CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
A.
The
background of study
In English language, there are four skills to be
mastered. They are listening, speaking, reading, writing. Writing is one of the
four language skills which is very important to learnt. As it know, writing is
not easy. Among the skills, writing is the most difficult skill to be learnt,
because it needs hard thinking in producing words,sentences, and paragraph at the same
time.
As Jack C. Richard
and Willy A. Renandya (1986:1) said, “writing is the
most difficult skill for second language learners to mastered. The difficulty
lies not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these
ideas into readable text.”
In the second years
of junior high school, the basic competency that should be achieved in the
writing English subject is that the students have ability to develop and produce written simple functional text
in the descriptive text, recount text, and narrative text.
Descriptive text is
one of the essay
texts which is difficult enough to be learnt by the students. Descriptive text
is a text that describes the feature of someone, something, or a certain place.
Descriptive text consists of introduction and description. Introduction is the
part of paragraph that introduces the character, and description is the part of
paragraph that describes the character. The students can use simple present and
adjective clause in writing descriptive text. In writing the descriptive text,
students often find some difficulties. The students usually feel difficult to
organize their ideas. Furthermore, many students made some mistake and faces difficulties to build and develop
their imagination.
Base on the
statement above, teachers must be able to organize learning – teaching
activities. They have to master the material, method also and also technique or
strategy to make the students understand and apply descriptive writing matters
in practice. A good technique can help the students in comprehending and
mastering the lesson. One of the teaching failure is caused by an unsuitable
method or technique in teaching – learning process, the writer would like to
propose an alternative technique, that is the one which common known under the
term “Clustering Technique”. Clustering Technique is a good way to turn a broad
subject into a limited and more manageable topic for a short essay. According
to John Langan (2001:25), clustering technique also
known as diagramming or mapping, is another strategy that can
be used to generate material for a paper. This method is helpful for people who
like think in a visual way. In clustering, you use lines, boxes, and circle to
show relationship among the ideas and details that occur to you.”
Moreover, the clustering
technique can motivate the students to write and to stimulus their ideas.
Besides that, this technique will help the students to organize their thinking
before they develop in a paragraph.
Basd on the writer’s experience when he did the observation
on SMPN 19 Makassar,
the process of teaching – learning in the classroom was still passive. The
students did
not understand clearly about descriptive text, how to identify the descriptive
text, and how to describe persons, places, and things in English writing.
Besides that, the teacher used one technique in teaching
descriptive text which makes the
students felt
bored and difficult to understand the material when teaching – learning.
Therefore, the teacher needed
to be more creative in teaching, including the use of technique.
In
teaching learning process of decriptive text the teacher was still active so
that the students didn’t have chance to express their idea to make descriptive
text. Besides that the teacher seldom gave students the vocabulary and explained
the phrase which focus on descriptive text so that the students were difficult
to organize their vocabulary to be a good paragraph.
The
teacher’s strategy in teaching descriptive text was not detail so that students
felt difficult to understand descriptive text more detail and there was not the
key words which must be understood by students, because the teacher only
focused on evaluation of the descriptive text than made students understand
about descriptive text.
Base on the background
above, the writer took
a title of this “skripsi”
“Improving Students’ Ability in Writing
Descriptive Text Using Clustering Technique at Eighth grade of SMPN 19 Makassar”.
B.
The
Statement of Problem
Base on the background
presented above, the writer planned
to use clustering technique in teaching writing of descriptive text at the
eighth grade of students of SMPN 19 Makassar. The general question of this
research was
“how can the use of clustering technique improve students’ ability in writing
descriptive text?”
C.
The
Scope of Study
The writer only focused on eighth grade of students
SMPN 19 Makassar at the first semester 2012/2013 academic year, and the problem of this study was be limited in the
implementation of using clustering technique in teaching descriptive text.
D.
The
Object of Study
From the previous
discussion in the background of the study, the objectives of this study was as follows :
1. To
improve the students’ ability in writing descriptive text
using clustering technique.
2. To add students’ insight in writing descriptive text
using clustering technique.
E.
The
significant of Study
The result of this
study can provide useful information for :
1. To the teachers
The
result of this study was
useful for English teachers at Junior High School level to get information
about teaching descriptive writing using clustering technique.
2. To the students
The
result of this study gave an input to the students to
improve their ability in writing.
3. To the readers
The
result of this study can add insight or reference about descriptive text
teaching.
4. To the other researchers
For
further researchers who was
interested in teaching descriptive writing at junior high school level can get
the basic information from this study to do the further research.
CHAPTER
II
REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE
This chapter contains
previous related finding, the definition
of writing, the
defition of descriptive text, the definition of clustering tecchnique,
theoretical framework and hypothesis.
A.
The
Previous Related Research Finding
Fikri
Fauji Alawi (2011) conclude that
clustering technique can improve studens’ abiliity in writing descriptive text
and make students motivated and interested to participate and actively in
writing activety.
B.
Writing
1.
The
definition of writing
In
learning English, there are four skills that should be mastered; those are
listening, speaking, reading, writing. Among the four skills, writing is the
most difficult skill to be learnt. This opinion is supported by Jack C.
Richards and Willy A. Renandya (2002 : 303) Writing
is the most difficult skill for second language learners to be mastered”. The difficulty
is not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating idea
into readable text.
There
are many different definition about writing given by experts from many resources.
According to Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Coopers (1985:3) said, “ writing is a
complex process and as such contains element of mystery and surprise. But we
know and believe that writing is a skill that anyone can learn to manage”
on
the other side, Barnet and Stubb’s
(1983:3)
said that writing as a physical act, it request material and
energy. And like most physical acts to be performed fully, to bring pleasure,
to both performer and audience, it requires practice”.
From
definition above, it can be said that writing can be distinguished from other
skills as the most difficult one. There are many factors influencing writing to
be a good one such as grammatical, vocabulary, punctuation, and spelling
knowledge which must be integrated to be a paragraph.
From
the ideas previously, the writer conclude that writing is a medium of written
communication. It is a way of remembering and a way of thinking. Because of
that, writing is not easy. It needs a hard work. In writing we have to produce
words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs at the same time. It is a way of learning.
None of us can write much of interested things without first thinking, probing/investigating,
experimenting, and reading.
2.
The
writing process
Writing
is a process that involves several steps. At least. There are three steps in
the writing process mentioned by Karen Blanchard, and Christine Root (2003:41) in their book; Ready to
write: A first Composition text.
Step
one : Prewriting
Thinking
about your topic and organizing your ideas.
Step
two : Writing
Using
your ideas to write a first draft
Step
three : Revising
Improving
what you have written
If
the writers follow the steps, and practice by writing often, they will find it
easier to write paragraphs and to improve their writing.
a.
Prewriting
Prewriting is the thinking,
talking, reading, and in writing we think about our topic before we write a
first draft. Prewriting is a way of warming up our brain before we write, just
s we warm up our body before we exercise.
There are several ways to warm up before start writing :
1) Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a
quick way to generate a lot of ideas on a subject. The purpose is to make a
list of as many ideas as possible without worrying about how you will use them.
To brainstorm,
follow these steps:
a) Begin
with a broad topic.
b) Write
down as many ideas about the topic as you can be in five minutes.
c) Add
more items to your list by answering the questions who, what,
when, where, why, and how.
d) Group
similar items on the list together.
e) Cross
out items that do not belong.
2) Clustering
Clustering is
another prewriting technique. It is a visual way of showing how your ideas are
connected by using circles and lines. When you cluster, you draw a diagram of
your ideas.
This term was explained in the next
section. On the other hand said that pre-writing is any activity in the for
getting started. In fact, it moves students away from having to face blank page
toward generating tentative ideas and gathering information for writing. The
following activities provide the learning experiences for students at this
stages
a) Group
Brainstorming
b) Clustering
c) Rapid
Free Writing
d) WH-question
b.
Writing
After we have sent some
time thinking about our topic and doing the necessary prewriting, we are
ready for the next step in the writing
process: writing our paragraph. When we write the first draft of our paragraph,
use the ideas we generated from prewriting as a guide.
As you write, remember to :
1) Begin
with a topic sentence that states the main idea.
2) Include
several sentences that support the main idea.
3) Stick to
the topic.
4) Arrange
the sentences so that the order of ideas make sense.
5) Use
signal words to help the reader understand how the ideas in your paragraph are
connected.
c.
Revising
It is almost
impossible to write a perfect paragraph on the first try. The first try is
called the first draft. After you complete the first draft, you must look for
ways to improve it. This step is called revising.
When students
revise, they review their text on the basic of the feedback given in the
previous stage. They reexamine what was written to see how effectively they
have communicated their meaning to the reader.
In another source
stated that writing is a process that involves the following steps:
1) Discovering
a point-often through prewriting.
2) Developing
solid support for the point – often through more prewriting.
3) Organizing
the supporting material and writing it out in a first draft.
4) Revising
and then editing carefully to ensure an effective, error – free paper.
3. Purpose of Writing
According
to penny Ur (1996:163) the
purpose of writing, in principle, is the expression of ideas, the conveying of
messages to the reader. So the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the
most important aspect in the writing”.
It
means that when the writers do their writing, of course they have some purpose.
They have to consider the purpose of their writing since this will influence,
not only the type of text they wish to produce, but also including the language
which they use, and the information that they choose.
In
addition, there are really only four common purpose in writing they are: to inform, to explain, to persuade, and to
amuse others.
a. Writing
to Inform
In much of the
writing that the writers will do, they will intend simply to inform their
readers about a subject. To inform is to transmit necessary information about
the subject to the readers, and usually this means just telling the readers
what the facts are or what happened.
Although informative
writing is the simplest kind as writing, it is also one of the most important,
because information lays a foundation for other writing purpose. As the writer
to inform, they will want to keep two large concern in mind; selecting the
right information and arranging it effectively.
b. Writing
to Explain
Writing to explain
means writing to take what is unclear and make it clear. In explanatory
writing, a writer who understands a complex topic must take sure that his
readers understand it as well.
All of us use several
common methods of explaining something to another person in our everyday
conversation, and these same techniques can provide basic strategies for
organizing an explanation in writing.
c. Writing
to Persuade
The most important writing
we ever do in our personal life, our work life, and may be our school life will probably persuasion. Complaints to the
rant board about our landlord, letters of application for jobs, essay on
examinations is to convince your readers to accept the main idea, event though
it may be controversial.
d. Writing
to Amuse Other
Writing to amuse
requires that you focus on readers than yourself. You may enjoy the experience
and take pride in what you accomplish, but you cannot settle for amusing
yourself alone. Writing to amuse gives you an opportunity to bring pleasure to
others. do the opportunity and make
it the most of it.
If you find pleasure
in writing to amuse, it will come from knowing that you succeed in bringing
pleasure to others. When write to amuse, your primary object is to make readers
enjoy themselves. You can be funny, but you should also be good humored. This
means having sympathy for human frailty rather than a contempt for anyone or
anything that seems different from what you are accustomed to.
C. DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
1.
The
definition of descriptive text
Descriptive
text is a part of factual genres. Its social function is to describe a
particular person, place or thing. In writing skill description is the process
of creating visual images through words. Description is a part of another piece
of writing and is used to inform an audience about how something or someone
looked or to persuade an audience to see something from the writes’ point of
view.
Description
recreates sense impression by translating into words, the feel, sound, taste,
smell, and look of things. Emotion may be described too, feelings such as
happiness, fear, loneliness, gloom, and joy. Description helps the reader,
through his or her imagination, to visualize a scene or a person, or to
understand a sensation or an emotion.
2.
Purpose
of descriptive text
As
social beings, we want to share our experience, so we write to others to
describe things such as vacations, childhood home, and people whom we meet. We
even use description to persuade us to think or act in particular ways:
advertisers describe products to persuade us to buy them; travel agents
describe locales to entice us to visit them; and real a state agents describe
properties to stimulate a desire to see them.
3.
Kinds
of Descriptive Text
As
we know that descriptive text is a text to describe something, such as people,
places, or things. So, it normally takes on three forms, they are:
a. Description of people
People are
different, and in describing of people is different. You are probably aware of some of the
complications because you have often been asked,” What’s so and like?” in
replying, you might resort to identification or a character sketch, depending
on the situation. Let’s examine each.
1.
Identification
Although you might
provide identification, you would probably want to go further than that. Used
mainly in official records and documents, identification consists only of
certain statistic information (height, weight, age), visible characteristics
(color of hair, skin, and eyes), and recognizable marks (scars, birthmark).
2.
Impression
Unlike the
identification, the impression may not identify a person, but it does convey
all of the ideas of him or her. The writer does provide in a few broad stokes a
general feeling about the subject. Although impression is usually less compete
and informative than identification, it may be more effective in capturing an
individual’s certain attitude.
3.
Character
Sketch
More complete description of people are usually called
character sketch; they may also be referred, literary portraits, and biographical
sketches. As its name indicated, the character of a person, or at least his or
her main personality attitude. In the process, it may include identification
and an impression, but it will do more that tell what people look or seem like: it will show what they are like.
A character sketch may be about a type rather than an
individual, revealing the characteristics common to the members of a group,
such campus jocks, cheerleaders, art students, religious fanatics, television
devotes.
b.
Description
of a place
In describing a
place for example a room, what should you describe first? The wall? The floor?
Unlike a chronologically developed paragraph, there is no set pattern for
arranging sentence in descriptive paragraph. It is not necessary to begin with
one are and then proceed to another one. Nevertheless, the sentence should not
be randomly arranged.
The description must
be organized so that the reader can vividly image the scene being described. To
make the paragraph more interesting, you can add a controlling idea that state
an attitude or impression about the place being described. And the arrangement
of the details in your description
depend on your subject and purpose.
c.
Description
of a thing
To describe a thing
the writer must have a good imagination about a thing that will be described.
Beside, to make our subjects as interesting and as vivid to our reader as they
are to us; using proper nouns and effective verbs.
1.
Using
proper noun
In addition to
filling our descriptive writing with concrete details and figures of speech, we
might also want to include a number of proper nouns, which, as we know, are the
names of particular persons, places, and things.
For example; Arizona,
university of Tennessee. Including
proper nouns that readers recognize easily and can make what we are describing
more familiar for them.
2.
Using
Effective Verb
We know how
important verbs are to narration, but effective verbs can also add much to a piece
of description. Writers use verbs to make descriptions more specific, accurate,
and interesting. For instance, “the wind had chiseled deep groves into the sides
of the cliffs” is more specific than “the wind had made deep grooves.” The verb
chiseled also given the reader a more accurate picture
of the wind’s action than made does.
4.
The
structure and example of descriptive text
The generic structure of a
description are as follows:
1. Identification : identifies the phenomenon to be
described
2. Description
of features : describes features in order
of importance;
a. Parts/things
(physical appearance)
b. Qualities
(degree of beauty, excellence, or worth/value)
c. Other
characteristics (prominent aspect that are unique).
The generic features of
description are:
1. Verb
in the present tense
2. Adjective
to describe the feature of the subject
3. Topic
sentences to begin paragraphs and organize the various aspects of the description.
The
factual description scaffold
1. A
general opening statement in the first paragraph
a. This
statement introduces the subject of the description to the audience.
b. It
can give the audience brief details about the when, where, who, or what of the subject.
2. A series of paragraph about the subject
a. Each
paragraph usually begins with a topic sentence.
b. The
topic sentence previews the details that will be contained in the reminder of
the paragraph.
c. Each
paragraph should describe one feature of the subject.
d. These
paragraphs build the description of the subject.
3. A
concluding paragraph (optional)
a. The
concluding paragraph signals the end of the text.
b.
Example
of descriptive text
Mr. Kartolo, the farmer
Mr.
Kartolo is very happy. The rainy season of this year makes the farm beautiful.
It is planting time! Rice fields become fresh green during this season and by
the end of this season Mr. Kartolo is ready to harvest his corps.
Mr.
Kartolo ploughs the land at the beginning of the rainy season. Then, he usually
works early and finishes at noon. Milking the cows, feeding the livestock, and
cleaning the barns are among. Mr.Kartolo’s duties before breakfast. He does
most of the hard outdoor work by himself.
D.
CLUSTERING
TECHNIQUE
1. The definition of
clustering
In
the writing process there is a prewriting step. One of the prewriting steps is
clustering. There are a lot of definition about clustering stated by experts, Karen
Blanchard and christine root (2003:42) define that clustering is
another prewriting technique. It is a visual way of showing how your ideas are
been connected using circles and lines. When you cluster, you draw a diagram of
your ideas.
Santi V. Buscemi (2002:14) said
that clustering is a good way to turn a broad subject into a limited and more
manageable topic for a short essay.
Also called mapping, and diagramming, it is an other effective
way to gather information for an essay. To cluster ideas, begin with a blank
sheet of paper. In the center, write and circle the word that expresses the
broad subject which one to write about. Think of ideas and details related to
this subject. This technique will help the students to organize their ideas
before they develop in paragraph of descriptive writing.
According to John Langan (2006:25) Clustering
also known as diagramming or mapping, is another strategy that can be
used to generate material for a paper. This technique is helpful for people who
like to think in a visual way. In clustering, writes can use lines, boxes,
arrows, and circle to show relationship among the ideas and details that occur
to them. It means that clustering is a technique that can help students to
narrow the subject especially for visual learners.
On the other hand, Thomas E. Tyner
said that,
Lopping (clustering) is a technique
for developing rough outline for a topic by beginning with the most general
ideas and moving to more and more specific details. It is beneficial in seeing
the relationship between details, in organizing information in an orderly
fashion, and in developing specific support for their main ideas.
From
the definition above, the writer concludes that clustering is making a visual
map or new association that allows thinking more creatively and to begin
without clear ideas. Clustering can be useful for any kind of writing. Writers
use it in the early stage of planning an essay in order to find sub topic in a
topic to organize information. Writers can use clustering to plan brief section
of an essay as are drafting.
2.
The
definition of technique
Talking
about technique there are three terms that must be differentiated because these
terms used in teaching learning activity and people often confuse with these
terms, they are approach, method, and technique.
From
the statement above, Edward Anthony in 1963 identified three levels of
conceptualization and organization, which he termed approach, method, and
technique. The arrangement is hierarchical. The organizational key is that
technique carry out a method which is consistent with an approach. An approach
is a set of correlative assumption dealing with the nature of language teaching
and learning. An approach is axiomatic. It describes the nature of the subject
matter to be taught. While method is an overall plan for the orderly
presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts, and which is
based upon, the selected approach. An approach is axiomatic, a method is
procedural. Within an approach, there can be many methods.
From
the idea previously, it can be concluded that a technique is implementation
which actually takes place is a classroom. It is a particular tricks,
stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective. Technique
mush be consistent with a method, and therefore in harmony with an approach as
well.
Based
on the statement above, it can be said that technique is a way of doing an
activities derived from an application of principles.
So,
clustering is one of the techniques in teaching writing because it is a
teacher’ strategy which implemented in the classroom.
3.
The
application of clustering technique in writing descriptive text
From
the concept stated previously, it can be know that clustering is a strategy
that can be used to generate material for a paper. This technique is helpful
for the writer who like to do their thinking in a visual way. In clustering,
the writer can use lines, boxes, arrows, and circles to show relationship among
the ideas.
To
begin, take a sheet of paper and write a general subject in the center. Then
circle the world. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way of clustering or diagramming. It is a way to
think on paper about how various ideas and details relate to one another.
In
clustering you write a topic in the center of a piece of paper, then write
ideas suggested by the topic around it, connecting these to the topic with
lines, follow the same procedure with your sub topic.
Furthermore,
the application of clustering in teaching begins with a key word or central
idea in the center of a page (or on the whiteboard) jots down in a few minutes
all of the free associations triggered by the subject matter-using simply words
or short phrases. Unlike listing, the words or phrases generated are put on the
page or board in a pattern which takes
shape from the connection the writer sees as each new thought emerges. Complete
cluster can look like spokes on the wheel or any other pattern of connected
lines, depending on how the individual associations are drawn to relate each
other. By having students share their cluster patterns with other students in
the class, teachers allow students to be exposed to a wide variety of
approaches to the subject matter, which might further generate material for
writing.
Figure
2.1
The Application of clustering technique
|
SULE
|
|
Funny
|
|
Artist
|
|
Appearance
|
|
Comedian
|
|
Blond hair
|
|
Flat Nose
|
My
Favorite Artist
I
have a favorite artist. His name is Sule. His true name is Entis Sutisna. Sule
has long blond hair. He looks so funny with a flat nose. He is very popular in
one television program “OVJ” as a funny comedian. Beside, he also has a good
voice. I like him very much.
E.
Theoretical
Framework
Theoretical framework of my research is stated as
follows:
|
CURRICULUM
/ COMPETENCY
|
|
SKILLS
|
|
SPEAKING
|
|
READING
|
|
WRITING
|
|
LISTENING
|
|
CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE
|
|
ANALYSIS
|
|
FINDING
|
|
STUDENT’S
ABILITY
|
F.
Hypothesis
Using the clustering technique can improve students’
ability in writing descriptive text of the second year students of SMPN 19
Makassar .
CHAPTER
III
RESEARCH
METHOD
A.
The
Setting of the Study
This study was be conducted at SMPN 19
Makassar. The school is located at Jl. Tamangapa Raya III Makassar (South Sulawesi).
This school was be chosen as the field of the
study because the writer had observed the real condition of this school in
teaching learning process especially in teaching learning activity in writing
descriptive text.
B.
Subject
of Study
The
writer selected
the eighth years
of SMPN 19 Makassar and class which was be selected was class B which
consist of 44
students.
C.
Research
Instrument
Some instrument was be applied to obtain the
data in this study. The writer was
use interview, questioner and
field note to obtain
the qualitative data. On the other side, the writer used the students’ final
writing to obtain the quantitative data.
1. Interview
was be applied for English
teacher before the classroom action research and after classroom action
research. It was be
applied before classroom action research and to know the students’ difficulties
in writing skill, the students’ participation in writing class. And the teaching
strategy in teaching writing. Meanwhile, it was be conducted after classroom action research
to know the teacher’s respond about the learning strategy which was focus on Clustering
Technique.
2. Field
notes was be used to record detailed
information about the implementation of the study . in addition it was be used to know the good
point from the students and the teachers side and things to consider for the
next meeting. The writer and observer recorded
a description of classroom atmosphere, the setting of the class, and the
students’ activities during the teaching and learning of writing using
Clustering Technique.
3. Test
was be given to the students
focused on writing descriptive
paragraph. The result of this test is students’ descriptive paragraph. The aim
of this test is to measure the students’ ability in writing descriptive text. The test was used in this study is students’ final writing.
D.
The Design of Study
The design of this
study was classroom action research.
It was called CAR because the
study focused on
a particular problem and a particular group of students in a certain classroom.
According to Suharsimi Arikunto (2009:58)
classroom action research is an action research which is carried out at the
classroom that aim to improve learning practical quality. Millis defines an
action research as any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers or researchers,
principals, and school counselors in the teaching and learning environment to
gather information about (a) how their particular school operates, (b) how
teachers teach, and (c) how well their students learn.
Based on the
definition above the implementation of classroom action research is enable to
give improvement of the quality of teaching and learning of school in education
since it can diagnose and solve the problem in teaching learning activity.
Furthermore, CAR is
a sequence research activity, that has purpose to improve social quality, that was done by collecting data or
information systematically through four steps: planning, acting, observing, and
reflecting.
Therefore, there are
elements in CAR:
1. Research
was an activity to improve an
object by using an appropriate methodology rules for getting data and
information and then analyze to solve problem.
2. Acting
was an activity that was done for certain purpose,
in cycle sequence form activity.
3. Class
was group of students when at
the same time, receive same lesson from their teacher.
The
writer used
classroom action research model proposed by DR. H. E. Mulyasa, M.Pd.(2009:79) which consists of four
steps, namely, planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Improvement of the
problem in this study was
brought about by a series of cycles. The figure can be seen below.
CYCLE
I CYCLE II
|
PLANNING
|
|
ACTING
|
|
OBSERVING
|
|
REFLECTING
|
|
PLANNING
|
|
ACTING
|
|
REFLECTING
|
|
OBSERVING
|
|
?
|
Figure
3.1
Model of Action Research.
E.
The
Procedure of the Study
In this Classroom
Action Research (CAR), the writer used
the CAR principles to collect the data. This research writer tried using two cycles and each cycle consists of
four elements. If the first cycle successed,
so the writer continued
to the second cycle to get good score or to solve the students’ problems in learning
writing especially made
descriptive text.
1.
Planning
Phase
In
this phase, the writer and the teacher made
some planning based on the finding of preliminary findings. The following activities
in this action planning was
designing lesson plan, preparing the model of clustering technique, preparing
materials and media, and determining criteria of success.
Designing
lesson plan aimed
to provide the teacher with the guideline of teaching and learning activities.
The lesson plan was
included the following items: specific instructional objectives, the
instructional material and media, procedure of presentation, and procedure of
assessment.
Next
step was preparing the model of
clustering technique; using
of clustering technique in improving students’ ability in writing of
descriptive text. A model of clustering technique developed by the writer and
collaborator in teaching descriptive writing was using shapes, lines and boxes. It was an activity conducted by
the students to generate and organize their ideas on the shapes based cluster.
The
following step was
preparing materials and media. The materials for implementing the action related to schematic structure and
language features in writing descriptive text.
The
last step was
determining the criteria of success. It was
useful for measuring whether the action of this study was successful or not. In line
with the study, the criteria of success was
decided based on the agreement between the writer and the collaborator as
follows:
a. The
students’ writing score improve at the same as the Minimum Mastery Criterion- Kritera Ketuntasan Minimal (KKM) of
English is 68 and
it is considered successful if 85%
(35 out of 44) of the students with
individual score in writing descriptive text achieve at least the same as or
above 68.
b. The
students’ participation in writing activities increase 85% (35 0ut of 42) of the students should
get involved in writing activities and their involvements are in scales “Good”
and “Very Good”.
2.
Acting
Phase
In
this phase, the write carried
out the action based on the lesson plan that had been made. In implementing the action, the
writer acted as
the English teacher who taught descriptive writing using clustering technique.
Meanwhile the collaborator acted
as the observer who observed all of the activities that
happened in the teaching learning
process.
3.
Observing
Phase
This
phase discusses about the process of recording and gathering all of relevant
data about any aspect occurred during the implementation of the action. The
important aspects in observing are source of data, the instrument used in
collecting the data, and the technique for data collection. In doing the
observation phrase, the writer himself involved in teaching learning activities and the
observer observed all the activities that
happened in the class.
4. Reflecting phase
After
collecting the data, the writer analyzed the data of
teaching-learning process. Then, the writer reflected himself seeing the result of the observation, whether
the teaching- learning process of writing descriptive text using clustering
technique runned suitable with lesson plan
at eight grade students of SMPN 19 Makassar or not. If the
first plan was
unsuccessful, proven by students’ achievement, the writer should make the next
plan (re-planning) to solve students’ problem and also to get a good result.
F.
The
Technique of Collecting Data
There are two techniques of data
collecting was be
applied in this study, they was
observation, interview and
test in order to support the data of teaching and learning process. On the
other side, the writer used the students’ final
writing to obtain the quantitative data.
1. The
writer did the observation directly
toward English Teaching and learning process at eighth grade students of SMPN 19 Makassar students
2012/2013 year.
2. Interview
will be applied for the English teacher before the classroom action research
and after classroom action research. It is applied before action research to
know the students difficulties in writing skill, the students’ participation in
writing class, and the teaching strategy in teaching writing. Meanwhile, it was conducted after classroom
action research to know the teacher’s response about the learning strategy
focused on the implementation of
using clustering technique in teaching descriptive writing.
3. Test
was be given to the students focused on writing descriptive text. The result of this test was students’ descriptive text. The aim of this test was to measure the students’
ability in writing descriptive text.
G.
The
Technique of Data Analysis
In analyzing the data
relates to the students’ test of writing ability, the writer used analytical scoring rubric
adapted from Weigle (2002:116).
There are five components presented in the analytical scoring rubric for
writing. They are content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and
mechanic. In this study, the writer combined
vocabulary and mechanic component. The following table was the analytical scoring
rubric used by the writer to analyze the students’ paragraph writing.
Table
3.1
Analytical
scoring rubric of Descriptive Writing
|
Components
of writing
|
Scores
|
Indicators
|
|
Content
|
4
3
2
1
|
Relevant to the topic and
easy to understand
Rather relevant to the
topic and easy to understand
Relevant to the topic
but is not easy to understand
Quite relevant to the
topic but is not quite easy to understand
|
|
organization
|
4
3
2
1
|
Most of the sentences
relate to the main idea
Some sentences relate to
the main idea
Few sentences relate to
the main idea
The sentences un relate
to each other
|
|
Vocabulary
&
Mechanic
|
4
3
2
1
|
a few errors in choice
of words, spelling and punctuation
some errors in choice of
words, spelling and punctuation
occasional errors in
choice of words, spelling and punctuation
frequent errors in
choice of words, spelling and punctuation
|
|
Grammar
|
4
3
2
1
|
a few grammatical
inaccuracies
some grammatical
inaccuracies
numerous grammatical
inaccuracies
frequent grammatical
inaccuracies
|
|
_ ΣX
X =
──
N
|
Where :
X :
Mean
X :
individual score
N :
Number of students
|
F
P
=
── X
100%
N
|
Where :
P : The class percentage
F : Total Percentage score
N : Number of students
|
y - y1
P = ─── X 100%
y
|
Where :
P : percentage
of students’ improvement
Y : first cycle Result
Y1 :
second cycle
Result
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