本論文探討以「主題發展」為教學主軸的高中英文作文課程對於精進高中生英文作文中連貫性的成效。研究對象是一班高二社會組班級共四十三人，該班在施測之前並未接受正式的英文作文課程。在課程開始之前施行前測以了解學生在教學之前的作文程度及診斷其在篇章結構方面的問題。之後，參與學生接受為期約一個學期的英文作文課程，平均每二個禮拜一次，一次一個小時。教學內容參考功用語法觀(Functional Sentence Perspective)的理論，著重在主題發展及篇章結構的安排，進而觀察其對學生寫作能力及連貫性方面是否有影響。學生在接受完課程之後進行後測以了解學生在連貫性及寫作能力這兩部份是否有顯著進步。最後，學生填寫一份問卷回答對本研究感想之相關問題。
本研究結果顯示: (一) 學生在連貫性及在整體作文能力方面，前、後測成績有顯著差異。亦即，「主題發展」為主軸的教學設計可以有效改進學生英文寫作能力以及連貫性。(二)質的分析中發現後測的文章較前測的文章在主題發展及連貫性上有明顯的進步。前測的文章，有些句子雖然與題意有關，但未能發展成與題意有關的主題，主題經常混淆不清，未能連貫發展，行文不流暢。相反的，後測的文章有明確的主題句，較具體的相關細節來支持，並能連貫發展，與主題無關的敘述大幅減少。(三) 在比較教學過程中學生修改前及修改後的文章後發現教導學生篇章層次(discourse-level)的「主題結構分析 (Topical structure analysis)」可以有效幫助學生了解本身作文的問題，並加以改進。(四) 大多數學生肯定本研究之教學，「主題發展」的教學的確增進了他們寫英文作文時的信心。
根據以上結果，本研究建議高中英文作文老師可以在一開始教授英文作文時，給予學生這方面的訓練，如此可讓學生在內容的取捨及篇章的安排上比較有概念，藉以改善學生在英文寫作上不連貫的問題。

The current study aims to explore the effect of teaching topical development in improving coherence and overall writing proficiency in senior high school students’ English compositions. The subjects were 43 second-graders from an academic senior high school in Ilan county. The study was segmented approximately into three stages: pre-treatment writing, treatment and post-treatment writing. The treatment was a series of English writing instruction designed under the framework of FSP, focusing mainly on the topical structure development. Before the treatment, a pre-test writing was conducted to diagnose the subjects’ writing proficiency and discourse-level problems. After the treatment, a post-test writing was conducted to examine if there was a significant improvement in terms of coherence and overall writing proficiency. Besides, the subjects were asked to give response to questions concerning the effect and evaluation of the treatment.
Several findings are revealed from the analysis of the results. First, it is found that there is a significant improvement between scores of pretests and posttests in terms of coherence and overall writing proficiency, indicating that the subjects have benefited from the treatment. Second, the qualitative analysis also reveals that there is significant improvement in terms of the topical development in the post-test essays. It is found that in the pre-test essays, students were unable to write appropriate topic sentences and tended to arrange supporting ideas randomly, which caused irrelevance and topic discontinuity, while in the post-test essays, these problems have been improved significantly. Third, by comparing the pre- and post-revision drafts during the treatment, it is found that employing “topical structure analysis” as a revision strategy is effective in helping arouse students’ awareness of the discourse-level problems in their essays. Finally, most of the subjects have displayed their recognition of the value of treatment in promoting their confidence in writing English compositions.
The results suggest that the integrated treatment administered in this study can be a feasible approach to help improve students’ writing proficiency and coherence. Writing instructors in senior high school can start the writing class by providing students with such kind of training, which can make students have a better conception of English textual structure and the arrangement of topics. In this way, the problem of incoherence can be improved gradually.

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