A study was conducted to examine the differences in narrative essays produced by skilled and unskilled EFL student writers. Twenty-six Japanese university students participated in the study. They were told to write a narrative story based on six-frame pictures. The students were classified into two groups, skilled and unskilled, according to the…

The writing patterns of adult native speakers of English was compared to that of students of English as a second language (ESL). Both groups wrote brief narrative accounts of a story they had seen on film. The writings revealed three basic organizational patterns, one pattern covering the six critical elements that made up the short story and two…