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data—the rating of GEPT raters and the researchers and the frequency of the participants‘ applying CD and TP categories—to correspond with the participants‘
improvement. Next, based on the process and perception data, the progression of the low achievers‘ writing was divided into the development of their writing coherence and writing skills. Finally, the third research question about the participants‘ attitudes toward CD and TP was also addressed based on the process and perception data. This part consisted of whether the participants could have confidence in their writing and how they viewed the learning and teaching CD and TP.
The Effect of Learning CD and TP on Writing
The first goal of this study was to ascertain what influences the instruction of CD and TP would have on the low-proficiency students‘ writing. There were three main effects examined: the progress in writing, the improvement in coherence and the frequency of CD and TP categories employed by the participants. The significant effects are presented with the analyzed results of the following sets of data. One is the process and perception data from the questionnaires, the transcription of journals, writing conferences and interviews. The other source of data is the participants‘
product data, inclusive of their revised texts, the raters‘ scoring and the researchers‘
analysis of coherence.
Effect 1: Progress in Writing Performance
From the process data and the perception data, the participants were both found to be exactly aware of their progress in the holistic writing performance. Besides, they also attributed their improvement to the changes that took place in their writing. The improvement could be found in the participants‘ product data as well.
The Awareness of the Improvement in Writing Performance
The data analyzed in this section included the questionnaires and the transcription of journals and final interviews.
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First of all, the questionnaire data demonstrated the participants actually perceived the improvement in their own writing performance. In the items related to the writing performance, both Bob and Peter agreed that they could write in English better than before. This is presented in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2
The Questionnaire Items Related to Writing Performance
Questionnaire items B P
5. I can write better than before. agree
13. My English writing has made progress. agree 14. I find it easier to write in English better than before. agree 18. The description in my writing is more meaningful and
reasonable than before. agree
29. I think My English writing is better than before. agree 30. After finishing writing, I will have a sense of achievement. agree strongly
agree
Both of them thought it was much easier to produce better texts than previous ones as they knew the way to write English passages. Therefore, when asked to confirm some questionnaire items in the interview, they gave the researcher positive answers. The following are the excerpts from the participants‘ interview transcription.
I can write something more in detail now because of the learning of CD and TP.
B-I-071 I would just think I could get higher grades [when I can finish writing in the limited time] because I have learned CD and TP.
P-I-238
Bob‘s writing was always longer than Peter‘s and got higher grades more often, but he still thought he could write more than before at the end of the study. As to Peter, who usually lacked confidence in his grammar and wrote shorter passages, he then thought his writing could score higher as long as he could finish it. The responses made in the final interviews and questionnaires proved that the learning of CD and TP had a significant effect on the participants‘ perception of the improvement in their writing performance.
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In addition to the above data retrieved by the end of the study, the journals kept by the participants at the time of the study reported the promising progress in their writing. For example, in Peter‘s journal of the last draft, he concluded that he was able to write better and better throughout the study.
Anyway, I think that my writing has progressed a lot until now because of the learning of CD and TP.
P-J-D7-06-07
Most importantly, Peter thought it was the learning of CD and TP that made it
possible for him to make progress in his writing. Therefore, Peter not only noticed he could perform much better in writing than before but also realized that his
achievement in writing was reached through learning how to apply CD and TP in his writing process.
In comparison with Peter, Bob‘s performance was much steadier. Though he usually got higher scores in writing than Peter, he finally mentioned in his final journal that his writing deserved to be rated high.
I thought it‟s easy to get high scores in the composition part when I wrote in English and employed the categories of CD and TP.
B-J-D7-03
Despite some difficulties he might encounter when writing, Bob indeed felt that his writing made progress during the study. In fact, most of his written drafts were rated higher than Peter. To conclude, both Bob and Peter could sense the application of CD and TP had helped improve their writing performance and they apprehended this gradual growth in the writing. Simply put, the learning of CD and TP to some extent helped the participants make improvement in their holistic writing performance.
The Changes Leading to the Progress in Writing Performance
From the process and perception data, it was also found that th participants could make progress in the writing bcause they were able to overcome their main problems and make some changes at the time of composing a written essay. Due to
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the different problems they encountered dring the writing process, this section is divided into two parts to present the two participants‘ respective situation.
Bob‟s case. As a careful and prudent person, Bob tended to spend much more time thinking over how to answer questions in the writing conferences and the final interview, deciding which ideas generated in the prewriting stage to write down, and finishing composing a written text. In other words, Bob had difficulty managing his time well when writing. However, it seemed that Bob did not perceive the
examination and application of CD and TP as an obstacle to writing regardless of the insufficient time at the time of composing a text. The following was an example from one of the transcripts of the writing conferences.
R: How much time do you usually spend searching for them [CD and TP]when writing?
B: About 30 minutes.
R: 30 minutes? Including the revised parts?
B: No, that doesn‟t include it.
R: So you must have spent lots of time.
B: But I think my writing seems to be better by spending some time examining the coherence.
B-WC-D1-123-130
In his first draft, it took Bob a great deal of time composing and revising with the application of CD and TP. Because few problems with the search of CD and TP were raised in the conference, Bob was capable of dealing with the analysis of CD and TP very well. In other words, since his writing benefited from the examination of coherence by means of CD and TP, the time required to undergo the whole writing process did not matter a lot to Bob. As a consequence, his focus on the problem of time management which could not be solved in a short time could be shifted to his writing quality.
In the later draft, Bob still needed some time to identify CD and TP though he mentioned it was not difficult to search for CD and TP when writing. This was shown in the following transcription.
R: Do you think it‟s alright to look for CD and TP?
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R: So what do you think causes this?
B: Mm… my writing is already good because it is coherent.
R: So the analysis of CD and TP makes your writing good?
B: Right.
B-WC-D2-084-093
From the transcript of Bob‘s second writing conference, Bob directly pointed out that he found it easy to identify CD and TP in his writing even though it still took him much time to finish the entire writing task. Furthermore, Bob again mentioned the problem of time management in the final interview.
R: …okay, you‟ve written a lot up to now. You were also asked to search for CD and TP when writing. What do you think these two revision strategies?
B: (pause)… took a little more time, but… they are really useful.
B-I-140-143
In the above excerpt of Bob‘s interview transcription, he reconfirmed the fact that the identification of CD and TP did great help to his written texts. In view of the
interconnection among the above qualitative data, Bob was found to be able to transcend the problem of insufficient time at the time of writing because of CD and TP. With the help of these two strategies, Bob was allowed to improve his
performance in writing instead of continuing working on other repetitive errors. That is to say, CD and TP had a positive influence on Bob‘s writing performance.
Peter‟s case. Unlike Bob, what Peter cared a lot was his grammar and
generation of ideas. According to his homeroom teacher, Peter was apt to finish a task step by step; moreover, he would be easily interrupted if some problems occurred. In other words, he would not go on writing until he found the slution to one problem.
This was presented in Peter‘s first writing conference.
R: Did you encounter any difficulty when doing this task?
P: Mm… little difficulty, but I couldn‟t find the connection between some sentences. Then I just tried my best to connect them together even though there were still some problems with grammar.
R: Why?
P: Because I know how to connect them with the examination of CD and TP.
P-WC-D1-001-005
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From the above transcript, Peter admitted that he still could not deal with some grammatical problems. However, he decided to skip those linguistic errors and make his sentences connected by identifying CD and TP in the first place. On top of that, Peter would insist he finish the search of CD and TP on his own. The following was an example.
R: You cannot find the connection here. Let me see…
P: … I want to check this again..
R: Okay.
P: The disconnection should be in this sentence…
R: It‟s fine. Take your time. I‟ll come in later.
P-WC-D1-012-016
As shown in the transcript, Peter just did what he said—trying his best to solve the discrepancy in his writing. This was very different from his way to deal with grammar because he had a tendency to wait for the correction of certain grammatical errors. As a result, the learning of CD and TP helped him further investigate the cohesion and coherence in his writing rather than waste time solving something beyond his ability.
Apart from the linguistic problems, Peter also had trouble generating
appropriate ideas when writing, so he usually spent plenty of time figuring out what to write. Nevertheless, with the advance of the study, Peter was more and more familiar with the application of CD and TP, so he found himself able to generate relevant ideas.
In other words, when identifying and considering CD and TP in his written works, Peter could produce related ideas to make the texts longer. Peter wrote down how he found his writing improved in one of his journals.
In this composition, I didn‟t have problems thinking over what to write because I could come up with more ideas by means of applying CD and TP.
However, I still couldn‟t overcome the problem of words. Therefore, it‟s more troubling for me to replace some words for others.
After I revised my writing, the text became very fluent, but I had to spend lots of time revising after writing.
P-J-D2-01-05
Peter had experienced the improvement in his writing performance, for he had little difficulty generating ideas to develop his writing. On the other hand, Peter still kept
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his other problems in mind, like time and grammar. Nonetheless, these problems would not be the only focus any longer since Peter was capable of finding another way to make his writing better with the help of CD and TP.
This change also appeared in Peter‘s writing conference of draft 5, which scored higher than the preceding description draft.
R: Now you won‟t forget what just come up to your mind. Some students tend to forget how they want to develop their stories when going back to read what they write…
P: … it‟s easier for me to memorize and think of what to write now.
R: Good. Then what do think cause this?
P: I could write faster, or I couldn‟t write so much in such a short time … R: Did you correct any words you wrote down?
P: Yeah, I revised some of them.
R: You did? How?
P: Yeah…by looking for CD and TP…
R: So how do you feel about CD and TP?
P: They really help a lot.
P-WC-D5-110-121
With the practice of applying CD and TP, Peter was able to produce more relevant ideas through the identification of CD and TP. In this way, it did not take Peter too much time to think of what to write. Once there was more time left, he could make good use of it to improve the other aspects of his writing by making revision. Without other problems to worry about, Peter therefore could make the writing process
continue smoothly.
To sum up, the instruction and learning of CD and TP had a significant
influence on the participants‘ writing performance. They both realized not merely the benefit brought by CD and TP to their written works but the changes occurring in the writing process. The improvement also existed in the rating of the participants‘
written works.
The Progress Shown in the Product Data
Besides the qualitative data, the raters‘ scoring of the participant‘s drafts (see Appendix S), inclusive of the holistic writing performance and writing coherence, also helped investigate whether the participants made progress in their writing. Each
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participant‘s seven written works were divided into three groups: narration of comic strips (draft 1, 2 and 3), description (draft 4 and 5) and narration of one picture (draft 6 and 7). Besides, drafts 1, 4 and 6 were revised by the participants with the help of CD and TP. The other drafts were first revised by the participants and then examined with CD and TP by both the researcher and the students in the writing conferences.
Based on the GEPT raters‘ scores, the allocation of the two participants‘ overall writing performance is displayed in the following figures. Figure 4.1 presents the distribution of Bob‘s narration of comic strips, description and narration of one picture; Figure 4.2 is Peter‘s.
In Figure 4.1, Bob got one more grade in his thrid draft of the first type writing, 1.5 more grades in the second draft of the description and three more grades in the last type of the drafts. Moreover, Peter got 6.5 more points from his first draft to the third draft in the comic-strip narration type, 2 more points in the second draft of the
description and 5.5 more grades in the last draft. In other words, all of the
participants‘ second and third drafts in each type of writing scored higher than the first drafts. Therefore, it was apparent that both Bob and Peter made progress in the holistic writing performance in each type of writing. Besides, Bob's writing
performance was averagely better than Peter‘s. In spite of this, the progress that Peter Figure 4.1
The Distribution of Bob‘s Writing
Figure 4.2
The distribution of Peter‘s writing Figure 4.2
The Distribution of Peter‘s Writing
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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.