An Action Research On Applying Writing Rubrics To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

The National English Curriculum for Senior High School(2017)advocates that students are not only the subject of learning,but also the subject of evaluation.As an evaluation tool,English writing rubric is teacher-led and student-centered.It evaluates the five dimensions including content,organization,grammar structure,vocabulary and writing norms of students' compositions,and gives descriptions of the corresponding dimensions at different levels.This evaluation model has received attention from many researchers at home and abroad,and a large number of studies have been carried out.However,there is a lack of empirical studies on the application of writing rubrics to English writing teaching in Chinese senior high school.Therefore,an action research is conducted among 48 senior two students of a senior high school in Guangzhou with the Noticing Hypothesis and the Meta-cognition Theory as the theoretical foundation to explore the effects of writing rubrics on students' writing with its corresponding five-step pedagogy.The whole action research lasts for 18 weeks and is conducted in two rounds.The instruments used in this research are English writing tests,questionnaires,researcher's journal and students' interviews.This research aims to answer the following three questions: 1)What problems will be encountered in the application of writing rubrics with its five-step pedagogy? 2)How can the problems be solved to make the application of writing rubrics more effective? 3)What are the effects of writing rubrics on senior high school students' English writing?In the first round action,it is discovered that the dimensions of content,organization and writing norms have been significantly improved but not the grammar structure and the vocabulary,that some students are not interested in the writing rubrics and some lack confidence to peer-assess and self-assess their compositions,and that no one is willing to write reflective diaries.To solve these problems,the researcher works out some corresponding solutions including giving up reflective diaries,modifying the writing rubric according to the writing topic,arranging brainstorm activities with a writing task,arranging peer-assessment in groups and to self-assessment with a model composition as well as writing a second draft.These solutions are proved to have made the rubric more effective in the second round research.Besides,the final comparisons of the results of pre-test and post-test as well pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire show that there are improvements in all the dimensions of students' compositions except for the grammar structure and an increase in students' awareness of the five rating dimensions of compositions.With the rubric,students have learned to use meta-cognitive strategies in their writing process,which includes planning before writing,monitoring while writing,evaluating and reflecting after writing.