The Effect of the Story Completion Technique on Creative Writing Skills

Abstract

Written works are the most significant tool in transmitting a society's culture to future generations. Therefore, enhancing the effectiveness and usage of creative writing is important. Various methods and techniques are employed in writing education to foster a love for writing from a young age and to aid in producing creative writing works. One such method involves completing unfinished stories. This study aims to demonstrate the effect of the story completion technique on students' creative writing skills. The study was conducted using a pre-test, post-test control group design among experimental studies. The sample consisted of 37 fourth-grade students from a primary school in the Central Anatolia Region, Türkiye with 19 in the experimental group and 18 in the control group. The experimental group was subjected to the story completion technique, while the control group received no special treatment and followed the Turkish language curriculum as planned by the teacher. The interventions lasted for 8 weeks. Data were collected by scoring students' creative writing products using the “Creative Writing Products Evaluation Scale” and were statistically processed using the SPSS software package. In the analysis of the data, the t-test was used for paired comparisons, and significance was sought at the .05 level. The results showed that students in the experimental group, who used the story completion technique, had significantly higher writing scores than those in the control group. Furthermore, it was observed that the writing levels of students in the experimental group improved from medium to good. These results indicate that the story completion technique is effective in enhancing students' creative writing skills.