Expanding Horizons: Enhancing Iranian High School Male Students' Writing Performance through Providing Fiction Genre

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effectiveness of integrating short stories (as a fiction genre) into EFL writing instruction to enhance the writing performance of Iranian high school male students. Specifically, the study examined two key sub-skills: grammatical accuracy in using English tenses and word order accuracy. A total of ۱۰۰ eleventh-grade male students (N=۱۰۰) from a public high school in Chaypareh West Azerbaijan Province, Iran, participated in the study. They were divided into an experimental group (n=۵۰) that received six weeks of short-story-based writing instruction and a control group (n=۵۰) that received traditional grammar-focused instruction. A pretest-posttest control-group design was employed. Writing samples were evaluated using an analytical rubric measuring tense accuracy, word order, content, and organization. Data were analyzed using paired-samples t-tests, independent-samples t-tests, Pearson correlation, and ANCOVA. Results showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in both tense accuracy (p <.۰۰۱, Cohen's d=۰.۸۲) and word order accuracy (p <.۰۰۱, Cohen's d = ۰.۷۴). A strong positive correlation was found between improvements in tense and word order (r = ۰.۶۸, p <.۰۱). Furthermore, no significant difference was observed between the improvement in tense accuracy and word order accuracy (p >.۰۵), indicating that short-story instruction improved both sub-skills to a similar extent. The findings confirm that integrating fiction genres, particularly short stories, is an effective pedagogical strategy for improving EFL writing performance among Iranian male high school students. This study offers practical implications for curriculum designers, EFL teachers, and policymakers in Iran.

کلیدواژه ها:

writing performance ، fiction genre ، narrative genre ، creative writing ، educational outcomes ، student engagement