The Read-Write relationship
I vividly remember the thick white envelope stamped with the school’s name that heralded the arrival of my school report at the start of each holiday and the stillness of the kitchen as Mum read through the subject reports, my tutor’s review of the term, and the headmaster’s summative comment. This patch of quiet would be repeated later when Dad came home from an afternoon clinic. Mercifully, my parents never put me under any pressure to achieve particular academic results so my worry was entirely self-created but I recall tummy-churning anxiety about what my teachers wrote and whether (or not) I had met my own terrifyingly high standards.
Since then, I have written thousands of end of term reports - academic and pastoral - and I know that my colleagues will be working through their class lists at this very moment, reviewing the term for each student and setting specific targets for next academic year. These targets might refer to study skills, subject knowledge, classroom behaviour, and attitudes to learning. Teachers may also suggest that a student reviews a particular aspect of the curriculum to bolster their knowledge or revise an important technique. This advice is especially relevant when students are mid-way through GCSE, A Level or IB courses because the halfway point in any course marks the last proper opportunity to repair knowledge gaps, to make good any areas of confusion, or to hone key skills. Once the second year of a course begins, the weeks move very quickly towards mock examinations, concluding the syllabus and starting revision. As a result, end of term reports in Years 10 and 12 often prompt families to seek a tutor for mid-syllabus support.
No matter how many reports I have written, however, I cannot observe this process from a comfortable side-line because as a mature student I too receive feedback, and adjusting to regular assessment has been one of the most challenging aspects of returning to university. In fact, my cheeks still turn (very) pink when I recall my dissertation supervisor’s dismay at the number of prepositions that crept into my writing when I tried to articulate my central thesis. And that was not an easy pill to swallow after years of instructing students how to write effective sentences.
My challenge for the next academic year is the one that I would also set for all students: remember the read-write relationship. At its most simple, this is a reminder that deep learning comes from doing something with information that you encounter. As students, we absorb information by reading, listening, watching, and practising skills. In order to integrate this learning into our working memories we need to engage with it actively by reshaping it in some form. The Read-Write relationship is therefore about establishing a connection between two critical phases of learning and - despite the name - this connection does not have to involve pen and ink.
In cognitive terms, Read-Write might be better expressed as Encounter-Embed but it is commonly known by the two central skills of literacy. For me, this process involves transferring my thoughts into a study journal where I keep track of my PhD project in jotted ideas, experimental writing and scrawled concepts. Inevitably also keep formal notes in Word documents, on spreadsheets, in referencing software and through digital annotations of online articles but my most difficult thinking is takes place though refining and distilling ideas on paper. My most creative thinking occurs through reiterative writing and my journal looks like a scrap book because I work with multicoloured pens, pictures and plenty of Pritt-stick. In fact, at a critical moment in my Masters, I paused to make my dissertation as a text collage on an artist’s canvas because I needed to think with my hands in order to make sense of my argument and its structure.
Like any significant relationship, Read-Write is deeply personal and it can take many forms. Students can draw, paint, create digital designs, make music, create short films, populate vast spreadsheets, or scrawl illegible post-it notes. The shape of the learning record does not matter but the premise of Read-Write is absolutely vital for dynamic learning so I will be investing in a brand new journal in readiness for my next academic year.