Writing to Read & Reading to Write

Well, my penchant for paradox (and apparently for alliteration also) was certainly stimulated with most, if not all, of the supplementary articles we've been assigned to read so far, from Somers' contention that the alinear nature of composition requires writers to revise at all stages in the composition process, including, presumably, prior to even putting pen to paper, through Emig's notion that writing is inherently heuristic, representing a "unique mode of learning" (122) whereby learning to write is writing to learn, to Perl's proposition that composition involves construction towards discovery then discovery towards further construction (331), and finally to Ong who apparently implicitly argues that writers create their audience as much as the audience (in fictionalizing itself) creates its writers! Since I started working in the field of education over a decade ago as a public and private teacher and tutor, primarily in the Language Arts, I've discovered another apparent paradox: we teach what we need to learn. And one of the most important things I've learned is that reading and writing are, in fact, two sides of the same coin (of communication via composition). All of the authors' articles seem to concur. Somers says that the recursive nature of composition requires that we read as we write and write as we read; Emig indicates that the 2nd order language processes of reading and writing are ultimately heuristic, where the hand, eye, and brain work simultaneously towards the discovery of new analytical and synthetic insights (passim); Ede & Lunsford's composition model "suggests the integrated, interdependent nature of reading and writing" (169), while Perl posits that all students, regardless of ability, perform "retrospective structuring" (334) wherein they read and write/write and read their way through presumably a maze of sequential processes evidenced by their ability to plan, write, clarify, and discard (330). In fine, I think it may help teachers of composition better help their students by emphasizing this ontologically paradoxical, dual-nature of composition, where writing qua reading is reading qua writing. And further research that addresses the fundamental relationship between reading and writing/writing and reading can only help us all.