Patterns of reading‐to‐write

Abstract The purpose of this article is to determine what patterns of researching proficient middle school students conducting a school research task use and whether the organizational pattern of the final written text follows the researching pattern. Six middle school students were interviewed and observed while they were conducting a reading‐to‐write activity. Students were interviewed before and after seven researching sessions. While they were researching, investigators took field notes and videotaped their actions to record their searching, reading, and writing strategies. From the data, individual researching profiles were established. Of the six students in the study, one used a sequential approach, four used a spiral approach, and one used a recursive approach to researching. The students who used a sequential or spiral pattern wrote summary papers, and the student who used a recursive researching pattern wrote an integrated paper. This study concludes that at least three separate researching patterns are used by students and that these patterns should be taught in classrooms where students read multiple sources to write texts. In this study, the organization patterns of the final written texts were related to the students’ researching patterns.