CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Writing 1. Definition
Writing is important for students and advanced people as tools of communicating ideas, that are the use of written or printed symbol, as found in books, newspaper, magazines and letters. The definition of writing which is proposed by Ramelan (1992:14) is that writing is a representation or symbol of language; it naturally means that writing is a symbol of symbol.
Tarigan (1994:3), Barli (1995 :7), Akhadiah (1998:2) have the same idea of what writing is. Writing is a defined as a way of communicate indirectly, to write means to produce or reproduce written messages and organize the idea systematically and express it in written form.
From the explanation above the researcher notice that writing skill is the activity to produce a symbol of language systematically, used to communicate indirectly to deliver message.
2. Importance of Writing
Writing is clearly a complex process. It means that in writing students have to consider many things to build a good writing. Halliday in Nunan (2000:84) said that writing plays its function in everyday life including primarily action like public signs, social contact; primarily for information like newspaper, magazine, etc; primarily for entertainment like comic strips, fiction book, etc.
learning language. As students, writing is also important to show our characteristic as educated people. It, therefore, makes learning writing becomes very important.
3. Process in Writing
Writing is a process of expressing ideas in written form.
Lyons ( 1987 : 2 ) states that writing is commonly seen as a three-stage process. They are pre-writing, writing and rewriting. All of these stages should be done well to get a good writing result.
In addition, Harmer (2004: 4-5) states that there are four main elements in writing process. They are planning, drafting, editing, and final version. The same statement also comes from Louis A. Bloomfield (2004). He states that there are at least four steps in writing. They are pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing.
In planning process, the writer has to think about three main issues. They must decide the purpose of writing. It is important to know the purpose of writing since it will influence many things related to a good writing result. By knowing the purpose of our writing, we can decide the most appropriate style of the language; therefore, the result will be effective to reach the purpose. Then, we also have to think about the audience. The audience here is the readers of our writing. The audience will influence our language style, diction, paragraph structure, etc. Next, we must consider the content structure that is how best to sequence the facts, ideas, or arguments which they have decided to include.
Drafting is the first version of a piece of writing. Sometimes, there are a number of drafts in writing process before reaching the final process. Some additions may come while writing process happens.
writing effective. In editing, we may change what we have written since we find something bad. For examples, the information is not clear, or the grammar is wrong, or our sentences have ambiguous meaning, or the diction is not appropriate, or we write in bad sequence, etc. If we find these such condition, we change or correct it. Our writing will, therefore, become better.
This activity is also possible to be done by other people. They will play as commentator and advisor. It is better since other people tend to be able to be more objectives in commenting the writing.
The last stage is the final version. After all processes have been done, the writer makes final version. It is possible that the final version is much different in the plan and the draft that has been made before. It happens since there are many changes in editing process. Any unimportant information stated in the draft can be deleted. Inappropriate diction is changed.
After running those processes, the result of our writing is ready to be sent out to the reader. It must be completely different if we write spontaneously. The result is much better, if we follow those processes.
4. Purpose of Writing
Hugo in Tarigan (1994: 24) summarized the purpose of writing as follows: a. Assignment Purpose
Assignment purpose, in fact, has no purpose. The writer starts writing since he is asked by someone. The idea to write does not come from the writer himself. b. Altruistic Purpose
The writer writes to entertain the readers, to reduce the readers‟ sadness, to help the readers to understand and comprehend the feelings and their logic, to make their lives much easier by using his writing.
c. Persuasive Purpose
It has purpose to ensure the readers about the truth of the idea given. d. Informational Purpose
The purpose of this writing is to give information, explanation to the readers. e. Self-expressive Purpose
The purpose is to introduce the writer to the reader. f. Creative Purpose
This purpose is closely related to the self-expressive purpose. But, it tends to get the artistic values.
g. Problem-solving Purpose
This writing is used to solve problem faced by the writer. He wants to explain and observe carefully about his thought and idea to be understood and accepted by the readers.
5. Writing Competence
Bell and Burnaby in Nunan (1991: 87) point out that writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity, which requires the writer to demonstrate control of several variables at once. At the sentences level, these include control of content format, sentences, structures, vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling, and letter information into cohessive and coherent paragraph and text.
In his critique of writing process, Rodrigues in Nunan (1991: 87) claims that: “The unfettered writing process approach has been just as artificial as the traditional high school research paper, writing without structure accomplishes as a little as writing a mock structure… (Student) need structure. They need model to practice, they need to improve even mechanical skill and they still need time to think through their ideas, to revise them and to write for real audience and real purposes”
From the description above, the process of good writing is along time. To develop our writing skill, we were encouraged to construct grammatical and semantically sentence. In addition, we were encouraged to create interrelated sentences to convey our written message in a paragraph form.
Heaton (1975: 138) states that the writing skills are complex and difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgement elements. The following analysis attempts to group the many and varied skills necessary for writing good prose into four main areas:
a. grammatical skill: the ability to write correct sentences;
b. stylistic skill: the ability to manipulate sentences and use language effectively; c. mechanical skill: the ability to use correctly those conventions peculiar to the
written language- e.g. punctuation, spelling;
Based on the explanation above, the evaluation of writing will cover grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, fluency (style and ease of communication), and form (organization).
6. Criteria of Good Writing
It is important to get the purpose of writing. If we cannot get the purpose, it means that we do something useless. In order to get the purpose of writing activity, we have to build up our writing well. Adelstein and Pival in Tarigan (1994: 6) explain some characteristics of good writing:
a. A good writing result shows the abilities of the writer in using the tones. b. A good writing result shows the abilities of the writer in arranging the materials to
be a good structure.
c. A good writing result shows the abilities of the writer to write clearly (unambiguous), to use the sentence structure well, language, and examples, therefore, it makes the readers easy in understanding the explicit and implicit meaning.
d. A good writing result shows the ability of the writer to write surely: it can take the readers‟ interest to the main idea of the writing; it can describe the main idea
clearly and logically. In this case, the writer has to avoid the use and the repetition of useless phrases. The words used must support the main idea harmonically which want to be reached.
f. A good writing result shows the proud of the writer to his writing; the willingness to use a good punctuation, to reread the words meaning in correlation to the grammar used before sending it to the readers. A good writer knows well that those things are important since they may give a bad effect to the results.
7. Assessing Writing
Scoring students‟ English writing, it can be taken some criteria, which are adopted suitable with John Anderson‟s opinion (in Arthur, 1997: 91-93).
Table 1
- Few (if any) noticeable errors of grammar or word order. - Some errors of grammar or word order which do not, however,
interfere with comprehension. has to rely on own interpretation.
- Errors of grammar or word order so severe as to make from that of educated native writer.
- Occasionally uses inappropriate terms or relies on circumlocutions; expression of ideas hardly impaired.
- Uses wrong or inappropriate words fairly frequently; expression of ideas may be limited because of inadequate vocabulary.
- Limited vocabulary and frequent errors clearly hinder expression of ideas.
- Vocabulary so limited and so frequently misused that reader must often rely on own interpretation.
- Vocabulary limitations so extreme as to make comprehension virtually impossible
5
- Errors in punctuation or spelling fairly frequent; occasional re-reading necessary for full comprehension.
- Choice of structures and vocabulary consistently appropriate; like that of educated native writer.
- Occasional lack of consistency in choice of structures and vocabulary which does not, however, impair overall ease of communication.
- „Patchy‟, with some structures or vocabulary items noticeably inappropriate to general style.
- Structures or vocabulary items sometimes not only inappropriate but also misused; little sense of ease of communication.
- Communication often impaired by completely inappropriate or misused structures or vocabulary items.
- A half-learned misused structures and vocabulary items rendering communication almost impossible.
- Material well organized; links could occasionally be clearer but communication not impaired.
- Some lack of organization; re-reading required for clarification of ideas.
- Little or no attempt at connectivity, though reader can deduce connection between them.
- Individual ideas may be clear, but very difficult to deduce connection between them.
Total score is calculated with the following formula:
Total score: Grammar:___ + Vocabulary:___ + Mechanic:___ + Fluency:___ + Form:___ = ___
Then, students‟ score can be calculated as follows: Students‟ score
8. Task of Teacher in Writing
Teachers play important role in helping students improving their writing skill. Harmer (2004: 41-42) says there are many teachers‟ tasks in writing process.
a. Demonstrating
Teacher must be able to make the students aware of the language used or others to perform certain writing functions by using whatever the ways.
b. Motivating and Provoking
Teachers must be able to motivate and provoke their students to start writing and help them find out their motivation when they lost it. As we know, some students often lost their ideas, spirit, and confidence, when they lost it; it is the teacher‟s
turn to help them find them back. c. Supporting
Teachers must be supportive all times to help students solve their difficulties. It means that they have to be ready to be asked and then to answer their students‟
question. d. Responding
e. Evaluating
Teachers need to evaluate their students‟ tasks to find out the real condition of
their students achievement. The result of the test will show how well the learning process has been run.
9. Students’ Need in Writing
As teacher, we have to know our students‟ need. It is important to know what
they need, since by knowing their needs lead us to know how to fulfill what they want. If we can fulfill their needs, our goals can be reached more effectively. Harmer (2004: 62-63) has ordered what students‟ needs:
a. Information and Task Information
When teacher asks their students to do something, he has to give the information about how to finish the task to the students clearly. He has to tell what their tasks are and what they have to do to complete the task.
b. Language
If teachers hope students to use certain language, they have to give it first. It can be in the form of offering phrases, parts of sentences, or words.
c. Ideas
Teachers must help students to get ideas when they get stuck. It can be in the form of a word or two words. Sometimes, they have to give more than those.
d. Patterns and scheme
One way to help students to write is giving them a pattern or scheme to follow. The patterns or scheme may help them to find ideas and start writing.
based on his experiences. A writer can express his or her ideas, thought, and feelings through writing for a specific purpose.
B. Descriptive
1. Nature of Descriptive Text
Based on the topic of the thesis proposal, the writer focuses on descriptive text. Lexically, descriptive refers to “giving a picture in words: describing something, especially without expressing feelings or judging” (Hornby, 1995: 314). Descriptive
text means text which describes a particular place, person, or thing (Gerot and Wignell, 1995: 208).
Descriptive text is one of genre. A culture context expresses many kinds of genre, which has many types such as communicative purpose, text structure and certain linguistic features. In the modern people who are being acquainted with written culture, they express some texts named recipe, narrative, descriptive, etc.
For example, when people heard the word “short story” (one of narrative
form) people have “hope” or certain expectation that its purpose is to entertain, in the
form of fiction, with certain arrangement and the use of language is also different with language of scientific journal. Genre is also brings out linguistic implication which must be observed by student.
expressed in the vacuum situation; it expresses in context. This text is suitable to be used in language learning in order to make students expose to the real communication arranged by native speaker. So, we can conclude that descriptive text is original words of function to describe a particular person, place, or thing.
When we want to make descriptive text, we have to pay attention with the generic structure and significant lexical grammatical features. So that, we can make a good descriptive text.
2. Generic Structure of Descriptive Text
The generic structures of descriptive text are:
a. Identification which identifies the person, place, or thing to described, or identifies phenomenon to be described (Hammond, 1992: 78, see Gerot, 1995: 208).
b. Description: describes parts, qualities and characteristics.
3. Language Features of Descriptive Text
The language features of descriptive text are: a. the focus on specific participants,
b. the use of attributive and identifying processes,
c. the frequent use of epithets and classifiers in nominal groups, d. the use of simple present tense.
4. Social Function of Descriptive Text
5. Sample and Characteristic of Descriptive Text a. Sample
b. Characteristic
From the example above, we know that:
a. descriptive text is dominated by simple present tense. It because the factual features of descriptive text itself. As we know that descriptive
b. Characteristic
From the example above, we know that:
1) Descriptive text is dominated by simple present tense. 2) Descriptive text uses more relational and material verb.
3) The most important thing of descriptive text is to describe something or someone not someone who describes something.
4) In descriptive text, adjective describes shape and characteristic. 5) Descriptive text usually reflects the relations between parts and whole.
(Wiranto, 2003: 27)
My Mother
My mother is a beautiful person. She is not tall but not short, and she has curly hair and brown. Her eyes
color are like honey and her color skin color light brown, and she has a beautiful smile. Her weight likes 120 lbs.
She is a very kind person. She is very lovely, friendly, patient, and she loves to help people. I love my mom,
because she is a good example to me. She loves being in the Church, and she loves sing and dance too.
She is a very good child, wife and mother. She always takes care of her family. She likes her house to be clean
and organized. She a very organized person, and all things in the house are in the right place. She doesn't like
6. Organization Pattern of Descriptive Text
Descriptive text does not have tight text pattern like other text. Descriptive text describes something. The order is not so important. The sentences flow continuously.
For example:
According to Kane (2000:352) “ Descriptive text is about sensory experience how something looks, sounds, tastes. Mostly it is about visual experience, but description also deals with other kinds of perception”.
So, a descriptive text is a text that describes the features of someone, something, or a certain place. It has some characteristics which can be evaluated. In this case, the generic structure of the text consists of identification and descriptions. We can evaluate identification of a descriptive text by pointing the most important thing that shows the part of the paragraph that introduces the character of something. To evaluate descriptions of a descriptive text is also by pointing the part of the paragraph that describes the character.
My Mother
My mother is a beautiful person. She is not tall but not short, and she has
curly hair and brown. Her eyes color are like honey and her color skin color
light brown, and she has a beautiful smile. Her weight likes 120 lbs.
She is a very kind person. She is very lovely, friendly, patient, and she
loves to help people. I love my mom, because she is a good example to me. She
loves being in the Church, and she loves sing and dance too.
She is a very good child, wife and mother. She always takes care of her
family. She likes her house to be clean and organized. She a very organized
person, and all things in the house are in the right place. She doesn't like
messes.
Identification
C. Mind Mapping
1. Definition of Mind Mapping
According to Tony Buzan (2007:4) “mind mapping is way to write creatively
and effectively and it will map the mind”. Mind map used to generate, visualize,
structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and writing.
Mind mapping is having an organized display of information from the outset of the writing process that may help some students as it is more easily converted into a draft.
Mind mapping or spider gram is a strategy to make notes on a topic, prior on writing. It is structured strategies which show the relationship of ideas, as opposed an unstructured strategy, such as brainstorming, in which students produce notes at random on paper.
Mind mapping is the technique of arranging ideas and their interconnections visually. It is a popular brainstorming technique. According to Wycoff, mind mapping is one of the simplest, yet most powerful, tools a person can have in her creativity toolbox. It is a non-linear way of organizing information and a technique that allows you to capture the natural flow of your ideas.
2. Advantages of Mind Mapping
a. In the purpose of learning, mind mapping reduces those „tons of work‟, feels good about study, revision, and exams, and has confidence in learning abilities.
b. In over viewing, the advantages are to see the whole picture, the global view, at once and to understand the links and connections.
c. In planning, mind mapping is to orchestrate all details and aspect –from beginning to end- on one piece of paper.
d. In thinking, it has a method to analyze thoughts –almost a „way station‟ for them. (http:www.mapyourmind.com/advantages.htm)
Buzan states that mind mapping helps the brain to work well to develop ideas. The advantages of mind mapping in studying according to Buzan are to:
a. make the students are easy to study,
b. see the connections between the different topics, c. be able to help brainstorming,
d. help to develop the idea, e. see the whole of picture, f. easy to remember, g. summarize information.
3. How to Do a Mind Mapping
Buzan suggests using the following foundation structures for mind mapping: a. start in the centre with an image of the topic, using at least 3 (three) colors, b. use images, symbols, codes, and dimension throughout your mind mapping, c. select the key words, and each word/image must be atone and sitting on its own
line,
d. connect the line by starting from the central image. The central lines are thicker, organic, and flowing, becoming thinner as they radiate out from the centre,
e. make the lines the same length as the word/image,
f. use colors – your own code – throughout the mind mapping, g. develop your own personal style of mind mapping,
h. use emphasis and show associations in your mind mapping,
i. keep the mind mapping clear by using radial hierarchy, numerical order or outlines to embrace your branches.
The reason for teaching writing to students of English as a foreign language include reinforcement, language development, language style and most importantly writing as a skill in its own right as stated by Harmer (1998).teaching writing through mind mapping starts with given a topic to write by the teacher then use picture to encourage the students‟ ideas with own in paragraph.
Mind mapping involves writing down a central ideas and thinking up new and related ideas which radiate out from the centre. By focusing on key ideas written down in our own words, and then looking for branches out and connection between the ideas, we are mapping knowledge in a manner which will help to understand and remember new information.
(http://www.buzan.com)
There is an example of producing mind map:
4. How to Use Mind Mapping in Teaching
Mind map can be used for a multitude purposes. In teaching, Steele (2005) suggests using the following steps in order to be effectively helping support and develop students‟ writing skill:
a. choosing a topic
The mind maps strategy can be used to explore almost any topic, though discursive essays and narrative work particularly well as they front students‟ ideas and
lend them to discuss ideas in groups. b. note making
Once the topic has been introduced, we encourage the students to close their eyes and think about it for a minute or two, in silence. They then have two minutes in which to note down their ideas. If they do not know a word in English, they can write it in L1 at this stage, as dictionaries or too much teacher intervention tend to halt and inhibit the creative flow.
Then, working in groups, they can compare and discuss their idea, perhaps adding to their mind maps as they go. This stage also provides the opportunity for peer teaching, as other students may be available to provide the English word for the idea that was noted down in L1.
c. feedback
The next stage, in which the teacher makes a collective mind map on the board, is optional, but is useful for students who are new to the idea of mind maps, or for weak classes. It is also in this feedback stage that any remaining language problems can be ironed out. As the teacher elicits students‟ idea, and reformulates
expressions or corrects, students will learn how to express their ideas in English. Such personalization is said to aid vocabulary learning.
d. organizing mind maps
clarify their writing. This can be done in groups or as a class with the teacher leading the discussion.
However it is carried out, it is important to provide a context and audience. Having an audience in mind helps students to decide which ideas are most important, and also helps students to choose the appropriate style.
d. writing
Students should then begin to write their compositions, working in pairs if they wish. After two paragraphs, they should exchange their compositions, so they become readers of each other‟s work. This allows for feedback, and possible re
-writing. Once they have finished, they should again exchange their text. This gives their text a communicative purpose, as well as developing an awareness of the fact that a writer is always producing something to be read by someone else, rather than for the display of writing alone.
e. continuation
Once students are familiar with the idea of making mind maps, they can be encouraged to use this skill for further writing activities. It is useful technique and often improves the clarity and organization of students‟ texts.
D. Hypothesis
