Abstract
Problem. The prewriting stage is the first stage in the writing process. This stage is often ignored in traditional writing instruction.Purpose. This study investigated the effect of selected prewriting activities (group discussion, paired student discussion, individual student drawing) and the effect of no prewriting activity (control) on the quantity and quality of student compositions.Method. Eighty fourth graders were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) group discussion, (2) paired student discussion, (3) individual student drawing, and (4) no prewriting activity (control).The subjects in each condition completed four compositions, one each week for four weeks. The first composition (pretest) was followed by three treatments, each 20 minutes long. After each treatment, the subjects wrote a composition. The last composition was the posttest.The compositions were evaluated for quantity (number of words in the composition) and quality (general impression holistic scoring). The composition writing time was 7 minutes.The ANCOVA statistical procedure was used to test six hypotheses at the .05 level of significance. The post hoc analysis was Tukey.Results. A significant difference was found in writing quantity between individual student drawing and the control group (no prewriting activity). This difference favored individual student drawing.No significant differences were found in writing quantity between the other selected prewriting activities, group discussion and paired student discussion, and the control group.No significant differences were found in writing quality between the selected prewriting activities and the control group.No significant differences were found among the selected prewriting activities (group discussion, paired student discussion, and individual student drawing) for either writing quantity or writing quality.A significant difference was found in writing quantity for males and females. This difference favored females. No significant difference was found in writing quality for males and females.Conclusions. Participation in the prewriting activity, individual student drawing, was a more effective method of improving writing quantity than asking students to begin writing immediately without any prewriting activity.