The study investigates the influence of instructional contexts involving metatextual activities in the writing of stories by children. In the first instructional context, activities were conducted which highlighted the narrative structure of the stories and which encouraged the children to discuss critically the characteristics of a story by taking two stories as examples. In the second context, besides the activity of reflecting on the hierarchical organization of the story's narrative conducted using just one sample story, the children were also asked to brainstorm ideas for a new story. The results showed a significant improvement in the quality of story writing with the children who participated in the instructional contexts compared to those who participated in a control group.
Language Development; Story; Psycholinguistics