The Cultivation Of Logical Thinking Ability In Senior High School Continuation Writing

The National English Curriculum Criteria for Regular High School(2020)identifies the cultivation of thinking quality as one of the important goals of high school English teaching.English writing is an important way to cultivate students’ thinking quality.At present,many scholars find that the current English teaching in China focuses too much on the cultivation of linguistic knowledge and neglects the cultivation of students’ thinking quality,which leads to many logical problems in their writing.In response to these problems,this study adopts Wen Qiufang and Liu Runqing’s method,and takes the three aspects of the logical thinking process as checking point to text students’ logical thinking ability,namely: understanding thesis,supporting arguments,and organizing a coherent discourse.The aim is to analyze what problems they have in their logical thinking and the causes of these problems.The three aspects correspond to the thesis,arguments,and logical connectors.The study collects three exams of continuation writing from 98 students as research subjects.They came from two classes of Hanyang No.1 Middle School in Wuhan.This study answers the following three questions:1)What are the logical problems made by them in continuation writing?2)What are the causes of their logical thinking problems?3)How to cultivate their logical thinking ability in continuation writing?The results are as follows: First,21.3% students have thesis problems in continuation writing.Thesis problems include: getting the main characters wrong,deviating from the main story clues,and confusing the first and third person.Second,17% students have arguments problems in continuation writing.The main type of problem is digressing from the subject.Third,in continuation writing,students use a large number of logical connectors,but they prefer to use simple logical connectors and 47% students cannot use all four logical connectors.Last,the results of the questionnaire show that,they have a tendency to neglect reading material;they have a tendency to neglect logical thinking processes;they will use lots of logical connectives;and teachers do not pay enough attention to logical thinking processes in writing.This study combines the results of text analysis and questionnaires and then concludes the causes of the above problems: they neglect reading,they neglect logical thinking processes,and they lack knowledge of logical connectors.To conclude,it is important to cultivate students’ logical thinking ability.To response these problems and causes,this study proposes an appropriate teaching plan: mind map.Mind map helps students to find the thesis and arguments better;mind map helps students to write plots that support the thesis and arguments better;and mind map helps students to use logical connectors better.