Effects of Instruction Using Rhetorical and Collaborative Writing Approaches on the Creative Writing Abilities of Upper Secondary School Students

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to: 1) compare the creative writing abilities of students before and after using rhetorical and collaborative writing approaches, and 2) study the improvement in the creative writing abilities of students using these approaches. The sampling group consisted of 21 grade 11 students of a large secondary school under the jurisdiction of the Secondary Educational Service Area Office Bangkok 1. The research instruments were an achievement test for evaluating creative writing abilities and lesson plans based on rhetorical and collaborative writing approaches. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, t-test, and content analysis. The findings showed that: 1) the students who studied using rhetorical and collaborative writing approaches had average post-test scores, both overall and in terms of four components content, rhetoric, organization of ideas, and awareness of readers, that were significantly higher than their pre-test scores at the .05 level of significance; 2) through analyzing the students’ improvements in creative writing ability from five types of essays, namely essay, perspective writing, 2 types of persuasive writing and argumentative writing the students showed improved creative writing ability after using rhetorical and collaborative writing approaches.