Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine teaching units for writing opinion essays within Japanese language textbooks for high schools from the perspective of cognitive psychology. The author surveyed 16 textbooks which were published by 10 publishers from Showa 60 (1985) to 62 (1987), 21 textbooks which were published by 10 publishers from Heisei 6 (1994) to 9 (1997), and 22 textbooks which were published by 9 publishers from Heisei 19 (2007) to 22 (2010). The results showed 1) there were more explanations about planning than revision, 2) there were few teaching units which indicated that writing process was recursive, and 3) teaching units in Heisei 19-22 textbooks contained many devices which could lessen students' cognitive burden while writing. Moreover, it was demonstrated that teaching units reflected the National Curriculum Standards for High Schools.
