Well goes the proverb, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” The effects of writing with picture prompts have been investigated throughout recent years. Sinatra (1981; 1986) contended that pictorial stimuli can provide concrete impetuses to form imagery and a sequence of pictures can train learners to develop underlying discourse structure. Pictorial stimuli can serve as a scaffold of not only thoughts for writing but also writing skills for beginners. Søvik and Flem’s (1999) study examined Norwegian elementary school
students, indicating that textual prompts had great effects on persistence on writing time and pauses in writing while pictorial prompts had significant effects on spelling, accuracy, and fluency. In McMaster, Du and Pétursdóttir’s (2009) research, photo prompts provided generic stimuli to elicit wider range of responses whereas the letter prompts offered specific words thus constraining writing performance. Paquette (2007) suggested that pictures demonstrate six skills of effective writing, such as ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.
Local studies also have been conducted on picture-elicited writing. Chien (2007) classified three-frame picture prompts into the time-based type, the steps-in-a-process type, the topic-development type, the cause-and-effect type with an expected consequence, and the cause-and-effect type with an unexpected consequence. It was found that the third graders in a senior high school had better writing fluency in the last two types. Liu (2008) specifically pointed out in her study that the picture prompts had significant effects on vocabulary richness of third graders of a senior high school. Tsai (2009) claimed that picture prompts had greater effects on content, organization, and overall writing performance of high achievers, compared with low achievers. In addition to improving linguistic skills, learners also change their attitude and motivation by using picture prompts.
Chiang’s (2003) study suggested that pictorial stimuli helped learners build a better organization, provide richer content, evoke imagination, and alleviate writing anxiety as well.
Attributes of Successful Picture Prompts
Picture prompts can serve as effective visual aids to elevate students’ writing
performance; however, not every learner interprets a sequence of pictures in the same way.
What’s worse, some may misunderstand the picture and lose the grasp of what the author wants to convey, which might not ensure a successful composition. In this sense, it matters
what essential characteristics of picture prompts are selected in writing assessment.
According to Seaman (1993), designing a writing task with picture prompts needs to consider a number of variables: the characteristics of the picture, the native language and culture of the students, and the nature of writing task itself. Whether the picture prompts are comprehensible or not has an influence on the writers’ interpretation.
Selecting a picture prompt depends on the picture content (Schweizer, 1999). In particular, the object of picture prompts should be relevant and age-appropriate to the target writer’s background knowledge and experience (Cycowicz, Friedman, Snodgrass &
Rothstein, 1994) because writers’ prior knowledge and familiarity can trigger their ideas for writing (Bates, 1991). While selecting pictorial stimuli, complexity should also be taken into consideration: high levels of complexity in terms of interactions among objects in a sequence of pictures elicit more and better writing production than low levels of complexity (Samson & Wescott, 1983). Peterson (1986) further suggests that a balance in level of complexity should be struck.
Regarding the type of the prompt, single pictures will generate more descriptive paragraphs, whereas sequences of pictures will generate more narratives (White, 1978).
Therefore, it is evident that the picture prompt should be developed with care and preplanning so that a high level of written responses could be created. Hooper,
Montgomery, Swartz, Reed, Sandler, Levine, Watson, and Wasileski (1994) define a good visual stimulus as meeting the following criteria:
1. At least two characters, with perhaps one potential protagonist and one potential antagonist although this is not absolutely necessary, depending on the situation depicted.
2. A depiction of some kind of “interesting” or “novel” scene or event (e.g., children lost in a cave).
3. Some kind of potential conflict between the antagonist and protagonist that necessitates that the protagonist engage in a goal-based sequence of events to resolve the conflict or a scene in which a main character must resolve a problem using some goal-directed sequence of events. (p.388)
Cole, Muenz, Ouhchi, Kaufman, & Kaufman’s (1997) study support the hypothesis of Hooper et al.’s (1994) that a better organized and more cohesive writing can be produced following the criteria. The study examined 50 participants aged 13 to 46 and compared the pictorial stimuli developed based on Hooper et al.’s criteria with conventional line drawing stimuli. The result demonstrates that the Hooper stimuli yielded higher scores than
conventional stimuli in terms of structure and cohesiveness of the story; however, the result is not the same in mechanics.
Joshua’s (2007) study examined 165 elementary L1 students’ writing activity, finding that younger students benefited from writing with pictures and drawing; however, elder students beyond kindergarten did not positively benefit from the picture paired with the prompt. He thus concluded that though pictures provide context and background
information for writers, they may hinder creativity. The deciding factor of a good picture prompts seems to be participants’ background knowledge of language and living
experience. Based on Cole et al’s study, Joshua (2007) proposed a criterion for selection of picture prompts in classroom writing tasks: Picture prompts should be provoking and engaging, imaginative, and grade-level appropriate.