Discourse Organization in High School Students' Writing and Their Teachers' Writing Instruction: The Case of Taiwan

Abstract: The present study compares the discourse organization in compositions by senior high school students in Taiwan in their Chinese and English classes and explores the influence of their teachers' writing instruction in order to extend the current understanding of students' discourse organization in the school context. The researcher collected data through the analysis of 432 writing samples taken from high school Chinese and English classes and interviewed their teachers to explore what kind of instruction they employed when teaching writing. The researcher interviewed 20 students to further probe their choices in adopting a “direct” or an “indirect” approach to writing. The findings show that, while most students often used a direct approach in their Chinese and English expository composition, different patterns of discourse organization did exist. The researcher interpreted the data as supporting the view that deductive thinking patterns may not be difficult for Chinese students in Taiwan, particularly in their English writing, and teachers' instruction and assessments of writing can be effective in this area.