Abstract
This study aimed to examine the impact of a reading-writing connection project on the first-year EFL college students who studied English as a required subject in the first semester of 2005. A literacy environment that was supportive of reading-writing connections involved explicit instruction of text structures and story elements, reflective reading journals (or reading logs) on each reading text, and creative writing based upon the story book of the learners’ own interest. Data were collected from the students' reading log entries, creative writing, and the follow-up interviews. Results indicated that the learners' literacy developed not only in linguistic progress but also in critical thinking as well as in personal growth. Reading helped the EFL learners’ development of their writing with the stimulus, structures, vocabulary, and prior experience (schema). The reading-writing connection also had a positive impact on the EFL college students’ reading metacognitive awareness (i.e., looking back what they read), as well as their reflection of personal values and experience transaction. Evidence arising out of these findings suggests that reading and writing should be integrated in teaching for the reason that they are not separated skills, but mutually reinforced in EFL classroom. 

Keywords: reading-writing connections, literacy development, reading metacognitive awareness  

Introduction

The relationship between reading and writing has long been recognized. Most educators suggested that reading and writing share similar process and kinds of knowledge (Stosky, 1983; Quinn, 1995; Lindsey, 1996; Risemberg, 1996; Ruiz-Funes, 1999; Abadiano & Turner, 2002). Other researchers have proposed that reading and writing skills are interconnected (Dahl & Smith, 1984; Noyce & Christe, 1989; Ferris & Hedgecock, 1998; Nelson & Calfee, 1998; Lee, 2000). They all supported the belief that reading and writing are active and constructive process for meaning. Most of their findings have demonstrated that better writers tend to read more than poor writers, and better readers tend to produce more syntactically mature writing. Those empirical evidences have pointed out the importance of integrated approach on reading and writing. They also implied that experience with one skill consequently fosters development in another. 
   In EFL learning context, it seems that reading and writing in EFL context has often taught for many years as a separated skill that puts its emphasis on grammar and mechanics without developing learners' ability to express their ideas. A significant number of college students get accustomed to the pencil-and–paper tests and over-rely on grammar-translation approach to “understanding” the reading texts. The problem is that while learners master the grammar rules, they still find it difficult to read or write a whole text. Such multiple factors as inadequate learning habits and educational preparation might consequently result in poor literacy development. It is thus imperative for educators to provide effective instruction and academic support that allows for appropriate literacy development.
   This study addressed the following questions: First, how does reading-writing connection project help EFL college learners’ literacy development? Second, how does reading-writing connection project impact on the EFL college learners’ personal growth?    

Review of Literature

Reading-Writing-Connection
Reading and writing connections have been proposed under the constructive orientation. That is, both reading and writing require learners to actively involve in constructing meaning (Spivey, 1989, 1990; Risemberg, 1996; Nelson & Calfee, 1998; Lee, 2000). For both readers and writers, they have to actively involve themselves in interpreting and constructing meaning from the texts. That is, a reader has to bring meaning to the text and make inferences on the basis of the prior knowledge and background experience. Similarly, a writer constructs meaning by using his/her own background experience to generate ideas. Nelson and Calfee (1998) suggest that while constructing meaning for the whole text, the writer has to specify "the functional aspects of language to readers for organizing, selecting and connecting content" (p.26). A writer also uses a text structure to plan out what they want to express (Gleason, 1995). In this view, it seems that writing is more obviously than reading a constructive process. However, the process is recursive. A writer has to be immersed in the texts that can serve as a model for writing.
    Schema theory also underscores the close connections between reading and writing.  In order to construct meaning and obtain the most comprehension, a reader needs to activate the existing schema to interact with the text information. Noryce and Christie (1989), in particular, indicate that a writer utilizes the same schemata that are used for reading comprehension. In order to write a topic, a writer needs to have an access to the prior knowledge (schemata) of that topic. Thus, these schemata serve as resources for the content of writing. This view of schema shared by both reading and writing lead us to infer that reading can play a role in the writing process by providing schemata (ideas) to write about. Conversely, writing a prediction during the pre-reading activity activates the learner's schemata about the topic and thus facilitates reading comprehension.
     Research has also indicated that reading and writing share the parallel composing process. Tierney and Pearson (1983) developed "a composing model" of reading that explains how reading and writing share similar process of meaning construction. According to Tierney and Pearson, reading and writing share the similar characteristics as follows: planning (goal-setting to approach a text), aligning (decision making for how), drafting (meaning refining), monitoring (evaluating), and revising (reflecting). Those aspects are continuous and recursive during the reading and writing processes.
     To sum up, this theoretical evidence lends support for the close relationship between reading and writing.  Those theoretical models lead us to assume that reading and writing are "integrally connected" (Reid, 1993, p.64) and reading and writing ability tend to develop concurrently rather than sequentially (Nelson & Calfee, 1989).

Reading-To-write
The value of reading as a prewriting resource has been demonstrated in many studies (Smith & Dahl, 1984; Noyce & Christie & 1989; Raimes, 1983; Falk-Ross, 2002).  Those research propose calls our attention to the fact that reading serves as a stimulus, causing readers to arouse the feeling and generate the ideas in response to the reading texts. Readers provide personal response and feelings that can be transacted into expressive writing. In this way, reading is used to stimulate writing as a source of motivation.  Other researchers have indicated that a large amount of reading can have positive effect on learners' overall writing ability. Krashen (1984) compared six co-relational studies that found that good writers tend to do more reading outside of class than poor writers. 
     Reading can do more than serve as a stimulus for writing. Joyce and Christie (1989) emphasize that it also plays an important role in acquiring students with the rules and characteristics of skilled writing. Reading can "expose students to models of different types of writing" (Joyce & Christie, 1989, p.105), e.g. literature, expository or other modes of texts. Eckhoff (1984) analyzed the writing of 2-graders who had been trained to read two different basal readers series: one read books with simple structures and the other with more complex style. She found that the learners' writing transferred certain characteristics of passages they had been reading. In her study, learners who read stories with more complex sentence patterns used more complex syntax in their writing, while the other learners wrote with simpler structure after reading the stories with simpler patterns. Butler and Turbill (1984) also showed that the 8-year-old boy's nonfiction writing resembled the narrative stories to which he had wider exposure. 
     There is more evidence indicating learners transfer words, content and structure from their reading to use in writing. Corden (2000) argues that "interactive discourse" impacts on learners' reading-writing connection. He illustrates how children are able to discuss and evaluate texts and to transfer the knowledge and insights gained to their own writing. Through "interactive discourse", learners' attention was called to particular story elements of setting, characters, plot, and style. As a result, children develop their awareness of how texts are constructed and eventually transfer their knowledge and understanding to their writing. 
     Smith's "Reading Like a Writer Theory" helps to explain that reading has its positive effects on writing. Smith (1983) has proposed that one will unconsciously learn the rules and conventions of writing while reading given certain conditions, such as absence of anxiety, a clear understanding of the text being read, and the perception of self as a writer. In other words, when given those factors, the reader subconsciously becomes sensitive to the style and mechanics of the text, and read like a writer. 

Methodology
Participants
The participants were students at a technical university in the central part of Taiwan. All of them were enrolled in a class entitled General English. Those students have been defined as less skilled and less efficient learners (Lin, 1995) compared to others in Taiwan. All of them never had any writing course at the time being studied. All that they had experienced in writing is short answers with only one to three sentences in length.
       During the interview at the prewriting stage, I found that all the students had little confidence in writing. They were unsure of their ability to write more than three sentences or one paragraph. Such psychological suffering seems unavoidable for the students when they were required to write in a new language. Additionally, the students' language competence was just at either low intermediate or high intermediate level. They had limited vocabulary and sentence structures that were believed to serve as foundation for writing. When asked if assigned free writing on given topics were acceptable tasks, all of them admitted that it would require painful efforts to write with limited language competence and to express themselves clearly with the 'blank' mind. They said, "I can't think of anything to write."
   All the participants were divided into several groups of six. There were nine groups in total in the class. They read, discuss, and then write together for this semester-long program.

Text Selection
Narrative text was determined as the material to help connect the learners’ reading and writing literacy. Generally speaking, narrative text (i.e. fiction) is easier to comprehend and remember than expository text (i.e. factual and informational material) (Williams, 2000). In this study, all the students chose the literary texts from Heinemann ELT Guided Readers Series and compiled a preference reading list.  To meet the diversity of the students’ proficiency levels, the instructor selected three books among the list, according to the difficulty level, as the required reading assignments for one semester. The first book, Nick McIver's love story, "Dear Jan…," was a beginner’s work with approximate 30 pages, 600-basic word vocabulary level.  The second book, "A Christmas Carol," written by Charles Dickens, has 58 pages with 1200 vocabulary level. The last one was "Wuthering Heights," written by Emily Bronte, with approximately 90 pages, 2000 words of vocabulary range.

Implementation of Reading-Writing Connection Activity
This study attempted to connect reading and writing together by guiding the students to read the simplified graded storybooks and then write the response journals as well as creative writing based on the book they read. 

Story Frames. The activity was designed to help readers organize their ideas about what they have read by completing a story frame.  The categories included 1) plot and suspense, 2) characters and relationships, 3) major themes, 4) methods writer uses to communicate his/her attitudes, 5) reader's response (Murdoch, 1992). They made students being aware of the relationship between the reader and writers. The students' attention was also guided to analyze the roles of the different characters and the relationship to one another, and to identify the main themes of the story, and so on.  Each student read his or her story book and kept the draft notes in any format they liked. Those notes helped them recall when they started to write.

Reading Log/ Response Journals. The students completed weekly reading assignments which included chapters from the course texts. To support the students' engagement with reading and help them make connections with the story, a reader-response prompt was given to each student for the discussion on the fourth week. They were required to respond to those questions on the prompts and write a short essay to each question for discussion on the following week. This was considered important to help students construct meaning from the text. Those questions, guiding the students' thinking after they read, were listed as follows:

1. Which character do you like or dislike most? Why or why not?
2. Do you share any feelings of characters in the story? Explain.
3. What does this story (characters, incidents, or ideas) remind you of in your own life?

Response journals allowed students to record how they felt about a character, how they identified with a particular character, how they felt about the text, how the text related to their lives and how they predicted or reacted to the story ending. 
   Response journals were collected and reviewed each week by the instructors. At the end of the course, the reading log entries were collected and photocopied for analysis.  The instructors provided feedback by writing comments and questions in the margins.

Teacher-Students Conference. During the 18-week periods, every group of students was assigned 2 sections of teacher-students conferences with the teacher, with one hour for each. For the first section, the conference focused on solving the grammar, vocabulary and comprehension problems, together with the guided categories of text analysis. During the teacher-students conference, the teacher made sure if the students could readily follow and sequence the events, if they grasp the basic plot structure, and if they were alerted to the way the writer created suspense. The second section involved questions about the writing process, listening to what the students said about why and how they wrote, and guidance to the following writing activity.

Making Creative Writing. The students had to read the three literary books and then were required to choose one of them to write a piece of creative writing in English according to their own interest and language levels. The creative writing was required as the final report which substituted the traditional test with multiple-choice test. They were free to write as they wished, e.g. a continuation of the story, a changed ending, or a rewrite of the story, etc. In the coaching process, the students were encouraged to interact with the reading text highly actively. Most of reading was cooperatively done outside of the classroom in the students' free time to ensure a tension-free environment.
   The students started to write from the twelfth week. They planned their stories based on the framework they liked. Before the end of the study, they were allowed to meet the teacher any time for their writing problems, in addition to one-to-one conference for revision and informal interviews.
    At the sixteenth week, the students showed their draft writing which they put their ideas and feeling on. They already created their own story sequences.  What we did, at this stage, was to just focus on the organization of the writing itself. It was a process of moving back and forth from paragraph to paragraph, removing the irrelevant details and adding more highlighting incidents. At the final week, we worked on the grammar, vocabulary and mechanics. The instructor helped them with rhetorical techniques, making their expression more elaborate and effective.  This also helped make students aware of the necessary rhetorical techniques for writing.
           
Data Analysis
This study examined the students' literacy development by looking into their written entries, including reading log entries and their creative writing, to find the effects of reading on writing. The results of the informal interviews on two students in each group also served as data sources. 
Three reading log entries from each group were collected for analysis. Entries ranged in length from one to two pages. The constant comparative method of analysis was used for analysis of the reading log entries (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to provide a determination of major patterns in changes in the students’ reading comprehension. The key words were sorted by the researcher according to categories which emerged from the initial reading of the full entries and were refined during the sorting process.  
   The data analysis of the creative writing first focused on the quantity (how many pages) the students wrote, which was evidenced as their initially observable ability to write.  Then, the analysis further examined whether they transformed and were transformed by the text. That is, this study examined how students transferred words, contents, and structures from their reading to writing.
           
Results
Results from Reading Log / Reflective Journal   
As evidenced by the entries, the students engaged in critical thinking and interpretive response1 more frequently. They collaboratively used high level forms of information analysis, such as relating the text to previous experience. The following excerpts collected from each group show the overall trend on the part of the students’ active engagement with the text. The reading text acts as vicarious experience for personal growth and evaluation of value.
   In responding to the second prompt question "Do you share any of the feelings of the characters in this story? "most of the students activated their previous experience by using visualization to make sense of the text as they reacted to the author’s description of the character’s change into a different person. Some excerpts from different groups are as follows:

"I can feel how happy Scrooge is when he was surrounded by a group of orphans. He never cared the poor people before. Scrooge changed from a mean, unkind and unhappy man into a man who showed love to people around him. I think he must feel happiness he never experienced before." (from Group 1, A Christmas Carol)
       
              “I can imagine how sad Bob was when his boss, Scooge, refused to pay him more.  What a difficult situation to support a family without money.” (from Group 5, A Christmas Carol) 

   Some students engaged in the metacognitive process, activating their own previous experience.  

"Scrooge was too stingy before. He should be nice to Bob, because he is a boss. Bob has five kids and is a poor man. I think Scrooge can finally understand that money can not bring him happy. For me, I found I was a stingy person too. I found I am too mean to my younger brother. Maybe I need to be nice to my brother. I think help others make us happy." (from Group 3, A Christmas Carol)

"I think people should choose their true love. It is stupid to get married just because the man is rich. We know the cases from many movie stars or TV actresses who marry with a rich family. They usually have a unhappy marriage. They divorced finally." (from Group 2, Dear Jan…)

"Well, Ruth is a brave girl who chose her true love. But, I am not sure whether or not I can do so if I meet the same problems. I'm afraid I will hurt my parents.”  (from Group 5, Dear Jan…)

 The response emerged from the students with better proficiency level was particularly in-depth. The responses implicitly reflected the students’ life experience and personal growth.

"I feel sympathy for Heathcliff, the center character in this story. From childhood on, he was planning revenge. How terrible!  But in some way, I can understand why he did the revenge because his heart is filled with hatred.  I remember when my father died, my aunt didn't want to lend money to my family. At that time, I hated my aunt and even people around me. I still can recall the hatred in my mind." (from Group7, Wuthering Heights)

"In fact, I chose this book, Wuthering Heights, because the characters and their individual personality strongly touch my heart. They become what they are like because they came from different living backgrounds.
Think of Cathy Linton and Hareton Earnshaws… Their childhood is different. The childhood and their family backgrounds affect their personality." (from Group 8, Wuthering Heights)

   In the study, the students encountered the values the characters live by.  The responses to A Christmas Carol Annie and Dear Jan judged the characters' behaviors and furthermore compared those behaviors with theirs in the real life. Through sharing and evaluating different images of life, each student reader felt sympathy and antipathy for persons quite different from his or hers and built his or her own sense of values. For example, one student in group 3 was able to experience vicariously the emotion of Scrooge and compared these experiences with hers, recalling she shouldn’t have been mean to her brother. Some students reflected back their own feelings when compared with Ruth in the story. One student in group 7 expressed his feeling "How terrible!" to show his reaction to the character's method of revenge. Through reading the literary work, he was offered a chance to evaluate moral values. Based on his own experience in childhood, he was able to understand what the main character Heathcliff faces by sharing Heathcliff’s problems and showing his concerns. He helped formulate reasons for their personal dilemmas of one character: the upbringing of each affects their characters.
   In this case, keeping reading log, as vicarious experience, helped reveal the significance of the learners’ emotion and actions, and self-understanding. Through the reflective journals / reading log, the students integrated a lot of new information concerning other people’s experiences. They learned to react to the reading text in a more critical and personalized manner.  

Results from the Creative Written Production Entries
In this program, three out of nine groups chose “Dear Jan…” to develop their story; four groups of them preferred “A Christmas Carol;” only two groups chose the more challenging and intricate story “Wuthering Heights.” The findings showed in the participants’ written production entries are categorized as follows. Positive changes occurred in their understanding and use of proper English from the amount of reading and being able to transfer what they read to their writing.

Evidence of Transfer of Rules and Structures
Each group of participants finished reading the chosen story and then wrote a creative story based on one of the books their read. As shown in Table 1, the participants transferred certain characteristics of the passages they had been reading.

Table 1. Evidence of Transfer of Rules and Structures from the Reading Text

The students demonstrated in their writing a transfer of story structure from the reading text in the use of title, person, and dialogue, as shown in Table 1.  For example, the students in group 1 started with one chapter followed by another chapter with a title, respectively. Their first chapter was titled as, “A Brand New Life,” followed by “The Little Angels,” “The Very Miserable Thing,” “A Surprised Visitor,” and ended with “A Plan.”  It might be possible that they created their own story following the structure in the story they chose. Moreover, as the narrator did in A Christmas Carol, the students adopted the third person to begin their creative story and introduced the main character Scrooge.  In each chapter, they began with a short introduction followed by dialogues between characters. It indicated a transfer of the story structure from the text they chose.
   In contrast, the students in group 8 introduced each chapter without a title, although Wuthering Heights begins its chapters with titles. A possible explanation might be that their story was structured with a sequence of time rather than with a topic or event. However, it seems that they followed the structure in Wuthering Heights by introducing the setting and background as Bronte did. Additionally, like Wuthering Height, they began their creative story directly with a first person narrative, the servant who took care of one boy and one girl. The use of dialogues also demonstrated a transfer of story structure from the text thy chose. Another example from showing the transfer of story structure was found in the creative story entitled as “A Different Ending.” The students didn’t structure their story with several sections due to the reason that they focused on the ending instead of some other plots. They adopted the third person to tell their story as the original story “Dear Jan…” did.
   The dialogue-driven style in the creative writing also demonstrated the influence from the original story. Interestingly, most of the groups illustrated in their creative writing transfer of this story structure from the reading text.  In their creative writing revealed a large amount of dialogues as similarly employed by the author of the original literary work.

Evidence of Reading As a Stimulus for Imaginative World.  Another finding from the students’ written production was that the students, by using their own imagination, involved themselves with the character’s world in the story. There is obvious evidence that reading stories may promote our students' own creativity. Students showed that reading the stories helpful as they made connections between the reading text and their creative writing. For example, the students in the first group wrote a continuation of the ending for the original story, An Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge, a rich but mean old man, changed his attitudes toward his own life and people around him after four ghosts visited him on Christmas Eve. In this continuation of the original story, they described Scrooge as a kind man who visited his employee's house and the orphanage to show his kindness and care. They imagined that both Scrooge's sister and the orphanage administrator died and came to visit him in his dream. Instead of frightening Scrooge as the four ghosts did in the original story, the two visitors in the continuation of the story came as angels urging Scrooge to help the poor.
    Another example was found in the fourth group’s love story in which they rewrote the clichéd and plain ending into a different one. Instead of accepting the arranged marriage, the character Ruth became a brave girl who chose her true love. The students designed more intricate plots, including more detailed illustration. They imagined Ruth sitting in deep thought, bursting into tears when informed about the arranged marriage, and screaming hysterically. Furthermore they described Mommy's dream and secret arrangement, the sad departure of Ruth and finally, at the airport, a sad father with a look of desperation in the eyes and with tears flooding down his face. Based on the original story, they expanded and visualized their ideas in a deliberate way.
    The students in group eight with the more proficient learners created a more complicated plot for their story. They adapted the story from the original text, the Wuthering Heights, but moved the setting from England to Taiwan during the period of Japanese colonization. All the characters belonged to two Japanese families. The students created the main character as an adopted orphan with an entangled relationship with his Japanese girl friend. In this way, the students could see in the literary situation some analogy to the problems common among most young students in the real world. 

Evidence of Transfer of Use of Vocabulary from the Text
In addition to the imagination and creativity demonstrated in this reading-writing connection project, there is also evidence indicating that learners transferred words from the reading to use in writing. Table 2 presents sample vocabulary used in the student writers’ creative writings. Some of the words they used were borrowed from the simplified version of one work they chose to read.  Most of them were looked up in the dictionary when they found it necessary to describe the feelings of the characters and the major theme.
   In this study, the first group created a seven-page (single space typing) continuous story, reacting to the story about a cold, hard man, Scrooge. The students hoped to create a changed character, by using compound words such as “love-giving,” “heart-warming,” “the orphanage administrator,” etc. They wrote a Chinese version before looking up the words they needed to translate her story.
   The students in Group 4 and Group 7 chose a very beginning-level book with a cliché love story but they managed to rewrite the plain ending into a more intricate denouement. For instance, in the three-page story by Group 7, it seems that they used several words and compound sentences beyond their current proficiency level. They borrowed the verb “arrange” in the story and expanded the vocabulary use into the phrase “burst into tears” and “with tears flooding down his face” by looking up the dictionary reading for “tear” intending to describe a character’s reactions toward an arranged marriage. The students in Group 4 asked the researcher for help during the one-to-one conference for more descriptive vocabulary for their characters, such as “a look of desperation,” and “in desperation.”  They employed the new words to describe the character’s emotional reaction. Some of the excerpts indicating the expansion of vocabulary are as follows.
“Ruth burst into tears when she knew she would be arranged to marry a man she doesn’t love.”
“Ruth screamed hysterically when she was lost in desperation (sic).
“Ruth’s father rushed to the airport only to see his daughter leaving. He stood there with a look of desperation in his eyes and with tears flooding down his face.”
   The students in Group 8 finished their story in ten pages. They demonstrated a great potential to be the fluent and efficient readers and writers. One possible reason might be that they devoted themselves to studying English more frequently than the others. Compared with the other participants, they used more adverbs and adjectives to describe the intricate plot, such as “disapprovingly,” “admirable,” “unbearable, and “obedient,” etc, which made the sentences more complex.

Table 2. Sample Vocabulary in the Student Writers’ Creative Writing

1.“Words in reading” refers to the words shown in the reading texts, but borrowed by the student writers in their creative stories. Page numbers indicate where these words appear in each of the reading texts.
2. ”Words expanded from reading” refers to the words the student writers looked up in a dictionary to describe the characters and themes in their creative stories.

Results from the Interviews
To further understand the students' reaction to the reading-to-writing activity, informal interviews about how they felt were conducted at the end of the study. Two major themes were identified from the interview data, as shown in the following section: (1) reading serves as a resource for what to write; (2) students become more reflective and perceptive.
   When asked what benefit they gained from reading a literary work, all the participants said that the literary work had served as a resource for what they had to write. They also responded that for them, the reading-to-writing activity was meaningful because they were able to find something to write. They also found it helpful as they made connections to ideas and themes expressed in what they read. Additionally, they realized that the act of writing is thinking about reading which in turn produces writing. As the above statements, they were amazed with their written production as this was their first experience of writing formally and at length.

“I’ve never believed that I can write so much. You know….I often write one or two sentences and I just stop there without any idea to write…”(from Group5)
“When I read the story, I couldn’t t help but have something to say. So many characters, so many things happen…I found there was a lot in my mind.” (from Group 6)
“You didn’t tell me how many pages I needed to write. In the beginning, I doubt I could write. But, when I started to write, I was caught by the intricate plot and setting. Wow…I kept on reading and found more to write. It is not difficult to write a story based on a novel.” (from Group 8)
“When I read the story and then wrote our own story, I imitated the structure from the story by following the dialogue-driven style.  It’s not so difficult to develop a five-page writing.  It’s so fun!” (from Group 4)
“I hope you can let us read the novels like this. I love story and would like to read more. I found it easier and more fun to learn and use the vocabulary in the story.” (from Group 2)

   With regards to the question of if they had learned something from the book, the students claimed that they had become more reflective about their ideas and more perceptive about the people or events around them.

“I’m okay with any materials you brought into the class. But, if you let us read the short stories, there will be fewer classmates sleeping in class. We can also discuss the story and the characters, and try to solve the problems the characters meet.” (from Group 1)
 “To tell the truth, reading novels is more interesting than reading the other articles you provided us in class. I hate the way that we went over the article and then had to remember the vocabulary. It’s more exciting to read the story and immerse myself in the world which the characters are in.” (from Group 9)
  “I feel it meaningful to connect the character’s experience with mine.  I learned to express myself and understand myself. “ (from Group 9)

Discussion
The present study provides a number of important findings. These findings lend support to the previous research by Noyce and Christie (1989), as well as Butler and Turbill (1984), indicating that reading text can be more than a stimulus for writing.  It also acquaints students with the rules and characteristics of skilled writing.  As Smith (1983) proposed, a reader will be subconsciously sensitive to the style and mechanics of the reading text, and unconsciously acquire the rules and conventions of writing while reading. Through “interactive discourse,” the reader’s attention is called to particular story elements of setting, characters, plot and style and “he or she reads like a writer” (Corden, 2000). 
   In this study, most of the participants’ attention was called to the dialogue-driven style in the reading text and presented their story with dialogues. The dialogue-ridden style in their creative writing demonstrated the influence from the original story. For instance, the students in Group 4 particularly paid their attention to Ruth’s emotional reaction toward love and rewrote a different ending for her. Those in Group 8 focused their attention on Heathcliff’s rage and revenge on his enemy’s family. They structured the creative story by describing the complicated relationship between a Taiwanese orphan Te and two families, the Maruyamas and the Suzukis.  In this way, reading text benefits students in developing linguistic knowledge, both on a usage level and a use level (Mckay, 1987).
   Moreover, reading a variety of resources may promote our students' own creativity.  There is obvious evidence that reading literature may promote our students' own creativity. As this research has indicated, reading offers opportunities for personally gratifying experience through the use of ones' imagination, participation in vicarious experiences of adventure, and involvement with human behaviors in many different situations (Mckay, 1987). The reader needs not have lived with the Earnshaws and the Lintons in Wuthering Heights to experience the sufferings of the two unfortunate families. By interacting, and transacting with the reading text, the students came to the world in which the characters existed.
   A learner’s language proficiency might be a factor that influences the use of words and sentence structures in writing. In this study, the participants in the different groups chose the texts with different difficulty levels; therefore, it was difficult to compare the use of sentence structures in their creative writing. However, the reading texts they chose indicate different difficult levels with different vocabulary sizes.  In this case, we might claim that reading served not only as a stimulus for expansion of ideas but also as a linguistic model for the use of words and sentence structures. This finding lends support to Eckhoff’s (1984) which indicated learners who read stories with more complex patterns use more complex structures in their writing.

Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications
Underpinned by the Reading-to-Writing Model (Corden, 2000; Smith, 1983), this study aimed to investigate how a reading to reading connection project helped EFL learners’ literacy development by guiding them to read simplified graded books and produce creative writing in responding to the text. It also sought to examine how reading serves as a stimulus, causing reading to arouse the feeling and generate the ideas in response to the reading texts (Smith & Dahl, 1984; Noyce & Christie, 1989; Falk-Ross, 2002). These results support the view that reading plays an important role in acquiring students with the rules and characteristics of skilled writing. They also are in accord with previous studies which have suggested that reading and writing should be mutually reinforced; that is, reading helps writing with the stimulus, structures, feeling and prior experience (schema), just as writing helps readers look back what they read (metacognitive skills).
   This study adopted guided categories for text analysis to help beginning EFL learners become involved in the plot, characters' relationships, major themes, reader's responses and so on. Through the guided reading of the texts, they were able to comprehend the reading text easily and experience vicariously the actions and emotions of the characters in the story and shared their problems and concerns. As shown in the findings in this study, reading the text offered students opportunities to experience vicariously the actions and emotions of the characters in the reading text. The participants compared and contrasted these experiences with their own and showed their responses to what they read and felt. In this way, reading stories can be a vicarious experience providing students important insights about themselves and the world around them.
   The results indicate that reading the simplified graded work can not only be a stimulus for creative writing, but also acquaint students with the use of words, as well as the rules. Additionally, the students also became aware of the text structure, the skills and characteristics the author deliberately used to begin the story and then subconsciously transferred them to their own writing. Evidence for this transformation can be seen in the students’ pages of creative writing, within which the students transferred the imaginative energy from the literary text.  That is, reading can be a stimulus to spur readers' imaginative writing. Thus, in EFL learning, reading stories helps to promote the students’ creativity.
   The results of this study implied that EFL students have to learn to read beyond the words and beginning EFL readers need guidance from the teacher. They can read the simplified graded work assigned by their teacher or bring their own for story sharing with the other learners. What the teacher does is to bridge the gap whenever student readers meet difficulties in understanding the text. The teacher then comments on the story’s organization, the characters, and the plot. The world of students and the world of the novel will be connected, too. Moreover, the classroom discussions help to develop the reflective thought processes and writing skills in the students. 
    Based on the schema theory, we suggest that teachers should provide students with as various reading materials as possible, leading to more input as Krashen suggests.  Through more access to reading stories and evaluating different modes of construct, students gain valuable experience to deepen and expand their consciousness of the richness of life. A short story, a newspaper article, a letter, an advertisement, or a poem can work as a content to provide for writing. Other activities such as summaries, responses, outlining or pre-reading writing are believed to be useful to examine and facilitate reading comprehension.
   Although the study showed positive with EFL college students in term of their linguistic development and personal growth, however, this reading-writing project was a required course assignment through a semester. It is worth further study to investigate the relationship between the value the individual student associates with success from the reading-to-write project and their motivation to read in English in terms of each different constructs, e.g. intrinsic value of reading, attainment value of reading, and extrinsic value of reading, etc..

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