Event Sequencing

The category of event sequencing investigated the extent to which the utterances in the story writings were sequenced in chronological order; that is, whether the participants presented the events from the beginning to the end in the order of the time of occurrences.

4.2.2.1 Result

Table 4.8. The Distribution of the Levels of Event Sequencing in the Story Writings

Appropriate Variable Inappropriate

The development of the participants’ ability to organize the events in chronological

order is shown in Table 4.8.

Table 4.8 shows that many of the participants failed to narrate the events in a sequenced or chronological order in the pretest. They tended to omit critical information, sequenced the events in poor order or repeated the events as indicated in

the following excerpt from Claire.

Elephant quen briersday, elephant cow ……, walk elephant quen big house, elephant quen very buetful, He very Love 生 氣 and no love taking a shor, student elephant no love elephant quen, elephant quen have three elephant babys, elephant babys mothr very 可愛 大家 love her, She is homwmaker and very fat and short, father and mother big house 城堡 very 高上, she averday happy, averday she 會帶 babys goes walk。(Claire, pretest)

In the pretest, like many of the other participants, Claire demonstrated very poor ability in the event sequencing. The utterances in the excerpt above were almost without logical or chronological sequencing at all. The story started with the time of Elephant Queen’s birthday; however, the critical information in the following events

was omitted and the utterances were arranged without chronological order.

However, it was found the participants had a growing ability to present the utterances chronologically and logically in their previous few writings as indicated in

the following excerpt from Claire.

In the morning, Dora watch her face, she thinks make pancakes for breakfast.

She put apron, Dora find out cookbook. And she takes flour and Baking powder and sugar put in the bowl, “Oh!” She shouts “No eggs”. Dora walks to the hen house, take the eggs. (Claire, third story writing)

In this excerpt, Claire described the process of the old lady preparing the materials for the pancakes. She successfully demonstrated the event sequencing ability by

sequencing the series of steps in chronological order.

However, inconsistency in the ability to maintaining event sequencing at this stage

was observed in many participants’ story writings as indicated in the excerpt below.

Dora smell pancakes, and she run to the maple syrup store. Dora says “Hi!” The old woman says “Do you want eat pancakes?” But Dora no quiet, she run run to the dining room. The wife says “No eat! My Breakfast!” Soon she takes spoon eat eat. If at first. The dog and cat so very very hungry again. (Claire, third story writing)

In the excerpt above, Claire maintained proper event sequencing in the previous few utterances. However, the ending showed omissions of critical information in the

connection of the utterances, leading to problems in event sequencing.

Gradually, the participants, including Claire, became more consistent in achieving adequate event sequencing in the story writings toward the end of the writing program

as shown in the excerpt below.

There is a boy wake up, and he sees snow outside the window. He puts on his clothes, runs outside. Then the boy makes a snowman. Later, he helps the snowman take a hat and makes a scarf. And he runs home, takes three buttons put on the snowman. Now the time is night. The boy brushes his teeth. Then he goes to his bedroom still looks at the snowman, and he doesn’t sleep. He goes downstairs outside the house. (Claire, sixth story writing)

This excerpt indicated that like many other participants, Claire consistently sequenced the events in chronological order while describing the actions taken to make the snowman. No omissions of critical information, misorder of utterances or

repetitions of events were observed.

On the other hand, the participants were also aware that the pictures in the wordless picture books were well-sequenced and provided them with a clear storyline

to base their descriptions on as indicated in the following self-report.

I would follow the sequence of the pictures....I also learn how to arrange the sequence of events. For example, what happened in the beginning, what happened next and what happened in the end. And I would sequence the events like this while writing the wordless picture books. (Vincent, third interview)

﹝我就照著圖片寫，我還有學會怎麼去安排事件，例如一開始怎樣怎樣，然 後怎樣怎樣，最後是怎樣，寫的時候就照著這樣安排下去。﹞

They also acknowledged the value of the pictures in the wordless picture books in enhancing the event sequencing in their story writing compared to one single picture as indicated below.

B: Because one single picture only shows one action. The wordless picture books allow me to see what he did in the beginning and then I can continue to describe him. One single picture shows one action, so I don’t know the previous part.

Similar result was also found in the teacher’s reflexive journal that the pictures in

the wordless picture books enhanced the participants’ event sequencing abilities.

I divided the story the students into three parts. I gave each group a set of scrambled pictures from the wordless picture books. The students had to work together to unscramble the pictures first and then act out the part based on them….They had a logical arrangement of the sequence of the actions.

(Teacher’s Reflexive Journal, 20101214)

To sum up, it was found that the wordless picture books enhanced the development

of event sequencing in describing the whole story. Unlike one single picture, the wordless picture books contained a set of pictures that illustrated fully and clearly what happened to the character in the story. The pictures in the wordless picture books provided the participants with a clear storyline, so they could describe and arrange the events based on it.

4.2.2.2 Discussion

It is clear that wordless picture books, which contain a complete storyline hidden

in the set of sequenced pictures, help the students narrate the story in chronological and logical order. To write a well-organized story, students can sequence the events based on the sequence of the pictures and then add the story elements into their narrative. In the present study, the students demonstrated very poor event sequencing abilities in the beginning. However, gradually with the use of wordless picture books for writing, they became more capable of narrating a story in logical and

chronological sequence.

Similar findings were also found in the study by Carter, Holland, Mladic, Sarbiewski, & Sebastian (1998) stating that the young learners, especially for learners with lower writing abilities, significantly improved their skills of sequencing by using wordless picture books. Likewise, Oyetunde and Umolu (1991) also indicated that wordless picture books can be beneficial for the development of descriptive and sequencing skills. Unlike one single picture, wordless picture books with a clear storyline guide students to create a story writing in chronological order.