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TEACHING WRITING BY COMBINING QUICK WRITE AND LANGUAGE SHAPING PARADIGM STRATEGIES
AT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Oleh
Tutik Lestari*)
**) Lili Perpisa, S.S, M.Pd Pembimbing atau Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
ABSTRAK
Makalah ini bertujuan untuk membantu mengatasi permasalahan siswa dalam pengajaran menulis (writing) pada tingkat Sekolah Menengah Pertama (SMP). Masalah yang dihadapi siswa SMP diantaranya adalah siswa sulit menemukan ide-ide yang harus mereka sampaikan secara tertulis.
Siswa sulit dalam menemukan kata-kata yang tepat untuk mengembangkan tulisan mereka. Selain itu, makalah ini juga bertujuan sebagai masukan bagi guru-guru bahasa Inggris dalam melaksanakan pengajaran writing sehingga siswa tertarik dan termotivasi untuk belajar menulis khususnya descriptive text. Dalam makalah ini penulis membahas dua strategi yang dikombinasikan untuk membantu siswa dalam menulis yaitu strategi Quick Write dengan Language Shaping Paradigm.
Melalui strategi ini siswa mampu menerka topik yang akan di diskusikan yang di bimbing oleh guru melalui gambar. Kemudian, guru mengumpulkan pendapat dari respon siswa, dimana siswa diminta untuk membuat kalimat mereka sendiri. Setelah itu, siswa diminta untuk memperbaiki atau merevisi tulisan mereka dengan didampingi oleh guru. Dan dari kalimat tersebut, siswa mampu untuk memahami apa yang mereka tulis. Dengan demikian, siswa jadi tahu dimana kesalahan mereka dalam menulis sebuah kalimat dan mereka jadi lebih tertarik dan termotivasi untuk belajar bahasa Inggris terutama dalam pengajaran menulis.
Key words: Writing, Quick Write, Language Shaping Paradigm Strategy
Introduction
Writing is one of direct communication between the writer and the printed texts which are produced by the writer.
Delivering the creator’s ideas, thoughts, meanings, and any other understandings of some cases is happening in writing. In writing process, the writers convey their feelings, ideas, expressions, and even sharing something to another. Referring the importance of writing above, students in school must have ability in writing. In order to get the purpose of writing, the teachers have crucial role to make writing becomes favorite activity to be done by the students in classroom.
Writing skill is more complicated than other skills. In writing, there are several rules that have to be mastered by the students. They have to consider the word by word, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Then, they have to know how to organize ideas well in order that
their writing is easy to understand. Based on the School – Based Curriculum (SBC) – Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (2006), claims that one of goal teaching English is developing skill of language, including orally and non-orally. It is mean that writing is an important skill of all aspect skills in teaching English which should be mastered by the students.
Based on the writer’s experience on practice teaching experience in SMP N 2 Ampek Nagari, there are many students difficult in writing. It was happened because of several difficulties that are found by students when they are writing. First, they still got some difficulties in discovering ideas that should they convey in writing, so they could not develop their thinking in written form.
Second, they still had difficulty in finding appropriate words to construct their writing. It made their ideas did not build in correct statements. The last, they also worried about grammar and punctuation. Those cases
2 impacted to their writing product which was still far from a good writing. Thus, it makes students are not interested to do writing task.
Review of Related Literature
Writing is a way of communicating, through writing; the writer is facilitated to make contact with his readers. In writing the writer can express his ideas, thoughts and feeling since writing plays a role as a medium of sharing information from one to the others.
That is why writing plays an important role in building communication. Some different experts define writing based on their point of view.
According to Leo (2007:2), writing as a way of expressing ideas or thoughts in words. It is a key to successful school experience and essential means of communication that helps students learn how to structure and organize their thought in written form. When a writer try to express their thought in written form in order to communicate and share with others, it will shows that their way in communicating is different with speaking in which a writer need to know how to state the ideas clearly.
Based on the definitions above, it can be concluded that writing is a complex process in which requires writer to think critically in order to express their thought in a written form. Writing follows some process to be a good writing; planning, evaluating, and revising. In order to state the idea clearly, it is important for the writer to follow the process of writing.
As a process, writing is a mechanism ability which is able to be understood and learned. Thus, writing process includes several steps to be followed. According to Oshima and Hogue (2008:3) there are some steps in writing process, they are pre-writing, planning, writing and revising draft.
Pre- writing
Pre- writing is a brainstorming activity in which writer freely about a topic.
Planning and writing
Planning or outlining is a plan for a paragraph.
Revising draft
It is the step where the writer have to revise their first draft of writing, and make an improvement in the style and content.
Teaching Writing
Teaching writing is needed to help students to make good writing. to get good writing teachers should give excercise to students and explain about basic conventions of writing. According to Caswell (2004:3) teaching writing is provides opportunities for students to develop clear thinking skills. The most important factor in writing exercise is the students need opportunities to practice their skills in construing their ideas. Beside that, teaching writing also makes students understand about how to construct words to be good paragraph.
In conclusion, teaching writing is an activity that teacher does to make students know about the way to create sentence or paragraph and the teacher should pay attention to students’ ability in writing. Thus, the student will be able to write well in writing process. In fact, without teacher’s attention when the students are writting, they will never get how to make the good writing.
Descriptive text
Descriptive text is describing something like person, place, animal and thing. According to Mukarno, et al (2004:16) descriptive text is describe something, someone or place. It means the students can describe about things around them like flower, table, and picture by writing. Not only the students can give perception or opinion about object they saw in written form but also the students must collect all information from the object. It can be appearance, characteristic, function and others.
In teaching writing descriptive text, the teachers will give information about the generic structure to the students. This is so important to learn by students because generic structure will help the students to organize their written.
In learning writing about descriptive text, the students should be able to understand about the generic structure. Widiati, et al (2008:12) say that generic structure about of
3 descriptive text is identification and description. The students must know about identification and description during the writing process. The students should identify the object and then describe it in descriptive paragraph. It is the main part before the students write about descriptive text.
Quick Write Strategy
Quick write is considered to use because it can help the students to succeed in learning activities.
In writing, students have few minutes to write want they have learned and known.
Kucer B. Stephen and Silvia (2013:152) state that quick write is an effective strategy in helping students to explore a variety class subject. Teachers give a topic and the students can write their own specific topic related to the topic that has been chosen. For example, teacher gives a topic “Animal”. Next, the teacher asks the students to write everything that they know about animals. After providing this example to the students, each of them pick out their own topic, and repeat this activity in piece of paper.
Procedures of Quick Write Strategy
In writing activity, the students must be done one by one about steps of quick write strategy. Frazier (2010:71) describes that there are three steps of quick write. The first, the teacher formulates statement or a question related to the content for students to respond to within a specific amount of time, usually 5-7 minutes. Second, the students are told that the purpose is for them to express their thoughts and ideas without concern for the mechanic of writing. The last, When the time limit expires, students share their responses with a partner and then with the whole class for discussion.
From the steps above, the writer concludes that in teaching writing with quick write strategy is really easy for the students.
They can write down what their ideas about a topic without worry for the mechanics of writing. For example teacher gives topic about describing family members. The students can write down his or her family members freely in short paragraph without afraid about spelling and organizing ideas. At this point, teachers have role in guiding students by telling them the important of their writing. In
this activity, the teachers also can see their students comprehend about their writing because at the last of the steps they share their responses to their friend in classroom.
Language Shaping Paradigm Strategy Language shaping strategy can help the students write sufficiently to generate an adequate sample for editing or shaping.
Besides that, this strategy is to win students’
cooperation in a critical review of the personal patterns of language and thought to their writing reveals. According to Manzo (2003:
368) language shaping is to connect students to the printed to value and profit from personal thought and experiences and to learn more.
This strategy helps the students to value and recheck their own writing. This strategy can make mistakes in writing is detected by the students by following the language shaping steps.
Procedure of Language Shaping Paradigm Strategy
The writer choose According to Manzo (2003:368) steps in language shaping paradigm there are six steps. The first, the teacher begins with a provocative discussion to establish a purpose for writing. Second, students write themes in conventional way. Third, the teacher selects a student story or essay end edits it jointly with the students- author, informing the student that his or her work will be used for class study. Fourth, teacher prepares comprehension questions and language improvement exercises for the material. Fifth, the teachers duplicate the theme and exercises for class to read and discuss. The last, the teachers invite the students-author to participate more openly
Based on the explanation above, the writer concludes that students must follow each steps of language shaping paradigm. It is hoped that the students can know about their mistakes in writing. When they write about “ A cat “ they not only ask to write about his or her description about it, but also the teachers will select a writing product from the student and edit it together about the written structure and ideas. This way can make the students more comprehend about what they have write.
4 DISCUSSION
Writing is an essential skill should be mastered since the students have to hand in assignment, to complete various types of writing tasks, and to express ideas of information in written forms. The teacher should find appropriate and interesting the combination strategy in teaching writing.
Combining of quick write and language shaping paradigm strategy. Before starting the lesson, the teacher needs to do some preparation. Furthermore, the teacher should do some stages in teaching, such as; pre- teaching activity, whilst-teaching activity, and post-teaching activity.
Combination of Quick Write and Language Shaping Paradigm Strategy
Writing is one of important skills in teaching learning process. In this section the writer tries to combine steps that have been describe by Frazier (2010:71) for Quick Write Strategy and Manzo (2003:368) for Language Shaping Paradigm Strategy. Those strategies can help the teacher to get easy in teaching learning process. The combinations of those strategies are: First, the teacher formulates a statement or a question related to the content for students to respond to within a specific amount of time, usually 5-7 minutes (QW).
Second, the students are told that the purpose is for them to express theory thought and ideas without concern for the mechanics of writing (QW). Third, when the time limit expires, student share their responses with a partner and then with the whole class for discussion (QW). Fourth, the teacher selects a student story or essay and revises and edits it. It can be guided by simple who, what, where, when, why and how questions (LSP). Fifth, Teacher prepares comprehension questions and language analysis and improvement exercises for the material (LSP). Sixth, the teacher duplicates the theme and exercises for the class to read and discuss (LSP). And the last, the teacher invites the student-author to participate more openly (LSP).
In teaching and learning process, there are three steps that should be done by the teacher and students, like; pre-teaching activity, whilst-teaching activity, and post- teaching activity. These strategy will use by
the teacher in whilst-teaching activity, as follow:
Pre-Teaching Activities
Before the class begins, the teacher prepares the class and also the students first.
The main purpose is building relationship between teacher and the students before starting the lesson. Then, the teacher prepares the students to the new lesson or new topic.
First, the teacher asks the students to pray before the class begins. Second, the teacher greets the students in the classroom. Third, the teacher gives motivation to the students.
Fourth, the teacher reviews about the last material by asking some questions to the students. And the last, the teacher brainstorms the students by giving some questions to find the topic.
Whilst-Teaching Activities
In whilst teaching activities, the students must comprehend about the process of these strategies. This process of quick write and language shaping paradigm will be applied in this step by step. Here, the teacher can apply these steps in whilst teaching activity. The activities are; First, the teacher leads the students to the topic that will discuss before the students writing. In this step, the teacher gives the students a picture about fruit and asks them to identify about the picture.
Second, the teacher formulates a statement or a question related to the content for the students to respond to within a specific amount of time. Usually 5-6 minutes (QW). In this step, the teacher asks the students to make descriptive text based on the picture. Third, the students are told that the purpose is for them to express their thoughts and ideas without concern for the mechanic of writing (QW). In the next section, the teacher asks the students to develop their writing about descriptive text in short paragraph. Fourth, when the limit expires, students share their responses with a partner and then with the whole class for discussion (QW). In this step, the teacher collects the students exercise and asks them to change with their partner. Fifth, the teacher selects a student’s story or essay and revises and edits it. It can be guided by simple who, what where, when, why and how questions
5 (LSP). Sixth, teacher prepares comprehension question and language analysis and improvement exercises for the material (LSP).
Seventh, the teacher duplicates the theme and exercises for class to read and discuss (LSP).
In this step, the teacher asks the students to identify the generic structure of the text. And the last, the teacher invites the students-author to participate more openly (LSP). In this step, the teacher and students make conclusion about the material that has been taught.
Post-Teaching Activities
In post-activity are the activities at the end of the lesson. The activity consists of several activities that are intended to measure the students’ ability in writing, especially in descriptive text. First, the teacher review about the material to check the students comprehend.
And the last, the teacher closes the meeting.
In conclusion, in implementation the teacher should be following some steps in teaching writing. The teacher should be done the procedures in teaching activities step by step and effectively.
Conclusion
Based on the discussion on the previous chapters, the writer takes some conclusions. Writing is a complex process in which requires writers to think critically in order to express their thought in a written form. In writing activity, the students always get some problems. The problems are students does not confidence with their writing, the students have no chance to explore their ideas into written form, and the students do not know the rules of writing, for example ; the organizing the ideas, mechanics of writing, and punctuation and generic structures of kinds of writing texts. Consequently, the teacher can use combining quick write and language shaping paradigm strategies to give the solution from the students’ problems in learning writing. Each of these strategies has different function and advantages in teaching writing. Quick write strategy can be used by the teacher to give the students opportunities to write down whatever they have known about the topic without worry about the mistakes in mechanic of writing. This strategy also makes the students more interest in expressing their ideas into written form.
Language shaping paradigm strategy is a strategy that can help the students to check their written after the finish it. It can be done with their partners and together with the teacher. Language shaping paradigm strategy not only helps the student to revise their writing but also can make them totally comprehend with their ideas. By these strategies students can be more confidence in producing writing.
References
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Frazier, R.B. 2010. Drip Into History:
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Leo Susanto, et al. 2007. English For Academic Purpose: Essay Writing.Yogyakarta: ANDI.
Manzo A. 2003. Content Area Reading” A Heuristic Approach”. New York: J.
Weston Walch.
Mukarno, et al. 2004. English on Sky Book 1 for Junior High School Students Year VII (SMP&MTs). Ciracas, Jakarta:
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Oshima, Alice & Ann. 2008. Writing Academic English. New York: Wesley Publishing Company.
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