In the research reviewed to date, I have not encountered any writing exercises suggested as pre-reading activities. I have discovered, however, several post writing exercises for the purpose of synthesizing recently read material or to teach individual writing skills (see Jan Weis, 1986 or Tierney, 194-95). Mechanisms for text comprehension operate naturally in one's first language. The Language Experience Approach (LEA), for example, is successful for small children who have had at least four years of meaningful language input. At this stage, they can easily construct meaningful sentences using their grammatical competence and available lexicon. The beginning second language learner is not as fortunate, however. Not only is his exposure to the second language severely lacking, but the level of linguistic competence is hardly adequate to express the complex thoughts solicited in a pre-reading activity.

It is evident that a goal of achieving comprehension is difficult to attain. Rummelhart gives these three reasons for lack of reading comprehension:

1. Readers may not have the appropriate schemata. In this case they simply cannot understand the concept being communicated.
2. Readers may have the appropriate schemata, but the clues provided by the author may be insufficient to suggest them. Here again readers will not understand the text but, with appropriate additional clues, may come to understand.
3. Readers may find a consistent interpretation of the text, but may not find the one intended by the author. In this case, readers will understand the text, but will misunderstand the author (18).

As we have seen, the foreign language learner is burdened with even more factors, lexical and linguistic, that hinder comprehension. Building schema is the way to bridge the gap to reading comprehension, but how do we build the schema in a foreign language?

The following procedure is proposed as a preparation for short-story reading comprehension:

1. State purpose of pre-reading/pre-writing activity.
2. Solicit from students personal responses or reaction to prepared guiding questions.
3. Model correct speech, introduce new vocabulary or create complex thoughts with the student responses by connecting or combining ideas.
4. Choose a writing assignment with a purpose that allows the student to «invest» even more in the reading of the story.
5. State purpose for reading the short story as it relates to the writing assignment.

It is intended that by activating the appropriate schema and introducing the necessary clues for comprehension, curiosity or an increase in the interest level in reading a short story will occur.

The following explanations and examples indicate that the foreign language classroom is quite different from the elementary or secondary classroom in considering the teaching

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of reading; however, the goal is the same -comprehension.

Stating the purpose for all classroom activities is not only important in teacher evaluation procedures, but vital to students in aiding their attention focus. By telling the foreign language learner the purpose of the activity, s/he will know the value of the discussion and the writing phases of the activity and its role in preparing the students to comprehend the subsequent reading passage. In the foreign language methodology field these activities not only prepare the students to read a foreign language passage by creating the appropriate advanced organizers, but develop their general language facility in the four major skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

To elicit reactions to statements, the students are asked such direct questions as «¿En qué piensan cuando piensan en _____?» Due to the limited vocabulary of many foreign language students, soliciting even one-word responses may be difficult and a brainstorming session of any kind could potentially fail. Such lapses may be eradicated by the students' own curiosity with questions such as, «¿Cómo se dice _____ en español?» since the motivation to ask such a question lends to more meaningful answers. From experience, however, teachers are prepared for silence with follow-up questions that intentionally guide the students to a set of vocabulary or concepts related to the story.

Also important in creating these advanced organizers, whether they be semantic maps, semantic outlines, or reactionary statements to themes from the intended reading passage, the classroom atmosphere must be relaxed. Vacca defines the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity and also describes the atmosphere necessary for the questioning session of a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), but it is easily applied to any type of pre-reading activities:

If we are trying to personalize the information by solicitation of individual opinions, then we must provide the students with opportunity to make mistakes freely and accept their responses as valuable.

Of course in any brainstorming session, «wait time» is crucial (Vacca, 165). When we ask thought-provoking questions, we must give students time to create a response. So that students do not forget an answer or idea, they may be encouraged to note their ideas in written form. Thus, more students will stay on task longer as they participate in a real communicative discussion.

Some easy examples of brainstorming or guiding questions are, «¿Qué piensan de _____?» or «Díganme cualquier cosa que piensan cuando piensan en _____». Upon receiving any answer (grammatically correct or erroneous) the teacher can easily form the students' responses into grammatically correct statements or expand upon them. In doing so, the teacher can use grammatical structures and expressions already learned in class to model student responses. S/he can also select from the responses and suggest ideas that directly come from the intended reading passage. Hence, the teacher can condense many personal responses into concise units of thought and record them. These units of thought will become even more internalized as the students write, read, and ultimately comprehend.

Even after an oral pre-reading activity, the students may not possess the necessary words related to the concepts that appear in the intended passage. The students are aware that they have been primed to read a passage

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and have already offered their «personalized touches» to the ideas which were recorded by the teacher as s/he modeled the expression of the concepts. These «personalized touches» which accompany a purposeful activity are personal «investments» as the student realizes his/her own progression towards a reading passage. Therefore, each time s/he offers an opinion or idea or response, s/he invests in the future comprehension of the reading passage.

The writing assignment, then, has two purposes: (1) to internalize the concepts already discussed by their usage in a personal composition, and (2) to guide the student even closer to the payoff of his/her participatory investment.

The writing phase in this procedure can be lengthy or short. The writing assignment should not only contain real elements of the intended reading story, but pave the way for the eventual textual encounter.

The teacher's role is that of a «Walking Dictionary» during the actual writing phase. This assists beginning language students who take considerable time looking up one word, misuse vocabulary or complicate self-expression by translating word for word. In addition, as the teacher circulates, s/he is seemingly interested in the students' work and students stay on task. Also, the teacher can further the process by offering unknown vocabulary in a correct context and suggesting previously learned grammatical structures to simplify students' ideas.

Finally, it is important that the teacher state the purpose of their reading and then return to this purpose during post-reading. With the proper concepts or schema and with great investment into the reading of the story, students are guided and motivated to read. They will be able to understand main ideas and will have the potential to compare and contrast their invested ideas with those of the author as well as easily acquiring a literal and contextual meaning of the story beyond a simple translation.

Many possibilities of post-reading activities emerge after this procedure has been experienced. The most exciting aspect, though, is that the students have comprehended the passage and while doing so, they have practiced all four language skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.

The following are examples of pre-reading/ pre-writing activities created from a single Spanish foreign language reader, Album by Rebecca M. Valette and Joy Renjillian-Burgy. Included are the purpose, the procedure and comments pertaining to each of the two short stories.

The first short story selection is «Sala de espera» by Enrique Anderson Imbert (Album 9-12). Anderson Imbert creates a world of fantasy around two men, Costa and Wright, who rob a house. Costa kills Wright and attempts to escape with the jewels. Costa's scheme, however, is ruined when Wright (as a ghost) and a woman walk away with the jewels and leave the murderer paralyzed and invisible.

Pre-Reading/Pre-Writing Activity for «Sala de espera»

Purpose: To familiarize the students with four concepts or themes that run throughout the story. While doing so, this activity has a built-in mechanism to introduce new vocabulary and new grammatical structures.

PROCEDURE

1. Write the new words «el robo», «el homicidio», «la avaricia», and «el fantasma» across the board as shown in Figure 1.

2. Explain these vocabulary words using the following procedure:

1. Tell students that you will be describing four new words and that you want them to tell you whatever they think of when they think of the word. Tell them that they will be discussing the words and also preparing themselves for a writing activity, using the ideas related to the words. Explain that they will be reading a passage related to their ideas.
2. Describe the word ACTIVELY, i. e., by actually robbing someone of his possessions and explaining what you are doing or by telling students that «el robo» comes from the verb «robar» and then proceeding to give examples.
3. Ask for spontaneous thoughts or «brainstorms» and record them, possibly guiding the students with questions such as «¿Cómo se llama una persona que roba?» Don't hesitate to answer questions like «¿Cómo se dice "thief" en español?» As you write the ideas down, elaborate on the concepts by modeling longer, more mature sentences with the ideas as «El ladrón roba las joyas con una pistola», «el policía detiene al ladrón que le robó a la víctima».

3. Write down the two names «Costa» and «Wright» and assign the students to write a paragraph in Spanish (the length and format are left to the discretion of the teacher) using Costa and Wright as the two main characters of a story they will be writing. Tell them to incorporate the four concepts, «el robo», «el homicidio», «la avaricia», and «el fantasma» in their writing.

4. Tell the students that they will be reading a story entitled «Sala de espera» whose main characters are Costa and Wright. Explain what a waiting room is in Spanish and tell them that the story also includes the four themes previously discussed.

5. Assign the story to be read and tell students to focus on the main characters' action, comparing the actions in their personal story with those appearing in Anderson Imbert's story.

COMMENTS

1. Grammatical structures not familiar to the students may now appear unimportant when the students read with an already clear understanding of the themes that run throughout the passage.

2. The student must be prompted beforehand as to your expectation, i. e., do you wish them to write the words from the discussion in their own notebooks? Or, will they need the information you write down for further reference?

3. Several different activities can be done to improve the skills of the learner. For example, the learners can exchange compositions and proofread them or they can prepare a written or oral comparison of their own story with Anderson Imbert's.

The second short story is «Leyenda» by Jorge Luis Borges. In this brief but creative story, Borges reinterprets the biblical «legend» of Cain and Abel and illustrates a different moral. Here Cain and Abel meet in a desert and discuss Cain's murderous behavior. Abel, however, teaches Cain, and indirectly the reader, that «olvidar es perdonar» (Album, 19-23).

Pre-Reading/Pre-Writing Activity for «Leyenda»

Purpose: To provide the students with background information in a way that motivates them to read the short story «Leyenda» by Jorge Luis Borges.

PROCEDURE

1. Write on the board the following three questions: a) ¿Qué es una leyenda? b) ¿En qué piensan cuando piensan en Caín y Abel? c) ¿Es la historia de Caín y Abel una leyenda? ¿Por qué? o, ¿por qué no?

2. Have the students write one answer to each question. The teacher may provide a handout as illustrated in Figure 2.

3. Tell the students there are no correct or incorrect answers and ask them for their brainstorm ideas for «¿Qué es una leyenda?» Record their answers and have them record other student's answers also.

4. Hand out the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis, Chapter 4. Perhaps the handout could have two columns, in Spanish and in English. Ask students to tell you in Spanish whatever they think about when they think of Cain and Abel and record their answers. Perhaps you may wish to focus on the Biblical story and the occurrences there with guiding questions.

5. Now solicit students' responses to the third question and record their ideas.

6. The teacher's role is to assimilate the students' ideas into mature sentences and hence focus on their listening skills.

7. Assign a written «legend» created on the basis of the information recorded and any other pertinent knowledge students may have. Use the following first line for everyone's composition: «Abel y Cain se encontraron después de la muerte de Abel».

8. After completing the writing activity, tell students that they will be reading a story about Cain and Abel called «Leyenda» and that the first sentence of the short story is the same as theirs. Explain that the purpose of reading the story is to compare it with their own legend.

COMMENTS

1. Other purposes are also appropriate; for example, the teacher may set the goal of determining if the story fits the class's definition of a legend. What is important is that the class return to the original story as it relates to this goal.

2. Be prepared for silence. Prepare a list of facilitating questions like: «¿Cuál es la profesión de Caín? or «¿Por qué mató Caín a Abel?»

3. This activity also provides enrichment exercises such as using the comparison between either their personal composition and Borges' story or Borges' legend and the Bible's.

This procedure provides the necessary background language experience for successful comprehension. Preparing students to read a passage in this manner not only motivates them by activating proper schema and personalizing their concepts, but sharpens their other skills in the process. Adequate priming ensures more efficient comprehension, with interpretive and applied activities as its by-product.

Anstey, Michele. «Connecting Writing and Reading». Writing and Reading to Learn, Jan Weis, ed., Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia, 35-52.

Barnitz, John G. Reading Development of Nonnative Speakers of English. The Center for Applied Linguistics. Orlando: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., 1985.

Hague, Sally. «Learning to Read and Reading to Learn: Briding the Gap in Second Language Acquisition»: Hispania 69.2 (May 1986): 400-02.

Parker, Margaret and Juan Barroso, VIII. «Strategies for Teaching and Testing Reading»: Hispania 69.3 (September 1986): 720-22.

Rumelhart, David E. «Schemata: The Building Blocks of Cognition». Comprehension and Teaching Research Review, J. T. Guthrie, ed. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, 1987, 3-26.

___. «Understanding Understanding». Understanding Reading Comprehension. James Flood, ed. Neward, Delaware: IRA, 1984, 1-20.

Smith, Frank. Psycholinguistics and Reading. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973.

Vacca, Richard T Content Area Reading. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1981.

Wies, Jan with Nea Stewart-Dore. Writing and Reading to Learn. Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia, 1986, 67-80.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 1, March 1990