reading; and has an integrated reading/writing textbook entitled, Read Think Write, also co-authored with Dr. Warsi.

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