I feel like it would be everyones responsibility. Just so everyone can get some good valid information, and can even continue their research from those hyperlinks.

Everything these days have some type of bias. People like to take things out of context and cut off certain words. Just reminds you that not all sources can be trusted, especially ones that are quoted from people.

I agree. Hyperlinks allow you to go back and see where people have gotten their information from. You could see its validity and find the original sources of information. So in texts you wouldn't just spew information, you would actually show where you got it from.

I agree. It is very stressful to anyone not just students. Professors expect in depth research, not just the first three articles that appear when searched on google. But how can I go in depth to thousands of articles spewing the same information in different fonts? There are very few things that can be seen as original these days when there is so much being contributed.

I really think about this all the time. Even when I have to make my own research question for an assignment, my mind goes blank. What could I ask that doesn't already have an answer on google? There is just so much information out there it is so suffocating.

Papers these days really do require so many sources. It makes a lot of sense that students would prefer to find 10 websites at home than go to a library and find books. You cant "Command+F" on a book. It really is just about convenience more than trying to find good and valid information.

Researching has changed now that we have the internet at our fingertips. With one search we have several articles of information at hand without the hassle of going to a library to find multiple books of information. It just made for students to learn how to properly use the information on the internet. We really are forgetting about the primary sources that we know are valid, and going for websites published by anyone that could have false information.

That's very true. Even in TV shows and movies, a character who is a "writer" would always write poetry or fiction. Or even a character who likes to read, their personality would be all about reading poetry or fiction. Like even in the TV show "Jane the Virgin" the main character would only write and read about fiction love stories etc. These kinds of genres even get attention from media so no wonder people give it much more value.

So because people put more weight on creative writing, it is seen as more valuable. They don't see genres such as non-fiction, as creative. I wonder why we always tend to give value to one or the other and not to both. Just because an informational essay on any science topic doesn't get as much coverage as, lets say harry potter, doesn't make it less creative or less valuable.

She is saying that once everyone starts picturing the concept in the same way, it starts to be seen as separate from all others. If everyone views creative writing the same way, they see it on a different scale from other forms when it can actually be included with them

Growing up, you're never really given the freedom to come up with your own style. It feels like something you have to come up with on your own time. Every since I was taught about writing it's always the same 5-paragraph format with the same type of research for your body paragraphs for specific articles you have been given. You don't get to try to put your own flare on your writings as it wont follow "standardized testing guidelines" as he previously stated.

I have never once been taught about writings that would contain humor. I guess it makes sense since teachers really just try to teach what standardized tests are looking for. But standardized tests really didn't benefit anybody in the first place.

I now know that the research process is linear but it has always been taught that it is. In the paragraph it states "We may find ourselves returning to and changing our question..." but I feel as if I have been taught to only find research that supports the question, and if I don't, then that information is now irrelevant. That is also why I relate to the last sentence of that paragraph so much, it's a feeling I know all too well.

I understand that using the first websites of a google search is not really researching. But how does one actually do research? What has to be done to make a clear difference? Is it the way you start forming your paper such as finding the thesis as you look up information like this paragraph includes?

This shows how we really focus on finding a singular answer rather than discovering a topic and all aspects of it. I do agree with what they say our collective belief is, we always try to come up with one solid answer to a question. I believe that that's also where I go wrong when I write my own research papers.

I didn't think of connecting a research paper to an argument. Of course that is essentially what it is but my mind never made that connection and it just makes my understanding of the paper so much easier. I thought of it more as "find a claim, find facts that support it", which makes research bland in my opinion, rather than now I understand it as "find your claim, back it up, understand the other side, prove that it is wrong/can not debunk my own argument, which would allow for my claim to be clear with no open spaces for misunderstandings.

This part took me a few tries to understand. I believe it is extending to what "researching" really is when it comes to writing research papers. It was always "look into the text find quantitative sentences that they used and use it in your paper as evidence." when it really should be making connections and allowing your audience to think about what more there is to the information you have found.

I actually agree with this. I feel like it's useful if I really don't feel like putting much effort into an assignment. It just feels boring and the same as every other essay I've had to write. I would always think about if that's how my future college professors expected my work to sound like, but I'm just so used to this structure already.

As long as I can remember, the 5 paragraph essay has been the main way I was taught how to write for so long. It was always, your first paragraph is your introduction with a good hook, then each paragraph is one main point, then you have one more paragraph for your conclusion. That was always like the easiest way to finesse your grade. The essays needed no extra thought or information. All the students essays would literally sound the same.

Revising a lot always had a low-key negative connotation growing up, like if you turned in your draft and your paper was just filled with red marks and annotations you were seen as a bad writer. So instead of viewing those marks as an opportunity to add on to your draft and make it better, it was viewed as "this person really can't write." The goal was always to make as little revisions as possible. I've realized that the goal is actually not as good as I thought it was.

That's how the concept of revision was taught to me. In school when they would talk about the steps on writing an essay, revising was just editing whatever you had written in your rough draft, like if you didn't capitalize your "i" here or you forgot to add a comma there. I will accept that I still write like this. My "revisions" just consist of fixing grammatical errors and making sure that whatever I have written sounds smooth together.

The problem with standardized tests today is that they don’t actually measure the students’ intelligence or skills. The teachers spend most of their time preparing the students to achieve good scores on these standardized tests, being more concerned about losing their jobs to low test scores rather than the growth of the students. If the instructors would just focus on helping the students comprehend information, good test scores will follow shortly.

This makes me think back to when our previous English classes would task us with reading for a period of time during class. Surely, everyone was given the opportunity to read but not the opportunity to learn and build on how they read. We need to be given the opportunity to identify any comprehension difficulties we come across when reading. In my opinion, only then will reading in class be more beneficial.

I have always assumed that I wasn't the best writer because I did not read so much. After taking english classes, I have now realized that I was never taught how to analyze text in a broad manner. I have only ever taken rhetorical strategies out of old pieces of literature in order to write a structured essay or answer the same style of multiple choice question. This also leads me to believe this is why reading in the past has been boring to me. Rather than reading to learn and understand new perspectives, I am just reading to then follow a strong structure.

Some are not as fortunate as to receive quality education and support from teachers, never being taught how to read effectively and believing that the problem lies within themselves. Speaking from personal experience, a past teacher of mine would complain about how we should have learned some things in the previous classes, never taking the time to explain and teach the information we were missing.

This is no surprise to me as whenever a prompt is given and is to be done alone, I have so many questions and confusions. I find myself reading words over and over again, almost memorizing the next with no meaning behind it. However, when prompts are read together as a class, everything seems to make more sense. Teachers seem to always assume that you have learned something in the past, when in reality, we were never taught it at all. While this is not the teachers complete fault, it seems to be a hole in the whole education system. This also connects to strict curriculum standards where certain things have to be done by a certain time, which is definitely hard on the teachers' end.

This is completely true. I can't count the amount of times I would have multiple class sessions on "test-taking strategies" like reading the questions before the passages, or eliminating certain answer choices. I wouldn't have to memorize so many strategies if I was taught how to truly and thoroughly understand a text. If I knew how to, the questions should really be a breeze as I would already understand the passage itself.

I personally never liked tests. Not just because they were stressful, but because of what tests really represent. Tests don't really measure how well you understand a subject, they test how well you can memorize information and regurgitate it back to them. You can memorize so much information without truly understanding what any of it means. You memorize so much information for the test to forget it right after you take it, and repeat that cycle for every test you take. Therefore people don't really learn much from a course, they just learn how to memorize "key points" and throw it right back to their professors.

I feel this is a good idea because normally, students are all assigned the same book in one class, and that is the book the whole class will study for a period of time before moving on to the next. However, this method is lackluster as it doesn't recognize a student's individual interests in genre or writing style. Providing a wider variety can help students become more engaged and can help students learn what kind of writer they are.

Commonly, teachers would ask us during lessons to identify the "author's purpose". We'd also commonly have entire chapters or units dedicated to finding the author's purpose for writing what they wrote, but never to identify the author's attitudes, viewpoints, beliefs, etc. It was simply our job to figure out if they wrote to entertain, persuade, or inform.

The implementation of NCLB and CommonCore standards were, in my opinion, a huge shift in the way K-12 education was done in the United States. I remember CommonCore Mathematics being criticized for its overly-complex systems of solving and ineffective curricula. Coupled with the NCLB act, which consists of a lot of high-stakes test taking, these new programs/acts are doing less for students as they intended.

I've run into this problem before. it is demoralizing when you find your groove writing a research paper and are trying to make it as best as you can then realize no one will ever see it other than yourself and the teacher when they go over it for 5 minutes to put a grade it. It takes all of your motivation away and leaves a low moral paper done.

This makes me curious of how many teachers can honestly say they follow this set of rules or relatively similar. I've had an experience with a teacher who did not engage with students on their writing skills. By addressing the student's flaws in writing and help with their comprehension more action should be taken in place. The student could continue to write in their current way, which could be poor, and carry this on forever without knowing what exactly they need to improve on.

I remember this time during school. It seemed like almost the entire class was just dedicated to trying to make us do well on these tests rather than teaching anything substantial that would help us out later in our educational careers. I remember thinking to myself what would we be learning if these tests didn't dictate the curriculum.

I like this statement because it tells the reader what has to be done first before automatically starting the process. Writing is a process that takes times, critical thinking, and is an act that is completed best when taught. Without comprehending an article to nearly its full extent, writing about it can be challenging to some students.

I've heard this statement before. This reminds me when I was taught to write as if a person knew nothing about your topic. This is a very helpful mindset that I still use today when writing. I strongly suggest other students give this method a try as it may work for some students but not all.

This statement I relate to because I notice a majority of information on research I read has statistics from years before I was born. On the some passages of the SAT reading portion, research was done almost 10-15+ years back rather than finding recent research. This also bothers me considering there have been more recent studies and new numbers given to that specific study.

This brings me to question why are certain passages and stories that are often assigned (Romeo and Juliet for example) in reading and writing courses so important? The majority of standardized reading test stories that I have taken and stories I've read in class barely have content in common. This causes me to expect something that is not going to be present on the test. Sometimes, the information feels highly irrelevant to what I will be tested on.

I've noticed this not only with standardized testing but with teachers assigning test as well. It always caused me to feel as if I was struggling with reading comprehension and re-reading an entire passage for a message that is barely stated in the passage.

Ive had teachers who are just like this who say "you should know this by now" or only teach how to get the gist of a text so you can read it fast. It really is just lazy teaching. They assume that since we are able to read that we can comprehend the text in a way that we are familiar enough to write about it.

This becomes especially evident in things like elections or even the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows that some people will blindly follow others without checking if their statements are correct. They will believe any article online that says masks are bad and try to spread it with others without checking credible sources to see if the statements made in said article are true.

This is very accurate to reality. In this technological age reading is becoming more and more important. Social cues for things like sarcasm being displayed through tone cannot be fully translated in text form. One must rely on their reading comprehension to understand one's intent as to not misunderstand what’s being said.

The process of recollecting prior knowledge learned in life is entirely based on your understanding of said knowledge. I can understand how exactly this hinges on the unique understanding of the individual. In the end one has to make it tailor made to themselves in order to fully and appropriately understand it all.

This is a good point because I feel like many people when they read something they just blindly accept it as the truth without delving deeper and questioning the validity or strength of the argument. I think that with a stronger basis of what should be done then people can become better readers and in turn become better informed when things such as fake news or propaganda pop up.

In my opinion, this has not helped me except in terms or writing analytical essays. Outside of English Class, and a career path that follows, I think analyzing rhetorical strategies will not help you understand the text any better than if you were to genuinely read and try to learn and understand

I always think about this. Sometimes a professor will ask us to read a certain article or text and ill read it all the way through but not be able to comprehend what i just read. Ill read every word but not understand it the ideas and concepts just go over my head. While i consider myself a good writer i would say I'm a below average reader because i feel like i cant comprehend complex texts that throw lots of ideas out in short times.

The unfortunate truth is that even with this information, schools will still take years to implement this. This leaves so many kids put at a disadvantage. In previous english classes, there has been more discussions as years go by. However, I feel like in grades such as 8th and 9th it is much more crucial to encourage class discussion. This allows for younger kids to become more comfortable with discussion and voicing their opinions and thoughts.

Things like this are ideas that you hear more from "old fashion" type of parents. Ones who don't really understand the internet and how valuable of a source of education it can be. They think that since they don't understand it that it can only be detrimental to their child. Parents from newer generations seem to be more lenient with internet usage since they grew up with it and understand how fun it can be as well as how it can foster creativity and learning.

A few of my teachers actually taught reading as a recursive process where you would read the text multiple times. The first time would be a light skim of the text to get interested in the subject and form an idea of what it might be about. The next read would be a more in-depth read where the student would read all of the text. Then the student would reread the text and annotate it. Afterwards the teacher would ask the student to summarize the text, the author's purpose in writing the text, and other things that were geared towards helping the student comprehend the text fully.

This same experience has happened to me in terms of standardized reading tests required by my school distract such as PARCC. The purpose of PARCC was to assess student's readiness for high-school in terms of the core subjects taught in school. Preparing for these tests would take up almost 80% of a singular semester and we would barely cover actual lesson.

I agree, especially since tests focus more on regurgitating information in order to answer questions rather than forming opinions on the textual matter or actually comprehending what the author is trying to convey.

This bullet point really stands out to me. In elementary school I had a reading teacher who really stressed to my classmates that it was ok to mess up, to not understand what we were reading the first time. She stressed the process of rereading in case of any misunderstandings. I believe that laid an incredibly positive framework for my reading process.

I didn't know the exact definition for this word but it is actually, "a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth." The author seems to agree with this adage and uses it to present their argument about writing instruction.

RELA (reading, English, language arts) was the class taught every year in elementary school which covered both reading and writing in English.

It should be the inverse since technology forces the populace to read constantly as it is widely accessible and very visual, requiring your eyes to read words displayed in order to use the technology.

This statement is opposing what the title says, "Reading and Writing are not connected." The author most likely used the title as a hook for the reader and as a talking point to present the opposing argument.

To me, this phrase indicates the beginning of a children's fantasy story. "Once upon a time" reminds me of stories of Disney princesses in particular.

I also think poor writing ability can also be contributed to not understanding or knowing proper grammar of the language they are reading. Things like subject, verb, and predicate are touched upon in elementary school and never revisited after that, at least in my experience.

Annotating is a form of actively engaging with a text while reading :). The actual meaning of the word "annotate" is to add notes to a text giving explanation or comment.

Most of political commentary is filled with bias, therefore people tend to only comprehend what they want to believe in rather than consider different viewpoints on the same issue.

As was stated before in the text, readers often remember and interpret texts differently due to the transaction between reader and text. So what the reader is paraphrasing, copying, or citing may have been the part of the text that stood out to them the most, the only part of the text that they agree with, or the part of the text that furthers their viewpoint.

Writing tasks associated with reading are: Summary: brief statement of the main points Interpretation: explaining the meaning of something Evaluation: assessing or judging the value of something.

I think I have seen more intriguing tweets and social media posts than intriguing pieces of literature in english classes over the years. More often than not, I see tweets regarding politics that make me think about real-world problems in different ways than usual. The huge platform of social media allows so many diverse opinions and ways to express opinions, anonymous or known.

I 100% agree with Tate on his position. Why should I have to review numerous pieces of Shakespeare over and over again just for one teacher to grade how "strong" my writing is. Shakespeare is something that many young students are not interested in, causing reading and writing about it to become almost chore-like. Instead, I'd rather teachers allow for more freedom when writing, and let students write about what is close to them and/or topics they are passionate about.

This is a great list of things to consider when you're sitting down to read something.

This is a major reason why we're using real-world technologies (like Medium) to publish for real-world audiences.

The real question: is this actually reading?

We privilege writing over reading, even though each is essential to the other.