Chapter Five
Conclusion and Suggestion
This present study investigates the effects of the prewriting activity, the
story-mapping instruction, on the English story writing of senior high school students.
On the basis of data analyses and findings in Chapter Four, this chapter presents the
findings of the present study, along with pedagogical implications, limitations and
suggestions for future studies.
5.1 Summary of the Findings
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the story-mapping
instruction on the story writing and writing performance of senior high school
students. 76 sophomores in Ping-Jeng Senior High School students participated in the
present study. The study lasted for 10 weeks. During the experiment, the participants
completed the ESL version of the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test, underwent
the story-mapping instruction, completed the same Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension
Test again in addition to a final questionnaire and interview. The collected data were
analyzed by computing a series of t-test and by computing the percentage. Besides,
the qualitative data were summarized and presented. The following were the findings
based on all the data gathered in the present study.
1. The explicit story-mapping instruction helped the participants with writing
performance. Before the instruction, the students possessed poor concept or
knowledge of story structure and their stories appear to be relatively short. They
made significant improvement in the word count, content, and organization of
their stories in the posttest. The results indicated that with the knowledge of the
story structure, the EFL writers could compose longer stories not only with more
details but also with better content and organization.
2. The explicit story-mapping instruction helped the participants with story writing.
Before the instruction, the students possessed poor concept or knowledge of story
structure and their stories did not contain complete story elements. With the
assistance of story mapping strategy, the participants had the ability to compose
stories with more story elements and details. They could write more actions and
create more episodes in their stories after receiving the story-mapping instruction.
After receiving the explicit story mapping instruction, the participants also
described the main characters in greater detail with respect to the characters’
physical appearance, characteristics and feelings.
3. The picture aids played a crucial role in writing. The given pictures proveided the
participants with concrete ideas to write. For example, to many students,
“Reaction” and “Ending” appeared to be difficult to master. Since the present
study did not provide the picture of the ending of a story, the participants found it
difficult to come up with “Ending” and “Reaction.” Besides, the participants
thought that the setting of a story, including “Characters,” “Locale,” and “Time,”
was relatively easier to them in comparison with other story grammar units. The
participants found the given pictures provided them with the idea of the setting.
Pictures could be used as a powerful tool to move students from visual images to
written language and thus enable them to write more about the topic.
4. There was a positive correlation among the word count, story grammar units and
writing performance. The results showed that after the participants were taught
the story-mapping strategy, the basic story elements in their stories increased,
their writing performance improved, and their compositions became longer.
5. The explicit story-mapping instruction helped the participants write with less
anxiety and with more confidence. The results indicated that when the beginning
EFL writers were aware of the writing process and the story structure, their
writing apprehension of writing a story would decrease.
6. The participants had positive responses to the story-mapping instruction. They
considered the story mapping instruction a non-threatening, enjoyable prewriting
activity which helped them write well-constructed stories and improve their story
reading comprehension. However, the participants also had negative responses to
the instruction. Some participants complained about the time constraint and
number and complexity of the story grammar units
5.2 Comparison with the Previous Studies
There are some similarities between the present study and the previous ones.
First, the students’ significant improvement in narrative writing performance is in
accordance with Brown (1988), Fitzgerald & Teasley (1986) and Hsu (2001), who
indicated that the story-mapping instruction helped improve students’ narrative
writing performance, especially in content and organization, for the instruction
provided them with an organizational story schema. Second, the benefits of the
story-mapping instruction in generating more story elements and improve their story
elements mentioned in the previous studies (Fine, 1991; Vallecorsa & deBettencourt,
1997; Harris & Graham, 1992; Harris & Graham, 2004) are also confirmed by the
improvement and positive responses shown in the present study. Third, the story
mapping instruction helps reading and story writing. From the feedback of the
students in the interview, the researcher found that the majority of the students applied
the knowledge of story grammar to reading stories. The concept of story grammar
helped them predict what might happen next in the stories they read. The result that
story-mapping instruction helps with reading and writing stories echoes Idol & Croll
(1987), who suggest that when the students were explicitly taught to use the
story-mapping strategy, the students would improve both reading comprehension and
story writing.
On the other hand, the present study is different from the previous studies in the
following ways. First, there is a positive correlation among the length of stories, the
story grammar units and writing performance. This correlation has not been
confirmed in the previous studies. The results in the present study show that when a
student wrote a well-constructed story, their story appeared to include more story
elements, the length of their story was longer and their writing performance improved.
On the contrary, the students with poor writing performance wrote substantially
shorter. Their stories often lacked organization and coherence and included relatively
few story elements over all. Previous studies focused on different aspects of the
effects of the story-mapping instruction. Yet, no specific analysis on the correlation of
the three factors has been presented.
Second, this study shows that pictures played a crucial role in story writing.
When the picture of “Ending” was not provided, students had difficulties writing a
reasonable and logical ending of a story. On the contrary, students could have a vivid
description of setting of a story with the aid of given pictures. To the best of our
knowledge, in the previous L1 or L2 studies on story mapping, no specific remarks
were made on the influence of pictures. Although some studies on picture writing in
Taiwan mentioned the importance of pictures in writing, those studies focused on L1
writing, that is, the Chinese writing.
Third, the present study focuses on the average EFL students in Taiwan. The
target participants in most of the previous studies were either students with different
learning disabilities or elementary school students. The results in this study indicate
that the story-mapping instruction was of much benefit to average EFL students.
Fourth, to the best of our knowledge, this present studies is the first one to
investigate the effect of the story-mapping instruction on English picture writing. In
contrast to previous studies which focused on topic-guided-writing, the present study
placed emphasis on applying the story-mapping strategy to picture-guided writing.
The results show that the story-mapping strategy is a good prewriting activity for
picture writing in English.
In conclusion, the story-mapping instruction helped the participants improve
their story writing. Furthermore, the participants made significant progress in writing
performance with the assistance of story maps. With the help of story mapping, the
majority of the participants reduced their writing apprehension and found the
instruction a non-threatening activity, which inspired them to write longer stories with
better organization and content. Additionally, it successfully aroused their interest in
reading and analyzing stories. Generally speaking, they showed positive attitude
toward the story-mapping instruction.
5.3 Pedagogical Implications
Based on the results of the study and the observation of learning process of the
participants, some suggestions on teaching English writing are provided for the EFL
writing instructors.
First, English teachers can incorporate the concept of story mapping or other text
structure into both reading and writing courses. The significant improvement in the
participants’ story writing reinforces the researchers’ belief in the effectiveness of
story-mapping instruction in the writing course. A majority of the interviewees
indicated that with the knowledge of story schema, they comprehended reading
passages better and made compositions with better content and organization. They
also showed more positive attitude toward English writing after receiving the
story-mapping instruction. All of this confirms the value of story-mapping instruction
in the reading and writing teaching class. Furthermore, it is suggested that before
students try other text structures, they should be exposed to a single text structure to
have enough practice.
Second, writing teachers should provide various and appropriate prewriting
activities with a view to helping students overcome the writer’s block and generate
more ideas to write about in their compositions. According to the researcher’s
observation, brainstorming, outlining, and clustering are prewriting activities which
are used most often by English writing instructors here in Taiwan. The positive effects
of the story-mapping shown in the present study indicate that the story-mapping
strategy is worth introducing to EFL English writing instructors and learners in a
writing class, especially when the writing task belongs to the category of narratives
or picture writing. We also recommend that the story map be included in English
textbooks of junior or senior high schools.
Third, writing teachers should make students aware of the writing process. Once
students are familiar with the writing process of prewriting, editing, and revising, they
might become more secure and confident of their writing. Teachers should also place
more emphasis on content and organization of students’ composition instead of
grammar or vocabulary.
Fourth, EFL writing instructors should provide proper reading selections to
integrate the reading class with the writing class. To help students with “no
imaginations’, it is suggested that they read extensively to accumulate more reading
experience as to become imaginative. If students have enough time to be exposed to
literacy, they will have more chance to get familiar with the concept of story grammar
and practice story mapping, which is beneficial to their writing proficiency.
Fifth, the story mapping instruction can be introduced to the course of story
telling. With the knowledge of story structure and the help of story maps, students
may be able to tell a well-organized story.
Sixth, to provide the students with enough practice of story grammar strategy, the
following is suggested. It is not necessary to have as many story grammar units as
eight. The number and complexity of the story grammar units can be modified
according to the practical needs.
5.4 Limitations of the Study
There are several limitations of the present study:
First, two aspects of time constraint affected the validity of the results of the
study. One was the limited time for the story mapping instruction. The present
experiment was not long enough to demonstrate a developmental progress of the
participants since it lasted only 8 weeks. The other was the limited time for each
writing class. The time (one hour) left for the students seemed to be too short for them
to complete a story map and a story. The time constraint might be a possible reason
for why the participant could not generate a reasonable ending or felt anxious while
writing. The researcher suggests that flexible modification of time constraint be made.
Second, it is difficult to design the picture of the posttest writing that would
correspond to that of the pretest, which might influence the validity of the research.
Third, the participants of the present study are senior sophomores. The effects of
implication to different ages, groups, levels etc. are uncertain. For wider implication
and implementation, there should be further studies involving different size groups or
levels of students.
Fourth, there was no control group in this study. Although we argue for our
claims by using results of quantitative studies and more crucially qualitatively studies,
we believe that it would be more desirable if the claims can be further confirmed by a
study with both the experimental and control group.
Fifth, the researcher did not teach the students how to find the story elements
from the given pictures. If the researcher had explicitly demonstrated the relationship
between the story elements and the pictures, the students might have better
understood how the story mapping strategy could help picture writing.
5.5 Suggestions for Future Studies
There have been few studies that examined the effects of the story-mapping
instruction on EFL writing here in Taiwan. Thus, there is still much room for future
studies related to story mapping. It is hoped that the present study serves as a
pioneering research inspiring other research in the near future. The following are
some recommendations for future studies.
First, different ages, groups, levels or population are recommended in the future
relevant studies. The present study included only 76 participants. With such a small
scale, it is questionable if the effects of the story-mapping instruction can be applied
to all English learners in Taiwan. Besides, a long-term instruction is also suggested.
Second, another potential topic to work on is to compare the effects of story
mapping with other prewriting strategies on the picture writing, such as brainstorming,
outlining or clustering. It is also suggested that there be the experimental group and
the control group to investigate which strategy is the most efficient and helpful to EFL
writers in picture writing.
Third, it is recommended that future studies include different types of picture
formats. Based on the fact that sequential pictures might impose restriction on
students’ imagination and creativity, it is suggested that a single picture be given to
students so as to evoke more creativity.
Fourth, this study could be replicated to investigate the effects of the story
mapping instruction on listening comprehension or story telling on EFL students in
Taiwan. As several students commented in the interview, story-mapping instruction
could be a helpful strategy for story telling. To the best of our knowledge, no research
here in Taiwan has been conducted to look into the effects of story mapping on
English story telling and listening comprehension of stories. It is hoped that by means
of more studies on the story-mapping instruction, the advantages and effects of the
story-mapping instruction can be fully explored.
