Recently, a term called "task-driven composition" has become popular in Chinese teaching. From the provincial teaching and research meeting to the ordinary Chinese class, some people are deeply puzzled by this term, and some people are fascinated by it, making the composition of the college entrance examination look like the weather has changed.

Then, what is task-driven composition, what is the connection and difference with previous compositions, and how to write this composition well?

Task-driven composition or material composition.

The formulation of "task-driven composition" comes from an article by Zhang Kai, a teacher in the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education, which focuses on the design of question types and strengthens the educational function-an interpretation of the composition characteristics and related issues of the 2065438+05 college entrance examination. In this paper, the author formally puts forward the concept of adding task-driven instruction to material composition by analyzing the propositional characteristics of composition in 20 15 college entrance examination, especially in the new curriculum standard:

On the basis of materials that stimulate candidates' thinking and writing desire, by increasing task-based instructions, the function of writing guided by test questions is brought into play, and the pertinence of writing is enhanced, so that candidates can identify key concepts in real situations and conduct reasoning and argumentation in multi-dimensional comparison.

From the above text, we can know that task-driven composition only adds task-driven instructions on the basis of materials, and defines the tasks to be written. For example, volume 20 15 1 tells the story of a daughter reporting her father's driving and calling, and asks candidates to choose an object and write a letter. Another example is the second volume of the 20 15 curriculum standard, which lists the deeds of Theory of Three Represents's characters and asks what kind of people's views are more praised. The material narration of these two composition questions is no different from the usual material composition, except that a task-based writing requirement is added. It can be seen that the so-called task-driven composition is not an independent form of composition proposition, and the composition of college entrance examination has not changed.

So what is "add task instruction"? What is the connection and difference between the material composition with task instructions and the previous material composition? This should start with the essence of college entrance examination composition.

As a selective examination, the basic function of college entrance examination is to select talents with academic potential for universities. This fundamental goal determines that the proposition of college entrance examination composition tends to let students write compositions, and universities certainly hope that the recruited students have good potential to do academic papers.

The composition proposition of college entrance examination tends to let students write compositions, and whether it is academic papers or what we usually call teaching argumentative papers, in essence, we should follow the writing idea of asking questions, analyzing problems and solving problems, that is, under the premise of mastering certain facts, predecessors' achievements and other materials, we should ask questions about materials, that is, ask questions and propose methods to solve problems through scientific thinking, analysis, induction and deduction.

In fact, the propositional form of college entrance examination composition materials has coincided with such requirements. Given the material, candidates are required to ask questions on the basis of fully grasping the connotation of the material, and finally give solutions through their own analysis and reasoning. In other words, there are problems in the propositional form of material composition, that is, material composition is task-driven, just to stimulate students' thinking and innovation, and the writing task is not clearly stated.

Judging from the essential requirements of material composition, the so-called task-driven composition, adding task instructions on the basis of material, can be said to be superfluous. If the task description is not properly added, it will also constrain the examinee's multi-angle thinking. What is the intention of this change from the implicit task instruction of traditional material composition to the task instruction given by task-driven material composition is worth discussing. The reason given by Zhang Kai in the article is that this is a kind of achievement of material composition after years of development and maturity. On the contrary, Lao Xu thinks that if the material composition is really mature, it should have a higher and higher level in the open and restrictive treatment of the proposition, rather than the conservative practice of adding a task description at the back of the material.

Material composition is essentially a propositional form with limited writing angle. Why should we limit our tasks to this propositional form now? I think the reason is that the inherent requirements of material composition proposition have not been effectively implemented in recent years, and the development of material composition proposition is becoming more and more mature. Material composition has become a national trend, but the current situation of students' writing level and ability does not match it, and even the marking standards in many provinces have remained at more than ten years ago. In this situation and pattern, the education authorities have to choose to take three steps back, from the source of the essential requirements of the material composition proposition, by adding task instructions to the composition materials, to intervene in the writing process of candidates and the formulation of examination marking standards, thus playing a real guiding role.

This inference is not a guess. We can draw such a conclusion by analyzing the negative side of task-driven composition.

The antonym of task-driven composition is topic composition.

When we don't know the true meaning of a concept, it is a very good way to analyze its opposite. If you want to know what task-driven composition is, let's first look at what non-task-driven composition is. Teacher Zhang Kai divided the composition types as follows: from the presentation form, college entrance examination compositions often adopt three basic types of questions: title composition, topic composition and material composition; From the perspective of ability division, composition questions can be divided into explanatory composition and task-driven composition. Title composition and topic composition are both representatives of explanatory composition.

As can be seen from the above division, the opposite of task-driven composition is not material composition, but explanatory topic composition and title composition. In other words, task-driven composition itself is the core competence requirement of material composition. However, in recent years, although the material composition dominates the world, the articles written by students, the teaching of many front-line teachers, and even the marking standards of college entrance examinations in some areas still use the standards of explanatory topic composition.

Let's first take a look at the general writing routines of many high school students. When they are faced with a composition material, the general practice is to dig out a so-called keyword from the material, such as "innovation", and then use "innovation" at the beginning of the article to create a set of sentences that look very imposing. The main body of the article cited three or five examples, saying that Zhang San is innovative, Li Si is innovative and Wang Wu is innovative, so we must innovate.

A slightly more advanced way of writing is this: the composition begins with direct or indirect references to the material, and then a topic, such as "innovation", is forced on the material regardless of the overall meaning of the material. Then the whole article is connected in series with the following sentences: "Innovation is the shortcut to success", "Innovation is the driving force of national progress" and "Innovation is the source of civilization and progress".

What is more advanced is the progressive discussion on what to do, why to do it and how to do it, such as "innovation means saying goodbye to the old things and creating new things", "innovation can bring success to individuals and promote the development of the country and the nation" and "innovation requires great courage". This kind of writing is widely praised for its depth.

There is nothing wrong with the above writing methods. The problem is that they are explanatory topic writing methods at best, which do not meet the inherent requirements of material composition at all. They promote the writing of articles by asking questions, analyzing problems and solving problems. However, in the practice of marking material compositions for many years, this kind of composition has not been guided by low score evaluation. I don't know whether the marking level in these aspects is very low, or whether marking is a compromise to the present situation of students' writing level.

Let's take a look at how front-line teachers teach material composition writing. In the process of writing college entrance examination from scratch, there have been such examples. 20 13 after the college entrance examination, a teacher in Jiangsu wrote a composition about the papers in Jiangsu that year. The material of this essay is about a group of explorers who came to a cave and lit a candle for lighting, which caused the butterflies living in the cave to leave their original place and retreat to the depths of the cave. At the end of the material, there is a sentence that "a small candle can have such a big impact".

The hydrology written by this teacher is called details determine success or failure. The article digs out the phrase "a small candle can have such a big impact" and then associates it with a topic "details". Then talk about what details are. Paying attention to details succeeded, but failed to pay attention to details. This article was published on the internet by the author in the name of perfect composition and was widely reprinted. Regardless of whether it is appropriate for a teacher to write a composition about hydrology as a perfect score. This composition itself is obviously written as an explanatory topic composition. Teachers who dare to write down hydrology and post it online are still so, not to mention teachers who never dare to write down hydrology in Qian Qian.

Throughout the composition teaching of the first-line college entrance examination, few really focus on the interpretation and analysis of materials, and most of them focus on the formal structure and language expression of the article. In order to make students write articles with clear form and structure, many teachers also sum up a series of so-called article structure styles, such as "total score", "coordinate", "progressive" and then "what, why and how". There are also efforts in the language of the article, such as asking students to quote famous sayings in the article and connect with reality in the article. What's more, students are required to recite model essays by theme for preparation, and the college entrance examination composition is divided into several topics, such as perseverance, faith, innovation, environmental protection, etc., and each topic is accompanied by several platitudes, which can be directly applied in the examination room.

All of the above, the practice itself is not right or wrong. It is understandable that the college entrance examination composition should be prepared in form, structure, language and materials. Not deliberately to make some preparations. However, the problem is that these methods, which mainly focus on explanatory topic composition, have long been unable to meet the inherent requirements of material composition, and it is of no help to do it well, so that for many years, the writing level of most students has remained at the age of topic composition more than ten years ago.

The present situation of students' writing level and the cognition of front-line teachers are still in the era of topic composition, which leads to a very interesting phenomenon: the law does not blame the public, bad money drives out good money, and the composition topic is put forward in the form of material composition. As a result, many outstanding benchmark compositions officially released by the marking group are still explanatory topic compositions, which will become the vane of first-line composition teaching and market composition guidance books. In other words, the propositional level of material composition has been upgrading, and this upgrading has not brought much influence to students' writing and front-line teaching, and the guiding role of proposition has hardly been brought into play.

At this point, it is not difficult for us to understand why the proposition of college entrance examination composition should add task instructions on the basis of materials in the era when material composition dominates the world. In the final analysis, it is not to limit the writing angle of material composition, but to fight against the cancer of topic composition that has not been cured for many years by adding medicine to the proposition in the environment of shrinking the proposition right of college entrance examination composition, so that the proposition can play a real guiding role in students' writing.

By clarifying the differences and connections among task-driven composition, topic composition and material composition, the training goal and direction of composition can be more clearly defined.