The Effect of storytelling and dictation on writing quality
Creators: name: Sparrow, Morag, 1936-
Publisher: name: University of Calgary
Year: 1985
Subjects: subject: LB 1575.8 S67 1986
subject: Language arts - Study and teaching (Elementary) - Canada
subject: Story-telling - Education - Canada
subject: Dictation (Educational method)

description: Bibliography: p. 118-126.
description: The major purpose of this study was to determine the effect of telling a story and/or dictating a story, based on a picture stimulus, presented prior to writing on the overall quality of student writing at. the grade three level. A secondary purpose was to determine the differences in quality of selected story and linguistic elements that appear in told, dictated, and written stories. To realize the purposes, the talk and writing of seventy-four grade three students from one elementary school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada was analyzed. During Phase One of the study, all students were given the same writing task. Each student individually viewed a picture stimulus and wrote a story about that stimulus. In Phase Two students were divided into four groups using a table of random numbers. In this phase, Group One viewed a second picture stimulus and wrote a story about the stimulus. Group Two viewed the same picture stimulus, told a story to the researcher about the stimulus,and then wrote the story. Group Three viewed the same picture stimulus, dictated a story to the researcher about the stimulus, and then wrote the story. Group Four viewed the same picture stimulus, told a story to the researcher about the stimulus, dictated the story to the researcher, and then wrote the story. Fourteen null hypotheses were tested. The data were analyzed in the following ways. All written stories were scored using a holistic or general impression method. Then, the written stories of Group One, the told stories of Group Two and the dictated stories of Group Three were scored using an analytic method based on two story features (story development and content) and two linguistic features (vocabulary and sentence structure). Whether written, told, or dictated, all stories from both Phase One and Phase Two were assessed by the same three independent markers. Among the findings were: (1) Telling a story or dictating a story before writing improves the overall quality of writing; (2) Dictating a story before writing is a more powerful technique for improving overall quality of writing than telling a story; (3) Dictation alone is as powerful as the combination of telling/dictating in improving overall quality of writing; (4) The story elements (story development and content) and the linguistic element of vocabulary in dictated stories are of a higher quality than the same elements in told or written stories. (5) The linguistic element (sentence structure) in dictated stories is of a higher quality than it is in written stories. On the other hand, it is not of a higher- quality than it is in told stories. Conclusions were .drawn, and several implications for classroom practice were noted. Some speculations regarding the conclusions were introduced and implications for further research were stated.