Examining Writing Questions in High School Textbooks

Examining Writing Questions in High School Textbooks

This study questions the adequacy of high school writing questions, which reflect the Standards of Achievement defined by the 7th curriculum. First, it categorizes the questions from selected textbooks, English Ⅰ (Grade 11) and Ⅱ (Grade 12) (Kum Sung publishing co.), under the three divisions of Raimes' (1983) controlled-to-free approach and under the four writing tasks by Scott (1996). Then it analyzes each question, focusing on what ways it fulfills the relevant Standard of Achievement. All the goals of Standards of Achievement largely follow, hence can be categorized into, one of the suggested writing approach and tasks. After the analysis, it was found that there was a substantial unbalance among the number of questions intended for the controlled-to-free approach. While the textbook contain a large number of questions for guided writing, they lack those for free writing. Though questions for guided writing may be limited to a mere 'fill-in-the-blank-in-a paragraph' questions. most of free writing requires coherence and rhetorical organization. In this regard, the study later on provides examples of questions that specially dwell on developing organizational skills for free writing.