TEACHING WRITING BY COMBINING 4-2-1 FREE WRITE STRATEGY AND QUICK WRITE STRATEGY FOR JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL Oleh:
*) LILA FAIZAH
**) Sesmiyanti,S.S, M.Pd Pembimbing atau Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
__________________________________________________________________
ABSTRAK
Menulis merupakan salah satu dari empat keahlian yang penting, yang harus dikuasai oleh siswa. Menulis tidak semudah yang difikirkan banyak kalangan, karena menulis bukan hanya meminta siswa untuk menyusun huruf dan menulisnya diatas kertas, tapi harus mengarahkan dan membimbing untuk bisa menulis sesuatu yang bermakna dan dapat dipahami oleh pembaca.
Namun kenyataanya masih banyak siswa yang menjalani kesulitan dalam menulis. Ini disebabkan karena siswa tidak dapat mengekspresikan ide dan mengembangkan ide. Selain itu, disebabkan juga oleh cara mengajar yang tidak menarik minat siswa untuk belajar. Juga ketidak tepatan strategy yang digunakan oleh guru. Dalam penulisan makalah ini, bertujuan untuk membantu guru dalam menggunakan strategy yang tepat untuk mengajar menulis. Dalam makalah ini, penulis mengkombinasikan dua buah strategy untuk membantu siswa dalam menulis, yaitu 4-2-1 Free Write Strategy dan Quick Write Strategy. 4-2-1 Free Write Sytrategy yaitu sebuah cara dimana siswa membaca sebuah teks tertulis, dan mengidentifikasi empat ide yang mereka dapat dari text.
Setelah itu membandingkan ide mereka dengan pasangannya untuk menseleksi dua ide yang penting, kemudian bertemu dengan pasangan lain untuk mendiskusikan dan memutuskan satu ide yang penting. Terakhir siswa di instruksikan untuk menulis secara bebas tanpa berhenti, dengan waktu yang telah ditentukan.Quick Write Sytrategy yaitu siswa diarahkan untuk mendapatkan ide dan merangkainya menjadi kerangka tulisan yang baik dan untukselanjutnyadijadikanbentuk paragraph yang bermakna.Dengandemikian, mengkombinasikan 4-2-1 Free Write Strategy dan Quick Write Strategy diharapkan bisa membantu siswa Sekolah Menengah Pertama dalam mempelajari maupun memahami konsep menulis dan bisa menulis dengan baik.
Key word : writing, 4-2-1 free write strategy and quick write strategy
___________________________________________________________________________
*) penulis
**) pembimbing INTRODUCTION
In writing, a writer is not only thinking throught how to express an idea but also it requires a thinking process.
Thinking process can help students to create their ideas when students write a text. They can convey the message, express their ideas, feeling and experience to other people. Therefore, before writing the students have to know what they have written, why they must write, and how to write. After they know what to do, recently they start to write. Furthermore, in writing skill; the students have to improve their ability in writing skill so that can arrange the sentences into good paragraphs, and finally they can write well.
Furthemore, in order to be able to write an English text well, the students
should study hard in order to be able to write well. Moreover, one kinds of paragraph which learned at Junior High School is Descriptive paragraph.
Descriptive involved with identification and description about something. The purpose is to describe and reveal a particular person, place or thing. Thus, by writing a descriptive paragraph students will learn how to manage ideas and contribute it to good writing.
Based on the writer’s experience while practice teaching at Junior high school, in reality, many students difficult to develop their idea in the writing and they also have difficulties to decide topic because they just only followed the topic that are given by the teacher, thus, they could not make a good written form because they could not develop their idea
and written by using the topic that they want. Therefore, it implied that the problem comes from the teacher, and also by the strategy that use by the teacher in that class. The teachers usually use the same strategy from time to time and in the different topic. Many teachers just focused on English book, and students workbook, meanwhile the learning process did not communicative between teacher and students, the teacher more dominant in the classroom.
In solving those problems, the teachers should use good strategy to make students interested to write and motivated in teaching writing. Thus, to solve the problem the writer uses 4-2-1 free write, this strategy used to help the students to organize ideas and information combined with Quick write strategy is a versatile strategy that offers students a chance to reflect on the key points and objectives of the lesson. The reason why the writer chooses both of strategies because the strategy can complete each other to help the students develop their idea in writing.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATU RE
Writing
Writing is one of the skills in learning a language. Through writing, people can express their ideas in written form. Writing called as a tool to communicate, because by writing, people can share what they think and feel. There are some experts that explain about the definition of writing. According to Jozsef (2001:5), writing is among the most complex human activities. It involves the development of a design idea, the capture the mental representations of knowledge and of experience with subject. On the other word, the students should hard work in writing start from looking for the topic and information or knowledge that will be disscussed and they should develop some ideas until they can produce some product of writing.
Meanwhile, writing is someone activity to found some ideas and then express that into paragraph. It is supported by Nunan (2003:88), writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and
paragraphs that will be clear to a reader. It means that, the students can express something such as ideas or feeling by using their own word in written form.
Based on the theories above, the writer concludes that writing is a person’s ability to communicate information and ideas to someone, public, and government. Writing is also important and difficult skill that should be mastered by the students in learning writing and for the teacher who teaches writing. Writing is also useful for the someone in doing their work or job in their company.
Teaching Writing
A teacher should know how to make the writing activities to be interested in the class. In addition, the teacher has to make the students understand the materials and also able to produce a good written text from their ideas. Coffin (2003:32) mentions that teaching writing should be focused on the written product that students are meant to produce, and focusing on the creative process of writing, the role of the individual in the act of writing, and the social aspect of writing. It means that, the students should have a purpose to make some products before they are doing writing. On the other hand, the teacher also should give creative ways in teaching writing for the students to increase their value.
Process of Writing
Writing has some steps that must be followed by the writer, so that the written form can be understood by the reader. According to Richard and Renandya (2002:316)process of writing as a classroom activity incorporate the four basic writing stage planning, drafting, revising and editing, and there stage externally imposed on students by the teacher. In other word, there are several steps that must be done to get a good writing there are planning, drafting, revising and editing. Besides that, in writing process the relationship between students’ writing skill and teacher role are very important and needs to make the writing process run well in the classroom and students can make writing in good form.
So, the process of writing have five stages that can be followed by learner
to make a good writing form. Flores (2009:3) statesthat a popular teaching practice in school to facilitate an understanding of how writing work is taking children through the five stages of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Writer can concludes the writing processes based on the experts’ explanation, they are: 1) Prewriting is the step that help the learners to get ideas. 2) Drafting is developing the students’ ideas into writing as draft. 3) Revising is where students check the content of stucture with read again and then revise it. 4) Editing is to correct students’ error in their writing. 5) Publishing is used to show the result of students’ work and publishing can improves their motivation in learning process especially in writing.
Descriptive text
According to Pardiyono (2007:33), descriptive text is a text which consist of description about living or non- living things for the readers. In descriptive text, the writer can describe about all things, such as: a person, a place, or anything else. Therefore, in a descriptive text, the writer should think over about what they want to describe and the description must give the detail information about the object that has been explained.
Generic structure of Descriptive Text From the definition above, descriptive text also has some generic structures. Mulyono (2008:22) states that the generic structure of a descriptive text consists of identification to identify phenomenon to be described and description to describe parts, qualities and characteristic. Therefore, the writer should consider the generic structure of descriptive text in order to make the readers comprehend the text easily.
4-2-1 Free Write Strategy
According to Strong (2002:142),4-2-1 free write is a strategy to get information with organizes ideas and information to identify the one big idea and then exploring that idea through free write. It was written on wide rangefrom ideas, and then two ideas become the one big idea, finally the students free write. It means
that the process of this strategy where the students read, working collaboratively to identify the one big idea and then exploring students develop a deep personally resonant respective on how text conveys their most essential information.
Then, Rogas (2007:34) states that 4-2-1 free write is strategy that guides students from prewriting to drafting in stages. The teacher divides prewriting plan into appropriate sections, and students writes as much as they can for each section. The sections do not have to be followed in any order so if students gets stuck while drafting, they should move on to another section.
From the explanation above, it can be concluded that 4-2-1 free write strategy is a strategy to make connection between reading and writing. This strategy helps students’ writing competence with comprehends a text by working collaboratively to identify from four ideas, two ideas, until the one big idea and then exploring that idea through free writing. The students also can find essential information and develop their ideas based on the text.
Procedure of 4-2-1 Free Write Strategy In the process of 4-2-1 free write strategy, there are many variation strategies that can be applied by teacher and students in learning. Procedures of 4- 2-1 free write strategy as following:
Strong, (2002:144) states that steps in implementation 4-2-1 free write strategy are:
1. After students have read a text or set of text, ask them to write the four big ideas on their 4-2-1 free write organizer.
2. Have students pair up to share their ideas and to select the two most important ideas from their lists.
3. Allow students pairs to meet with another pair, share their two ideas, and reach agreement on the single most important idea.
4. Collect and discuss the most important idea from each group.
Together, select the idea that is the most important.
5. Instruct students to write freely for five minutes on the selected idea,
explaining what they know about the idea so that someone who was not in the class would understand it.
Students must write without stopping.
If they get stuck, they should write about why they are stuck.
6. Ask students to return to their groups of four to listen to each other’s written responses.
7. Hold a discussion on the big idea and look for ways to link student' new understanding to be next topic or unit.
Have students select one piece of free writing each month for further development.
Advantages of 4-2-1 Free Write Strategy
The advantages of the strategy will be used to help students understood about the material. According to Strong (2002:146) says that advantages this strategy is the strategy keeps students rooted firmly to the content. The post writing feedback groups helps students to see how they might improve both their writing and their comprehension without the pressure of judgment. Then, the students select one of their free writes to develop into a more formal monthly product,4-2-1 free write reiterates the process-oriented nature of writing and help both teacher and students see progress of the students in mastering this process.
In conclusion, it is clear that by using 4-2-1 free write will improve the students thinking about a particular topic and help students to identify main ideas more easily. It can help students while doing writing process because they have organized an idea about the topic and develop their ideas work collaboratively that they will be able to express their ideas.
Quick Write Strategy
Quick write strategy is strategy that can be used by teacher in teaching writing in order to help students develop their idea. Teacher gives a topic about something that will be written by students and they develop it by writer other things which relate with the topic that have stated by teacher quickly in the limited time.They are many experts that explain
the definition of quick write strategy.According to Harris (2011:27), quick write is a versatile strategy that offers students a chance to reflect on they key points and objectives of the lesson. In addition to helping students summarize their thoughts, it can serve as a quick and easy assessment toll for the teacher.
Procedure of Quick Write Strategy There are some procedures that will help the teacher to apply this strategy in teaching writing. Crawford (2005:27) states that the steps of quick write strategy are:
1. In this step teacher explains to students how they will write about the topic that given by teacher with briefly. Teacher asks students to write everything that they know about the topic without stop during the time that give from teacher.
2. The teacher explains to the students about the topic that will be written 3. In here teacher gives the limited time
for students in write down the idea that they thinking about the topic 4. The result in writing, after students
finish with their write, teachercollect the students’ assignment and gives the score to the students’ writing.
Advantages of Quick Write Strategy Any strategy that is used by the teacher in teaching learning process give advantages to the teacher and students.
According to Kucer and Silva (2010:152), the advantages of quick writesstrategy are effective in helping students to explore a variety of class subject, students are asked to focus on a particular topic or idea and write everything about the topic that they choose. Then quick writes strategy help students if they are stuck and do not know what to write. On the other word, quick write makes students easier to write the work, because by quick writes students can write everything that they know and understand about the topic.
DISCUSSION
The combination of 4-2-1 free write strategy and quick write strategy
The writer combines two strategies become one strategy that can be used in teaching learning writing. Writer combines 4-2-1 free write strategy and
quick write strategy because it have purpose to develop students ideas in writing. The strategy used by the teacher is appropriate with the learning activity, the learning activity will be success in the classroom. Then, writer concludes steps of combination between them being steps or procedures that should be applied by teacher in learning process. In this paper, writer uses the procedures of 4-2-1 free write strategy taken from Strong (2002:144) and procedure of quick write taken from Crawford (2005:27). Writer decided to take from both of these experts because their steps can be related and continued each other. Procedures of teaching writing combining 4-2-1 free write strategy as follows:
1. Teacher explains to the students how they will write about the topic that given by teacher with briefly. Teacher asks students to write everything that they know about the topic without stop during the time that given from teacher.
2. Teacher explains to the students about the topic what that will be written.
3. After students have read a text, the teacher asks the students to identify and write four big idea on their 4-2-1 free write organizer.
4. The teacher asks the students to pair up to share their ideas and select the two most important ideas.
5. After the students share their ideas in pair, the teacher provides opportunities for students’ pair to meet with another pair to discuss and reach agreement on the single most important idea.
6. The students collect and discuss the most important idea from each group and then together selected the idea that is the most important.
7. The teacher gives instruction for the students to write freely for five minutes on the selected idea, explaining what they know about the idea and students must write without stopping individually. In here, teacher gives the limited time in write down the idea that they thinking about the topic.
8. Ask the students to return to their groups of four to listen and review to each other’s written responses.
9. The result in writing, after students finish with their write, teacher collects the student’s assignment and gives the score to the student’s writing.
10. And the last step, holds a discussion on the big idea and look for ways to link students new understand to the next topic. Have students select of piece of free writing each month for further development.
Teaching preparation
Before start teaching and learning process, the teacher should make some preparations. It is the most important thing that should be done by the teacher because the preparation can make the teaching and learning process become success. There are some preparations that should be prepared teacher such as teaching goal, selecting material, time allocation, and media.
Procedure of teaching
In this stage, some activities should be done during teaching and learning process. The teacher comes to the class to prepare of material and consist of teaching process. To create a good environment in the class, both the teacher and the students should follow several procedures which the activities consists of pre-teaching, whilst-teaching, and post- teaching activity.
Conclusion
4-2-1 strategy is one of many strategies that can be used in teaching writing. 4-2-1 strategy is one of strategies whish help students are easy to understand in writing. In 4-2-1 strategy, students are free to express their idea to write and free choose the topic that they want with themselves. Then, Quick write strategy is the one of strategies which used in teaching writing. Quick write strategy is short feedback of the topic that is given by teacher, this strategy will help students are easy to make of writing assignment because students free to write everything that they know about the topic, but it should be related with the topic.
Finally, by combining these strategies, the
writer expects the problem that was faced by students can be minimized.
Suggestion
Based on the conclusion above, in this section the writer gives some suggestion in teaching writing especially for English teacher. In teaching writing, teacher should use the appropriate strategy to make students interesting in teaching learning process. Then, teacher must gives motivation to the students to make them enthusiasm in the lesson.
After that, writer suggests the English teacher to use the combination strategy of 4-2-1 free write and Quick write strategy in teaching writing. The first, the teacher always gives motivation to the students in teaching writing, especially for students who have low motivation, and the teacher should give attention for all students to know what they want in learning writing skill. The second, this strategies could be used by English teachers in teaching writing as the way improve the students writing ability in junior high school. And the last, the teacher should consider the students needing writing class to learn, because the teacher not only as educator but also as motivator and facilitator.
REFFERENCES
Coffin, Caroline et all. 2003. Teaching Academic Writing. London and New York: Routledge.
Crawford, Alan. 2005. Teaching and Learning Strategies for TheThinking Classroom. New
York: the international debate education association.
Flores, Eugene Mora. 2009. Writing Instruction for English Learners.
United State of America: Corwin press.
Harris, Bryan. 2011. Battling Boredom:
99 Strategies ToSpark Students Engagement. New York:
Jozsef, Horvath. 2001. Advanced writing in English as a foreign language.Pecs. Lingua franca Csoport.
Kucer, Stephen B. and Cecilia Silva.
2010. Teaching the Dimensions of Literacy. New York: Routledge.
Mulyono, 2008. English Way 2. SMP Grade VIII. Bandung: Quadra.
Nunan, David. 2003. Practical English language teaching. Singapore.
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Pardiyono. 2009. Teaching Genre Based Speaking.Yogyakarta: CV. Andi offset.
Strong, R.W.et all. 2002. Reading for Academic Success. Thousand Oaks CA: Corwin Press, Inc.
Richard, Jack C and Willy A. Renandya.
2002. Methodology in Language teaching. Cambridge: The Press Syndicate of The University of Cambridge.
Rogas, Virginia P, 2007. Strategies for Success With English Language Learners (2nd.Ed.). Alexandria:
ASCD
