Development of a curriculum for writing compositions that combines students' language development and the study of rhetoric

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K04406
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Education on school subjects and activities
• Research Institution: Utsunomiya University
• Principal Investigator: Morita Kaori 宇都宮大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (20334021)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 言語発達 / 作文 / 相手意識 / レトリック / カリキュラム / 国際比較

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The objective of this study was to develop a curriculum for writing compositions that combines students’ linguistic development and the study of rhetoric. (1) The compositions of students in Japan and England were compared and analysed from the perspective of developing audience awareness and communication strategies. The results indicated that students in Japan use more diverse communication strategies in their writing and that the audience awareness demonstrated in the compositions is concentrated at the expression and word level. (2) Based on these results, a curriculum for writing compositions was conceived with a focus on the development of compositional capabilities at the level of sentence structure. In particular, a composition instructional method was developed and verified in relation to summarizing and composing with a focus on the ‘progymnasmata’ that was European composition curriculum developed with a basis in the study of rhetoric.

Free Research Field

国語科教育学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的意義を２点挙げる。(1)日英２国間で児童作文の比較分析を行った結果、日本人児童の方が、英国人児童よりも読み手に配慮し、読み手に伝わるような書き方を様々に工夫していることがわかった。書き言葉におけるコミュニケーション能力の違いが国際比較によって明らかになった。(2)レトリック研究に基づき開発された欧州の作文カリキュラム「プロギュムナスマタ」に着目し、「要約」「構成」に関わる作文指導法を開発・検証した。レトリック研究の知見を取り入れることで日本の作文カリキュラムに系統性を与え、かつ(1)で得た児童のコミュニケーション能力の実態と発達に対応させることを意図した。