Abstract

The study examined the impact of the conjunction of structured journal writing and reading for pleasure on students’ reading and writing skills. Forty male students from UAE University participated in the study. The participants are of different academic abilities, majors and nationalities. Many of them have little experience with reading for pleasure and reflective writing. They were advised to select interested academic articles they would like to read and then reflect on the articles in their journals by filling different types of maps and summarizing the main points in the articles. The data includes the students’ interviews. The study explored whether the approach positively affects students’ academic reading and writing and helps students overcome their reading and writing anxiety. The study results are relating topics to students’ major deepen the students’ knowledge in their specialization. Selecting topics of students’ interests encourages them to continue working on reading the articles even though they face some challenges. Content and organization in reading and writing were improved in students’ dialogue journals project and story mapping strategy. The students’ awareness of building a large vocabulary is significant. However, students ‘fear of making semantic errors in their writing delays their work. Knowledge and experience gain, creativity and personality improvement are indicators of students’ enjoyment of reading and writing topics of their choices and interest even though they struggled initially.

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