Writing ability is people select, extract, process and remould the materials in their language reserves. However, the requirements and the connotation of writing ability change following with the different objects. As for middle school students, it is obvious that writing ability has certain stages and levels, not like the adults and also different from the average people. Putting anther way, it is a basic ability relatively. Based on above, the standard of writing cannot be set too high in middle school in case that writing teaching would be influenced negatively and then would not go on smoothly. At the same time, if the standard is too low, it will not reach the provisions of the government. Then a problem appears: how to set up the standard?
Compared with the domestic studies about influencing factors of second-language writing, the abroad studies start earlier and they are deeper, more comprehensive, more perfect and more scientific. Besides, the most abroad studies adopt the empirical method and they have the specific and meticulous perspectives and wide objects. O’Mallyh and Chamnot came up with the learning strategies of second language acquisition. Krash discussed the second language writing theory about “Principles and practice in Second Language Acquisition” and affective filter theory that demonstrate the effect of affection on the writing. Lindgren and Sullivan have researched the psychological mechanism of students’ writing, the modification process and the influence of mother tongue through the computer. Wallance Douglas, a professor in Northwestern University, proposed the process-writing method that the writing is a process so the operation method of each step should be told in writing class. He emphasizes the subjective initiative of students based on communication theory. Frouse and Hayes created the cognitive writing model that writing is a process of solving problems in which there are problems’ condition, long-term memory and work memory. Dheram, Ferris, Hall and etc demonstrated that feedback from teachers has a positive correlation with the improvement of students’ writing.
The studies on influencing factors of second language writing are always being the focus of Chinese experts in recent years. In 1999, Ma Guanghui and Wen Qiufang systematically illustrated the language factors (83). After that, few people do the same thing but most people research the influencing factors from the specific and microcosmic perspective. By collecting a lot of articles about influencing factors of second language writing, the author found that the research aspects include effect of mother tongue, writing strategies, language factors and etc. And the research objects include graduate students, college students, majors or non-majors, high school students and the research methods include empirical approach, experiments, the summary of experience from teachers and observation method.
Ma Guanghui and Wen Qiufang explain Chinese writing ability, 源Z自+751=文-论(文+网[www.751com.cn oral English ability and the level of vocabulary used in written expression have a direct effect on English writing ability by establishing the causal and linear model (97). Wang Lifei had a research on the influence of discourse knowledge and free writing after class (30). And he found that the discourse knowledge has little impact on improvement of English writing while free writing has a positive effect. The research by Chen Huiyuan and Wu Xudong presents that headline writing has the highest accuracy and the following is recall writing and inductive writing. And time condition has no effect on the accuracy, complexity and fluency of headline writing and recall writing. However, in the condition of no limitation to time, inductive writing would prominently improve the accuracy. In two theses about non-language factors, Tao Youlan declared that cognitive competence, thinking differences, teachers’ teaching methods and teachers’ evaluation greatly affect the second language writing by questionnaire, observation and interview from the internal and external cause. Zhang Xiaoning analyzed the effect of affective factors and cognitive competence through own teaching practice. Tang Weiqing discussed the several factors that influence the fluency of English writing by analyzing the problems in writing. The results show that these factors have different degrees of correlation with the fluency of English writing. Others think the influencing factors also have the students, class hour, teaching materials, exams and so on.