Abstract

Writing exercises are more effective than grammar rules in terms of making children acquire language skills. Knowing the characteristics of text genres and the rules of writing are not enough to improve writing skills of teacher candidates and to acquire necessary strategies for teaching how to write. Teachers would be uncertain about assessment and scoring students work and have difficulty deciding the content of mini lesson and responding to students in writing conferences if they lack the idea of what good writing is. It is aimed in this study to determine whether or not there are any differences in terms of the quality of the written expression between the compositions formed by secondary school fourth grade students using free writing and guided writing techniques and whether or not the quality of compositions differed according to socio-economic level. Topics like study model, work group, data collection process and analysis of the data have been discussed in this part of the study. This study is a descriptive study based on screening model. Author used document review as data collection method. Study group consists total of 201 students, 98 of which being fourth grade student from Agri Central O. N. Middle School which represents lower socio-economic level and 103 fourth grade student from I. C. Middle School which represents upper socio-economic level, 99 students wrote essays by free writing techniques whereas 102 students used guided writing techniques. According to the results, the scores of the students’ compositions created using free-writing technique are higher compared to those created by the technique of guided writing. According to the findings, there is a significant relationship between socio-economic level and compositions created by free writing techniques, but no significant relation was found between socio-economic level and composition created by guided writing technique. According to the findings, a significant relation was found between composition writing according to free writing technique and socio-economic level while there was no relation found between writing essay according to guided writing technique and socio-economic level. It is thought that methods, strategies and techniques followed in the activities of teaching written expression can affect all the stages and types of written expression. In this respect, different methods, strategies and techniques should be used by students for them to gain skills regarding this area.

Key words: Writing essay, composition, guided writing, free writing.