Judul Skripsi: "THE STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH PER PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT" (A Descriptive Research at the second grade of SMP 2 Makassar). The students' performance in writing descriptive paragraph through portfolio assessment at the second grade of SMPN 2 Makassar. This is related to Oshima and Hogue (1999:3) that writing, especially academic writing, is not easy.
Using the Portfolio Assessment will be expected to improve students' skills to write descriptive text appropriately and in accordance with the existing elements in the descriptive paragraph.
Problem Statement
For this reason, it is necessary to improve the student's ability to write a descriptive text using portfolio assessment. To increase the ability of students in writing a descriptive text and they will be interested in learning English because by using the portfolio it makes a connection between the subjects and the language.
Objective of The Resaerch
Significant of The Research
Scope of The Research
Previous Related Findings
Considering the importance of writing skills for language learners, the researcher believed that efforts should be made to improve students' writing skills. By conducting the research, she intended to improve students' writing skills through portfolio assessment. This means that feedback will be given continuously on the students' writing until the students write the final draft.
As a collection of student work, portfolio assessment can also capture students' learning progress.
Some Pertinent Ideas 1. Learning Achievement 1.Learning Achievement
Writing, Descriptive text
Writing was a process of formulating and organizing ideas into proper words to deliver the objective and present them on a piece of paper. According to Jones in R.Cooper and Odell (1977:33), writing was synonymous with discourse, and discourse was discussed in terms of its purpose, it relates to the function of language and in terms of its features, which are the separate elements, units and the mechanism of language. On the other hand, Reinking, Hard and Osten state that writing was a way of communicating and of course communicates all the time.
And then Deporter and Heracki explain that writing was a whole-brain activity, which uses the bright side of the brain (emotion) and the left side of the brain (logic). From the above explanation, we can say that writing was a whole brain activity to formulate and organize ideas in appropriate words to convey and communicate the intentions to the reader and present them on a piece of paper. A descriptive text was a piece of writing intended to convey meaning to the reader through sensory details and to give the reader an image (http://www.ehow.com).
Furthermore, Pardiyono (2007:34) says that description paragraph was a type of written text paragraph, which has the specific function of describing about an object (living or non-living things) and it has the purpose of giving description of the make clear objection to the reader. To describe an event, a writer must be able to memorize and remember what happened in the event. In this case, he/she should explain all the details related to the event, so that the readers can imagine the real situation and condition.
We have to describe people who appear reasonably areas of physical characteristics (hair, eyes), emotional (warm, nervous), moral characteristics (greedy, honest, dignified, trust), and intellectual (smartness, perception). Describing an object accurately was done by providing the physical properties of the object such as the color, shape, form, and so on.
Portfolio
The evaluation portfolio is prepared by the individual student either according to the faculty's instructions or according to the student's own idea. A key difference between a logbook and a portfolio is that portfolio evidence is marked by the learner's reflections on his or her learning. According to Yasin (2001), a portfolio is initially just a collection of assignments, learning experiences, exhibitions and evaluation of the results of one's own work in artistic fields.
Paulson et al in Kemp and Toperoff (1998) give the definition for portfolio: A portfolio is a purposeful collection of students. A portfolio is not simply an activity of collecting student work over a period of time. In summary, the portfolio features mentioned above are very useful to improve students' writing skills.
In addition, the portfolio includes reflection and self-assessment, which will be very useful for students to assess their strengths and weaknesses. This type of portfolio is created at the end of a program to highlight the quality of student work. A writing portfolio is a collection of student writing that is used to help the student and teacher see writing progress over time.
They are a collection of all the work a student does in the process of completing a writing test. When a final portfolio shows a sample of the students' work, the students are always involved in the selection process, and so must the criteria for the portfolio.
Portofolio Assessment
Teachers, parents, and students can come together to review this portfolio and reflect on student growth over time. All selections and pieces are authentic in that the pieces included provide evidence that the goals and objectives of the curriculum have been met, with added student reflections examining the learning process and/or products. Participants in the portfolio evaluation process (instructors, students, and parents or administrators, if applicable) should be aware of the evaluation standards in advance.
Possible content includes writing samples that may vary in genre, content and style, laboratory reports, diaries, recorded performances, recordings, art, research papers, projects, photographs, interviews, conferences, tests, quizzes, observations and reflections. In some schools, material from a semester or year's portfolio is digitized and stored for future reference as a record of student performance over time. Colleges that require a profession license may require students to keep evidence of each standard met in an online or physical portfolio so that evaluators or accrediting bodies have easy access to all work completed.
Because a portfolio contains a variety of artefacts that provide evidence of work completed, it is particularly useful in these assessment circumstances. Clear criteria for evaluation, including what should be included in the portfolio and rubrics for evaluation, are essential for successful portfolio assessment. When teachers develop unambiguous assessment criteria, they necessarily use a shared discourse, clarify any unfamiliar vocabulary in advance (Rodgers, 2002), and ensure that they and students have a mutual understanding regarding the theoretical foundations of the task before it takes place.
Through clear direction, instructors should make clear any guiding principles or policies about what may or may not be included in the portfolio. Reflective pieces require students to articulate and review portfolio components and are part of a comprehensive assessment.
Conceptual Framework
Writing
Descriptive Text
Portfolio Assessment
- Research Design
- Population and Sample
- Instrument of the Research
- Procedure of collecting data
- Technique of Data Analysis
- Findings
The objective was to determine the students' achievement in learning descriptive text in grade VIII 8 at SMPN 2 Makassar. This was a worksheet used to write a descriptive paragraph based on a picture in a portfolio assessment form. The writer explained about the portfolio assessment and gave the descriptive text format to the students to look at the topic and write a paper until the research time collected the student's worksheet composed of the descriptive text.
Based on the problem statement earlier in Chapter I, the researcher uses only one instrument to collect data on students' performance in writing descriptive text using portfolio assessment in class VIII 8 of SMPN 2 Makassar, namely a test (Writing of descriptive text). Observing the class, the researcher found that the majority of the students have a high vocabulary level and can perform the task. The first task was about the teacher. The students describe their favorite teacher.
Second assignment, students write a descriptive essay with a different title but the same topic, about the school. The material for the teacher will be to see a higher level about the students' ability to present and edit a good descriptive text. The topic must be unique, as the student must first be interested in something in order to successfully write a descriptive text.
Finally, in the last task the researcher hopes that the students can have a good grasp of how to write a good descriptive text, which contains all the descriptive text. Based on the students' experience, the researcher finds that the students can improve the descriptive text in some paragraphs by using much more new vocabulary.
Discussion
By assessing the portfolio, students can know where they are weak and what they will learn to improve their skills. For a good text, the students must have known the types of descriptive texts. The researcher collected data using a portfolio assessment in this test, students are asked to write a descriptive paragraph about the teacher, school, and vacation, as we know that the topic will lead them to engage more with the environment.
In this case was satisfied to know the students' writing skill on component of content observed by test, the author would like to discuss it. The result showed that the content component of the students' scores improved in the second and third tests. From the description above, it could be concluded that the students' skill in writing descriptive text was improved in each test.
Step by step, students understand that a good descriptive text is the content of the writing must be clear to the readers so that the readers could understand the message and get information from it. In this case, language used to know students' writing skill on indicator of language use observed through testing, the author would like to discuss it. The material provided by the teachers in the class is the authentic and related to the environment of the students.
In the class, the teachers were facilitators and supervisors, where they let the students show their skills and guide them in the class. When a final portfolio shows a sample of students' work, students are always involved in the selection process and criteria for the portfolio should be provided by the teacher.
Conclusion
This was based on the result of observation checklist and interview conducted by the researcher. The teachers mostly used discussion activity in class because the students already had good English skills, especially in writing. The students in Class VIII 8 at SMPN 2 Makassar gave positive responses to the teaching method used by the English teachers in their class.
Suggestion
- Mean score of the students in Test II X = Ʃ x 10
- Mean score of the students in Test III X = Ʃ x 10
- Improvement Test I to Test II X =
- Improvement Test III to Test II X = −
Students' difficulties in writing in English: Suggested strategies to help and their potential beneficial 'side effects'.
