THE USE OF PREWRITING IN EXPOSITORY WRITING NG · PDF fileWriting skill is vital in the...
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THE USE OF PREWRITING IN EXPOSITORY WRITING
NG SIEW FONG
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the
requirements for the award of the degree of
Bachelor of Science and Education
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
Faculty of Education
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
APRIL 2010
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I declare that this thesis (The Use of Prewriting in Expository Writing) is the result of
my own research except as cited in the references. The thesis has not been accepted for
any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature of any other degree.
Signature : .............................
Name : NG SIEW FONG
Date : 14 APRIL 2010
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To my beloved daddy and mummy,
brothers and sister.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Throughout the preparation of this thesis, I owed much to my thesis supervisor,
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Masputeriah Hamzah, whose criticism, advice, guidance, and support
had been the backbone of my research. I am also very thankful to my examiners Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Noor Abidah Mohd Omar and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Salbiah Seliman for their
guidance, advice and motivation.
My gratitude also goes to Ms. Shazwani Abd Rahman for her advice and help,
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Wan Fara Adlina Wan Mansor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohamad Hassan
Zakaria, Pn. Johana Mohd Jobil, Pn. Aida A. Rahman, Ms. Fatimah Puteh, En. Mohd
Nasir Mahmood, and Ms. Rachel Tan Hooi Koon for being the markers of the
expository writing products. Without their continued support and interest, this thesis
would not have been the same as presented here.
Not forgetting, my heartfelt thanks also go to my friends, Ms. Lai Chai Hong and
Ms. Chung Pei Ni, thank you for your support. My appreciation goes to my parents, and
siblings for their encouragement and prayers. Your supports have helped me to shape the
person I am today. To the world, you are just ordinary people, but to me you are my
world…
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ABSTRACT
Writing skill is vital in the learning of English as a second language. If students
of the tertiary level can manipulate their writing skill during their study, they will be
able to cope with numerous written assignments given by their lecturers. This research
looks at the ways prewriting facilitates in expository writing and the extent to which
prewriting helps in expository writing. Ten respondents whose proficiency is below
average in English were selected from an English class for first-year students (UHB
1412) in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Five English lecturers from UTM
assisted this research as well. The respondents were divided into two groups, which were
the prewriting group and the non-prewriting group. In this research, the researcher used
the Writing Task to gain data from the two groups; Observation and Interview Questions
to gain data from the prewriting group; and the Marking of the Writing Task to gain data
from the lecturers. The findings of this research showed that the respondents gave
positive responses towards the use of prewriting in expository writing.
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ABSTRAK
Kemahiran menulis adalah sangat penting dalam pembelajaran bahasa Inggeris
sebagai bahasa kedua. Jika para pelajar universiti dapat menggunakan kemahiran
menulis dengan baik, mereka akan dapat menangani pelbagai penugasan menulis yang
diberi oleh pensyarah-pensyarah mereka. Kajian ini dijalankan dengan tujuan untuk
meninjau cara pra-penulisan membantu dalam penulisan expositori. Sepuluh responden
yang mempunyai tahap profisiensi di bawah aras biasa dalam bahasa Inggeris dipilih
dari sebuah kelas bahasa Inggeris untuk pelajar tahun pertama (UHB 1412) di Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Mereka akan dibahagikan kepada dua kumpulan, iaitu
kumpulan pra-penulisan dan kumpulan tanpa pra-penulisan. Dalam kajian ini, pengkaji
telah menggunakan kaedah Tugasan Penulisan untuk mendapatkan data daripada kedua-
dua kumpulan; kaedah Pemerhatian dan Temuramah untuk mendapatkan data daripada
kumpulan pra-penulisan; dan kaedah Pemarkahan dalam Tugasan Penulisan untuk
mendapatkan data daripada empat pensyarah. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan para
responden telah memberikan respon yang positif terhadap penggunaan pra-penulisan
dalam penulisan expositori.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE
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DECLARATION
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
ABSTRAK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF APPENDICES
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
1.2 Statement of the Problem
1.3 Purposes of the Study
1.4 Research Questions
1.6 Significance of the Study
1.7 Scope of the Study
1.8 Operational Definition
1.9 Conclusion
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LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
2.1 The Nature of Writing
2.2 The Reasons to Teach Writing Skill
2.3 The Malaysian Primary and Secondary School Syllabus
2.4 Writing as a Learning Strategy
2.5 Problems Encountered in Writing
2.6 The Process Writing Approach
2.6.1 The Stages of Process Writing
2.6.2 The Rationales of Applying Process Writing
2.7 The Definition of Prewriting
2.8 The Importance of Prewriting
2.9 Prewriting Techniques
2.9.1 Brainstorming
2.9.2 Clustering
2.10 The Definition of Expository Writing
2.11 The Criteria of Good Expository Writing
2.13 The Application of the Prewriting Stage of in Expository
Writing
2.14 Conclusion
METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Research design
3.2 Subjects
3.3 Research Instrument
3.3.1 The Writing Task
3.3.2 Observation
3.3.3 Interview
3.3.4 The Marking Scheme
3.4 Procedure of the study
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3.5 Data Analysis
3.6 Assumptions of the study
3.7 Limitations of the study
3.8 Conclusion
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.0 Introduction
4.1 Findings
4.1.1 MUET results
4.1.2 Observation
4.1.3 Interview
4.1.4 Marks of the expository writing
4.1.5 The expository writing products of the prewriting
group and the non-prewriting group
4.2 Discussion
4.2.1 Discussion on the first research question
4.2.2 Discussion on the second research question
4.3 Conclusion
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.0 Introduction
5.1 Overview of the study
5.2 Review of the findings
5.3 Implication of the findings
5.4 Limitations of the study
5.5 Recommendation for future research
5.6 Conclusion
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REFERENCES
APPENDICES A-E
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LIST OF TABLES
TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE
4.1
4.2
MUET results of the prewriting subjects
MUET results of the non-prewriting subjects
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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE
2.1
2.2
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2.6
3.1
4.1
4.2
4.3
A job advertisement (Extracted from The Star on
10th October 2009)
Handout given to learners
Stages in the writing process approach (Clouse,
1988)
Steps involved in prewriting (Clouse, 1988)
A list produced by an English class during a
brainstorming session (Wiley and Berne, 1997)
Example of clustering (Go, 1993)
Procedures of the study
The marks of the writing products of the
prewriting group in each criterion
The marks of the writing products of the non-
prewriting group in each criterion
The marks of the writing products of the
prewriting group and the non-prewriting group in
each criterion
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
UTM - Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
KBSR - Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah
KBSM - Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah
SPM - Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia
MUET - Malaysian University English Test
FP - Fakulti Pendidikan
UHB 1412 - English for Academic Communication
NAEP - National Assessment for Educational Progress
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LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX NO. TITLE PAGE
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B
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Pre-study questionnaires
List of interview questions
Interview sessions with the prewriting subjects
Observation record
Marking scheme
Marking products
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Chapter 1
Introduction
1.0 Introduction
A language comprises four basic skills, which are speaking, listening,
reading, and writing. Listening and reading are receptive skills, whereas speaking and
writing are productive skills. One should have formed their thoughts before they write or
speak. This is why both skills are considered as higher level language skills. When one
speaks or writes, one has to have an idea in mind in the first place. However, there are
some differences between the two skills. One of them is in terms of the resources
(Chitravelu, Sithamparam, and Teh, 2005). For speaking, paralinguistic features are used
to complement the speech. These cues will help the listener to have a better
understanding of the speech. As for writing, only words on the paper and punctuation
marks are used to complement the writing. So, a writer has to place extra attention in the
use of each word, structure, forms, punctuation and paragraphs, and so on to guide the
readers to understand the writing. And this pushes Salzman’s (2001, cited in Reimer,
2001) simplistic assumption that “writing is talking on paper”.
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Since speaking occurs spontaneously, the content of the speech will be the main
focus where the minor flaws of language accuracy will be overlooked. It is generally
accepted that a normal speech usually includes false starts, ‘fillers’, and pauses
(Chitravelu, et al., 2005). This is completely different from writing. In writing, the
content and the language accuracy share the same weight. The accuracy of the language
will influence the quality of the writing. A piece of writing with few grammatical errors
will distract the readers from focusing on its content. In this way, the content of the
writing will fail to convince the readers. These comparisons between writing and
speaking show that writing is a more difficult skill to master.
Furthermore, writing skill becomes increasingly important as the learners further
their tertiary education. Most of the academic tasks are writing tasks. They are required to
complete various types of writing tasks like personal history writing, report writing,
critique writing assignment, synthesizing writing assignments and the list goes on. Apart
from improving the learners’ understanding of particular subject matter, there are other
rationale behind assigning these writing tasks.
In the words of Kellogg (2008), “Thinking is so closely linked to writing, at least
in mature adults, that the two are practically twins.” When writing, learners have to apply
their thinking skills when producing the ideas and their mind actively engages in the
language when they form sentences and paragraphs for the writing task. According to
Swales and Feak (1994: 7), tertiary writing tasks will gradually become more complex
and demanding as one goes through the programme. So, composing a piece of writing
can be regarded as a form of problem solving. When one is writing, one’s cognitive
system will be at its active period as one has to solve the problem of the subject matter
and the problem of rhetoric. From here, we can see that when one is performing a writing
task, one can indeed build one’s cognitive skills.
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Moreover, Dass (2003) suggested that writing can be viewed as a way of self-
expression, where she mentioned about affective factors in writing. Affective factors will
help the learners in increasing their motivation and lowering their anxiety. The factors
comprise three elements, which are personal experiences, personal qualities, and personal
perceptions of situations. Some of the academic writing tasks require the learners to
record their encounter of a particular subject matter. For example, the learners are taking
chemistry subjects and have to record their observation regarding an experiment that they
have carried out. They will be able to make use of the experience that they have gone
through during the experiment and their personal qualities (dedication, sensitivity, and
alertness) to form critical views during the process of writing. The incorporation of these
elements will also help the learners to establish a connection with their own writing. In
the long run, they will feel more confident to write.
According to Barton (1994, cited by Dass, 2003), writing is also seen as a way to
convey a message. Ideas and thoughts can be transformed into the form of non-verbal
communication. With the advancement of technology, there are times when learners have
to put their writing skill into use. The medium provided by the modern technology like
electronic mail, Internet Relay Chat, Yahoo Messenger, and blog require learners to use
their writing skill to express themselves and reach out for each other. If the learners are
unable to write, it will be difficult for them to use the medium to their advantage.
In addition, Chitravelu, Sithamparam, and Teoh (2007) explained that writing is
looked upon as a skill that helps to reinforce the language that is learnt in the class.
Learners have to apply their knowledge of the language like spelling, forming words and
paragraphs, and using suitable words when they are asked to write. When the teacher is
marking the writing, he/she will be able to diagnose the common errors among his/her
students and attend to them individually if some students are found to be particularly
weak in some areas. In this way, one-to-one interaction between the teacher and the
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learners can be established. From the above, we can see that writing is indeed an
important skill.
This is why the Ministry of Education in Malaysia acknowledged the importance
of writing by placing writing as one of the fundamental skills in the Kurikulum
Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM). Moreover, in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM)
English Examination, the ministry allocated 56.7 per cent solely for writing. This is to
encourage the learners to focus on improving their writing skills. The Malaysian English
University Test (MUET) has also placed writing as one of the components that is being
tested where 30 per cent are solely allocated for writing.
1.1 Background of the Study
The Malaysian Primary and Secondary School Syllabus has placed a great
emphasis on writing. However, learners still face problems when they further their
education at tertiary level. Lecturers often complain that the learners tend to present their
academic writing with grammatical mistakes, unsuitable vocabulary, disorganized
content, incoherent sentences and paragraphs, and incomplete development of ideas
which make it difficult for the lecturer to understand the content of the assignment and
thus give low marks for the writing assignment, although it has good content. Therefore,
good content with good writing skills will help the learners in conveying the important
points in writing. This is because writing is not a straightforward process but a complex
task that requires:
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“a high degree of organization in the development of ideas
and information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is
no ambiguity of meaning; the use of complex grammatical
devices for focus and emphasis; and a careful choice of
vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures
to create a style which is appropriate to the subject matter
and eventual readers”
(Hedge, 1899:5)
Therefore, according to (Mohd Sahandri Ghani Hamzah and Saiffudin Kumar
Abdullah, 2009: 677), the tertiary level learners need to adopt some approaches when
they are assigned with writing tasks. However, these approaches are not taught in school.
Since it is important to master the writing skills, the approaches of teaching writing
should be taken into consideration before a writing lesson is conducted. Basically, there
are three approaches, which are the product approach, process approach, and genre-based
approach. The product approach concentrates on the final product of the writing. Another
approach is the process approach which mainly focuses on “how a text is written instead
of the final outcome” (Shahrina Md Nordin and Norhisham bt. Mohammad, 2006: 76),
Lastly, the genre-based approach focuses on the genre of the essay. In this paper, the
process approach will be looked into.
As the name suggests, the process approach focuses on the procedures involved in
writing. The procedures can be divided into three main stages, which are prewriting,
writing and rewriting (Clouse, 1988). The first stage is prewriting, where the students
undergo the process of planning the writing. The teacher will guide the learners in
forming, organizing, and developing the ideas; listing the minor points and suitable
examples for the ideas. The learners will also learn how to evaluate the relevance of the
ideas by referring to the purpose of the writing and the readers. These guide the learners
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to have a rough plan of what to write. The elaborateness of the plan will help in ensuring
the quality of the product particularly when the topic of the writing is ill-defined (Hayes
and Flower, 1986, as cited in Chai, 2006). Ill-defined is used to describe writing tasks
that have no “ready-made representation and no standard solution procedure” (Reitman,
1964 and Simon, 1973, as cited in Flower, Schriver, Carey, et al., 1989: 7).
The next stage is the writing stage, where the learners start to write the first draft.
Here, the writer can refer to the prewriting plan when developing ideas. If the prewriting
plan is detailed enough, then the writer can just concentrate on applying the ideas and sub
ideas in the plan without dividing their attention in organizing the ideas. This can
definitely contribute to the smooth flow of the writing process. Otherwise, the learners
have to find the trouble to organize the ideas when they write and they will take more
time to complete the first draft
The final stage is the rewriting stage. During this stage, the learners collaborate
with their teacher or peers in looking back at the first draft in terms of the content and
language. Clouse (1988) suggested that there are three sub stages in rewriting stage,
which is revising, editing and proofreading. During the revising stage, they have to focus
on the content, organization and effective expression. After that, they will move on to the
editing stage, where they have to edit their work by focusing on grammar, capitalization,
punctuation, and spelling. Lastly, the final sub stage is proofreading, where they have to
go through their writing word by word in order to identify minor mistakes.
Out of the three stages, the prewriting stage is considered important because
learners often have difficulty to start off their writing task. The undergraduates in
particular have a number of writing tasks to complete during their study. The writing
tasks are always tough because they require a deep understanding of the content as the
learners are required to present the information clearly and orderly in the writing task.
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Thus, Flower and Hayes (1983: 60) believe that prewriting helps the undergraduates to
write in three ways. One of the ways is that prewriting helps them to create a focus.
During this stage, the learners abstract the essentials from a problem and focus on the
essentials when they write. Apart from that, a detailed plan in prewriting helps them to
create “a premature solution before they enter the problem”. So, a detailed plan that has
listed out the goals and ideas can keep the undergraduates to focus on the essentials of the
problem. The last way is that the planning gives them a set of procedures to follow so that
they can systematically expose the ways they solve the problem of the content. This can
ensure the learners to fulfill the requirement of the writing task.
Among the many types of writing tasks, expository writing is a writing task that
requires learners to “describe and explain” (Shield and Galbraith, 1998: 30). When
learners are carrying out this type of writing task, they have to propose a few ideas. Then,
they have to elaborate and illustrate the ideas to make them convincing to the readers.
Learners are familiar with this type of writing task because they are exposed to this type
of writing task since their secondary years. Examples of the expository writing tasks are
The Factors that Cause Social Problems among Teenagers, The Advantages of Television
Programmes, The Advantages of the Internet and so on. After completing these writing
tasks, learners will improve their way of presenting ideas to readers.
Therefore, the main focus of this paper is prewriting and the ways it facilitates
expository writing. The subjects of this study are the first-year learners of English at the
Faculty of Education (FP) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).
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1.2 Statement of the Problem
University undergraduates are often being criticized for their low level of
proficiency in English. This is because writing is a complex process that requires
“adaptive search, rhetorical planning, linguistic manipulation, and problem diagnosis”
(Flower, Schriver, Carey, et al., 1989: 6). According to them, most tertiary level writing
tasks are ill-defined or ill-structured, which means that there is “no ready-made
representation of the task and no standard solution procedure” (Reitman, 1964 and
Simon, 1973, as cited in Flower, Schriver, Carey, et al., 1989: 7). Hence, it is important
to plan before starting to write.
When preparing a writing plan for their assignment, the undergraduates not
merely include the points but also have to consider the purpose and the readers. These
two aspects are often neglected and cause the writing products to lack focus and relevant
ideas. In order to solve this problem, the prewriting stage should be applied when
carrying out a writing task.
Prewriting is the first stage of the process approach. This is the stage where the
learners plan for their writing by brainstorming, mind-mapping and clustering. Prewriting
is essential because it enables them to plan what to include in their writing before they
start to write, particularly in expository writing. This is because in expository writing, the
learners have to present some ideas in the writing and prewriting helps the learners to
plan, organize and develop ideas by referring to the purpose and the audience. After
planning, they will have a clear focus of the writing task and this definitely helps the
learners to start off their writing task.
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Thus, this research will place its focus on the prewriting stage of expository
writing.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to:-
1. To identify the ways in which prewriting facilitates expository writing.
2. To examine the extent to which prewriting strategies helps in expository writing.
1.4 Research Questions
This study attempts to answer the following research questions:
1. In what ways does prewriting facilitate expository writing?
2. To what extent does prewriting contribute to expository writing?