(School of Foreign Languages, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030031, China)

Abstract: Rewriting activity is based on students’ comprehension of the reading text and it requires the students to change the original point of view to reconstruct the text. In this process, the student author should first of all comprehend the original text, locate the information related to the new perspective, evaluate the relevance and significance of the information and then determine the logical organization of the new text. This paper selected 25 pieces of students’ rewriting compositions to study how students make use of the original text in terms of the quantity of quotation and modes of quotation. What’s more, think-aloud is adopted to know the students use of critical thinking skills and the cultivation of critical disposition. The results show that in the rewriting activity, students have employed summary or paraphrase than direct quotation and even in some compositions, the original text does not appear and students have completely reconstructed the story in their own words. The think-aloud data indicate that students have adopted such critical thinking skills as selective attention, planning, brainstorming, self-monitoring and peer correction to select information and evaluate the information. As the activity was conducted in groups, students have got the opportunity to negotiate meaning and learned to reach consensus when differences arise. They have also exercised their creativity and imagination in the process of rewriting activity. Therefore, this activity has offered students an excellent opportunity to develop their competence of critical thinking and creative thinking. What’s more, through relating the story from different perspectives, they learned to deal with daily life issues from more than one angle and thus improved their capability of empathy and sensitivity of other’s emotions and feelings, which is beneficial to their interpersonal exchange in future.