Organization

This category focuses on the participants’ ability to organize the ideas in a logical and cohesive manner, clearly and fully support the ideas, express the ideas fluently and demonstrate a sense of audience in writing.

4.1.2.1 Result

Table 4.3 shows the distribution of the levels of organization in the pretest and the

six story writings of the participants.

The result in Table 4.3 indicates that in the pretest most of the participants’ story writings failed to contain a good organization. The ideas were confused, disconnected or lacked logical sequencing. However, their organization improved significantly in their first story writing by one to two levels. In the later half of the writing program, the participants became more able to produce a story with a better organization.

Table 4.3. The Distribution of the Levels of Organization in the Story Writings Levels Excellent to

Very Good Good to

Average Fair to Poor Very Poor

Pretest A. D. E. H. K. B. C. V. W

In the pretest, the participants’ writings contained a very poor organization. Similar to many other participants, Claire was only able to produce a story writing with poor organization in the beginning as indicated in the following excerpt. There were no main ideas presented; thus, there was no logical sequencing or development of the occurring events. She simply wrote by translating the unorganized and non-cohesive

utterances from L1.

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)

Gradually with more writing experience, the participants became more aware how to organize the events in a logical sequence. In the excerpt below, the main topic of making pancakes was clearly stated in the beginning of the story, followed by a series of actions taken to achieve the goal and a logical ending. However, some ideas, like

the episode of running into a bird, were disconnected and not fully developed.

It’s in the country. There’s a old lady. Her name is Dora. So she is very ugly and rude. In the morning. The 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…. Because there is no maple syrup, she walk to the maple syrup store. There is a small bird, bird says, “Me and cat and dog give you a surprise.”….Then Dora so happy, Because she eat the pancakes. The dog and cat so very very hungry again. (Claire, third story writing)

Also, a sense of audience began to emerge since Claire, like many other participants, gradually realized she was delivering ideas through writing. She started to use the first person perspective to deliver the messages and wrote some expressions like “Hello” in the beginning to signal the readers that she was communicating with them as indicated in the excerpt below. Claire clearly described the main character as a turtle that disliked people coming to the pond, which explained why it would then attack the boy and the animals that came fishing by the pond. As a result, it could be found that more inclusion of the information necessary to understand the experience

was given, which led to more support and better cohesion in the story writings.

Hello, I am is a turtle. I live in the pond. I don’t like people to come to the pond.

There is a lot of grass by the pond, so the tree by the pond. One day, on Sunday morning. In a pretty summer, There is a little boy, the boy is short and poor. The boy takes his dog and frog goes fishing.... (Claire, fourth story writing)

With the emergence of a sense of audience, the participants began to be aware that they had to strategically adjust story writings to fully and successfully communicate with the readers by adding or deleting information and details as illustrated by Angel

in the following excerpt.

R: During writing, do you pay attention to some details, such as time, locale, or setting?

﹝寫的時候，你會寫入一些細節，例如時間、地點或場景嗎？﹞

A: Yes. So that people can understand my story better.

﹝會啊，讓別人比較了解故事的背景。﹞

R: Do you express the reactions or the evaluation of the character in the story?

﹝你會將主角的評價或感想寫入故事中嗎？﹞

A: Yes. So after reading my story, the readers can understand the character’s feelings better. (Angel, third interview)

﹝會，就讀者讀完的時候，可以比較了解主角的感受。﹞

Besides, it was also observed that the participants consciously manipulated the organization of the events to arouse the readers’ interest or to cater to their preferences

as indicated by Vincent below.

V: I try to put the climax in the middle, and start with some interesting events jumping out. Then I put some surprises in the middle. Finally I try to create an interesting ending, not a sad one, because people don’t like stories with sad ending. (Vincent, third interview)

﹝把那個精采的盡量放在中間，然後一開始就一些有趣的突然跑出來，然後 在中間就是開始有一些驚喜的地方，然後最後就是盡量比較有趣的結局，

不要悲傷的結局，感覺就是會讓別人覺得不好看。﹞

It could also be found that the participants developed a sense of audience that they were communicating ideas through writing, so the presentation of the story writing should be adapted to facilitate communication by including more necessary information and details and by consciously arranging the events catering to the

readers, which led to a better organization in their story writings.

Finally, toward the end of the writing program most of the participants, including Claire, were more able to write a more organized story. In the following excerpt from

Claire, the main ideas stood out in the beginning, and the following events were organized in a cohesive and logical sequencing clearly indicating the temporal and causal relations among events with proper conjunctions and by properly arranging the events. The ideas were also clearly presented and supported; besides, the whole story

was wrapped up with an emotional and reasonable ending.

Once upon a time, there is a magical city. And there is a magical thing on Wednesday. Today is a magical day, and it’s winter morning. 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…. Soon they run and run and they fly in the sky. They fly to a church and stop on bridge. Soon the sun is up, so they fly to go home. They say,

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” And they hug say goodbye.... Next day, the boys runs outside, says, “No! No!” because Dora melts into water. Finally the boy feels very sad. (Claire, sixth story writing)

On the other hand, the participants endorsed the value of wordless picture books by providing a more complete storyline in the pictures, which facilitated them to coherently and logically organize the events in the story as indicated in the excerpt

below.

Wordless picture books allow me to see what he did in the beginning and I can continue to describe him. A single picture only shows one action, which does not show what happened previously. (Brian, third interview)

﹝無字書可以讓我知道他先做什麼事，然後再來再繼續描述他，圖片就只有 一個動作，不知道他前面。﹞

In addition, the participants displayed their knowledge that the pictures in the wordless picture books contained a logical storyline. When writing about the pictures to make them into a story, they would observe the details or interesting events in the

pictures and then used their logical thinking or creativity to connect the ideas to the whole story, which meant that they paid attention to the logical connection between

one picture to another and even to the overall development of the story.

D: I would pay attention to the picture that suddenly jumped in and what was its importance in the story?

﹝我會注意突然跳出來的畫面，然後就是它背後的涵義到底是什麼。﹞

R: Can you give an example?

﹝可以舉例說明嗎？﹞

D: Umm…Like in the story of making pancakes, I would think about the role of the bird appearing suddenly in front of the old lady’s door, and why it showed up there.

﹝嗯，就例如做鬆餅那個，我就會想說突然出現在家門口的那隻鳥，還有牠 為什麼出現在那邊。﹞

R: So you mean that you would pay attention to details and then try to connect them to the previous pictures and the whole story by adding your own ideas? ﹝所 以你是說，你會特別注意一些細節，用自己的想法連結圖片嗎？﹞

D: Yes. (Dora, third interview)

﹝對。﹞

To sum up, the participants were observed to have gradually enhanced their organization in the story writings with the use of the wordless picture books. They were aware that the pictures in these books contained a basic storyline for them to follow and these pictures were connected to one another. As a result, while writing about the books, they would pay attention to the connection and logical sequencing between pictures and events. In addition, with a sense of audience in mind, they began to adjust their organization to cater to the readers by adding or deleting information, clearly explaining the events and arranging the events.

4.1.2.2 Discussion

The results above indicate that the use of the wordless picture books enhanced the Taiwanese young EFL learners’ story organization. Before writing, the participants had a basic story outline in mind after they read through the pictures in the book.

Then, they would paying attention to details, and then logically included their observations into the story. This means they tried to put their creativity into the story content while at the same time pay attention to the logical sequence and coherence throughout the story as Early (1991) stated that using wordless picture books with English second language learners “encourage students to produce longer, more detailed, coherent and cohesive texts” (p. 250). With a more complete and logical storyline contained in the set of pictures for the readers to interpret, writers are able to write a more detailed, logical and more organized story based on the pictures, their keen observation and wild imagination. Similar findings were also found in Lee’

(1994) study in which the researcher found that among three potential functions of the pictures as guided writing instruction, attentional, cognitive/ or organizational, and retentional, 72 % percent of the participants reported that pictures were most helpful in organizing the ideas. As a result, it is not surprising that the wordless picture books which contain a set of pictures organized in a logical sequence were found by the young learners in the present study extremely useful in organization.

In addition, the participants also developed the audience awareness during writing about the wordless picture books. They were aware that there were no words in the pictures, and there were also no “right” words to read (Lindauer, 1988). They themselves as writers were responsible to provide the readers with sufficient necessary information. They added or omitted information based on their belief in what a good story contained to fully and successfully communicate with the audience, and furthermore some of them also adjusted the arrangement of the events to arouse

readers’ interest in continuing reading the story.

With the use of wordless picture books to facilitate writing among EFL young learners, it is apparent that the students have developed the organization skills and a sense of audience. They become more able to present and support the ideas clearly.

Furthermore, they are more informed of the logical connection between events or the story as a whole, and more competent and flexible in changing the logical sequencing and the development of the story according to different needs and situations.