A Study Of High School Students’ Cooperative Writing In English

Cooperative learning is a creative and effective teaching theory and strategy, whichstarted in the United States of America in the1970s and has made practical improvement inthe mid1970s and1980s.1t is known as the most needed and most successful teachingrevolution in the latest10years．It requires that teaching must be student-centered withgroup activities as the basic teaching form，which enables students to develop theirinitiative and motivation to meet their needs of personal potential development.The thesis is aimed to break through the bottle neck of English writing teaching inhigh school. It suggests that cooperative writing method applied in high school Englishteaching helps to develop students’ awareness and ability of learning cooperatively andimprove their academic performances. The thesis focuses on whether and what changestake place in students’ ability, attitude and interest in English writing.An experiment was carried out in two classes of2011in Grade Two in Jiangsu SuzhouNo.10High School, both of which are below average among all the classes. Cooperativewriting method was applied in Class4which consists of21students, while traditionalwriting method was used in Class6which consists of31students. Tests, questionnairesand interviews were applied in order to know students’ opinions about cooperative writingmethod and the changes in their ability and interest in English writing. A set of group tasksfor the students including writing cooperatively, correcting students’ compositionscooperatively are meant to provide students with adequate chances to write in groups.Cooperative writing develops students’ writing skills as well as listening，speaking andreading skills. Correcting the compositions cooperatively requires students to correctothers’ compositions under the instructions of the teacher. By doing this, the studentslearned to avoid making similar mistakes in their own compositions. As expected，thestudents benefited a lot．The results of the experiment show that while they were working on the tasks，students’ consciousness of cooperation was strengthened. Their cooperative skills were improved．Further more，their interest in English writing greatly increased and they madesome progress in writing as well. They could even experience the pleasure of participatingin teaching and learning in groups. Students encouraged and helped each other, which wasquite helpful in increasing their self-confidence and lowering their anxiety as well asinspiring their writing motivation. The democratic, equal and harmonious relationshipbetween the students and the teacher changed writing into an enjoyable activity.However, not everyone received a positive reward in the experiment. Some studentswith poor foundation did not do well in the experiment, and it becomes more obvious forthe introverted ones. Sometimes, they are unable to follow the main discussion, and forsome reasons they are unwilling to ask their teammates. How to make cooperative writingapproach have positive effects on these students is a matter we must pay attention to.