The Output-driven Route of Students’Literary Creative Ability in Novel Writing

School of Foreign Languages,Bohai University,Jinzhou,China Email:ifli@163.com

[Abstract]The thesis will answer the question whether the student’s literary creative ability can be enhanced with POA or not.The experimental classes are in the History of Anglo-American Literature.The method is quantitative analysis.The instruments are Semi-constructional interview and regular literary creative compositions of over 150 copies,such as essays/prose,fictional continuous writing and fictional writing.The time of experiment lasted two academic years from Sep.2018 to June 2020.The participants are about 150 English majors in normal specialty of Grade 2016 and 2017.

[Keywords]the student’s ability in ICC；literary creative ability；POA

Introduction

In recent years,graduates of English majors fail to work well in their profession.For English-normal majors,problems lie in the weakness in their writing ability.Facing with such problems the author adopts POA to solve these problems.

Problems

Students’weakness in critical thinking ability

In most colleges and universities English majors are taught with English knowledge,suppose Linguistics,Applied Linguistics or Anglo-American Literature.That is learning about language but not learning how to use it.“Language should be above all learned with skills but not with knowledge.”(Hu,2006,p.16)In literature class in college,the teacher introduces the background of the author,the features or style of his or her writing and then explains the text.Students are only one-sided listeners who take notes for the final examination.Consequently,there is no time in class left for students to write more literarily to practise their literary creative ability.Take students’thesis writing in Grade 2012 as an example，students have a habit of following suit when choosing a topic.Their distinctions in exposing in their theses are rare.They wouldn’t like to struggle in their minds to construct some topics which are fresh and new.Of course,sometimes some of them are a little bit lazy as well.The thesis writing is like this:

Table 1 The selection of students’thesis writing in literature

From Table 1 above,readers can see clearly that students dare not to read fresh novels.They have a kind of psychological“following suit”which leads to their ways of sallow critical thinking.In Table 1 because of utilitarianism,readers can find easily that students like to read some novels or dramas which are old and popular.Choosing works by William Shakespeare are 11 students,work by Charlotte Bronte are 14 students,work by Jane Austen are up to 19 students,work by Dickens are 7 students,and work by Thomas Hardy are 6 students.Choosing other writers who are fresh and new are only 23 students among 80 students occupying 28.75%of the total.

Student’s being weak in argumentative writing

Zhang shaojie(2010)points out that from the perspective of foreign education currently,the purpose of education mainly is to develop students’literacy.As the time of post deconstruction is coming,the ideology of vocal language-oriented tradition has already been broken.The effectiveness of the text becomes more and more conspicuous.The written language plays an important role in ELT.That is not replaceable.Students only know the part of speech,grammatically right when speaking or writing but they don’t know how to express well in their thesis in which they are fond of narrative writing such as introducing the plot of the novel,but they fail to know what a topic of the appreciation is.In such writings there are no topics or no developing ideas to support the topics.In the whole thesis the introduction of the plot of the novel occupies in much space without showing their personal point of views.This kind of narrative writing has nothing to do with exposition in the thesis.

Students’weakness in ability in ICC

Because of the bad influence of learning about language students know more about part of speech,grammatical right sentences but not know where,when,with whom and how to use these sentences right in communication.Students’cultural awareness has been increased,yet,their cultural literacy in writing in communication is weak.The investigation of the student’s cultural awareness chronologically can prove it.

Table 2 The students’cultural awareness

3.Do you think that the indifference to the western culture is the hinder of improving you English proficiency 116(107)(164)159 195(172)130(123)27(22)

From Table 2 readers find that students’awareness of cultural difference has been increased.Most of students say yes when being asked about the question 1,2,and 3.No matter what Grades are they in the answers are yes among most students.Students,however,often make the cultural mistakes in ICC especially in writing.For example,students often use the word“analyze”as the title.In English culture analyze is a process in thinking or writing.It cannot be entitled with the word“Analyze”.Students use Chinese way of thinking to understand English.Students’awareness of cultural difference has been increased,yet the good solution to the cultural shocks happened in students didn’t find.This problem hinders students’progress in writing.

The Solution

In order to combine students’ability in critical thinking with that in literary creative writing the author adopts some methods to finish the task.Since students are fond of narrative writing,the author makes a bad of a mistake to make use of students’narrative ability.

Loop-input

English majors are weakened in critical thinking ability or shallow in gaining western cultural knowledge or worse in getting Chinese(ancient)culture.(Hu&Sun,2008,p.141)The teacher of English usually uses TTT(Teacher Talking Time)style in class.This leads to students’weakness both in critical thinking and literary writing.The essential problem unsolved at present English literature teaching still concerns the inconsistency between contents and practice which results from the synchronism between the input of literary teaching contents and the process methodology instruction.In 1991,the British linguistic teacher Tessa Woodward pointed out loop-input initially with which the teaching process is consistent with the teaching contents.This method embodies that the three respects of the teaching frame,the roles that students play and contents with process are of consistency.In the process of loop-input,students are both listeners and practitioners in literary writings.After the loop-input of literary writing techniques students are asked to imitate the models such as the essays,prose or some pieces of dialogues in the sample novels immediately in class.So the given material should be“l(fā)ess but with essence”(Hu&Sun,2008,Prelude)

Loop-input of cultural rules in communication

Because of the cultural differences between Chinese and western cultures,the contents of dialogues in people’s daily life are quite different.In English the real dialogue is like this:“Are you free this evening?”If the counterpart is free and they are good friends.He will be accepted.The good result is that they enjoyed the movie.If he has something important to do,he will deny politely like“I would like to but…”yet he will not say No,directly.This is the way to refuse the invitation politely.The right pronunciation will cause mutual understanding; yet,the wrong one of saying“No”bluntly will cause communication in failure.There are many examples to show the wrong rules in communication without grammatical mistakes.The reason to teach students’rules in communication is that there are many dialogues forms in fiction.In order not to make a wrong dialogue in the fictional writing it is necessary for the teacher of English to loop-input some cultural rules in communication in class to students.

Loop-input of texts

In the experiment the author adopts Krashan’s i+1 hypothesis.The material input is a little bit higher than student’s ordinary level in English proficiency.Take American literature as an example,in order to enhance first student’s description about environment and second the depiction on characters the material input is withRip Van Winkleby Washington Irving.

“Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember The Kaatskill mountains.They are dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family,and are seen away to the west of the river,swelling up to the noble height,and lording it over to the surrounding country.Every change of season,every change of weather,indeed every hour of the day,produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains,and they are regarded by all the good wives,far and near,as perfect barometers.When the weather is fair and settled,they are clothed in blue and purple,and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky;but,sometimes,when the rest of landscape is cloudless,they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits,which,in the last rays of the setting sun,will glow and light up like a crown of glory.”(Fan,2006,p.4)

The author uses this paragraph as the sample to teach.How to give a vivid description about the nature is an important one.Mountain as one of the depictions is difficult for students to describe in details.The author tries to make students to gain the way with their own way of writing after the explanation and imitation.Students are asked to imitate in class accordingly.As for description on character the author still use the text ofRip Van Winkleto ask student to imitate.For example the description of the dog is the wonderful piece of the story:

“ ...True as it is,in all the points of spirit befitting an honorable dog,he was as courageous an animal as ever soured the woods-----but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-betting terror’s of a woman’s tongue? The moment the Wolf entered the house his crest fell,his tail drooped to the ground,or curled between his legs,he sneaked about with a gallows air,casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle,and at the least flourish of the broomstick or ladle,he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.”(Fan,2006,p.8)

Loop-input of some lore in narratology

In narratology,it is easy for students to master lore of the perspective of space.Fawler gives the definition of space as people should give an imaginative construction towards the space relation on character,building and setting.Take To build a Fire by Jack London as an example,students are asked to pick out the space,something after the teacher’s explanation.For example,snow,stream,moccasin,branches of pine matches.

Output-driven strategy

Observation

In observation students who are under the teacher’s guidance are asked to observe such as the campus or the city.After observing they are asked to write a piece of prose about what they have seen and observed immediately.One academic hour given is in class.After class they can write without the limitation of time and contents.In other literature classes students still are required to observe more in their spare time suppose on the train,in the field,in the class,in the dining hall or in a certain city,etc.

Discussion

There are many ways in discussion.First,students select a representative of each group and summarize in class;then,in each group students may exchange their different ideas and share in the group.Finally their point of views will compose in essay or prose in or after class to improve their writing abilities.

Practice in writing

In order to increase student’s literary creative ability in writing,the writing practice begins with prose/essay writing.The author uses an ecological writing in which the title and contents are not controlled by the author.Students are free to write with anything and with any titles.Students are asked to observe a garden on the campus and memorize the information they have seen in their minds and then go back to the classroom to write with what they have seen and felt.The form is prose.Some students enlarge their prose with ode to the campus wholly.The writing is with free title and limitless words.

Table 3 The students’progress in literary creative writing ability

From Table 3 readers can see that through practice in description on setting the use of notional words is 1170.The average is 29.25 in Grade 2016.In the continuous writing entitledThe Whistlethe usage of notional words which are 3057 has been increased.The average is 76;the use of modified word is 403 which is in average 10.07 on setting description but 21.3 in continuous writing.Concerning with the output-driven knowledge in narratology,the description on space is 174,in average 4.35.The use of time is 1.47 in average in continuous writing.This proves that students can make use of the knowledge of narratology to write.Some students write with figure of speech to enrich their writings.According to the narratology the writing on animal is much more than that in continuous writing.The figure of speech in continuous writing is,however,much less than the description on setting.Finally,the length of the continuous writing is longer than the setting description.

In Grade 2017 students are asked to write a short story.The title isThe Adventures on Campus.The plot is that a Chinese junior female student named Li Meiqi meets an American overseas student named Charles David in library of Jianghai University.David falls in love with Chinese students Li Meiqi who has had a boyfriend.Finally they fall in love with each other.In their love there are a lot of cultural shocks,for example,in coffee shop,David makes go Dutch.This causes Li Meiqi to feel overwhelmed and angry very much.Another example is that David wants a marriage in the church,yet,Li Meiqi does not agree to it.Finally David has to reconcile.After marriage Li Meiqi asks David to hand in his salary.David does not obey.This causes the couple to quarrel for many times.Finally,David still reconciles but fails to know the reason.Later Li Meiqi explains it to him in the Chinese cultural background.Another time they quarrel about the final location.Li Meiqi wouldn’t like to follow David to go back to America.She wants him to stay in China continuously.Finally,David reconciles again.The short story is full of cultural shocks.There are many cultural conflicts in the story.The aim of designing in this way is to ask students to increase their ability in ICC while they have strengthened their cultural awareness.The whole short story is divided into thirteen chapters.The class has 68 students.They are divided into 13 groups in which each group has five students.Every student is arranged in each different group in definite chapter in definite chapter and different contents.The whole has written with about 102,000 words.The average is 1500 words.Students in their writings make many conflicts between Chinese and American cultures to appeal readers.

From Table 4 readers can see that in description the use of notional words are in average 84.The use of modified words is in average 23.5 in average.Concerning with the output-driven knowledge in narratology,the description on space is in average 6.67.The use of time is 3.77 in average.This proves that students can make use of the knowledge of narratology to write in their story writing.Some students write with figure of speech to enrich their writings.According to the narratology the writing on animal is 0.5 in average.The use of figure of speech is 0.67 in average.The figure of speech in continuous writing is much less than the description on setting.

Table 4 The average number of students’progress in literary creative writing ability

From Table 4 readers can find that from the increasing practice students have made process in volume notional words and in modified words.The proportion is 29.25:76:84.The use of modified words has been increased.The proportion is 10.07:21.3:23.5.In use of space the proportion is 4.35:5.82:6.67.The use of time is 1.47:3.77.These two items are still in progress.

Interview

Student A:When I was taught to use POA in Literature class I feel(felt)happy.That is(was)a kind of feeling that I had never had before.I would like to write in class after the relevant task was given.I overcome the embarrassment whenever I am given a task of writing.

Student B:After learning POA I am interested in fictional reading.I no longer feel boring when I read a novel.Simultaneously,I try to pick out some useful words and phrases for my future use in writing.As for this,I more and more like reading novels.POA makes me practise more and I would like to write more.

Student C:POA makes me write more both in class and after class.No matter I am given the task of writing or not I would like to write by myself.I like to write more.Writing makes me read more and think more than before.POA causes me to improve my critical thinking ability through writing.I know what the profoundness is after reading and writing.

Conclusion

The Output-driven route of English-majors’abilities in Literary creation and critical thinking in ICC in the Perspective of OBE is the duality of loop-input of texts and writing techniques relevantly,the observation and discussion and the writing in short story after class.To lay the student’s solid and skillful foundation and to cultivate him or her with the deep-seated liberal attainment is the English educator’s task imperatively.It is necessary for the teacher of English to cultivate his or her students to use English well but to decrease contents about language taught.“The CT-oriented ELT should practice student’s high-order thinking facet in analyzing,applying,evaluating and creating abilities.”(Sun,2017,p.868)The result of the experiment manifests that for one thing,the English major’s creative ability in literature has been improved,for another,the data illustrates that POA is proved to be an effective strategy in students’output in literary writing.

Acknowledgments

The periodical achievement of the project approval of Teaching and Learning Reform Being EntitledThe Outputdriven Route of English-majors’Abilities in Literary creation and Critical Thinking in ICC in the Perspective of OBE,Bohai University,2019,(No.BDJGCZ2019158).