After the announcement of the Middle School Curriculum of 2011,the Chinese middle school textbooks,published by People Education Press, was completely revised from 2013 to 2016. This paper aims to analyze composition education problems in these textbooks by clarifying the changes in the teaching materials. The author researched the content of composition teaching materialsin the textbooks in three editions (1992 edition, 2001 edition, and 2013 edition). Based on the research results,the author clarified that the 2013 edition textbooks(1)cut down the number of activities that were considered important in the 2001 edition,and (2)increased writing technique training materials,which resemble those composition materials in the 1992 edition textbooks. In conclusion,this study shows that the composition education in China is returning to technique training where several problems exist, such as cutting off students from actual communication and the lack of practicality.

The Western rhetorical style was introduced to Japan and China almost a century ago, a time when the two countries shared similar theories on text genre classification. Since then, the Japanese view of genre classification and the Chinese counterpart developed independently. This study aims to compare the present states and understand how genre classification has evolved in the two countries, as well as investigate the impact on composition pedagogy in each country. Based on a survey of dictionaries,curricula and textbooks from both countries, the study finds that in Japan, genre is classified largely by the specific intent and application of the text. Composition pedagogy in Japan emphasizes on the social function of an essay and promotes teaching composition writing via language activities. On the other hand, genre classification in China is determined mainly by the text’s writing style and content. Composition writing is taught with an emphasis on the expression of self and writing pedagogy focuses on narrative techniques.