My experience says that this is usually true, but not always. Other teachers
at North Seattle Community College report the same thing. Sometimes there
are people who are voracious readers and good readers, and they cannot
write. We might need to know more than we now know about brain connections
to answer this question.I do know that some brain research shows that
reading and writing are located at different places in the brain, but what
those places are and what the normal connections are, I don't know.
Edith Wollin

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul E. Doniger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 9:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: False Analogy?


Bingo! (At least it appears like Bingo! to me.). The few students I have who
are regular readers are also the better writers. This is not quantitative
research, just a small observation.

Paul E. Doniger

----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Vavra <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 11:55 PM
Subject: False Analogy?


> Hasn't the discussion of whether or not great writers (ancient or
> modern)  studied grammar been based on a false analogy? It was, I
> believe, Helen who brought up the point that students learn best by
> reading and writing. The problem is that many, if not most, of our
> students have not read or written much during their previous education,
> and they can (or will) not make up for that in our courses. I have
> numerous excellent writers (grammatically) in my comp classes, and they
> do not really need instruction in grammar to improve their writing
> (although it does help). However, the students who have not absorbed the
> structures/mechanics of written English from reading can be helped
> through instruction in grammar. The problem are that 1) such instruction
> needs to be of the right kind [Memorizing definitions, by itself, will
> not help.], and 2) the instruction [and the learning] take a long time.
> Ed V.
>
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