The Promotion Of Rhetorical Invention Awareness In English Teaching At Middle Schools

As one of the four basic skills in middle school English learning, writing plays a key rolein English study. It is not only the output of language but also the process and result ofthinking. Writing is vital in the formation and development of thinking, and also reflectswriters’ thinking level. Therefore, the researchers have been thinking about how to improvewriting ability. With the further development of writing researches, the purpose of writing notonly lies in the promotion of writer’s language ability, but also in the promotion of thinkingcompetence. In this process, critical thinking skills should be highly enhanced. Criticalthinking skills in turn can facilitate writing ability. Although the current researches haveshown that having the awareness of rhetorical invention can strengthen critical thinking skills,the ability to understand the requirements and thereby writing ability, a further researchshould be taken to see whether this method is applicable and effective in English writingteaching at the middle school level. This research, designed on the basis of the theories andpractice of rhetorical invention, is to study the effectiveness and validity of implicatingrhetorical invention in English writing to improve the students’ critical thinking skills, theability to understand the requirements and thereby their English writing. The empirical studyinvolved in this research is undertaken among the102senior high school students during a11-week semester. Under the guideline of rhetorical invention, five writing strategies areselected to improve student’s awareness of rhetorical invention during the experimentalsemester. The study finds that the critical thinking level of the students and their abilities tounderstand the requirements affected by the awareness of rhetorical invention is higher thanthat of the students without rhetorical invention awareness and the writing scores of theformer are therefore higher than that of the latter. Therefore the awareness of rhetoricalinvention is proved to be applicable and effective to improve middle school students’ criticalthinking skills, the ability to understand the requirements and thereby writing ability.