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Writing strategies of good writers of expository composition in upper secondary school
Author
Renuka Thankak Krishnah
Supervisor
Chandrasegaran, Antonia
Abstract
Writing is an essential component of the GCE "O" Level Examination. The secondary school students' ability to produce texts that are coherent, organised and following the convention of the genre are very important in determining if the written text is successful or not. This is especially evident in the case of the expository discourse. The secondary school students who move on to the polytechnic or the pre-university to continue their education, will need to know how to write expository texts as they will have to write assignments of the expository genre in these institutions. Those students who lack the strategies of communicating the information in the appropriate manner will find themselves at a disadvantage and will not be able to put forward a convincing argument in relation to the given task.
This study focuses on the writing strategies used by the good writers. The aim of the study is to discover the strategies what are the writing strategies that good writers use which allow them to write expository texts effectively. The study will also look into the writing strategies of weak writers so as to provide a comparison between the two groups and to eventually understand what are the socio-cognitive writing strategies that good writers use that allows them to write effective expository texts.
The written texts of 10 Secondary Four Express students of Holy Innocents? High School were selected in this study. In the selection, 5 of them were chosen as good writers while the other 5 were categorised as poor writers. The texts involved in the research study, were expository compositions that the students did in class as class assignments and two mini-compositions in the form of a letter each. The mini-composition tasks were given to these pupils to substantiate the data collected from the expository texts. The data analysis took the form of text analysis of the written assignments of the selected students. The analysis aimed to find out the socio-cognitive writing strategies employed by the good writers and poor writers.
The findings tend to suggest that good writers are able to use the socio-cognitive writing strategies to produce an effective expository text. On the other hand the poor writers, apparently fail to display these strategies or even if they did it was a weak attempt as they were not employed throughout the written task. The good writers were more focused in the use of the writing strategies as they seem to display the socio-cognitive writing strategies in their writing.
Through the findings, it can be concluded that the students, who are weak writers, are unable to grasp the concept of the socio-cognitive writing processes. To them, writing is not a conscious effort to meet the requirements of the task but merely a need to fulfil the task assigned to them. As a result, they are not fully aware of the strategies needed to produce a successful text. The implication in this study is that good writers seem to be able to conceptualise the rhetorical problem, set and adhere to their macro-level and paragraph-level goals and they seem to be able to use the expository genre convention of organisation to write an effective expository composition.
This study focuses on the writing strategies used by the good writers. The aim of the study is to discover the strategies what are the writing strategies that good writers use which allow them to write expository texts effectively. The study will also look into the writing strategies of weak writers so as to provide a comparison between the two groups and to eventually understand what are the socio-cognitive writing strategies that good writers use that allows them to write effective expository texts.
The written texts of 10 Secondary Four Express students of Holy Innocents? High School were selected in this study. In the selection, 5 of them were chosen as good writers while the other 5 were categorised as poor writers. The texts involved in the research study, were expository compositions that the students did in class as class assignments and two mini-compositions in the form of a letter each. The mini-composition tasks were given to these pupils to substantiate the data collected from the expository texts. The data analysis took the form of text analysis of the written assignments of the selected students. The analysis aimed to find out the socio-cognitive writing strategies employed by the good writers and poor writers.
The findings tend to suggest that good writers are able to use the socio-cognitive writing strategies to produce an effective expository text. On the other hand the poor writers, apparently fail to display these strategies or even if they did it was a weak attempt as they were not employed throughout the written task. The good writers were more focused in the use of the writing strategies as they seem to display the socio-cognitive writing strategies in their writing.
Through the findings, it can be concluded that the students, who are weak writers, are unable to grasp the concept of the socio-cognitive writing processes. To them, writing is not a conscious effort to meet the requirements of the task but merely a need to fulfil the task assigned to them. As a result, they are not fully aware of the strategies needed to produce a successful text. The implication in this study is that good writers seem to be able to conceptualise the rhetorical problem, set and adhere to their macro-level and paragraph-level goals and they seem to be able to use the expository genre convention of organisation to write an effective expository composition.
Date Issued
2000
Call Number
PE1471 Ren
Date Submitted
2000