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made was much more significant than the one Bob did. Therefore, the instruction of CD and TP had a positive influence on the students‘ writing at the time of the study.
Effect 2: Improvement in Writing Coherence
In addition to the awareness of the improvement in their own writing performance, the participants were also found to be able to make progress in the writing coherence. On top of that, the participants also could explain how their writing coherence was improved. The above findings were supported by the product data, including the GEPT raters‘ and researchers‘ scoring of coherence, along with the former‘s comments on writing coherence based on CEEC rating scale.
The Awareness of the Improvement in Writing Performance
The data analyzed in this section included the questionnaires, the transcription of the journals and final interviews, and some of the participants‘ written works listed together.
From the questionnaire data, Bob and Peter both thought their coherence improved more than before in three ways, as presented in Table 4.3. One was that there were greater and clearer structures in their later writing. In the meanwhile, the sentences in their writing were also organized much better than before. In addition, they both felt that what they wrote—sentences and paragraphs—could be acceptably associated with the assigned topics. In short, the participants themselves also sensed their progress in their writing coherence.
Table 4.3
The Questionnaire Items Related to Writing Coherence
Questionnaire items B P
6. I think the organization of my texts is better than before. agree 8. The coherence of the sentences and paragraphs in my writing is better than
before.
agree 11. I think the sequence of my sentences in writing is better than before. agree 20. I think the structure of my writing is better than before. agree 32. The sentences in my writing can correspond with the topic more than before. agree
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33. When writing, I find the sentences and paragraphs can correspond with each
other better than before. agree
34. The sequence of my sentences in writing is more reasonable than before. agree
35. My writing is better organized than before. agree
The participants‘ consciousness of the coherence progress was revealed as well in the interview transcriptions. Instead of using the term coherence, they both mentioned their written texts became ‗fluent‘ with few mistakes. The following are the examples: “Um… they [CD and TP] became the great help when I write (B-I-241);” “(they help me more in) fluency … (B-I-250);” and “… because I can write more fluently (P-I-013).‖ These excerpts all corresponded with the results in the questionnaire data—the participants‘ awareness of the progress in the writing
coherence was in line with the factors described in the questionnaire. To be brief, the participants both found their writing more coherent through identifying CD and TP.
Different Aspects of Perceiving the Progress in Writing Coherence
From the perception and product data, it was found that the participants‘ writing coherence could be improved bcause they were able to perceive the progress in different aspects. In viewof this, this section separately presents the two participants‘
own distinct findings.
Bob‟s case. In his journal, Bob directly attributed the progress in writing coherence to the application of CD and TP.
I find that the cohesive devices in my high-rated texts are very complete, and the TP types are also very clear.
B-J-D7-01-02
Bob found that the learning of coherence made some of his written texts rated high, which indicated that Bob was able to discern whether his writing was coherent or not by identifying CD and TP. That is to say, the coherence in Bob‘s written products was facilitated by the application of CD and TP. In the meanwhile, his more coherent texts helped him get better grades. This could also be supported by the
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comparison between his and the researchers‘ analyses of CD and TP in his seventh drat: Fight (see Appendix T). The categories of CD and TP types examined by Bob were the same as those analyzed by the researchers. Therefore, his identification of CD and TP was totally correct, which also led to the high grade of this draft (see Appendix S).
Peter‟s case. Peter on the other hand found his ‗later‘ writing full of information that helped readers know about what he had written more completely. This was shown in the following transcript.
R: … Then can you tell the difference between your previous writing and subsequent one in addition to fluency?
P: What difference…
R: Yeah.
P: Maybe there were more details in later writing.
R: You think there are more details?
P: Right.
R: What was the reason for the increase of details?
P: In the conferences, I had to tell more details.
R: You mean what made you think of more details?
P: … because in the conferences, I had to tell the details in the story.
P-I-422-430
With many important details skipped in his previous written texts, Peter then was able to detect what was missed or not mentioned in his own writing on the basis of the given topics. This was also why his writing became much longer than that in the beginning of the study. Take Peter‘s last draft as an example. This was the narration of one picture, where three boys in uniforms seemed to argue with each other. The following draft was written within a limited time.
Peter’s Draft 7: Fight (original)
Mark is a bad student in his class. Joe is also his good friend. One day, Mark and Joe planed to distroy something in the classroom. Peter listened to their word and talked to the teacher. The teacher punished Mark and Joe. They then wanted to find and fighted with him.
Peter saw them coming and running out. They picked up a stone and threw at Peter. He began to bleed and was sent to the hospital. He stayed there for a week.
Mark and Joe saw Peter staying in the hospital so long. They will apologize to him
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when Peter left the hospital.
From the above draft, it was apparent that Peter missed some details, such as why Joe also wanted to destroy the classroom, who Peter was, when and where Mark and Joe met Peter, and so on. What was worse, some sentences were lack of proper cohesive devices so that the theme in each sentence could not keep progressing. Then the following was the revised draft of Fight.
Peter’s Draft 7: Fight (revised)
Mark is the worst student in his class. Joe, one of Mark‟s classmates, is also his good friend. Joe is also a bad student in his class. One day, Mark and Joe planned to break the glass of the classroom. Peter, one of their classmates, was hearing their words and told to their teacher. Therefore, their teacher punished Mark and Joe. They were very angry at Peter, so they wanted to find him and tried to fight with him.
Peter saw Mark and Joe come and ran away. When they saw Peter running away, they picked up a stone and threw it at Peter. After the stone hit Peter‟s head, Peter began to bleed. Therefore, he was sent to hospital and stayed there for a week. Mark and Joe heard Peter might stay in hospital for a week so that they feel so sorry to him. They would apologize to Peter when he was allowed to leave the hospital.
With CD and TP examined carefully, more details were given to make the whole story more complete. For example, readers could know that Joe was also a naughty boy, he and Mark‘s trick was overheard by another classmate, they found Peter somewhere in the campus and bullied him, and that the naughty boys knew they did something wrong, and so on. Then Peter mentioned how he felt about the revision of this draft in his journal.
It‟s a little troubling to write down every detail in each sentence. However, I could avoid writing down sentences without worrying too much to make the words reach what the instructions required. When I looked for the themes and rhemes, I reread the text again to help myself correct the improper information and sentences.
P-J-D7-03-06
As to Peter, he found his coherence improved by thinking over sentences carefully.
Most important of all, what he wrote would not be deviated from the assigned topics because every sentence could be closely connected to keep the themes move forward.
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In other words, the identification of CD and TP allowed Peter to produce more detailed information to link every sentence and further to make progress in the cohesion and coherence in his written texts.
In short, the participants both found the improvement in their writing coherence with the application of CD and TP, which was shown in the perception data.
Therefore, the instruction and learning of CD and TP not only facilitated the participants‘ holistic writing performance but also their writing coherence.
The Progress in Writing Coherence Shown in the Product Data
In addition to the qualitative data, the GEPT raters‘ scoring (see Appendix S) and the researchers‘ analysis (see Appendix U) of the participant‘s writing coherence also could reveal whether the participants made progress in their writing coherence.
The GEPT raters‟ scoring of coherence. Based on Appendix S, the coherence means obtained from the raters were further illustrated in Figure 4.3 and 4.4,
indicating how the coherence in the participants‘ writing developed. Like Figure 4.1 and 4.2, the distribution was illustrated based on the three types of writing mentioned before.
Similar to the results of the participants‘ holistic writing performance, Bob‘s writing coherence was averagely rated higher than Peter‘s; moreover, the coherence of all his drafts was rated over 4. Averagely speaking, of Bob‘s second and third
Figure 4.3
Bob‘s Distribution of the Raters‘ Rating of Coherence
Figure 4.4
Peter‘s Distribution of the Raters‘ Rating of Coherence
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drafts, he got 0.25 more grades in coherence in both the comic-strip and one-picture narration types. Besides, the highest grade of his writing coherence was the
description type, where he got 0.75 more grades. In Peter‘s writing coherence of the comic-strip narration type, he got 1.5 more grades from his first draft through the third one. Peter also got 1.5 more grades in the description type. As to his one-picture narration, his last draft got 1 more grade than the previous draft. Though Peter‘s writing coherence was not as good as Bob‘s, his progress in writing coherence was also more remarkable than Bob‘s. That is to say, the participants‘ writing became more coherent and well-organized with the advance of the study.
The researcher‘s coherence scoring. Besides the raters‘ assessment of the participants‘ writing coherence, the coherence evaluated by the researchers (see Appendix U) was involved to further confirm the progress of the participants‘
coherence. The left main column was the ways of coherence scoring that the
researchers designed to analyze coherence with CD and TP in the participants‘ writing.
In this column, the ―O‖ scores were the original ones given by the researchers. Then the scores were converted into the ones based on the coherence scoring of the CEEC rating scale and they were showed as ―C‖. In this way, it is possible for the
researchers‘ rating of coherence to be compared with the GEPT raters‘ rating. And the results of the conversion were listed next to the left main column.
Based on Appendix U, the coherence means of the researchers were illustrated in Figure 4.5 and 4.6 to present how the coherence in the participants‘ writing progressed. The distribution of the participants‘ writing coherence was illustrated based on the three types of writing as well.
In Figure 4.5, Bob‘s second and third drafts of the first writing type both scored higher in coherence than the previous drafts. In the first type of writing, he scored 1.12 more grades in his second draft and 0.1 more in the third draft. And these two
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Figure 4.5
Bob‘s Distribution of the Researchers‘
Evaluation of Writing Coherence drafts were both very close to the full score: 5.
Moreover, Bob got 0.23 more points in the second draft of the description type. In his one-picture narration type, Bob made the most progress: he got 1.28 more grades in the last draft. As to the coherence of Peter‘s comic-strip narration type of writing, he got 0.25 more grades in the second draft and 0.08 more grades in the third draft. Peter also scored 0.08 more grades in the second draft in the description type of writing.
Besides, he also made the most progress in the one-picture narration type of writing:
he got 0.48 more grades in the last draft.
In the researchers‘ rating of coherence, Peter‘s coherence averagely scored a little higher than Bob‘s, but Bob‘s progress was more significant than Peter‘s. As a result, the participants were proved to make progress in coherence, which is also corroborated by the GEPT raters‘ scoring. This suggests the instruction of CD and TP should have some positive effects on the coherence of the participants‘ writing. Their scores also indicate their great understanding and application of CD and TP.