Reading Matters
From The Valve
I'm particularly in league with the commentor who questions the place of reading instruction in college education. As a culture, we assume that once we become readers there's no need to develop us as readers. We don't, however, place the same amount of trust in our ability to write.
I have maintained firmly that my job as an English teacher is to teach reading and writing. While we pay lots of lip (and red pencil) service to the writing practice, we tend to ignore reading, assuming, I think, that students will demonstrate their abilities as readers when they write.
I'm wondering now if that emphasis on writing may be contributing to plagiarism; good, active readers will always have something to say about a text. Passive readers have a harder time and may be prone to being more passive writers.