This article illuminates how reading serves as the foundation for writing workshops in both composition and creative writing courses. It discusses cooperative learning and improved student writing as two main goals for workshop and explains how both are completely reliant on student reading. The article introduces a particularly effective way to teach students to read in preparation for workshop and concludes by revealing how asking students to read published and student-produced texts in different ways can inadvertently devalue student writing and limit workshop's effectiveness.

Drawing on qualitative research conducted at the University of Michigan, this article examines the extent to which composition instructors theorize and teach reading-writing connections and argues that explicitly teaching reading-writing connections may increase student motivation to complete assigned reading. The article also discusses using model texts as an effective means of teaching those connections.