California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Assignment Template

I absolutely love that this text gives an overview of the ways in which we can prepare our students for reading texts and writing about texts. Often I forget how in depth the processes of reading texts and writing about texts can be; I think this may be a result of coming to take these processes for granted after practicing them for so long. As a future teacher, it is incredibly important that I understand how to set my students up for successful reading and writing. In order to set my students up for successful reading and writing, I need to understand that reading and writing are not two separate activities but are more like partner activities. We need writing for reading and we need reading for writing. This text does an incredible job at setting us up with pre-reading, reading, post-reading, and writing activities/strategies that we can use to help our students to read and comprehend a text, as well as make connections and develop their own ideas about the text.

I also love that this text provides the Common Core State Standards that relate to each of the strategies offered in the text. By providing the CCSS that relate to each strategy, we are being given a rationale for the use of the strategy. As future teachers, we must be able to back our teaching methods and the strategies we use with the Common Core State Standards. Having access to texts like this, that offer various strategies to help facilitate student learning and the state standards that correlate with those strategies, will be incredibly helpful going forward as a teacher.

After reading this, I think I have come to appreciate the fact that there are so many sources similar to this one that are available to teachers. I think that knowing that there are countless sources that we can draw from to find different ways to better facilitate student learning is very reassuring as a future teacher.