Arab Educational Information Network

The current study examines the effectiveness of the instructional scaffolding strategy in developing the indicators of secondary school students according to the standard of creative writing. A list of standards, performance indicators and rubrics for high school students’ creative writing, and a creative writing test for first-year high school students were developed. A teacher’s guide to instructional scaffolding was also designed. The participants of the study were divided into separate groups: experimental group (n=35) and control group (n=35). The study showed that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in the creative writing test in terms of originality, flexibility, and fluency according to the standards of creative writing. The study recommends using instructional scaffolding strategy in developing creative writing at high school level. It also recommends using the standards of creative writing and their performance indicators in order to evaluate the performance of high school students. The study also recommends that high school Arabic teachers receive training on how to build the creative writing standards, diagnostic tools, rubrics, and therefore enhance student performance through instructional scaffolding. (Published abstract)