Chapter Two Literature Review
The present research aims to investigate the effects of story-mapping instruction
on picture writing. In this chapter, the literature of the prewriting strategies, picture
writing, and the story mapping theory will be reviewed.
2.1 The Importance of Pre-writing Strategies
Over the past 40 years, the focus on writing instruction has shifted from product
of writing to process of writing. According to Applebee (1986), the writing instruction
in the past was product-centered, emphasizing correct usage and mechanics and there
was little use of process approaches to writing instruction. Some recent trends in
writing instruction emphasize the writing process more than the writing product.
Hayes and Flower (1980) propose a cognitive process model of composing, which
contains three phases: planning, translating and reviewing. These phases do not take
place in a fixed, linear progression but in a recursive manner. With the change of
focus in writing instruction from product to process, both researchers and instructors
emphasize the importance of involving younger writers in prewriting experience
before expecting them to write (Noyce & Christie, 1989). Many researchers (Brown,
1988; Tompkins, 1990; Routman, 1991; Graves, 1994) consider the most crucial of
the writing process to be the prewriting stage. The prewriting activities can provide
students with rich experiences, help students in generating ideas for writing and aid
students in the structuring of content (Tompkins & Friend, 1986).
The prewriting stage is a writer’s warm-up allowing the writer to be prepared to
write. During the prewriting stage, Noyce & Christie (1989) suggest that learners need
to engage in talking, picturializing and planning before beginning to write, such as
brainstorming, clustering, outlining, and mapping, which help students to decide what
to write and how to go about it. Through such experience, writers discover what they
want to say when they write. However, young writers often demonstrate lack of
planning and reflection in advance of and during the act of writing. Many of these
students approach the writing task impulsively, rather than thinking about the episodic
structure beginning, middle, and end of the narrative product (Troia, Graham, &
Harris, 1999).
Moreover, researchers point out that because many students spend little time
planning in advance of writing, they have problems finding enough to say (Harris &
Graham, 1992; Charnry, Newman & Palmquist, 1995). They also find that not
knowing what to write often leads to writing apprehension, which has a negative
impact on the writing performance. The feeling of not being able to express
themselves clearly in English results in learners’ frustration and anxiety in writing.
They suggest that teaching prewriting strategies helps students in two important ways:
First, they become more secure and confident when they can use prewriting strategies
in their writing. Second, as their confidence increases, their approach to apply
prewriting activities becomes more mature. Ellis (2003) also indicates that when the
students write, using prewriting format to generate content is helpful to learners’
narrative writing. The strategic prewriting activities help writers in using their
knowledge of structure and content to orchestrate the writing process and forge their
own ideas. Therefore, it is proposed that prewriting strategies can facilitative writing
performance.
Studies which have sought to determine the causes of writing apprehension
(Thompson, 1983; Walsh, 1986; Pajares & Viliante, 1997) have found that students’
fear of writing exposure is possibly due to inadequate practice. Since writing anxiety
is caused by a writer’s lack of writing skills, improving those skills should reduce
writing apprehension. An accepted method of improving students’ writing skills is to
familiarize students with the writing process, in particular, the prewriting stage.
Researches have shown that teachers who emphasize prewriting activities have
enabled their students to produce higher proficiency scores in writing (Becker, 1991;
Goldstein & Carr, 1996; Schweiker-Marra & Marra, 2000; Huang, 2003, Saddler, et
al., 2004). Additionally, the prewriting strategies help to decrease students’ writing
apprehension (Schweiker-Marra & Marra, 2000).
From above, it is shown that prewriting strategies are important in two ways:
1. Prewriting activities enhance learners’ writing fluency.
2. Prewriting activities reduce learners’ writing apprehension or anxiety.
2.1.1 The Related Studies on Pre-writing Strategies
Becker (1991) investigates the effects of prewriting, an activity associated with
process approaches to teaching writing. The participants in this study included 424
adult learners of German at various levels in a Brazil language school. The students in
the experimental group used prewriting activity for 5 minutes before writing whereas
students in the control group did not. Both raters identified a higher percentage of
imagery and interesting ideas in experimental than in control group compositions. In
addition, on a measure of writing fluency, the students of the experimental group
significantly outperformed those in the control group.
In Schweiker-Marra & Marra’s (2000) research, it is shown that with the use of
extensive prewriting activities, students could improve their writing abilities while
eliminating or lessening their writing apprehension. The participants included 29
participants who were elementary students with poor writing skills. The control group
received no formal writing instruction while the experimental group underwent direct
instruction on the writing process with emphasis on prewriting skills. The
experimental students were exposed to prewriting activities in order to improve their
writing skills and to reduce their writing anxiety. The two instruments utilized for
collecting the quantitative data were a holistic rubric for narrative writing and Daly &
Miller’s Writing Apprehension Scale (1975). The results of the research demonstrated
that the participants in the experimental students improved in their written expression
scores from beginning to end of the treatment and in comparison with the control
group. Writing anxiety decreased for the experimental group during the study through
writing instruction that emphasized prewriting activities.
In an EFL learning surrounding here in Taiwan, there are also studies on the
positive effects of pre-writing strategies on English writing. For example, in Huang
(2003), the researcher reports the positive effects of teaching organizing strategies in
the prewriting phase on Chinese students’ English writing proficiency. The
participants of the study included 80 intermediate-level EFL student writers. They
were divided into two groups: the experimental group receiving the instruction in
organizational exercises and the control group the instruction in grammatical
exercises. The adopted prewriting activities included brainstorming, clustering, and
outlining. The comparison of mean pre-post scores on the five factors, organization,
content richness, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary appropriateness, mechanics
accuracy included, indicated that the experimental group made more significant
improvement than the control group in content and organization. The researcher
suggests that prewriting strategies did have positive effects on content and
organization in students’ writing and English instructors could incorporate the
organizing strategy in the prewriting phase to help the beginning EFL writers.
In the present study, the researcher applies the story mapping instruction as a
prewriting activity to story writing class to see if there is progress in the students’
writing performance. That is because the story-mapping instruction relatively has not
received much attention here in Taiwan with comparison with other prewriting
activities, such as brainstorming, outlining, clustering, etc. It is also because no
research here in Taiwan has been conducted to investigate the effects of the
story-mapping strategy on EFL writers. Besides, as will be reviewed in 2.3, research
has shown that story mapping is one of the pre-writing activities that can promote the
story writing ability and decrease the writing apprehension of EFL beginning writers
since it provides students with the basic story structure or scaffolding.
2.2 The Trend of Picture Writing
The reason why the researcher focuses on finding a workable strategy to help
students with picture writing is that picture writing is the trend of writing tests in
Taiwan. In recent years, the English writing tasks have shifted from topic-guided
writing to picture-guided writing. Since 2003, the local writing competence tests have
adopted picture-guided writing, with a single picture writing in the writing part of
GEPT and sequential-picture writing in JCEE respectively. It becomes more likely
that students have to face the challenge of picture writing, but up to now there have
been few studies here in Taiwan conducted to investigate a workable approach to help
student with the English picture writing. It is the purpose of the present study to
provide a workable writing strategy to help student with picture writing.
2.2.1 The Related Study on Picture Writing
To the best of our knowledge, in Taiwan up to now only Chiang (2003) has
investigated the effectiveness of the application of picture writing on EFL writing In
Chiang (2003), there were sixty participants, the control group (N=30) for the
topic-guided story writing and the experiment group (N=30) for picture-guided story
writing. The result showed that the group receiving the picture aids outperformed its
counterpart in constructing a story with a complete story format, that was a beginning,
a middle and an ending. Besides, with the help of the given pictures, the students
could make stories with longer texts and richer vocabulary. Also, there was a positive
change of the students’ attitude toward and motivation for story writing in English
class. In Chiang’s study, although she demonstrated the effectiveness of
picture-guided story writing, there were still many students who failed to write a
well-organized story. The reason to account for the student’s disability to write a story
with better organization with the help of pictures is that the students lacked the
thorough knowledge of story structure. In her study, Chiang asked the students guided
questions of the storyline without giving them the whole picture of the story elements.
In the present study, the researcher would like to further study if the story mapping
instruction can help the students generate a well-organized story with rich content
when they face a picture writing task. The reason that the researcher used the story
mapping strategy to picture writing is that there is a strong bond between them. Both
sequential pictures and story mapping can explicitly display graphic story elements.
Tseng (2002) also reported the effectiveness of using pictures to enhance
students’ Chinese writing performance. In her study, Tseng explained the topic in the
given pictures, guided the six participants to observe the details in the pictures and
asked them to discuss about the pictures before they wrote. After the instruction, the
participants improved in organization of their narratives and their interest in writing
and observation of details were enhanced. Tseng indicated that pictures, providing the
students the arrangement of the order of paragraphs, helped them with story writing.
Chiang and Tseng both indicated that as long as the students followed the frame
of the given pictures, they could be motivated to compose a unified story. However,
many students still feel anxious and frustrated when writing English compositions of
the picture-writing form. The researcher would like to see if the story-mapping
strategy is a practical and workable writing strategy to guide the students how to
compose unified picture writing.
2.3 The Theory of Story Mapping
Story mapping is a schematic and strategic learning tool based on the concept of
story grammar. It is of great importance to reading comprehension and writing
instruction. Since it provides the visualized story schema or basic story elements of a
story, readers can have a better picture of the relationship among all story elements
and hence comprehend the story more quickly and easily. Writers as well can benefit
from the assistance of story mapping. Based on the concept of story structure or story
grammar, writers can develop and construct better-organized and coherent narratives.
Different fields of cognitive and psychological theories, including schema,
metacognitive, and reduction theories have supported the application of story
mapping (Foley, 2000).
The schema theory supports the application of story mapping. Researchers have
determined that narrative stories in general have a similar, internal structure or
component parts (Stein & Glenn, 1975; Rumelhart, 1975; Mandler & Johnson, 1977;
Rumelhart, 1977; Rumelhart, 1981). Knowledge of this structure is beneficial to
writing process since it provides the prior knowledge of a story. When writing a topic,
authors must access their prior knowledge (schemata) of that topic. The schema
serves as the source of the content of writing. Without them, writers have nothing to
write about (Noyce & Christie, 1989). Hayes and Flower (1980) also proposes that in
order to be successful in the area of writing, writers must search in their cognitive
structures and relate and synthesize many bits and pieces of information to complete a
writing assignment. These bits and pieces of information stored in the learner’s long-
and short-term memory constitute a student’s prior knowledge or schema. In the case
of story-mapping strategy, story grammars can become text structure schemata, and
the elements outlined on the story-map slots, or parts of a schema. While writing
narratives, writers retrieve the information from those slots and generate more ideas
from the story schema (Foley, 2000). Story structure in the context of reading and
written texts has been examined by many educators and cognitive psychologists.
Mandler and Johnson (1980) found that when young children were given brief
instruction on the major story parts, they were able to use this story schema in aiding
them to recall information. It has been demonstrated that a knowledge of story schema
facilitates both reading comprehension and narrative writing (Brown, 1988).
Additionally, cognitive psychologists using the rationale of a top down information
processing model see the importance of schema as it applies to students’ ability to
retrieve information while completing a writing task (Rentel & King, 1983). When
writers make decisions about what they want to say and how they want to approach
their topic, the decisions are influenced by writer’s prior knowledge. Background
knowledge or schema is a necessary component that facilitates the writing process. In
the story-writing process, writers have to retrieve the existing schema of the story
structure to compose their stories. Schema theory assumes that the reason why writers
have difficulty knowing what to write may lies in they fail to activate prior knowledge
structure as they write, or that they simply do not see the relationship between
existing schemata and new topic. With the help of a schema, which provides a prior
knowledge of narratives, the writer might compose more organized and coherent texts.
Hence, in order to enhance students’ narrative writing performance, it is suggested
that one should facilitate the story schema building process.
Metacognitive and reduction theories have also supported the application of
story mapping. Since story-mapping strategies provide writers with a step-by-step
procedure for how to write a story, they then become a metacognitive strategy for the
way to think about writing. If students are to become better writers, teachers need to
make them aware of the psychological processes entailed in writing. With repeated
practice using story maps to guide their writing, students begin to internalize this
procedure. Like scaffolding, the external control of the story map is gradually
removed as writers establish internal control and begins to self-monitor their own
writing. Reduction theory claims that all complex process can best be understood by
breaking them down into their constituent parts and then putting them back together,
piece by piece (Kincheloe, 1993). This is precisely what story maps require students
to do. Researchers believe that most narratives have a similar story structure and basic
story elements called story grammar. Also story maps provide the visual
demonstration of this story structure. If the language learner has the concept of story
grammar, the constituent parts of stories, it might help them in the complex process of
writing narratives.
2.3.1 Definition of Story Mapping
Before we define story mapping, we should have a clear concept of “story.”
“Story” is a sub-type of narrative and it is a specific, past-time narrative that tells
about a series of events which took place at specific unique moments in a unique
past-time world (Cortazzi, 1994). Text-analysis research has shown that most stories
share the same, predictable basic structure or pattern of events that create the
properties of a story (Noyce & Christie, 1989). This organizational familiarity, which
may occur consciously or unconsciously, is called story grammar (Mandler & Johnson,
1977; Thorndyke, 1977; Stein & Trabasso, 1982). In simple stories, there is a
universal story grammar which involve a main character who encounters a problem,
sets a goal, experiences events while he or she attempts to achieve the goal, and either
succeeds or fails at achieving the goal. Story grammar is an attempt to describe the
rules that people use to create and remember stories. Like sentence grammar, a story
grammar is a set of structural rules. For example, all well-formed sentences must
have a subject and predicate, and the predicate describes the action of the subject.
Similarly, according to story grammar rules, stories are expected to have a main
character, who is confronted with some type of problem (Shanahan & Shanahan,
1997). Researchers might have slightly different story elements in their research due
to the different needs or purposes of the researches. Idol (1987), for example, defines
story grammar information as (a) the setting, including the characters, time, and the
place; (b) the problem; (c) the goals; (d) the action; and (e) the outcomes of the story;
while Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, &Carnine, (1990) include main problem/conflict,
characters, resolution, and theme in their story grammar. Harris and Graham (1992)
provide detailed story elements in their story map. The eight story grammar units are
as follows.
● Character(s): the main person(s) or animal(s) in the story.
● Locale: the place that the main events happen.
● Time: the specific time that the main events happen.
● Starter:an action that sets up a problem or dilemma for the story.
● Goal: what the main character(s) attempts to achieve.
● Action(s): the attempts by the main character(s) to resolve the problem or conflict.
● Ending: the outcome of the attempts to resolve the problem or conflict.
● Reaction: how the main character(s) feel toward the ending.
The present study adopted the story grammar in Harris and Graham (1992) since
the model provides a thorough knowledge of story structure which leads the
participants to generate stories with complete story structure.
A story map is a visual depiction of such story grammar. It can be used as
frameworks for storytelling or retelling, and as outlines for story writing. The purpose
of story maps is to assist students as they examine the structure of a story. Students
gain a thorough understanding of the story by identifying the setting, problems, goals,
events, and solutions as portrayed in the narrative text. It is proved that story-mapping
strategy can assist inexperienced writers in organizing their story writing, composing
longer texts with richer lexical items, eliciting more creativity in students’
compositions and cultivating a positive attitude toward writing and a stronger
motivation for it as well.
2.3.2 Values and Related Studies on Story Mapping
There has been a great deal of research on the effects of story mapping. Story
mapping benefits learners’ language learning a lot in many fields. Based on
observation of the research done related to story mapping, Jackie (1989) concludes
that the story mapping strategy can assist language learning in four fields, inclusive of
listening, speaking, reading comprehension, writing fluency. Besides, it is reported
that story-mapping strategy can lower the writing apprehension as well.
2.3.2.1 Effectiveness of Story Mapping in Improving Reading and Listening
Comprehension.
Many researchers suggest that story maps are effective for improving narrative
comprehension because they provide concreteness, visual and opportunities for active
engagement (Fitzgerald & Spiegel, 1983; Fitzgerald & Teasley, 1986; Idol & Croll,
1987; Baumann & Bergeron, 1993). Story grammar represents the basic structure of a
narrative text, and story maps are templates that graphically represent these elements.
While there are various interpretations of story grammar, there are common story
elements. These basic story elements are beneficial to students’ reading
comprehension (Foley, 2000). For students who come from less literate background,
or who have learning disabilities, explicit instruction of story grammar has proven
beneficial to reading comprehension development (Carnine & Kinder, 1985; Idol,
1987; Idol & Croll, 1987; Montague et al., 1990; Schmelzer & Dickey, 1990; Leaman,
1993; Simmons, 1993).
Story mapping is a helpful instructional teaching tool that can be used before
reading to activate the internal cognitive awareness of story structures, during reading
to promote the story elements, and after reading to diagnostically assess the degree of
comprehension concerning the story (Reutzel, 1984; Davis, 1994). In the late 1970s,
schema theory becomes pivotal to empirical investigations of encoding and retrieval
processes in reading (Anderson & Pearson, 1984).
As Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, & Carnine, (1990) point out, story mapping directs
students’ attention to relevant elements of stories using a specific structure. Story
maps provide a visual-spatial display for key information in narrative text. These
maps function to prompt learners to identify story elements and provide space for
them to record this information. Story maps may be used before reading a passage to
elicit prior knowledge, facilitate discussion, and record relevant information about a
topic. The use of story maps while reading a passage provides a guide for readers to
record significant information and serves as a review after reading. Story-mapping
procedures have been used, modified, studied, and evaluated with a range of
individuals with various abilities and grade levels (Beck & McKoewn, 1981). For
example, story maps have been utilized to increase reading comprehension skill by
prompting students to recognize story grammar elements, such as characters, setting,
the problem (Dimino, et al.1995); organizing and sequencing story information
(Pearson, 1985); and making connections between story components (Pearson, 1982).
Sorrell (1990) describes story mapping as a tool for providing or building upon prior
knowledge or schema. He explains that story mapping can help student with
interpreting, organizing and comprehending new information prior to, during, and
after reading stories.
From 80s to early of 21st century, story-mapping instruction has been proved to
have positive influence on different groups of learners. (Singer and Donlan, 1983;
Carnine & Kinder, 1985; Idol & Croll, 1987; Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, & Carnine,
1990; Davis, 1994; Mathes, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 1997; Gardill & Jitendra, 1999;
Boulineau, Fore III, Hagan-Burke, & Burke, 2004). The research conducted to be
related to reading comprehension are fruitful and show promising outcome.
The first explicit systematic instruction in story grammar study is conducted by
Singer and Donlan (1983). The researchers provided instruction of five story grammar
elements to 11th- grade L1 students in an attempt to improve their ability to
comprehend complex short stories in high school literature anthologies. Results from
daily 10-item, multiple choice comprehension assessments indicated that story
grammar components can serve as the basis for an effective instructional strategy.
Carnine & Kinder (1985) report positive effects of story grammar training with
elementary-age students and students with learning disabilities. Effects are reported
over a 4-week delay interval.
Idol & Croll (1987) investigated the effects of story mapping on reading
comprehension. In this study, the L1 students with learning disabilities were taught in
heterogeneous groups along with their non-handicapped peers. A direct instruction
paradigm was followed, moving from a teacher-modeling phase to a teacher
assistance phase, to an independent practice phase. Four of the five students with
learning disabilities demonstrated significant improvement in response to
comprehension questions, story writing, and listening comprehension.
Idol (1987) used model-lead test procedures to teach how to complete a story
map while reading. The worksheet on the story map required students to fill in story
grammar information that included (a) the setting, including the characters, tine, and
the place;(b) the problem; (c) the goals; (d) the action; and (e) the outcomes of the
story. The participants in the study were third and fourth graders, including five
learning disabled and low achieving students, who were taught to use a story mapping
strategy to improve reading comprehension. The dependent measures were (1) the
percentage of correct, written responses to 10 comprehension questions which refer
directly to the components of the story map, (2) oral scores for reading
comprehension and word meaning on the Nelson Reading Skills Test, and (3)
listening comprehension test. The results indicated that elementary-age students who
were taught these specific procedures improved their responses to written
comprehension questions, listening comprehension and reading comprehension. Idol
(1987) found similar improvements when examining the effects of a story-mapping
strategy on text comprehension in a study of 27 low-achieving 3rd and 4th graders. Idol
suggested that if the comprehension instruction provided a framework for
understanding, conceptualizing, and remembering important story events, even
students with poor reading comprehension can be successfully accommodated for
comprehension instruction.
Gurney, Gersten, Dimino & Carnine (1990) examined the effectiveness of story
mapping strategy for teaching comprehension of literature to seven high school
students with learning disabilities. These students were divided into three groups,
including two groups of two students from one high school and one group of 3
students from the other school. There were two experimental phases: (a) traditional
basal literature instruction and (b) story grammar instruction. Through learning the
important story elements, namely, main problem/conflict, characters, resolution, and
theme, the participants showed improvements in the students’ ability to answer
questions based on the stories read. The results showed that story grammar instruction
provided the students with a framework that assisted them in comprehending stories at
a more sophisticated level.
Mathes, Fuchs, & Fuchs (1997) explored the effects of Cooperative Story
Mapping (CSM) on L1 students’ reading comprehension. The story map applied in
this study was based on the work of Idol (1987) and Idol and Croll (1987). It included
main characters, setting, problem or conflict, major events, and outcome or resolution.
On average, students had made significantly great fluency and comprehension
improvement from pretest to posttest. Additionally, both teachers and students
reported high levels of satisfaction with Cooperative Story Mapping. According to the
teachers, CSM was important to the reading achievement of their students (mean
score: 4.63 with the total score of 5). They would be likely to continue to use CSM in
the future (mean score: 4.68). Working in cooperative group enhances reading
achievement for all leaner types (mean score: 4.58). Students said they enjoy CSM
(mean score: 4.22) and they believed the procedure had helped them to become better
readers (mean score: 4.28).
Gardill & Jitendra (1999) used a multiple baseline across participants to
determine the effects of advanced story-map instruction on the reading
comprehension of six L1 students in 6th and 8th grade identified with SLD. The
independent variable was a story map that provides space for students to write the
significant information from stories read. Results indicate an increase on the basal
comprehension tests for each participant.
Boulineau, Fore III, Hagan-Burke, & Burke, (2004) examined the use of
story-mapping to improve the reading comprehension of six 3rd and 4th grade L1
students with specific learning disabilities who exhibited reading deficits. Using a
descriptive, ABC phased single participant design, the effect of story instruction on
students’ comprehension of story-grammar elements was monitored. The ABC phase
included Phase A: the baseline phase, Phase B: the intervention phase, in which the
elements of story grammar are explicitly taught using a story map as a visual aid and
an organizer for guided practice and Phase C: the maintenance phase. The results of
the study showed that story grammar instruction improved the students’ identification
of story elements when reading narrative text. Each participant’s percentage of correct
story grammar elements increased from baseline to intervention conditions. The
effectiveness of story mapping strategy still maintained and lasted once the instruction
was terminated.
In Taiwan, an EFL learning environment, there is also some research conducted
to investigate the effects of story mapping on reading comprehension. However, the
participants were mostly elementary-age students or students with different learning
disabilities. The following are the results of the related studies.
Based on the model of Mathes, Fuchs, and Fuchs (1997), Yeh (2002) investigated
the effects of cooperative story mapping on the Chinese reading comprehension of the
elementary average students and students with low-performing reading. The
participants included 64 average students and 8 low-performing reading students. The
researcher found that cooperative story mapping could not only promote the reading
comprehension of average students but also helped the students of low reading
comprehension in reading. Also, the students expressed high level of satisfaction and
looked forward to an implementation of cooperative story mapping in the future.
Chen (2003) reported the positive effects of story grammar instruction on the
Chinese reading comprehension of five 2nd grade elementary students with reading
disabilities. All the five subjects’ scores of story grammar questions increased after
the story mapping instruction and its effectiveness lasted for at least 3 weeks. Another
finding was that the participants’ performance in 6 story grammar components were
improved, especially in main “character” and “setting.”
Chang (2003) reported that all the three participants performed better on their
reading comprehension when using the story mapping strategy. The results of this
study suggested that story-grammar instruction improved the participants’
identification of story grammar elements via story mapping when reading a narrative
text. Lin (2003) also reported similar positive results when examining the effects of
story mapping on reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities.
Additionally, story mapping helps with students’ listening comprehension of
stories. According to Idol & Croll (1987) and Idol (1987), the students demonstrated
improvement in their listening comprehension of stories after receiving the story
mapping instruction because the instruction provided them with the knowledge of
story structure which enabled them to predict what may happen next in the stories
they heard and comprehended the stories better.
2.3.2.2 Effectiveness of Story Mapping in Improving Story Telling
Successful use of story structure as a comprehension strategy involves the
integration of various story elements. In preparing to tell a story, students map the
story’s structure and make meaningful connection between the components.
Jackie (1989) demonstrated that story mapping helped storytelling since story
maps provided organized visual aid of story elements which helped L1 students with
story telling. Having the structure in mind enabled students to tell their stories without
stilted memorization of lines. Cannizzar & Coelho (2002) investigated the treatment
of story grammar ability, in an 39-year-old individual TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury).
Treatment emphasized mata-linguistic comprehension of story grammar structure and
the identification and generation of episode components within stories. Over the
course of treatment, a marked increased in the number of complete episodes generated
by the individual with TBI was noted in story grammar probe.
2.3.2.3 Effectiveness of Story Mapping in Lowering Students’ Writing
Apprehension in the Target Language
Researches find that students who are apprehensive about writing or who lack
confidence in their writing ability are less motivated to write frequently, write less
well when they do (Charney, Newman, Palmquist, 1995). Pajares and Johnson (1994)
also find that undergraduates who are apprehensive about writing have lower
confidence scores and that the ratings of their writing abilities are predictive of
writing performance. Writing anxiety leads to difficulties in producing effective and
coherent written pieces. Students with writing anxiety have problems in writing
anything from simple letters to complex reports. Studies which have sought to
determine the causes of WA (Thompson, 1979; Walsh, 1986; Pajares, 1997) have
found that students’ fear of writing exposure is possibly due to inadequate practice.
Since writing anxiety is caused by a writer’s lack of writing skills, improving those
skills should reduce writing apprehension. An accepted method of improving
students’ writing skills is through the prewriting activities, in particular, the story
mapping.
Since story mapping provides beginning writers with story schema, it might help
to develop the students’ positive attitude toward and stronger motivation for EFL
writing. With the assistance of story mapping, EFL writers can lower their anxiety
level and apprehension about writing in the target language. It is shown that those
with low writing apprehension should perform better on tests of writing skills than
highly apprehensive writers (Lee, 1990; Schweiker-Marra & Marra, 2000; Hassan,
2001). Lee (1990) suggests that training of writing skills, such as prewriting activities
helps decrease writing apprehension of EFL students. Harris & Graham (1992) reports
that most L1 students feel comfortable with writing after receiving the story mapping
instruction. Since story mapping, one of the prewriting activities, provides beginning
writers with story schema, it might help to develop the students’ positive attitude
toward and stronger motivation for EFL writing. With the assistance of story mapping,
EFL writers can lower their anxiety level and apprehension about writing in the target
language.
2.3.2.4 Effectiveness of Story Mapping in Improving Student’s Story Writing
Performance
Noyce and Christie (1989) point out that lack of story sense undoubtedly inhibits
the students’ abilities to write their own stories. Moreover, students’ writing lacking
coherent information may be randomly stated and have key parts missing. Therefore,
it is suggested that students be given an organized way of getting started when
confronted with writing tasks. According to Ruddell (2004), mapping is an
organizational activity. It therefore precedes writing naturally by providing visual
representation of students’ constructions and organizations of knowledge. While
writing from maps, students can focus on one or more aspects of this organized
scheme and then elaborate their knowledge construction with written text. Mapping is
the primary vehicle for organizing, selecting, and connection information. With the
assistance of story mapping, students are able write well-formed, well-organized, and
rich-content stories. Students who need help with organizing ideas for fiction stories
can be encouraged to take a few minutes to write down their thoughts on a story map
before writing. This map becomes the framework that guides the writer in keeping
their stories going.
There are three issues involved in the story-mapping strategy to writing. The first
issue is: Can the story-mapping strategy promote students’ writing ability? According
to Brown (1988), the story organizer, one of the three pre-writing strategies in the
study, has best effects on the quality of L1 students’ narrative writing. The participants
in this study, including twenty-four 4th-grade L1 students, received different types of
prewriting activities, with Experimental Group 1 using the story organizer activity,
Experimental Group 2 receiving the webbing activity, and the Control Group
receiving the brainstorming activity. The three prewriting activities had different
focuses. The story organizer was a prewriting activity designed with questions about
story elements to guide the writing of narrative stories, including the setting, initiating
event, internal response, attempt, consequence, and reaction; while the webbing
activity used a visual clustering of ideas that related to the topic and the brainstorming
activity encouraged students to list any ideas that came to their minds relating to the
topic. The participants were given 15 minutes to plan and 30 minutes to write their
narratives. Although the results showed that Control Group scored higher than
Experimental Group 1 and Experimental Group 2, Experimental Group 1 undergoing
the story organizer scored significantly better than Experimental Group Two and
Control Group when the primary story elements were analyzed. In this study, the story
organizer was the best prewriting activity that helped narrative writing. Also,
Fitzgerald and Teasley (1986) find that when 4th-grade L1 students receiving
instruction on narrative structure, the overall quality and the organization of their
writing was improved. The participants (N=20) were divided into a control group and
an experimental group. The former received instruction on narrative story structure.
The latter received instruction on dictionary skills and word usage. The results
demonstrated that direct instruction of narrative structure did facilitate the
organization of children’s writing. In Taiwan, Hsu (2001), who investigated the direct
instruction of story mapping on Chinese writing proficiency, reported that the 61 6th
graders performed significantly better in writing fluency after the story mapping
instruction. The experimental group outperformed the control group in the “total
score”, “content”, and “organization” of writing performance.
The second issue is: Do the students’ work contain more story elements after the
story mapping instruction? Vallecorsa & deBettencourt (1997) reported the positive
effects of direct transfer reading training on story writing performance. The three
7th-grade L1 students with learning disabilities were taught to use a story map that
identified elements of the story form as an aid to story recall and story writing
performance. The scale identified eight important story elements developed by
MacArthur and Graham: main characters, locale, time, starter event, goals, ending,
and characters’ reaction. The results showed that the story mapping strategy was an
effective way to help students develop the knowledge of story structure and in turn,
improve their reading and writing performance. Harris & Graham (1992) dealt with
the two issues discussed above. They collected the research results by observing
Danoff’s writing class for one year. They reported positive effects of story mapping
on learners’ writing performance by analyzing the stories written in the pretest and
posttest. Danoff worked with a group of fifth grade L1 students, including both
normally achieving students and several students with learning disabilities with
writing, with a class period a day devoted to the story writing approach. The results
showed that all students made improvement in story writing by including greater
detail and elaboration as well as more “goals” and “actions.” Harris & Graham
indicated that the students had shown improvement in the number of story elements
included in their stories. Although a few of the students were already using all the
story elements in the beginning of the instruction, they showed improvement in
detail and action in their stories as well as improvement in their quality of their
writing after receiving the instruction. Additionally, although some students still
experienced anxiety about composing and writing difficulties, most students reported
they enjoy writing and were comfortable with it after receiving the story mapping
strategy. According to Saddler, Moran, Graham and Harris (2004), the 6 African
American second-graders composed longer stories with more story elements and
richer story content after the prewriting planning instruction of story elements. Similar
improvement in personal narratives also occurred for all students but one.
The third issue is: Do students make progress in each story elements? In Fine’s
(1991) research, the participants included 77 L1 2nd graders. The teacher provided
direct instruction of story grammar, inclusive of characters, setting, and plot, in the
experimental group. The results of ANOVAs on the means for the posttest story
grammar scores, total adapted-Glazer Narrative Composition Scale scores and holistic
scale scores showed significant improvement in writing achievement of the
experimental group over the control group. Qualitative analysis showed that students
had a good understanding of the concept of character at the pretest and posttest
interview. Eight students who could not manipulate “plot” before the instruction could
do so after direct instruction in story grammar. Five students who could not identify or
manipulate “setting” could do so after direct instruction in story grammar. Moreover,
the students in the experimental group also reported that they would think of
characters, setting, and plot before writing a story after receiving knowledge of story
grammar as a strategy.
Given the studies reviewed above, it has been shown that story mapping
instruction benefits L1 story writing a lot. It is a pity that few of the studies discuss
the correlation among the three issues and investigate which story elements are
difficult for students to manipulate. Besides, many of the studies focused on the L1
students with learning disabilities instead of average students. To the best of our
knowledge, no research here in Taiwan has been conducted to investigate the effects
of the story-mapping instruction on the EFL average students. Therefore, the present
study aims to investigate the effects of story mapping instruction on students’ story
structure, writing performance and explore which story elements are challenging to
the students.
2.4 Summary
Through the review of the literature on prewriting strategies and story mapping,
it is found that the prewriting strategy, story mapping, can help beginning writers with
their writing performance. The prewriting activities play a crucial role in the writing
process. They involve organizing, generating, and goal setting. It is within this
component that many teachers provide activities to help students get started, and to
organize and generate their thoughts. It has been proposed that story mapping is
helpful as a prewriting activity to facilitate the generation of students’ narrative
writing since this strategy provides language learners the graphically representation of
the story structure.
