The Views Of Writing And Modern Significance About The Methods Of Writing

The Methods of Writing published by Kaiming Bookstore in 1926, was mainly about Mr.Xia Mianzun's lecture notes of composition teaching, which was edited by Mr. Liu Xunyu based on his own practical experience of teaching afterwards. It was a specialized textbook on the composition training in the May Fourth Movement Period, aiming at guiding student's vernacular writing in the secondary schools. The composition training in this book focused on the essay writing, which contained four basic aspects: chronicle article, narratives,exposition and argument. This book, the earliest published tutorial of the composition training method in Chinese modern history, was closely linked with the literary style teaching, based on the language knowledge, and limited to the principle and practice.According to the rich composition teaching experience, Mr.Xia Mianzun accomplished the emergency textbook of The Methods of Writing to save the composition teaching at the time. Prior to this point, the composition teaching books in Chinese language circle were either “abstruse and mysterious” or“inappropriate”, and they can't meet the requirement of the educational practices and the composition knowledge was difficult to be translated into the teaching contents by teachers. Moreover, the composition teaching tutorial on the knowledge aspect usually was “abstruse and mysterious”, and the anthology textbooks were applied to teaching and interpreting works was the main teaching method of reading and writing. All these reasons accounted for the composition training' disadvantages of the professional and systematic features and urged Mr.Xia Mianzun to edit this emergency textbook to be applied for the composition teaching in the secondary schools. The Methods of Writing provided three innovations: the purpose of composition teaching changed from “for the fame and honor” into “for the application”; the classical Chinese was replaced by the vernacular Chinese in the writing carrier; the anthology textbook was substituted by the specialized textbook.The Methods of Writing not only saved the composition teaching of the secondary schools, but also revealed that Mr.Xia Mianzun's was rich in the composition teaching thoughts. He emphasized the instrumental writing, the basic standard of writing and the consciousness from writer and reader. Rigorous organizational structure, classical selection and various exercise design were the three main concerns in compiling the textbook. In addition, the composition teaching aimed at guiding student's writing skill and the teaching content focused on practical writing.At last, the composition teaching integrated principle with practice, and language sense was also one of key skills the students obtained.The Methods of Writing represented the most advanced level of the composition teaching from that time until nowadays, and it had high reference values in practice and theory. This book revealed that writing teaching ought to insist on six aspects: piece teaching, example demonstration, step-by-step guiding,wording and phrasing, guiding and accumulation, tapping the language sense.Even though The Methods of Writing is the leading classical composition teaching tutorial, there existed some problems, such as a few text model essays originating to life, neglecting the role of active rhetoric in writing, lacking of essential part of people theme writing. The Methods of Writing had some shortcomings, but it can't myopically ignore its modern value. For every classical work, we should reject the dross and assimilate the essence, and inherit and promote it in the criticism.