Securing a Place for Reading in Composition

The Importance of Teaching for Transfer

Ellen C. Carillo

• Publisher: Utah State University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780874219593
• eBook ISBN: 9780874219609
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Securing a Place for Reading in Composition addresses the dissonance between the need to prepare students to read, not just write, complex texts and the lack of recent scholarship on reading-writing connections. Author Ellen C. Carillo argues that including attention-to-reading practices is crucial for developing more comprehensive literacy pedagogies. Students who can read actively and reflectively will be able to work successfully with the range of complex texts they will encounter throughout their post-secondary academic careers and beyond.

Considering the role of reading within composition from both historical and contemporary perspectives, Carillo makes recommendations for the productive integration of reading instruction into first-year writing courses. She details a "mindful reading" framework wherein instructors help students cultivate a repertoire of approaches upon which they consistently reflect as they apply them to various texts. This metacognitive frame allows students to become knowledgeable and deliberate about how they read and gives them the opportunity to develop the skills useful for moving among reading approaches in mindful ways, thus preparing them to actively and productively read in courses and contexts outside first-year composition.

Securing a Place for Reading in Composition also explores how the field of composition might begin to effectively address reading, including conducting research on reading, revising outcome statements, and revisiting the core courses in graduate programs. It will be of great interest to writing program administrators and other compositionists and their graduate students.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Reading in Contemporary First-Year Composition Classes
• 3 Historical Contexts
• 4 Reading in Composition Research and Teaching, 1980–1993
• 5 Transfer of Learning Scholarship and Reading Instruction in First-Year Composition
• 6 Teaching Mindful Reading to Promote the Transfer of Reading Knowledge
• 7 Epilogue
• Appendix A: Annotated Bibliography
• Appendix B: Handouts from Professional Development Workshops on Integrating Attention to Reading into Courses across the Curriculum
• Appendix C: Supporting Materials from National Survey of First-Year Composition Instructors and Their Students
• References
• About the Author
• Index