Henry

Before the instruction, Henry received the lowest score due to misinterpretation of the picture prompts. Yet, after the instruction, his writing score rose from 5 to 12.5.

He made the most progress by producing a coherent picture writing complete with the rhetorical moves in the posttest. TC, TP and rhetorical structure analysis were implemented to examine the pretest writing. The results of Henry’s pretest writing were demonstrated in Table 4.6 with constant TPs presented in solid lines and linear TPs in dotted lines. The themes of the constant and linear TPs were highlighted and the rhemes of linear TPs were underlined. The description of the topic in the derived hyper TP was in bold and the succeeding sentences were italicized and marked with arrows.

Table 4.6 The TC, TP and Rhetorical Move Analysis of Henry’s Pretest Picture

101 Writing

Paragraph 1

Marked Theme Theme Rheme

 Opening

(1) One day,

Alice, … sat on a bench waiting for her friends.

□ Development

(2) Five minutes later,

her friends arrived the place where they meeting.

(3) Three man all curious about what she bought.

(4) Alice said that is bought for her boyfriend.

(5) Three man were very disappointed.

(6) They thought that gifts were bought for them.

(7) The three

man

were so disappointed that they decided went

home.

(8) Alice was so confused why three man left so

quickly.

(9) Unfotunately… she got some paints on her clothes.

(10) Alice thought that today is not her day.

Paragraph 2

Marked Theme Theme Rheme

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Transition Setting (11) While Alice …

a man standed in front of her- her boyfriend.

Development

(12)

Her boyfriend

took some clothes let her changed.

(13) Alice thanked for her boyfriend.

□ Closing

(14)

He always arise when she needs to help.

As can be seen in Table 4.6, the findings of TC analysis showed that no logical connectors were used in the marked theme positions. It seemed that, before the instruction, employing logical connectors to improve coherence was rather new to Henry. The results of TC analysis also indicated that the participants in the unmarked theme positions all belonged to the people participant type. It was not surprising to find that people participants dominated the pretest picture writing, since the picture prompts were descriptions of how the main character stained her clothes and how she reacted to the accident. Henry, like many other student writers, often used people participants out of instinct to narrate the story.

Next, the findings of TP analysis suggested that Henry used all the three TP patterns in the pretest, even though constant TPs outnumbered linear TPs and derived

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hyper TPs. Five constant TPs, four linear TPs and one derived hyper TP were found in Henry’s pretest writing. Third, the results of the rhetorical structure analysis revealed that two rhetorical moves, i.e. development and closing, were missing. Henry misunderstood the picture prompts and failed to correctly develop the scene.

Furthermore, Henry ended the story suddenly by simply writing that Alice’s boyfriend always appeared when she was in trouble without adopting neither of the closing techniques, i.e. providing moral lessons or summarizing the event.

In general, the major problem was in the rhetorical structures. Two rhetorical moves were missing, i.e. the development in the first paragraph and the closing.

Henry did not provide correct description of the picture prompts and abruptly ended the story without adopting the closing technique. Another problem of Henry’s pretest writing was the proportion of the two paragraphs. Ten sentences were found in the first paragraph, but there were only four sentences in the second paragraph. Henry’s pretest writing was not well-organized apart from the problem in content development.

Even though Henry put great efforts in developing the first paragraph, the direction was wrong. Also, it was suggested that Henry employ logical connectors to increase coherence in his writings, such as specifying the sequence of events, besides using TPs to connect sentences.

Nonetheless, Henry improved his organization and content development after the

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instruction. TC, TP and rhetorical moves analysis were conducted to examine his posttest writing. The results were summarized in Table 4.7 with constant TPs presented in solid lines and linear TPs in dotted lines. The themes of constant TPs and linear TPs were highlighted and the rhemes of linear TPs were underlined.

Table 4.7 The TC, TP and Rhetorical Move Analysis of Henry’s Posttest Picture

Writing

Paragraph 1

Marked Theme Theme Rheme

 Opening

(1) Once upon a time,

Andy and his sister Sandy

went to national museum to watched the Chinaware Exhibit.

 Development

(2) In the museum,

Andy spoke loudly with Sandy.

(3) Sandy had brought a doll to the museum.

(4) Andy robbed her doll.

(5) Sandy was so mad at her brother.

(6) They ran in the museum.

(7) Suddenly, They push an exhibition.

Paragraph 2

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Marked Theme Theme Rheme

 Transition  Setting

(8) Unfortunately,

the exhibition drop on the floor.

 Development look had people discovered them.

(13)At last … they left the museum soon. participants, Henry also used object participants in the posttest, which was not found

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before the instruction. Next, the results of TC analysis indicated that two logical connectors were employed in marked themes. Besides using conjunctions to connect sentences as in the pretest, Henry also used two sequential logical connectors to specify the time sequence. First, “Then” was used in Sentence 11 to describe after the characters, i.e. Andy and Sandy, found that they broke the exhibition accidentally, they quickly thought of a solution to repair it. Second, “At last” was identified in Sentence 13 to provide the ending of the story: Andy and Sandy headed back home as soon as they repaired the damage.

Next, TP analysis showed that five constant TPs and two linear TPs were identified in Henry’s posttest writing. The first constant TP was found in Sentences 6 and 7, which described that Andy and Sandy ran in the museum and broke the exhibition. Both sentences began with “They” in the unmarked theme positions. The same unmarked theme appeared in the two short consecutive sentences helped create tension, which made the readers feel that the accident took place suddenly. Then, the second and third constant TPs were found in the three consecutive sentences, Sentences 9, 10, and 11. Sentences 9 and 10 described that Andy and Sandy were shocked and did not know what to do. The same people participant, “Andy and Sandy”, or “They” appeared in the theme position.

The fourth constant TP was found in Sentences 10 and 11, both of which began

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with the same theme, “They”. The fourth and fifth constant TPs were marked in Sentences 13, 14, and 15, which presented the ending of the story and the moral lesson Andy and Sandy learned. Henry used the same theme, “They”, in the unmarked themes of the three sentences. Henry used the same pronoun in five out of the eight sentences in Paragraph 2. The paragraph would be improved, if Henry varied the participant type.

Two linear TPs were identified in Henry’s posttest writing. First, in Sentences 2 and 3, Henry created the scene by describing the loud conversation between Andy and Sandy. Then, he mentioned the doll in Sandy’s hand, which was the cause of the accident. The rheme, “Sandy”, in the second sentence became the theme in the succeeding sentence. Next, the second linear TP was identified in Sentences 12 and 13.

Sandy quickly glanced around the museum to check if anyone found them repairing the damage. The rheme, “them” was the theme of the next sentence, which described that Andy and Sandy left the museum at once.

Finally, the results of rhetorical move analysis indicated that Henry’s posttest writing was complete with the rhetorical structures after the instruction informed by SFL. First, the opening technique was adopted and Henry created the scene at the beginning of the first paragraph. He provided detailed information regarding the time and location of the incident. Unlike in the pretest, Henry correctly developed the

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scene by describing how Andy and Sandy broke the exhibition after the instruction.

Transition was also identified at the beginning of the second paragraph. The first paragraph ended with the two characters hitting the exhibition. Henry began the second paragraph with the adverb, “Unfortunately”, which implied that something bad happened. The exhibition was broken, which was the problem that Andy and Sandy faced. The following paragraph provided details regarding how Andy and Sandy solved the problem. Furthermore, after depicting that Andy and Sandy left the museum, Henry employed the closing technique and continued to provide a moral lesson; Andy and Sandy had learned that they should not run and play in the museum.

In conclusion, after the instruction, the organization and content of Henry’s posttest picture writing were improved, as all the rhetorical structures were well-established in the posttest writing. Henry described the four picture prompts in detail and the posttest writing was complete with all the rhetorical moves and rich content. Although the number of linear TP and derived hyper TP decreased in the posttest, Henry’s posttest writing quality and coherence were not influenced. On the other hand, his posttest writing improved because the distribution of the TPs was even.

One constant TP and one linear TP were found in the first paragraph and every sentence in the second paragraph was well-connected by the TPs and logical connectors in the marked themes. In summary, the progress in content and coherence

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might explain why Henry’s writing score skyrocketed after the instruction informed by SFL.