DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING THROUGH CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE

DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING THROUGH CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE

CHAPTER 1

Background

Language is not directly mastered by people because they were not born with a language, people have to learn how to understand and use it, so they can gain meaning and communicate with others to express their their thought and feelings. When people know a language, they can make choices about the word that  they need to use and how to put these words together to create meaning. The knowledge of words patterns of language allows them a read, write, speak, and listen in a meaningful ways.

English is one of lingua franca that Theodore S.Rogers said,” Whereas today English is the world’s most widely studied foreign language, five hundred years ago it was Latin.” Basides, English is used as medium of developing relationship with other nations, and it is also used to absorb and develope science, technology, economy, socio-cultural, and aducation.

From some reasons above, Indonesia’s National Education Department has decided that Englishis to be the first foreign language and the compulsory subject that should be taught at every levels of school, starting from elementary school up to university level. In line with the statement above, mastering English is a must, and is necessary, which challenges students to accomplish. Therefore, without understanding English they will not able to access many resources, improve their knowledge, and communicate with other people who come from different world as well. In order that they have to master the language skills.

There are four skills which have to be mastered by the students in learning English, the skills consist of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Among the four skills, writing is the most difficult skill to be learned by the students, because it needs hard thinking to produce word, sentence, and paragraph at the same time.

Writing is one of the important skills to be mastered by the students. They use it. To communicate to each other, as means of ideas and emotional expression, because when they write their ideas and emotions creatively, they are communicating on paper in their very best way and purposes.

One of them is stated by Bram ( 1995: 7),” it is true that we improve our writing mainly through writing itself.” By encouraging and adjusting the students to write something. Automatically, they are also accustomed to select the appropriate words, to construct the correct grammar, and to spell word correctly.

Writing is considered as complicated skill for the students because when they want to write paragraph, they should know and learn about several elements of writing such grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. To have good writing, they have to know how to write words correctly.after knowing the way how to write words correctly, the students will not make similiar mistake in their spelling and the reader can get the meaning of the word itselft. 

Based on Competency Standard-Standard Kompetensi ( SK ) and Basic Competency- Kompetensi Dasar ( KD ), the second year students are expected to be able to express meaningful ideas in term of functional text and simpleshort eassy in the form of Descriptive  and Recount to interact with people in their nearest environment.

Based on curriculum of junior high school which was recommended by the government, students of Junior High School have to master some texts, one of them is Descriptive Text. In Descriptive text, the students appeal imagination and perceptive senses to make reader tase,hear, see, smell, adne feel as they present a vivid word of the subject. As P. Joseph Canavan stated “ students may be describing a sunset, an individual, or a sinking ship. Whatever the subject, a writer’s purpose in description is the same; to appeal the imagination, the emotions, and the senses.

The problems above can be influencedby some factors, these are comming from students internal and external factors. The internal factors that can effect students’ writing are; motivation, cognitive ability, IQ, and talent. The other factor is exterbal factors such as curriculum, approach, and method in learning. Another problem which was faced by the students was lack of vocabulary. It was one of the crucial things that they could not master well. Considering those problems, the researcher was interested in conducting her research in this school focused on writing simple descriptive paragraph.

Based on the problem found by the researcher when doing prelimenary observation in this school, it wanted to improve the students writing ability through clustering technique. It is one of the easy ways to develope the students’ writing ability, especially in writing simple descriptive paragraphs. This technique helps the beginners in gathering the idea by asking them to make a cluster of some ideas that written in descriptive paragraph. 

They write down every word or every phrase that figures out into their mind about the topic. Shortly, the researcher was sure that clustering technique may help the students io develope their writing ability, particulary in writing simple descriptive paragraph.

Melanie Daw son and Joe Essid said that is a type of prewriting that allows you to explore many ideas as soon as they occur to you. Clustering allows you to begin without clear ideas.

In other hand Regina L. Smalley and Merry K. Ruetten, clustering is making a visual map of the ideas. It frees students from following a strictly linier sequence: thus, that way allows thinking more creatievly and make new associations.

There are many advantages of writing narrative text using clustering technique. Such as; it can motivate the students to write and to stimulus their ideas, students are also use to create patterns, make students to think more creative.

From the statment previosly stated thatt clustering is a strategy that can be use to generate materials for a paper. This technique is helpful for people who like to do their thinking in visual way. In clustering you write a topic in the other center of a peace of paper, then write ideas suggested by the topic around it, connecting these to the topics with lines, follow the same procedure with your subtopics.

Edward Anthony in 1963 identified three level of conceptualization and organization, which he terned approach, metod, and technique. The arrangement is hierarchical. The organizational key is that techniques is a sat of correlative asssumptions 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, Diane Lasren Freeman says that technique is the behavioral manifestation of the principles. Based on the statment above, it can be said that, technique is a way of doing an activities derived from application of principles.

So, clustering technique is one of tp help other people especially students in expressing many ideas using the right brain to come up what their own unique over view of subject and way of tricking the left brain into slience.

There are many advanteges of writing narrative text using clustering technique. Such as; it can motivate the students to write and to stimulus their ideas, students are also use to create patterns, make students to think more creative.

The clustering technique can motivate the students to write and can build the connections and estabilish the associations between the students experience and the new information. The clustering technique improves students’ ability in writing text on genereting and organizing ideas of story. The use of clustering in writing narrative text. This technique proposes fun learning, increases motivation, comprehends the topic, provides simple construction, and serve new simple technique to write.

Broadly speaking, developing ideas for making a piece of composition should be conducted by teachers in writing activity. For those reason above, the writer would like to propose an alternative technique that is “ Clustering Technique “. Clustering uses free association to cluser idea, it is a good way to turn a broad idea into a limited and more manageable theme which actually gives the words that closely related to the theme provided. This technique is an effective tool for prewriting stage of the writing process, and it will help students to develop their ideas before they organize into paragraph.

Based on definition above, the writer summarize that clustering is making visual map to produce a topic ralated to each other. Clustering technique will stimulus students’ ideas, also they can make a good paragraph in every types writing.

CHAPTER II

Review Of Relavant Lirerature

There are several definition of writing. Charles W. Bridges and Ronal F. Lunsford in their book; writing, Discovering Form and meaning state that writing is the process of discovering and shaping meaning. The need to communicate is one the humankind’s dominant traits and writing is one of the best ways to communicate with one other.

According to Robert Scholes and Nancy R. Comley, writing is a way of thinking as well a means of communication.

Ron White and Valerie Amdt ( 1998 ) say taht writing is far from being a simple matter of transcribing language into written symbols; it is a thinking process in its own right. It demands conscious intellectual effort, which usually has to be sustained over a considerable period.

In line with the defenitions stated above, writing is a powerful means of learning. Through writing, the writer can come to know what he or she thinks and then refines that thinking. Good writing, then, is marked by the wrinter’s interpretation of a topicso that the piece of writing reveals what the wrinter thinks to be significant the topic.

Writing is process. If someone wants to write something and he or she want to make a perfect piece of writing, he/ she has to know the process of writing. A process is, of course, a series of actions. According to Robert Scholes and Nancy R. Comley, there are three phases of the process of writing. They are prewriting, drafting, and revising.

Writing process is learning how to write by writing. This current emphasis in writing instructions focuses on the process of creating writing rather than the end product.

Writing is very important to help people. Writing can help them to store new information in memory. They are many problem in writing text like grammar problem, the organization of the writing, the content of the text, vocabularies and spelling.

According to Braine and May defined common purpose in writing; there are; writing to inform, writing to explain, writing to persuade, and writing to amuse others.

The first problem is “ the less proficent wrinter’ problem. Less proficent wrinters jump the process of writing by skip the prewriting strategies to generate ideas.

Writing as one of the four skills that should be mastered by students has always formed part of the syllabus in the teaching of english. Writing is skill exposing facts and idea which interpreted clearly, effectively, and well organized. 

Writing is a way produce language, which you do naturally when you speak. Writing isn’t much different, except that you take more time to think about your subject, the person or people you’ll be discussing it with and the gold you hope to achieve in that discussion.

People have practiced writing since long time ago. Harmer ( 2004:3 ) that :

“ long ago writing really started: it has remained for most of its history a minority occupation. This is in part because although almost human beings grow up speaking as a matter of course, writing has to be taought....”

According to Heaton ( 1974: 138 ), the writing skill are complext and difficult  to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also conceptual and judgment elements.

clustering is a good way turn a broad subject into a limited and more make a topic for a short essay about writing narrative text.

The term technique is commonly used in teaching learning process. Clustering can be useful for any kind of writing.

CHAPTER III

Methodology

Research Design

The  design used in this study is clasroom action reaserch ( CAR ). Action research is any systemantic inquiry conducted by teacher researchs, principals, school counselors, or other stakeholders in the teaching/learning environment to gather information about how their students learn. It means that CAR is aimed to overcome problems in teaching learning process in order to improve educational practice.

According to Kember who stated that action reaserch has several major characteristics; ( 1 ) action reaserch in concerned with social practice which it involves direct interaction of teacher and group of students (2) action reaserch is aimed towords improvement (3) action reseach is a cyclical process which involves some phases of planning, avting, observing, and reflecting (4) action research is pursued by systematic inquiry (5) action reseach is particivate. From those statments, clasroom Action Reaserch is a problem-based reaserch which its aims are to solve the problem that arise in the class and to make an improvement in teaching learning, acting, observing, and reflecting.

B. Population And Sample

In this saction, the writer plans to analyze the use of clustering technique to develop students’ ability of descriptive text.

The result of the study can provide useful information fort three important groups of people.

The writer uses the classroom action research procedure based on Kurt

Lewin’s design. It consists of two cycle in which each cycle contains four

phases; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.

The Classroom Action Research using Lewin’s design consists of four

phases; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting within one cycle.5 If the

first cycle finished but still found any problem, it is necessary to continue to

the second cycle with the same concept of the first cycle. Those are planning,

acting, observing, and reflecting. In addition, before entering the cycle of

classroom action research, the writer conducts the preliminary study.

According to Mills preliminary information gathering is taking time to reflect

on your own beliefs and to understand the nature and context of your general

idea.6 It is aimed to gain data about problems faced by teacher and students in

teaching-learning activities and needed to be solved. The researcher observed

the class; it was conducted on October 10-11, 2010 to the students in second

year of 8-3 Class. Beside, the researcher conducted interview to the English

teacher in terms of the techniques and activities employed in teaching writing

and giving questionnaire to the students in terms of learning English.

1. Planning Phase

In this phase, the writer and the collaborator make some planning
based on the finding of preliminary study. The following activities in this
action planning are designing lesson plan, preparing the model of
Clustering technique, preparing materials and media, and determining
criteria of success.
The organized planning will be formed into lesson planning based
on the current used syllabus. Lesson plan provide the teacher with the
guideline of teaching and learning activities. It mentions the following
items: specific instructional objectives, the instructional materials and
media, procedure of presentation, and procedure of assessment.
Then, preparing the model of Clustering Technique; the writer and
collaborator are using shapes and branches as a model of clustering
Next step is preparation of materials and media. Based on results
teacher interviewed before classroom action research and the current used
syllabus, the writer used recount text as material. Including personal
recount, and procedural recount, taken from English text books for the
eighth grade students of junior high school, English on Sky written by the
English Team, published in 2004 by Erlangga, and English in Focus
written by Artono Wardiman dkk, published in 2008 by Pusat Perbukuan
DEPDIKNAS. The media that used in the action are several pictures of
foods and drinks, the colored marker for making Clustering Technique.
The last step is the writer and the teacher discussed to determine
the criteria of the action success. The criteria of success are emphasized on
the process and the product of teaching-learning activities. This study is
called successful if (1) 75% of students achieve the score equal or greater
than 70 as the Minimum Mastery Criterion- Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal
(KKM) or above. If the study hasn’t meets the criteria, it’s called not
successful and need improvement to meet the targets.


C. Technique Of Data

Technique of data in study is both qualitative data and quantitative data. The wrinter uses qualitative data consist of interview, field notes, and questionnaire sheet. While quantitative data consist of students’ final writing as a pre-test and post-test. The completely explanation as follows :
1.   Interview
Interview is particularyuseful for getting data behind the english teacher’s experiences before clasroom action research it used to know students’ difficulties in writing ability, and the technique used by teacher when writing activity. The interview also will be carried toward the idea of clustering technique.

2.   Field Notes
  The writer and observer used field notes to record activities during the  teaching and learning of writing through clustering technique in the classroom. Including description of clasroom atmosphere, students’ liking for learning english particularly in writing skill and the technique used by the teacher in teaching writing.

3. Questionnaire
Questionnaire is a form containing a set of question. It used to get information from  students before and after classroom action research.

4. Test
The test used in this study i pre-test and post-test. Pre-test is done before implementing clustering technique. Meanwhile, post-test is implemented after using clustering techniqu. The test is used to measure students’ writing ability and to know the effectiveness of clusteing technique to improve students’ writing ability.

D. Reserch Instrument

Writing is not easy. An experienced writer will often labor over single paragraph for more than an hour not counting the thought and research that went on before the actual writing. Therefore, many problems faced by teachers and students.

The first problem is “the less proficient writer” problem.26 Less
proficient writers jump the process of writing by skip the prewriting
strategies to generate ideas. Students might take much time to write down
their ideas. The suggestion for this problem is teacher should teach less
proficient writers the writing process. Teachers also need to give full
attention to them, to show them how to plan a piece of writing through
prewriting activities.27 The second problem is “I can’t write English”
problem.28 Students usually give up toward writing and believe that they
cannot write. The solution is teachers should apply the writing process to
the students.

E. Technique Of Data Analysis

According to Weigle there are five components presented in the
analytical scoring rubric for writing, are: content, organization,
25
vocabulary, language use, and mechanics.7 The writer uses analytical
scoring rubric to analyze the data related to the students’ paragraph writing
test of writing ability. The analytical scoring rubric using as follows:
The data gathering through field notes and interview is analyzed by
presenting the description of the result of field notes and interview.
Questionnaire is analyzed in the form of percentage and presented by the
description of the result of questionnaire.

Process of the qualitative analysis is used when the observation of students’ activities during teaching learning process, and the interview before and after CAR. In this case, the writer collected the whole data that have gained. In analyzing the statistical data, the writer uses the formula:



x : individual score
n : number of students

to know the class percentage, the wrinter uses the formula :

p =  F/N  X 100 %

P : The class percentage
F : total percentage score
N : number of students



F. Validity and reliability

In this validity, the writer observed all the activities that happen in
the class. The aspects in observation are sources of data, the instrument
used in collecting the data, and the technique for data collection. So, this
phase discusses about the process of recording and gathering all relevant
data occurred during the implementation of the action. The writer uses
field note or unstructured observation sheet as a guideline while observing.

In this relibility is aimed to reflect the data that have been
collected to determine whether the action is successful or not. It is
necessary for evaluation to hold next cycle needs to be accomplished. This
phase carried out collaboratively with the teacher to discuss some
problems in the classroom that occurred during action phase.