McGinley, W. (1992). The
Role of Reading and Writing while Composing from Sources. Reading Research
Quarterly, 27(3), 226-247.
Introduction
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the
discourse synthesis process, which is defined as composing a text from more than
a single source which is a goal-directed, linear process. This study had four
goals: (1) to provide descriptions over time of the complex processes involved
in composing a text from multiple sources; (2) to explore the similarities and
differences in the ways that two students coordinated their reading, writing,
and reasoning activities during a composing-from-source activity; (3) to
investigate how different reading and writing activities functioned for students
during this process; and (4) to examine how the differential coordination of
reading, writing, and reasoning activities were related to differences in
students' conceptual processes and their written products.
The study was divided into two parts: the first part focused on how
various reading and writing activities interacted over time and the second part
selected two of the seven students in the study for a more detailed analysis to
examine more closely the ways in which individual learners differed in their
abilities to coordinate the reading and writing activities they were engaged in
during the process of composing-from-source.
Method
The subjects for this study were seven junior or senior college
undergraduate education major students from the University of Illinois.
Students were academically similar with grade point averages ranging from
4.2 to 4.7 on a 5.0 scale. The researcher met with each student
individually for a one 2 hour training session in order to allow students to
practice the technique of thinking aloud during reading and writing. After the
training in the think-aloud process, students were given two resource articles
on the topic of mandatory drug testing in the workplace. Each article contained
approximately 800 – 1,000 words and presented pro and con information on the
issue. The articles were taken from
periodicals of comparable quality such as U.S. New & World Report and
Business Week. The students
were asked to write a persuasive essay that presented a responsible,
informative, and persuasive piece that presented both sides of the issue,
develop and support their own view of the issue, and
to convince others of the validity of their position.
The students were to develop an essay of “first draft” quality. The
entire reading/writing session was videotaped and audiotaped.
Also, the researcher recorded notes of the reading and writing behaviors
of each student. Most students completed the essay in 2 hours. After the
completion of the essay, the students' think-aloud statements were transcribed
and put into communication units. The
communication units were coded for three specific types of information: (1) time
across task or the total amount of time that was spent by each student on
composing-from-source task was calculated. Each students' total time was
divided into four equal time periods equaling approximately 25.3 minutes. (2) reading
and writing activities were defined as those parts of the think-alouds in
which students were engaged in specific modes of reading or writing.
The reading and writing activities included writing notes, writing draft,
reading notes, reading draft, reading source text, reading assignment and free
thinking. (3) reasoning operation referred to the cognitive operations in
which students engaged throughout the composing-from-source.
The reasoning operations included questioning, hypothesizing,
metacommenting, using schema, paraphrasing, citing evidence, validations, and
restating. Upon completion of the essay, the students responded to a
series of written debriefing questions about the tasks.
These questions were designed to explore their perceptions of the
purposes that various reading and writing activities served as they engaged in
this process. Two students, Kathy and Lisa, were selected from the seven
students for an additional case study. These
students were chosen to present contrasting approaches to the task of composing
from sources. Comparisons of how
the two students coordinated various reading and writing activities across the
task, changes in their conceptual process over time, and evidence of their
conceptual breakthroughs or insights during the reading, writing, and thinking
process were examined.
Results
The results of the ways various reading and writing activities were involved
in composing-from-source distributed across the task indicated that student
spent 48.3% of their time reading the source text, 28.6% of their time writing
their drafts, 15.0% of the time reading their drafts and 7.5% of the time
writing notes. The results of the data for the distribution of reading and
writing activities that occurred during each time period were analyzed. During
the first time period, students spent almost all their time reading the source
text and writing notes. During the
second time period, students spent the majority of their time writing drafts,
reading source texts, reading their drafts and reading notes. During the third
time period, students were involved in writing drafts, reading their drafts, and
reading the source texts. During
the fourth time period, students spent the time devoted to writing their drafts,
reading their drafts and returning to read the source text.
These patterns illustrated the distribution of reading and writing
activities changed across the task. This also indicates that certain reading and
writing activities were associated with specific time periods, the process of
composing-from-source was not a linear process.
The results of the reasoning operations involved in composing from source
indicate that students'reasoning was most frequently characterized by using
schema (24.7%), metacommenting (16.9%), and questioning (15.9%). To a lesser extent, students were also engaged in
paraphrasing (10.8%), restating content (10.7%), and hypothesizing (10.6%)
across the task. Students engaged
in citing evidence (5.0%) and validating (5.5%) less frequently throughout the
task. The results of the data for the distribution of the reasoning operations
that occurred during each time period were analyzed. During the first time
period, students were primarily engaged in using schema, questioning,
paraphrasing, and hypothesizing. During
the second time period, students were using schema, metacommenting, questioning,
and hypothesizing. During the third time period, students were involved in
metatcommenting, using schema, restating content, and questioning. During the
fourth time period, students were metacommenting, using schema, and restating
content. These results suggest that
as the process of composing-from-source progressed and students' structured
information into text of their own, the process of their reasoning also changed.
The results of the analyses of the students' written responses to the
debriefing questions revealed individual reading and writing activities provided
students with overlapping purposes of reading and writing during the process of
composing from source. Reading the
source articles enabled students to gather new information on the issue and to
analyze and evaluate those issues, which lead to the development of new ideas of
their own. Writing notes served to
plan and organize information as well as analyze new information and to generate
their own opinions and justifications. Reading
notes provided student with the ability to continue to organize, plan, and
monitor the direction of ideas. Composing
their drafts helps students to formulate their thoughts and arguments.
Rereading their drafts provided students to review and revise their
ideas. These results demonstrated the “synergistic”
relationships that exist between various reading and writing activities in which
students' engaged when composing-from-source.
The results of the case study of two students, Kathy and Lisa, revealed
differences in the performance of the process of composing from sources. The
analyses of the students' comments revealed that Lisa's coordination of
various reading and writing activities during composing-from-source was random
rather than purposeful, she shifted across various reading and writing
activities by chance without a making strategic decisions.
In other words, she was “carried along” by her reading and writing,
readily changing her original opinions in favor of the views expressed in the
articles before finally arriving at her own position. In contrast, Kathy, who
engaged in reading and writing activities strategically and her transactions
with her developing text guided her shifts across different activities in a
purposeful way. Analyses of
conceptual process or thinking about the topic changed over the course of the
composing from source task. Kathy confronted and synthesized the conflicting
arguments while reading; however, Lisa's thinking was guided by her
continually rereading the resource texts in order to develop her essay. The
results of the conceptual breakthroughs revealed different profiles of how
reading, writing, and thinking were developed during the composing process.
Kathy's conceptual breakthrough was not due to the writing process alone but
the combination of reading and writing activities to compose an essay, on the
other hand, Lisa never experiencing a conceptual breakthrough and continued to
struggle to make progress and articulate her own position throughout the task.
Discussion
In conclusion, the different reading and writing activities found
functioned in unique yet partially overlapping ways during the process of
composing from source. The
relationship that existed with the reading and writing activities in which
students' were engaged influenced and was influenced by other activities in a
network of mutual support. In other words, analysis of the protocols revealed
that students' purposes throughout the task had a direct influence on the
specific type and number of reading and writing activities that the students
used in order to accomplish those specific purposes. One implication for
future research should address the differences in the uses of reading and
writing as a function of topic, task, and context. Other studies are needed that focus on the many functions of
reading and writing when composing-from-source. Lastly, studies are needed that
focus on the metacognitive awareness of different reading and writing functions
when composing from source. One limitation of this present study involves
the conditions that the study was conducted.
Future studies should examine composing-from-source in more authentic
settings, such as a classroom or school-based environment, where composing is
part of the curriculum. Another
limitation of this study is the small sample number.
A study with a larger sample would likely result in more comprehensive
understanding of the reading-writing connections when composing from source .