An action research to improve story-writing skills of sixth grade students

This study is an action research aiming at understanding how activities of a story-writing program for 6th grade students contributes to the story-writing skills of them. The study also aims at researching on whether the activities lead changes on students' perception of story writing and writing anxiety. The study was carried out with a class of 6th grade students chosen among the available classes of a public elementary school in Yuregir Adana in the 2011-2012 academic year. Criterion sampling of purposive sampling was used in the study. Implementation of the research was conducted with the participation of all the students, but to provide richer data, internal sampling was used and 9 students were chosen as a focus group. Data was collected from various sources before, during and after the treatment. The data collection tools used in the study includes student-written stories and story parts, story-writing skills graded scoring rubric, semi-structured interview forms, writing anxiety scale, and diaries of the researcher, teachers and the students. Stories and story parts that the students wrote before, during and after the treatment formed the main data of the study. The data were evaluated by three different raters using the story-writing skills graded scoring rubric which was developed by the researcher. The Interviews with teachers of Turkish before the treatment, and the interviews with the focus group before and after the treatment were analyzed using the "NVivo Qualitative Data Analysis Program". During the treatment, the focus group, the teacher of Turkish and the researcher logged their feelings and thoughts about the activities conducted in their diaries; so that it was observed whether there was any problem with the treatment process, and in what direction the reflective ideas of the teacher and the students developed. "Paired samples t-test" is used in order to analyze the data obtained from the writing anxiety scale given to the students before and after the implementation of the story-writing program. At the end of the study, it is found out that the activities of the story-writing program have provided improvements in story writing skills of students in terms of composition, language and expression and form of writing. The proposition, the conflict and the resolution parts of the stories that the focus group student wrote before the treatment were compared to the ones they wrote during and after the treatment. It is seen that the majority of the students have shown improvement in presenting the initiating event, internal response, characters and setting in the proposition, writing detailed minor events and character developments in chronological order in the conflict, and result-oriented character reaction and writing the appropriate title for the story in the resolution part. However, it is seen that some students have not shown a steady improvement of final design in the resolution. When the stories that the focus group students wrote before and after the treatment are evaluated in terms of language and expression, it is found out that they have shown progress in their post treatment stories in providing vocabulary and semantic diversity, using appropriate vocabulary of the standard language, establishing sequence of tenses and sentence elements, dividing the story into paragraphs appropriately, and using varied ways of expression. The stories, the focus group students wrote before and after the treatment, were also compared in terms of structural features such as punctuation, spelling rules and legibility. It is found out that the students have also shown an overall progress in those areas. It is also detected that there have appeared positive changes in the perception of story writing of the focus group students after the treatment. It is found out that their emotions while writing stories, and the points that they pay attention have been changed, and they did not perceive story writing as a difficult task. At the same time, it is discovered that the majority of the focus group students thought the activities of story writing program contributed to their story writing, and the feedback given affected their story writing skills in a positive way. It is found out that after the treatment, writing anxiety of all the students decreased. Keywords: Writing skills, story-writing skills, story structure, writing anxiety, sixth grade students, action research.