Changes in Fourth-Grade Descriptive Writing Following Chain Writing Instruction in an Islamic Elementary School

Abstract

Developing coherent descriptive paragraphs requires elementary pupils to coordinate idea generation, sentence organization, and writing conventions, yet short-term changes following sequential collaborative writing in Islamic primary classrooms remain insufficiently documented. This study aims to examine fourth-grade pupils’ descriptive writing performance before and after chain writing instruction in an Indonesian Islamic elementary school. The study employed a quantitative pre-experimental one-group pretest–posttest design involving 34 purposively selected pupils at MI Plus Darul Ilmi, Banjarbaru. Across three instructional meetings, pupils engaged in sequential collaborative drafting and guided review; writing performance was assessed before and after instruction using a researcher-developed rubric. Descriptive statistics, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and individual normalized-gain analysis were supplemented by illustrative classroom writing samples. The findings revealed an increase in mean scores from 60.59 (SD = 7.46) to 81.62 (SD = 5.99), with all 34 paired scores increasing (Z = −5.350, p < .001; mean N-gain = 0.54, moderate). Selected writing examples illustrated clearer paragraph organization, but continued mechanical errors. However, the absence of a comparison group and incomplete scoring-reliability information prevent causal attribution. The study contributes context-specific evidence of observed writing changes, with implications for integrating collaborative drafting, explicit revision, and stronger future assessments.