CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
A. Previous Studies
There have been some studies concerning on teaching writing recount text. Intan Wahyu Saputri‟s final project entitled “ Improving The Writing
Skills of Recount Text By Using Picture Series For The Eight Grade Students Of SMP Muhammadiyah 2 Kalasan In The Academic Year Of 2013/2014”, The writer said that, the main objective of her study is to improve skill of writing recount text. After the research finished, she said that the use of picture series improve students‟ skill in writing recount text. By comparing
the means of each score from the pre-test and the post-test, she said that her research made significant improvement of the students‟ writing skill in the
aspects of content, organization, language use, vocabulary and mechanics. In addition, the use of picture series was able to improve the students‟ interest, motivation, and attitudes towards the teaching learning proccess.
The second previous research is written by Farid Helmi‟s as final
project entitled “Improving Studetns’ Skill in Writing Recount Text by Using Personal Letter”. The research was conducted in MASS Proto Pekalongan in
the academic year 2011/2012. He used classroom action research
to improve students‟ skill in writing recount text. The achievemnt of the test
showed that the treatement was successful because the cycle II test was
higher than the cycle I test. In addition, he said that the personal letter was also in good design and good theme, so the students more motivated and
enoyed during the learning process.
The third previous research, entitled “Improving Writing Recount Text by Using Photograps”. This research is written by Dwi Nur Indah, and it is
conducted in SMA N 1 Batang Pati in the academic year of 2009/2010 by using experimental methodology. The aim of her research is to find out the students‟ ability in writing recount text who were taught using photograps and
those who taught without using photograps. It showed the mean of experimental class is higher than control class. And also, the test of
hypothesis using t-test formula showes the value of t-test is higher than the value of t-table. The hypothesis is accepted. Based on the result the writer
conlcude that using photograps in teaching writing recount text in SMA N 1 Batang Pati in the academic year of 2009/2010 is effective.
The similarity between their research and my research is that the research focus on the writing skill in recount text. The differences between their research are the first researcher used picture series, the second used
Considering all of studies above, the writer views that clustering technique has not been implemented in writing recount text. It motivates the
writer to conduct this study.
B. Review of Theoritical Studies
1. General Concept of Writing
a. Writing
As mentioned in chapter I, writing is the most difficult among the others skills. As the statement of Richard and Renandya (2003 : 303) “Writing is the most difficult skill for second language learners to be mastered“. At school the students have to produce a text which
represent what they think in their mind and state it on a paper by using correct procedure in English. The difficulty is not only on grammar but how to generate the ideas into readable text. Whereas in speaking,
the students communicate with other using their own ideas and feeling as long as the partner of speaking understand what they are talking
about. But in writing the students need the choice of words, coherence of each sentence, and grammar to express what they intend to say. As
the statement of Davies (2000 : 96) “Writing probably the linguistics skill that is least used by most people in their narative language. Writing involves the following basic skill: handwriting or typing,
spelling, constructing grammatical sentences, and punctuation”.
Meyers (2005:2) states “Writing is a way to produce language
paper- or on a computer screen. Writing is also an action- a process of discovering and organizing your ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaphing and revising them”. It means that unconsciously everyday
people do the activity related to the writing skill as a part of their life.
Palmer (1994 : 5) states “Writing is recursive. It goes back and forth we plan a little, put words on paper, stop to plan when we want to say next, go back and change a sentence, or change our minds together”. Palmer‟s statement support the fact that the students always feel
difficult in writing skill, they always go back and change a sentence
because they do not trust that the sentence is the same as what in their minds, and finally they only stuck in one‟s sentence. Writing becomes
the most difficult skill for the students because there are some aspects
that must be mastered while they write, There are five components of writing (Brown, 2004 : 246), as follows:
1. Content : the subtances of the writing; the ideas
expressed.
2. Form : the organization of the content.
3. Grammar : the employement of grammatical form and
systematic patterns.
4. Style : the choice of structure and lexical items to give
a particular tone or flavor to the writing.
5. Mechanic : the use of the graphic conventions of the
From these difficulties the teachers are expected to solve the problems which makes the students easier in applying the writing
process. According to Oshima and Hogue (2006 : 265) “ There are four steps in writing process; they are pre writing to create ideas,
planning to organize ideas, writing the rough draft, and polishing the rough draft by editing or making revisions. In pre writing process includes choosing and narrowing topic, and brainstorming. It has three
techniques that can be used; they are listing, clustering and free writing”. The techniques that are mentioned is to help the students
improve their writing skill well. The students are suggested to choose one of them based on the topic that they use.
b. Writing Process
Based on Meyers (2005 : 3-11), there are six steps of writing process, they are:
1) Exploring Ideas
Writing first involves discovering the ideas. So before sitting down to write, let the mind explore freely. Ask three questions; what is my subject? What is my purpose? Who is my audience?.
2) Prewrite-using one or more of those methods
The second step of the writing process involves writing writer‟s thoughts on paper or on the computer. This step is called prewriting. Don‟t worry about grammar, exact word choice, spelling or punctuation. Brainstorming, clustering and ree writing are ways to prewrite ideas.
3) Organize
After the writer has put his/her ideas into words, she/he can begin to organize them. The process involves selecting, substracting, and adding ideas, and then outlining them.
4) Write a first draft
reasonable order, the writer can begin the first draft of her/his paragraph. Then discover a better arrangement of ideas. Write quickly and make a note about it in the margin.
5) Revise the draft
Revising is among the most important steps of writing, especially for people who write in a second language. Revising means improving what the writer has already written. Revision is different from editing, which focus on correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word choice. It improves content of paragraph. 6) Product the final copy
This is where editing and proofreading process. Editing focuses on grammar, word choice, verb forms, punctuation, and spelling. Whereas, proofreading means carefully examining the final copy again. weekend, or it might be about exiting events that happened when we
were on holidays last month. Mark and Anderson (2003 : 48) state “ A recount is a piece of text that retells past events, usually in the order in
which they happened. Some examples of recount text are: television interviews, eyewitness accounts, speeches, newspaper reports, letters, etc”.
From explanation above, the writer conclude that recount text is a piece of text to retell events that happened in the last time and the
Kathy Anderson (2003 : 48) state “ The purpose of recount text is to give the audience a description of what occurred and when it occurred”.
Based on Gerot and Wignell (1994: 194), the generic structures
of recount text are: 1) Orientation
Recounts begin by providing information about a situation, such as: who, where, and when.
2) Events
It presents events in temporal sequence. The sequence of events are then identified and described in chronological order.
3) Reorientation retells someone‟s experience, spesiic participants are used to create the writing according to the language features suggested. Spesific participants refer to the „doer‟ involved. It means a particular character for instance: W, I, Mr.Smith, the teaher, etc.
b) Past Tense
Recount text retells the past events. The tense is past tense. Using past tense is one of language features which directs the sentences to be understandable in the past form. There must be a rule which is set how arrange the words into sentences or utterances. It is called grammar. Whithout knowing how to use grammar, it is hard ro succed in conveying and the interpreting the meaning during interaction with another.
c) Circumstances of time and Place
be circumstance of time to describe about time (when the events happened) and place (where the events took place).
d) Tenporal Sequence
The ecamples of temporal sequence can be used in the recount text are:
Next, when, then, later, after, before, as soon as possible, first, at the same time, etc.
e) Material Processes
In traditional grammar, processes are the same as predicate or verbs used in a sentence, Material processes are process of material doing. They express the notion that some entity physically does something which may done to some other entity. For example: Tom writes a letter. How to organie a material processes in a sentence is by using the „do‟ taken from. The most verbs used in writing recount is verbs of doing or material processes because writing recount is retelling what someone did in the past.
Here the example of recount text based on Hawa, F.et.al (2009:43):
A Visit to an Art Gallery standing on each side of the door. The exhibition was of the painting of the nineteenth-century French artist called Claude Monet. He is my mother‟s favorite artist.
My mother told me that the gallery has collected a number of Monet‟s original paintings from various parts of the world for the exhibition. She said that it was a uniue opportunity to see Monet‟s work in our city.
We went into a huge room. There were large pictures in frames all along the walls. Beside each picture was a piece of paper. This told you about the pictures. I thought that I would be bored by the art exhibition, but I foud it quite interesting. I like some of the pictures
TITLE
Orientation
very much. They were full of light and colour. I particulary liked the pictures of gardens.
I enjoyed my visit to the art gallery. I would like to go again.
b. Types of Recount Text
According to Mark and Kathy Anderson (2003: 50-51), there are five types of recount text. They are:
1) Personal Recount accurate sequence of steps, for example; information books, film, television, and videos focusing on how thing were made.
5) Literate Recount
It typically tells to entertain by dealing with a sequence of events that example sort stories myths, autobiographies, humorous stories, poems, videos, television programs.
3. The General Conceptual of Clustering
a. The definition of Clustering
Writing well comes from working through a process of writing. In writing process there are some steps that will guide us to produce
good writing. One of the steps is prewriting process. This step is also important to organize the ideas before the writer start to write. There
are many techniques that can be used in prewriting process, one of them is clustering technique. Clustering is another prewriting
technique. It is a visual way of showing the ideas are connected by using circles or lines. Based on Dawson and Essid, “Clustering is a type of prewriting that allows you to explore many ideas as soon as they occur to you”. Prewriting is one of activities that prepare to
write the first draft. Oshima and Hogue (2008:8) state that “Clustering is another brainstorming activity which can be used to generate ideas”. Tips for clustering (Meyers, 2005 : 6-7):
1) Write your subject in the middle of the page and then circle it. 2) Write related ideas around the circle as they occur to you. Circle
the ideas, and conncect them to your subject circle. The related ideas are like branches.
3) Add more branches to the subject circle or to the related ideas as they occur to you. Keep writing, circling, and connecting until your paper is filled.
Clustering topic: Third Edition Writing Academic English ( Oshima and Hogue,
Figure 1
Cooper and Axelrod (1985:461) viewed that clustering is an
invention activity which reveals possible relations among facts and ideas. Lunsford (2010:57) added that clustering is a prewriting technique used by writers to produce ideas using a visual scheme or
chart. It means that clustering is a creative activity, because it make the people have to find things related to the topic using visual
scheme or chart. Regina L. Smalley and Mary K. Ruetten state “ Clustering is making visual map of the ideas”, means that it is so
beneficial for the students who think visually or visual learners. It
Clustering is a good way to turn a broad subject into a limited and more managable topic for a short essay, it is also called
mapping, webbing, looping, or diagramming. By using clustering, students have to recollected some important details about a number
of the list that given, and it may help the students focus on an occasion they want to describe in his paper.
Based on the definition above, the writer concludes that
clustering technique is a kind of prewriting activity which takes place in the classroom, it uses lines, boxes, arrows, and circles to
show relationship among the ideas, and it helps the students to find the ideas and develop the ideas into a good paragraph.
4. The Application of Clustering in Teaching Writing Recount Text
From the concept stated before, it can be known that clustering is a strategy that can be used to generate material for a paper. This technique
is helpful for the writers who like to do their thinking in a visual way. In clustering, the students can use lines, boxes, arrows, circles to show
relationships among the ideas and details that occur to them.
To begin take a sheet of paper and write a general subject in the center. Then circle the word. Keep in that mind that there is no right or
followning steps in teaching writing recount text using clustering technique:
Step 1 : The students are explained about recount text, including the kinds of recount text, generic structures, and language
features.
Step 2 : The students are introduced the concept of clustering technique by the teacher. Then, tell them that clustering
technique would help them in generate ideas when they started to write.
Step 3 : The students are given the students topic to discuss and they are directed to generate in form clustering technique on the whiteboard as a model. Put the topic in the center and circle
it or use the other shapes to make it more intersting, and put keywords telated to the topic by using lines or arrows.
Students do not have to worry in generating the ideas, it is free for them to organize their ideas as long as related to the
topic given.
Step 4 : The students are asked to write the first draft based on the design of clustering technique samples that have been made
also guides students when they start write the first draft on their writing.
Step 5 : After the students are able to use clustering technique, ask them to make their own clustering and leads the students
while they work to make clustering of the topic to make personal recount text reffered to their own experience. Give the students an evaluation to check their ability in writing
