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Authentic Literacy Activities for Developing Comprehension and Writing

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DOI: 10.1598/RT.60.4.4

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 NELL K. DUKE
V I C T O R I A P U R C E L L- G AT E S
LEIGH A. HALL
C AT H Y T O W E R

Authentic literacy activities for

developing comprehension and writing
Explore what is meant by “authentic” ence texts. Finally, they wrote drafts of their text
until they were satisfied it would serve as a useful
literacy and discover how this approach can
information brochure for the public. Their final
spark reading and writing across genres and draft was published as a brochure and displayed in
subject areas. a stand in the front office of the nature center,
where many visitors appreciated its availability.

M
s. Jones (all names are pseudonyms)
hushed her excited second graders. She
began to read aloud a letter from the di- Authentic literacy
rector of the local nature center. All of the students The second graders in Ms. Jones’s science
recalled their recent trip to the pond as part of their
class were actively involved in what we consider
science unit on pond life.
to be authentic literacy. We documented this inci-
Dear Boys and Girls, dent, and many others, over the course of a two-
I hope you enjoyed your visit to our pond. I en- year experimental research study of genre learning
joyed answering your many good questions about what in second- and third-grade science classes. In this
lives in ponds. After you left, I thought about all of the
article, we provide a brief introduction to authen-
other children who visit us and who also have many of
the same questions. I thought it might be a good idea to tic literacy and to the research study. We then dis-
have a brochure for them with answers to some of their cuss theory and research behind authentic literacy.
questions. I am writing to ask if you would prepare a Finally, we share lessons from teachers about set-
brochure like this. It could be called something like ting up authentic literacy activities in their class-
“Questions and Answers About Pond Life.” You could rooms. We hope to provide teachers with many
include some of your questions that you had before you
ideas for their own practice.
visited us. If you write this, I will have many copies
printed that we can put in the main office. That way, The terms authentic literacy and authentic
people can pick one up when they come or as they are reading and writing are familiar to many teachers.
leaving. I hope you can do this for us. We are encouraged to include authentic literacy ac-
Sincerely, Mr. Hernandez tivities in our instruction. Students, we believe,
need to read authentic literature and to engage in
After a quick vote of approval, the students authentic writing. But what is authentic literacy? In
went to work. They studied similar brochures col- many ways, the term is a pedagogical one. People
lected from museums and other sites of natural sci- who are not involved with issues of instruction do
ence. They worked in groups to brainstorm not use it. Yet to many teachers, authentic literacy
questions for the brochure, after which they re- means reading and writing that is unlike the kind
searched answers by reading from a variety of sci- done in school.

344 © 2006 International Reading Association (pp. 344–355) doi:10.1598/RT.60.4.4

 In the research literature, authentic reading has theories of situated learning—that learning hap-
primarily been defined in terms of children’s litera- pens in particular contexts (Brown, Collins, &
ture (Hiebert, 1994). Authentic writing is often de- Duguid, 1989), that these contexts make a big dif-
fined as writing on topics of one’s choice, which ference to learning, and that it is difficult to transfer
can take the form of a personal narrative or story. learning to new contexts. Language is best acquired
When asked to define authentic literacy, the vast within functional contexts (Gee, 1992; Hymes,
majority of preservice and inservice teachers re- 1974). Students learn language not in abstract, de-
spond with notions of “interesting or motivating,” contextualized terms but in application, in a context
“relevant topics,” “fun,” or “classical and contem- that language is really for. For students, language
porary children’s literature.” Returning to the sce- learning occurs best when the learning context
nario of Ms. Jones’s second graders and their matches the real functional context. Scholars from
response to a request for a pond-life brochure, a range of theoretical and pedagogical orientations
these definitions seem incomplete. They also are agree that authentic experience is essential to genre
not consistent or specific enough to be sufficiently and discourse learning (Delpit, 1992; Lemke,
useful for teachers or researchers. 1994; New London Group, 1996; Reid, 1987).
We confronted these problems of defining au- However, there is little agreement, or clarity, on
thenticity when conducting a study that involved the conceptualization of authentic literacy.
engaging students in authentic literacy activities.
We needed a definition of authentic literacy that
would help teachers in our study create authentic
literacy activities and that would help us recognize Authenticity research
these activities when we saw them—we needed an The extent of the research base for authentici-
operational definition. We give this definition, and ty depends a lot on how authenticity is defined.
many more examples of authentic literacy activi- Given the definition we propose, and focusing on
ties, later in this article. literacy only, the research base is not large.
However, in a nationwide U.S. study of adult learn-
ers, researchers found that adults in programs with
more authentic literacy activities reported (a) read-
The study ing and writing more often in their out-of-school
Our two-year study involved 26 second- and lives, and (b) reading and writing more complex
third-grade teachers and their students from school texts (Purcell-Gates, Degener, Jacobson, & Soler,
districts serving families of low and middle socio- 2002). And the longer the students remained in
economic status (see Purcell-Gates, Duke, & these programs, the more this was true.
Martineau, 2007). Our interest was in the develop- In our study we, too, found support for authen-
ment of students’ ability to comprehend and com- tic literacy activities (Purcell-Gates & Duke, 2004).
pose informational and procedural texts in science We monitored the authenticity of literacy activities
(definitions of informational and procedural texts with informational and procedural texts in science
are provided later). All of the teachers in our study
weekly. Two or three times each year we also as-
worked with us to introduce authentic literacy ac-
sessed students’ ability to comprehend and to write
tivities with informational and procedural texts in
(compose) informational and procedural texts in
science and to understand the construct of authen-
science. We found that those teachers who includ-
tic literacy.
ed more authentic literacy activities more of the
time had students who showed higher growth in
both comprehension and writing.
Authenticity theory Other effective approaches to literacy educa-
Why were we so committed to including au- tion include activities we would classify as authen-
thenticity in all the classrooms in this study? Why tic, although they may not use the term
do we believe that authentic literacy activities authenticity. For example, Concept-Oriented
should be part of any instructional model designed Reading Instruction, or CORI (Guthrie, Wigfield,
to teach comprehension or writing? We believe in & Perencevich, 2004), involves students reading

Authentic literacy activities for developing comprehension and writing 345

and writing trade books and other authentic texts Authentic texts can be read or written with
for the purpose of learning about something of in- school-only purposes, rendering the literacy activ-
terest to them and communicating what they have ity less authentic (i.e., more school only). For ex-
learned to others. Other approaches, and certainly ample, novels can be read in preparation for an
many individual classroom teachers, involve stu- exam on comprehension and interpretive skills,
dents in activities we would characterize as au- news articles can be read to identify new vocabu-
thentic. lary words, or fliers can be composed to complete a
history unit with an innovative assignment de-
signed to link to art and language arts. Each of
An operational definition these examples includes an authentic text read for a
school-only purpose. To be considered highly au-
We conceptualize authentic literacy activities thentic, a literacy activity must include an authentic
in the classroom as those that replicate or reflect text read or written for an authentic purpose.
reading and writing activities that occur in the lives Authentic literacy activity in the classroom is al-
of people outside of a learning-to-read-and-write ways accompanied by school-only (or literacy
context and purpose. Each authentic literacy activ- teaching and learning) purposes, simply because
ity has a writer and a reader—a writer who is writ- that is the overall purpose of school—teaching and
ing to a real reader and a reader who is reading learning. However, literacy activities can become
what the writer wrote. authentic for students if teachers attend to those
To judge the authenticity of a literacy activity, aspects we have just discussed: text types and pur-
we look at two dimensions: purpose or function poses for reading and writing them.
and text. Authentic purpose or function means that In our study, the focus was on authentic litera-
the activity serves a true communicative purpose— cy activities with informational and procedural text
for example, reading informational text to inform in science. We defined the purpose of information-
oneself or to answer one’s own questions, or writ- al text as being to convey information about the
ing to provide information for someone who wants natural or social world, with the text typically writ-
or needs it—in addition to teaching and learning ten by someone presumed to be more knowledge-
particular skills or content. To be authentic, a text able on the subject for someone presumed to be
(written or read) must be like texts that are used less so. We defined the purpose of procedural text
by readers and writers outside of a learning-to- as being to tell how to do something, with the text
read-or-write context (i.e., to serve communicative typically written by someone who knows how to
purposes or functions). For example, a newspaper perform that action for someone who does not.
read in class must be either a newspaper brought Authentic uses had to include these purposes for
in from outside the classroom or a newspaper spe- reading and writing informational and procedural
cially written for the classroom that is close to texts in addition to the instructional purposes held
identical in form, language, and so on to one from by the teachers.
outside the classroom. We used a 3-point scale to rate the degree to
These authentic texts and purposes are con- which the purpose of an informational text being
trasted, within our frame, with those texts written written or read in the classroom mirrors the actual
primarily to teach reading and writing skills for the purpose of an informational text (e.g., to learn
purposes of learning to read and write or to devel- something that you want to know about a topic).
op literacy skills, strategies, values, and attitudes— We also rated the degree of authenticity of text on a
literacy activity we term “school only.” Prototypical 3-point scale. For literacy activities involving writ-
school-only texts include worksheets, spelling lists, ing we did not rate the authenticity of the text. In
short passages with comprehension questions, order for the activity to be rated (i.e., for it to be
flashcards, and lists of sentences to be punctuated. classified as informational or procedural) it had to
School-only purposes for reading these texts are to involve actual and therefore authentic information-
learn or improve reading and writing skills. School- al or procedural text. Our rating categories for pur-
only purposes for writing these texts would be to as- pose and text are described on the authenticity
sist in the teaching and learning of literacy skills. rating sheet (see Figure 1).

346 The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 4 December 2006/January 2007
 FIGURE 1
Authenticity rating sheet
Brief description of activity, including (a) text students are reading, writing, or listening to, and (b) purpose of stu-
dents’ reading, writing, or listening:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Authenticity of purpose
Rating: 3 2 1
3 = This reading, writing, or listening-to-text purpose exists in the lives of people outside a classroom, or it is as
authentic as the use of that genre for that purpose can be.
2 = This reading, writing, or listening-to-text purpose exists in the lives of people outside a classroom, but it dif-
fers in that for reading the impetus is less personal and for writing the audience is less compelling.
1 = This reading, writing, or listening-to-text purpose is identified by its absence of any purpose beyond school
work. This takes different forms depending on the genre and process (reading or writing).
Authenticity of text
Rating: 3 2 1
3 = This text type occurs naturally in the lives of people outside a classroom. You can find it in bookstores or or-
der it for home delivery. This category also includes texts that are written primarily for instructional purposes
but that closely mimic the naturally occurring texts—the only difference being the publisher’s audience.
2 = This text is written primarily for use in schools and, although it mimics to an extent the genre style, form, and
purpose of those texts that do occur naturally outside school, it includes enough school “stuff” to be recogniz-
able. This type would include texts that have comprehension questions, special vocabulary sections, and per-
haps even “Checking What You Have Learned” sections. These texts are hybrid forms reflecting school and
authentic genres in different combinations and emphases.
1 = This text would not occur anywhere except in a school or other teaching and learning contexts. It is written to
teach skills and is used only for learning and practicing skills. You may be able to purchase these texts in
stores but they reflect a skills-learning purpose.
Total authenticity rating: _________

Examples of literacy activities and how they based on our analysis of literacy activities rated 3
would be rated are provided in Table 1. As you can (highly authentic) for both purpose and text. The
see, highly authentic reading and writing of infor- teachers participated in summer workshops devot-
mational text involves seeking and acquiring infor- ed to building an understanding of authentic litera-
mation (for reading) and providing information (for cy, and each teacher was coached once a week for
writing). Authentic reading and writing of proce- the entire year she or he was part of the study.
dural text involves doing procedures (for reading) Over time, the teachers developed many differ-
and enabling the doing of procedures (for writing). ent strategies for establishing authentic literacy
events in science. We identified and categorized
them in order to share these strategies with other
teachers.
Classroom activities: Lessons from
teachers Authentic reading of informational text in
The remainder of this article focuses on how science
teachers in our study established conditions for au- To establish authentic contexts and purposes
thentic reading and writing of informational and for the reading and writing of informational text,
procedural texts in science. These portraits are the teachers looked for different ways to generate

Authentic literacy activities for developing comprehension and writing 347

 TABLE 1
Examples of activities with differing levels of authenticity of purpose
Activites and text type Rating 3 Rating 2 Rating 1
Reading activities, Following an activity using The teacher suggested that In the science unit “weath-
informational text owl pellets, students were the kindergartners would er,” the teacher chose five
asked to generate questions like to have information topics or concepts related
about owls and their habits. books on reptiles. She asked to weather and created five
These questions were listed for topics and divided the centers, each focusing on
on chart paper and grouped. class into small groups. Each one concept. At each cen-
Small groups of students group read to find informa- ter, the teacher placed in-
were assigned to read infor- tion to put in the books for formational texts on these
mational texts to find an- the kindergartners. topics, accompanied by
swers to the questions, reading guides that the stu-
which were then shared The class went outside to dents used to find out the
with the class as a whole. collect rocks from the play- designated information
ground. When they re- from the texts. Students ro-
The day following the erup- turned, the teacher tated through the centers.
tion of a volcano in Mexico, suggested writing an infor- The teacher demonstrated
a discussion arose about mation pamphlet about the how to find answers to
volcanoes and how they rocks at the school for par- questions that students
happen. Students disagreed ents who might not know had been assigned to an-
about where the lava comes about them. The students swer and she talked
from and how hot it is. The read informational text through her thinking as she
teacher put together a about rocks and prepared looked for the answer in an
group of information books the pamphlets to take information book, located
about volcanoes. She dis- home to their parents. the information, and read
tilled the questions and as- the answer to the class.
signed students to work in
pairs to read for the an- Students were assigned an
swers to the questions. information book about
where insects live. They
A student brought in a were to find all the high-
snake skin to class. Several lighted vocabulary, write
questions arose from the out the words, and write
group about why snakes the definition of each word
shed their skin and how or word phrase as provided
long it takes to grow new by the book.
skin. The teacher found an Students were given an in-
information book about formational text on torna-
snakes, located the an- does. The teacher led them
swers, and read those sec- through a lesson where
tions to the class. each heading was read
aloud and the students
were then asked to predict
what the section following
the heading would be
about. They read to confirm
their hypotheses.
While the students watched
and listened, the teacher did
a lesson on indexes. She put
five words on the chalkboard
and demonstrated how to
look in the index of an
information book, find a
word, and locate the page
number where the word
appears.
(continued)

348 The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 4 December 2006/January 2007
 TABLE 1
Examples of activities with differing levels of authenticity of purpose (continued)
Activites and text type Rating 3 Rating 2 Rating 1
Writing activities, In pairs, students re- The teacher led the class in The teacher told the class
informational text searched a topic that they composing an information to imagine that an alien
believed would be of inter- pamphlet about what was lands in the playground and
est to children in Mrs. X’s discovered in the dirt in the sees a pine tree there. This
class. Mrs. X’s class gener- playground. She elicited alien asks one of the stu-
ated questions and sent “text” from the students dents what the tree is. The
them to the students to and wrote it on chart pa- assignment was to write an
guide them. The students’ per. The pamphlet was to information book about
ultimate purpose was to be sent home to parents, trees for the alien.
write and publish informa- for display and also to pro-
tion books on each topic vide information about the The teacher told the class
and present them to Mrs. X school playground. that each student was to
for her class library. pretend to have a pen pal in
Students contributed as a another country. The stu-
The kindergarten class group to an information dents wrote an information
requested picture books pamphlet that was posted book about the plants that
about animal babies. In as a class project in the grow in their backyards to
groups of three, students hallway on Back-to-School inform pen pals who have
created the books. They Night. The topic was never been to the United
either drew or used cut-out assigned as part of the States.
pictures, and they wrote district-mandated curricu-
accompanying labels, lum on force and motion.
captions, or sentences. The teacher did the actual Students answered ques-
They laminated each page writing. tions referring to sample
and bound the books, which procedures such as these:
were presented to the The teacher suggested How many materials are re-
kindergarten class and writing information books quired? What are you sup-
read aloud by the students for the kindergartners. She posed to do after you have
who created them. elicited questions from the poured the water into the
class on what they thought glass?
Students contributed text kindergartners would like
to an informational to know. She assigned
brochure to be printed and groups to read to find the
left for visitors to a local answers to the questions
nature center. This project and then to write an infor-
was prompted by the guide mational text for the
at the center after the stu- kindergarten library.
dents had visited there. He
wrote a letter to the class
requesting the brochure.

Reading activities, Students were given a pro- Students were tested on

procedural text cedural text about a con- their ability to follow a
cept related to force and procedure. Teachers read
motion. They were asked to to students or students
read and follow the proce- read a prepared procedure.
dures individually. The class Students were evaluated
then reconvened to discuss on their ability to follow
the concept, or “point,” of the directions.
the demonstration.

(continued)

Authentic literacy activities for developing comprehension and writing 349

 TABLE 1
Examples of activities with differing levels of authenticity of purpose (continued)
Activites and text type Rating 3 Rating 2 Rating 1
As part of a unit on insects, In a lesson on force and mo- Students read through pro-
students decided to build tion, the culminating activi- cedures for demonstrating
and stock their own ant ty was a demonstration that fire will not burn in the
farm. They found instruc- procedure. Each student absence of oxygen. They
tions on the Internet and pair was given the proce- were told not to try this
divided into groups to build dural handout and told to themselves.
a farm and to stock it. follow it. The point was to
get the procedure to come
The teacher read from a out right and to enjoy a
procedural text and hands-on activity at the end
demonstrated procedures of a lesson. As students fin-
while the whole class lis- ished, there was a lot of
tened and watched. The fo- laughter, pats on the back,
cus afterward was on the cleaning up, and a sense of
science concept demon- ending the day or week. But
strated or tested. there was no more “sci-
ence” talk around the con-
cept of force and motion.

Writing activities, Students were assigned Following a lesson on Students were told to pre-
procedural text different tasks related to planting seeds, the teacher tend that an alien arrived
growing corn inside their assigned students to write at their school and wanted
classroom. As spring break a procedure for doing so. to know how to take care of
approached, they com- They were to use all that baby chickens. The teacher
posed—in their task-related they had learned about assigned students to work
groups—a list of instruc- planting seeds. They took in groups of three and pre-
tions for the aide who had turns following one anoth- pare a “how-to” pamphlet
volunteered to take care of er’s procedures to see how for the alien. The teacher
the plants while the stu- well they were written. led these groups in com-
dents were away. Many had to do rewrites. posing this procedural text.
She wrote it on chart paper
Students created a proce- After a unit on underwater or on the chalkboard.
dures book that will be plants, students were as-
passed on to the class next signed to create a procedur- Students watched and an-
year. They worked in pairs al pamphlet telling readers swered questions while the
to create procedures for how to prepare and care for teacher wrote parts of a pro-
demonstrations for key sci- an underwater plant aquari- cedure on the chalkboard in
ence concepts. Each pair um. They worked with the a lesson on “writing proce-
picked a different one from teacher to compose it, and dures.” Teacher questions
a list generated by the the teacher saved the fin- were of this type: Now, what
teacher. As part of this, they ished products for next do I call the section that lists
had to “field test” their year’s students. the things you need?
demonstration by doing it Materials, that’s right. I’ll
according to their written write that right here.
procedures. The teacher ful-
ly expected the students to
use the procedures to help
learn the concepts.
The teacher led the class in
composing a procedural text.
She elicited text from the
students and wrote it on the
board. The students then
copied the text to be included
in their individual procedures
book that they will eventually
take home and use.

350 The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 4 December 2006/January 2007
the need to seek information that the student read- topic, read aloud from a text about it, and then
ers required or wanted to know. Teachers often asked students if they had any questions on that
generated student questions prior to the reading of topic. These questions guided future reading.
informational text. These types of set-ups fell into
several categories. Discrepant events. Finally, teachers set up situa-
tions involving discrepant events to generate ques-
Hands-on demonstrations. Teachers conducted tions about science content. A discrepant event
demonstrations to generate questions as well as gen- reflects a reality that conflicts with what students
eral interest in a science topic the class was about to might expect to see. For a study unit on light, one
study. For example, one teacher created a model vol- teacher set up a prism on the overhead while her
cano and, by pouring a solution of baking soda and class was out of the room. This caused rainbows
vinegar into the top, caused a reaction that looked to appear on the ceiling. When the students re-
like a lava eruption. Another teacher brought in turned there were many “oohs” and “ahs” and a
caterpillars for the students to observe and handle. rush of questions about how the rainbow effects oc-
Questions that arose naturally or in response to the curred. Capturing these questions, the teacher led
teacher’s elicitation were used to inspire and guide the class in finding informational text on light to
informational reading. Teachers recorded questions help them understand the phenomenon.
on a clipboard as they circulated, and wrote them
on chart paper during a group discussion. This inte-
gration of hands-on, or first-hand, investigations
Authentic reading and writing of
with text-based, or second-hand, investigations is procedural texts in science
supported by a number of research studies (e.g., Given our operational definition of authentic
Anderson & Guthrie, 1999; Palincsar & Magnusson, reading and writing of procedural texts—reading in
2001; Romance & Vitale, 2001). order to do a procedure and writing to instruct
someone how to do one—the set-ups for these au-
Teachable moments. Teachers responded to un- thentic literacy activities were fairly straightfor-
expected events in ways that connected with their ward. Highly authentic reading of procedural text
science instruction. For example, a second grader occurred when teachers let students in their science
appeared in class one day with her arm in a cast. units read and conduct procedures that were an in-
Her teacher, realizing that she could use this un- tegral part of the content being learned (e.g., in-
fortunate accident for her unit on the skeletal sys- vestigations intended to demonstrate science
tem, centered the class discussion on the student’s concepts). For the most part, students wrote proce-
broken arm. Questions like “How did you break dural text for the authentic purpose of providing the
it?” “Does it hurt?” “Which bone is broken?” were requisite instruction to someone who would be
asked. Students read many informational texts on reading the text when conducting the procedures.
bones that day. Another teacher proceeded in a sim- These could be procedures for conducting investi-
ilar manner when a student brought in an unusual gations, caring for plants and animals in or outside
and interesting rock, in response to a unit on rocks. the classroom, and so on.
Topic announcements. K–W–Ls (Ogle, 1986)
were often used by teachers for eliciting questions Authentic writing and reading
about topics. These activities followed the K–W–L All of the teachers gave evidence of conceiving
template for the most part (K = what we know; W = authenticity as a literacy construct—that is, as in-
what do we want to know; L = what we have cluding writing, reading, and other language
learned). The teachers first elicited what the stu- processes much of the time. This meant that teach-
dents knew—for example, about sound. Then they ers often used the communicative purposes of writ-
elicited questions the students had about the top- ing informational and procedural text as a rationale
ic—what they wanted to know—structuring their for reading. Although we can look at these data on
reading of informational text about sound. In a sim- integrated reading and writing activities in several
ilar approach, teachers announced a new science ways, we use three lenses: literacy in response to

Authentic literacy activities for developing comprehension and writing 351

community need, literacy as part of problem solv- This last activity was the brainstorm of one of
ing, and audience as integral to authentic writing. the second-grade teachers in our project. Her stu-
dents were studying simple machines, and it oc-
Literacy in response to community need. Our curred to her that an authentic purpose for learning
opening vignette is an example of this sort of set-up. about simple machines was to actually have to
Over the course of two years, several teachers move an object from one place to another. She
arranged ways to involve their students in authentic arranged with the custodian to deposit a large,
reading and writing in response to community needs. heavy file cabinet in the middle of her classroom
The teacher in our opening vignette, Ms. Jones, after school hours. When the students arrived the
arranged this activity by asking the director of in- next morning, they and she were nonplussed: How
formation at the nature center to write the letter to did that object get there? And how to get it out?
her class requesting the brochure. She posted an She called the principal from the classroom as
enlarged copy of the letter in the room for students the class looked on and listened. The principal sent
to consult as they worked in groups to answer ques- the custodian to the room and he explained that the
tions of “What kinds of things would other visitors delivery was a mistake but that he did not have time
want to know about?” The students were writing a to move the cabinet. The teacher then convinced
text type that exists in the world outside of school (a the class to take on the removal of the cabinet as a
brochure) to a real and appropriate audience for the project for which they could use what they were
purpose of providing information to their readers’ learning about simple machines (levers, pulleys,
questions—all prerequisites of authentic informa- etc.). Students worked in groups to read about ways
tional writing. And it is worth noting that, although that simple machines could help. They then wrote
the teacher initiated the request for the brochure, the up their ideas and tried them out. As a culminating
final text was published and made available to visi- event, they wrote procedural texts for those who
found themselves in a similar predicament and
tors to the pond at the nature center.
placed these texts in their classroom library under
In another school, a teacher arranged for the
the topic of science.
principal to visit the class and ask students to take
responsibility for the school garden that year. This Audience as integral to authentic writing.
task would serve as the culminating activity for the Audience is generally agreed to be a critical aspect
class’s study unit on plants and would involve of writing process and product. The construct of au-
reading about different flowers and vegetables and dience played a major role in our conceptualization
how to grow them (including soil, water, and light of authentic writing as we thought about authentic-
requirements). The students wrote informational ity in the light of real-life writing practices. Outside
text for the seed packets typically posted in gar- an instructional context, literate people almost al-
dens at the ends of rows and wrote procedural texts ways write only if there is a reader for their writ-
for other school and community members who ing, even if (in the case of journal or personal memo
would be responsible for caring for the growing writing) the reader is the writer. One challenge for
plants over the summer. the teachers in our study (and, we suspect, for teach-
ers in general) was the establishment of real audi-
Literacy as part of problem solving. A number ences—or real readers—for the students’ writing.
of the teachers presented their students with real-life By real here, we mean a reader who will read the
problems that required science knowledge to solve. written text for its communicative purpose and not
The teachers wove authentic purposes for reading solely for evaluation, as so often happens to writ-
and writing into these problem-solving activities. At ing done in instructional contexts. The teachers rose
various times, students were faced with such prob- to this challenge in admirable and inventive ways.
lems as dying tadpoles and wilting plants, setting up Teachers established real audiences and read-
class aquariums, helping their teacher’s father move ers at different distances from their student writ-
from one home to another, and arranging for the re- ers. Many texts were written to be read by readers
moval of a large file cabinet that appeared inexpli- outside the school setting, such as the brochure
cably in the middle of their classroom one morning. written for visitors at the nature center. Others were

352 The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 4 December 2006/January 2007
directed toward readers within the school but out- Informational texts other than books were also
side the students’ classrooms. And many were written for authentic audiences within school com-
composed for classmates, resulting in texts that re- munities, always in response to a demonstrated
flected shared background knowledge. need or request for such texts. Answers providing
information about science topics were written as a
Purposes for writing to a more distant reader. result of a question jar placed in school libraries.
Many teachers in the study proved to be inventive Students were encouraged to write questions to put
in establishing purposes for writing informational in the jar. Bookmarks with information on di-
and procedural scientific texts for real readers out- nosaurs were written for students and made avail-
side their schools and, in some cases, outside their able in a central place. Posters like those found in
communities and countries. They called on person- natural history museums were placed in school
al and professional friends to act as readers and au- hallways. Factoids on weather were written to be
diences. They took advantage of e-mail, the read over the public address system for the daily
Internet, and other technological venues. And they weather report. Video scripts about water were
worked with local community members to estab- written and then produced for the morning an-
lish authentic contexts for authentic writing, as our nouncement event in a school that featured televi-
example of the pond brochure illustrates. sion monitors in each classroom.
One Michigan teacher arranged for a friend Authentic writing for within-school audiences
who teaches third grade in Costa Rica to request also took place with procedural text. For example,
via e-mail some information books on Michigan’s teachers arranged with colleagues to request proce-
climate for her students. While reading and writ- dures for experiments that their classes could con-
ing in response to this request, the Michigan stu- duct. Or one class would serve as an audience for
dents also learned about the climate of Costa Rica another in reading student-written text on how to
grow lima beans.
so they could better explain their weather through
compare-and-contrast techniques. Other distant,
Classroom community as audience. Finally, teach-
authentic, teacher-arranged audiences included stu-
ers would often turn to their own classrooms to pro-
dents who requested information on living things, vide purposes and audiences for the informational
light, and sound; visitors to the local library whose and procedural reading and writing. All of these ac-
librarian requested information books on coral tivities, rated 3, could and do occur naturally in the
reefs; museum-goers whose director requested in- world outside the learning-to-read-and-write con-
formation sheets about light; and readers of the text. For example, sometimes students would read
ZOOM website (http://pbskids.org/zoom/), which about mammals with the purpose of sharing orally
solicited science-related procedures from children. with class members interesting facts they discov-
ered. Or students would write informational books
Arranging within-school audiences. As teachers on a variety of science topics for their class library,
searched for authentic audiences for their student to be read by class members during the year.
writers, they also found them within their school Because procedural texts specific to the class-
communities. These readers provided the distance rooms’ science topics and curricula and appropriate
that is pragmatically required for much writing but for students of this age were hard to find, the ration-
were more immediately accessible than those out- ale for writing procedures to demonstrate concepts
side school. Students wrote information books on a under study was very natural and obvious. In these
variety of science topics for their school libraries, cases, students would often write different proce-
for “next year’s class,” “for the kindergartners” dures in groups and then share them with classmates
(who were often willing listeners), and for numer- in other groups who would then conduct the proce-
ous other classes in their schools. For each of these dures. One interesting example of this was the class
writing events, which always required background that wrote procedures for creating different musical
reading, the teachers made sure that the students instruments (as part of a study of sound) and then ex-
knew there was a real audience and that the texts changed them with other students who tried to build
would be read by that audience. the instruments and play them.

Authentic literacy activities for developing comprehension and writing 353

 A final example of writing for classmates is the lives of the students or in the life of the community,
production of informational posters on different to engender authentic reading for information is a
science topics that were posted around the room for natural activity for a social studies class. Authentic
study and perusal. The actual reading of these writing of historical text for real readers can also be
posters took different forms—from special events incorporated into studies of history.
akin to science fairs to more casual reading when Furthermore, we encourage teachers to think
opportunities arose, much like environmental print beyond the specific genres we used for our study.
for the room. They were all written, however, to The two dimensions of authentic literacy activities
provide information for a reader who wanted or discussed—text type and purpose—can be applied
needed it, not simply as displays of products. to many different genres that occur in the daily lives
of literate people. Some examples of such genres,
along with various real-life purposes for reading
Learning to read and write while and writing them, are included below in Table 2.
Many teachers attested to the power of authen-
reading and writing tic literacy activities. They reported that students
We offer these ideas and strategies, gleaned came alive when they realized they were writing
from teachers, for bringing authentic reading and to real people for real reasons or reading real-life
writing into the classroom in the spirit of collabo- texts for their own purposes. Beyond this, the re-
ration. As teachers struggle to make learning and sults of our research provide teachers with evi-
learning to read and write meaningful and authen- dence that more authentic literacy activities are
tic, we believe it helps to share ideas and experi- related to greater growth in the ability to read and
ences. We also believe that although the strategies write new genres (Purcell-Gates & Duke, 2004).
in this report came from second- and third-grade With this additional motivation to involve students
science teachers, they are generally applicable to in authentic literacy activities, we believe that the
different content and in higher grades. For exam- strategies and scenarios offered here will be par-
ple, taking advantage of current events, either in the ticularly helpful as teachers attempt to create

TABLE 2
Sample genres and purposes for reading and writing them
Genre Purpose for reading Purpose for writing
Informational text To obtain information about the To provide information about the
natural or social world natural or social world to someone
who wants or needs it
Procedural text To make something or do To guide the making or doing of
something according to something for someone who wants or
procedures needs it
Fictional narrative text To relax; for entertainment, To provide relaxation; to entertain,
broadly defined; to discuss broadly defined; to foster discussion
Personal letter To maintain a relationship; to To maintain a relationship; to inform
learn about personal events; to about personal events; to express
share emotions emotions
List To be informed about a related To record a related group of items
group of items
Biography To learn about a person’s life To convey information about a
person’s life
Book review To learn about a book and To convey information about a book and
someone’s opinion of and one’s opinion of and responses to it
responses to it

354 The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 4 December 2006/January 2007
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