Enhancing narrative writing skills by practicing mentalization skills

Interventions aiming to improve narrative writing abilities have mostly focused on the writer’s text structure skills. This study examined the effect of a narrative writing intervention that focused on practicing mentalization skills on the written narratives' macrostructure, microstructure, and the mental states terms used, by comparing this effect with the effect of a text structure-based intervention. Ninety 3rd graders, divided into three groups of 30 students, participated in a 19-session program. The first group practiced Text Structure and Mentalization skills (TS+M), including emotional intelligence and cognitive Theory of Mind (ToM). The second group practiced Text structure (TS) by focusing on basic story elements. Both experimental groups practiced self- and peer-monitoring skills. The third group served as the control group and studied basic text structure skills as dictated by the standard curriculum. The results indicated that both the TS+M and the TS groups improved their narrative writing abilities in terms of the text macrostructure and microstructure elements; however, the TS+M group outperformed the TS group on almost all measures. Moreover, only students in the TS+M group significantly improved in ToM skills and used significantly more metacognitive verbs. The results highlight the importance of practicing mentalizing skills when teaching narrative writing.