Using Clustering Technique to Improve the Senior High School Students’ Abilities in Generating Ideas for Writing Analytical Exposition
| Main Author: | Devi Marliasari; English Language Education, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisors: (I) Drs. Bambang Yudi Cahyono, M.Pd, M.A., Ph.D., (II) Dra. Sri Widayati, M.Ed |
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| Format: | PeerReviewed application/msword |
| Bahasa: | eng |
| Terbitan: |
, 2009
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
http://karya-ilmiah.um.ac.id/index.php/sastra-inggris/article/view/590 |
Daftar Isi:
- Writing is usually considered as the most frustrating to master for the students who are learning English. This is also true for senior high school students. The 2004 English curriculum, the most recent curriculum used in schools in Indonesia, takes the genre approach. One the genres introduced in senior high school is analytical exposition. This particular genre requires its writer to be able to convince the audience about a case through the writing. Students often feel discouraged to write a genre of this kind. Prior to the implementation of the study, a preliminary study was conducted. The preliminary study, which was set at SMA NEGERI 8 Malang, was aimed at determining the senior high school students’ actual difficulties, especially in writing analytical exposition. The result of the preliminary study shows that the students of SMA NEGERI 8 Malang have difficulties in writing analytical exposition, particularly in terms of the content and organization. The result of the preliminary study also reveals one of the major problems the students have in writing is how to start writing. This fact encouraged the researcher to focus on helping the students generate ideas. The present study focuses on implementing clustering technique to generate ideas for writing analytical exposition. The research problem is “How can clustering technique improve the students’ ability in generating ideas for writing analytical expositions?” This study is classroom action research covering one cycle which consists of four meetings conducted in a single classroom containing 30 students as the subjects of the study. The instruments used to collect the data are observation checklist, field notes, and a writing task. The findings of the study suggest that the appropriate procedures to help students generate ideas by means of clustering involve some strategies. First, at the planning stage, the teacher designed the lesson plans and instructional materials. Second, at the implementation stage, the teacher introduced the genre of analytical exposition. This activity required the teacher to provide a good sample of analytical exposition and explained the structure of it. Concerning the technique of clustering, the teacher needed to introduce it as a pre-writing activity and give practice to the students in generating ideas through clustering. In her teaching, the teacher (1) gave practice to the students on generating ideas through clustering for a target topic, (2) asked the students to brainstorm to generate ideas of the target topic, (3) gave a model of analytical exposition developed through clustering, (4) assigned the students to generate ideas of a topic individually, (5) assigned the students to work collaboratively in generating ideas, (6) assigned the students to develop the ideas generated through clustering into analytical iexposition, and (7) provided more practices in generating ideas through clustering and developing the ideas into analytical exposition. The findings of this study show that the students’ participation increased, and it was followed by the improvement of the students’ achievement in writing. The improvement can be seen from the increase of the students’ mean scores. Prior to the implementation of the action, the students’ mean score on content was 2.27. It increased to be 2.62 after the implementation of clustering technique in a single action. Meanwhile, the students’ mean score on organization also increases from 2.20 to 2.63. Based on the findings some recommendations are proposed. The classroom English teacher should consider applying the procedures developed in this study in the teaching of analytical exposition. The procedures developed in this study are also recommended to the English teachers who possibly find similar problem in helping students generate ideas when writing analytical exposition. Finally, other researchers are suggested to conduct further research related to conduct further research related to the use of clustering to improve the students’ abilities in writing other genres.