This study examines the influence of schooling and the context of textual production on stories written by 1st and 2nd graders. In the first condition, children were asked to write original stories. In the second condition, they were asked to reproduce in writing a classical tale for children. The stories were classified according to the complexity and coherence of the narrative. Results indicate that schooling and condition of text production influenced the establishment of textual coherence. However, the effect of the contexts of textual production on children's writing was not the same for all children. Sensitivity to the contexts of text production seemed to have been related to children's awareness of narrative schema.
Written Language; Narrative; Text Structure
