Students’ strategies and competence in writing compositions maribel Fontiveros-Malana, Ph. D

Table 2.a. Extent of use of strategy in prewriting

Strategies	Mean	Standard Deviation	Interpretation
I generate ideas first prior to writing	4.20	0.75	Very Often
I provoke discussion with classmates about my thought and opinions on what to write.	3.42	0.89	Often
I look for some visual arts that could serve to frame my thoughts and ideas.	3.47	0.9	Often
I enumerate all interesting ideas, concepts and impressions about what I want to write.	4.09	0.85	Often
I do extensive reading of articles.	3.25	0.79	Sometimes
I recall captivating dialogues of characters.	3.27	0.95	Sometimes
I provoke discussion with my professor about things I want to write.	2.7	1.06	Sometimes
Overall	3.49		Often

5-Very Often 4-Often 3-Sometimes 2-Seldom 1-Never

Discussion:

The students generally strategized in prewriting compositions. Generating ideas prior to writing is the strategy they very often used, but they could hardly provoke discussions with their professors about things they want to write. This must be due to the fact that, for students, they would normally find it hard usually to approach a teacher for a discussion sometimes, so they end up doing it by themselves and come up with ideas to write about.


Table 2.b. Extent of use of strategies in drafting/writing compositions

Strategies	Mean	Standard Deviation	Interpretation
I write the title first of my composition.	4.40	0.90	Very Often
I write the draft of main concepts and the title later.	3.14	1.16	Sometimes
I write the whole text with due consideration to the composition’s parts/elements/components.	3.55	0.77	Often
I write the title and the whole text of my composition and enhance it with further readings from literature sources.	3.77	0.87	Often
Overall	3.72		Often

Discussion:

In writing/drafting their composition, the students similarly often use strategies to complete the task. But the most often used strategy is to write the title first of their composition. Sometimes, they write the draft of the main concepts, then the title later. This result is actually expected based on the observation of the researcher who has handled writing sessions for long years already, and has observed the same and common way of writing compositions-writing the title first.


Table 2.c. Extent of use of strategies in revising/proofreading compositions

Strategies	Mean	Standard Deviation	Interpretation
I read loudly as I check on the mistakes of the composition.	3.12	1.13	Sometimes
I focus my reading on the right choice of function words.	3.91	0.90	Often
I focus my attention on grammar rules (subject-verb agreement, tense, etc.).	3.78	0.84	Often
I focus my attention to the integration of figurative language and symbolism.	3.53	0.82	Often
I focus my attention to parallelism of thoughts and structure of sentence.	3.63	0.80	Often
I allow others to read my composition and ask them honest to goodness comments for improvement.	3.88	1.02	Often
I read several times to allow my intellectual consciousness to sink into the conceptual and contextual frame of my composition.	4.05	0.84	Often
Overall	3.70		Often

Discussion:

It is very apparent in the table that in terms of proofreading or revising, the students almost often used the strategies as indicated based on common observation. Except that only sometimes did they read aloud as they check on their mistakes in writing their compositions. Vocalizing is not so much of a practice by the students. This is maybe due to the fact that reading aloud may cause disturbance to the other students, or it may cause the writer to listen to himself instead, rather than focus on his writing mistakes.
On the level of competence, the researcher classified the students based on their writing output in narrative, descriptive and explanatory compositions as Skilled, Developing and Beginning along the areas of content/language, sequence/organization, and grammar and mechanics. Thus,