Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T05:46:46.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Text cohesion in children's narrative writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Catherine Ann Cameron*
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
Kang Lee
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
Suzanne Webster
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
Kim Munro
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
Anne Kathryn Hunt
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
Murray J. Linton
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
*
Catherine Ann Cameron, Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada E3B 6E4

Abstract

This study employed multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship between global writing quality (holistic scores) and lower level analytic measures of writing, with a focus on cohesive indices. The subjects were 9-year-old English-speaking children who participated in either a story free-writing condition or a story rewriting condition. The results showed that both cohesive indices and lower level writing measures (type-token ratios, mean length of utterances in morphemes, composition length, etc.) each accounted for a significant amount of the variance in holistic scores. The story rewriting procedure proved to facilitate the children's writing processes and, hence, resulted in higher quality writing (in terms of both global writing quality and text cohesion) than the story free-writing condition.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Applebee, A. N., Langer, J. A., Jenkins, L. B., Multis, I. V. S. & Foertsch, M. A. (1990). Learning to write in our nation's schools: Instruction and achievement in 1988 at Grades 4, 8 and 12. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.Google Scholar
Cameron, C. A., Hunt, A. K. & Linton, M. J. (1988). Medium effects on children's story rewriting and story retelling. First Language, 8, 318.Google Scholar
Cameron, C. A., Linton, M. J. & Hunt, A. K. (1994). Written expression in the primary classroom: Writing in social time. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Cooper, C. R. (1977). Holistic evaluation of writing. In Cooper, C. R. (Ed.), Evaluating writing (pp. 331). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.Google Scholar
Crowhurst, M. (1987). Cohesion in argument and narration at three grade levels. Research in the Teaching of English, 21, 185201.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, J. & Spiegel, D. L. (1986). Textual cohesion and coherence in children writing. Research in the Teaching of English, 20, 263280.Google Scholar
Geva, E. & Olson, D. (1983). Children's story retelling. First Language, 4, 85110.Google Scholar
Golden, J. M. & Vukelich, C. (1989). Coherence in children's written narratives. Written Communication, 6, 4565.Google Scholar
Gundlach, R. A. (1981). On the nature and development of children's writing. In Frederiksen, C. H. & Dominic, J. F. (Eds.), Writing: The nature, development, and teaching of written communication (Vol. 2, pp. 119132). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hlalliday, M. A. K. (1987). Spoken and written modes of meaning. In Horowitz, R. & Samuels, S. J. (Eds.), Comprehending oral and written language (pp. 5582). New York: Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Harrel, L. E. (1957). A comparison of the development of oral and written language in school-aged children. Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, 22, 66.Google Scholar
Hasan, R. (1984). Coherence and cohesive harmony. In Flood, J. (Ed.), Understanding reading comprehension (pp. 181219). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.Google Scholar
Hunt, K. W. (1970). Syntactic maturity in school children and adults. Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, 35, 134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knudson, R.E. (1992). Effects of task complexity on narrative writing. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 26, 714.Google Scholar
McCully, G. A. (1985). Writing quality, coherence, and cohesion. Research in the Teaching of English, 19, 269270.Google Scholar
Miller, J. F. & Chapman, R. S. (1984). SALT: Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts. Language Analysis Lab, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Neuner, J. L. (1987). Cohesive ties and chains in good and poor freshmen essays. Research in the Teaching of English, 21, 92102.Google Scholar
Olson, D. R. & Torrance, N. (1981). Learning to meet the requirement of written text: Language development in the school years. In Frederiksen, C. H. & Dominic, J. F. (Eds.), Writing: The nature, development, and teaching of written communication (Vol. 2, pp. 119132). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Pellegrini, A. D., Galda, L. & Rubin, D. L. (1984). Context in text: The development of oral and written language in two genres. Child Development, 55, 15491555.Google Scholar
Pellegrino, M. L. & Scopesi, A. A. (1978). Oral and written language in children: Syntactical development of descriptive language. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 5, 517.Google Scholar
Perera, K. (1984). Children's writing and reading: Analyzing classroom language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. & Dodsworth, P. (1991). A longitudinal analysis of young children's cohesion and noun specification in narratives. Journal of Child Language, 18, 397415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Potter, R. R. (1967). Sentence structure and phrase quality: An exploratory study. Research in the Teaching of English, 1, 1728.Google Scholar
Pratt, M. W. & MacKenzie–Keating, S. (1985). Organizing stories: Effects of developmental and task difficulty on referential cohesion in narrative. Developmental Psychology, 21, 350356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, C. (1986). Children's creative spelling. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Rentel, V. M., & King, M. L. (1983). Present at the beginning. In Mosenthal, P., Tamor, L. & Walmsley, S. (Eds.), Research on writing: Principles and methods (pp. 139176). New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Richardson, K., Calnan, M., Essen, J., & Lambert, M. (1975). The linguistic maturity of 11-year-olds: Some analysis of the written compositions of children in the national child development study. Journal of Child Language, 3, 99116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scinto, L. F. M. (1983). The development of text production. In Fine, J. & Freedle, R. O. (Eds.), Developmental issues in discourse (pp. 225268). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Scinto, L. F. M. (1984). The architectonics of text produced by children and the development of higher cognitive functions. Discourse Processes, 7, 371418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scinto, L. F. M. (1986). Written language and psychological development. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Shuy, R. (1981). Towards a developmental theory of writing. In Frederiksen, C. H. & Dominic, J. F. (Eds.), Writing: The nature, development, and teaching of written communication (Vol.2, pp. 119132). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Speaker, R. B., Barnitz, J. G., & Gipe, J. P. (1990). Lexical cohesion in comprehension and composition: A synthesis of research issues. National Reading Conference Yearbook, 39, 287293.Google Scholar
Spiegel, D. L., & Fitzgerald, J. (1990). Textual cohesion and coherence in children's writing revisited. Research in the Teaching of English, 24, 4866.Google Scholar
Witte, S. P., & Faigley, L. (1981). Coherence, cohesion and writing quality. College Composition and Communication, 32, 189204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yde, P., & Spoelders, M. (1985). Text cohesion: An exploratory study with beginning writers. Applied Psycholinguistics. 6, 407416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar