The Impact of Synergy-Based Reading for Writing on Senior High School Students’ English Writing Performance in China

Abstract

This study examines whether a synergy-based reading-for-writing approach can enhance Chinese senior high school students’ English writing performance and motivation to write. The study extends reading–writing integration research by operationalising “synergy” as structured input–output alignment across four instructional dimensions, structural synergy, contextual clue synergy, emotional synergy, and linguistic synergy, and empirically testing this model over a full semester. Using a quasi-experimental action research design with two intact parallel classes, one experimental class received the synergy-based intervention. In contrast, the control class followed a traditional reading-for-writing routine. Quantitative evidence was collected through pre- and post-intervention continuation-writing assessments, supplemented by student and teacher questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Pre-test results indicated no significant difference between groups (p = .753). After the semester-long intervention, the experimental class outperformed the control class on the post-test (p = .013), and the experimental group showed a significant pre–post gain (p = .046). Motivation findings were more differentiated: questionnaire data showed that a notable proportion of students reported increased interest in writing (about 25%), while many reported no change; interview data further suggested improved engagement and reduced anxiety for some learners, especially when scaffolds supported planning and language transformation under time constraints. The findings contribute theoretically to interactive alignment accounts by demonstrating how guided multi-level alignment can support writing development, and they offer practical implications for exam-oriented senior high school EFL instruction, where students must efficiently transform reading input into coherent continuation writing.