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TEACHING WRITING OF DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY COMBINING BRAINWRITING AND MIND MAPS STRATEGIES AT JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL By
Sri Rahmadhani *)
*) Rosi Kumala Sari S.Pd Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
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ABSTRAK
Penulisan makalah ini bertujuan untuk membantu mengatasi salah satu dari sekian banyak permasalahan yang ada dalam pelajaran bahasa Inggris, khususnya dalam mengasah keterampilan menulis (writing) di Sekolah Menengah Pertama. Selain itu makalah ini juga dimaksudkan sebagai masukan bagi guru-guru bahasa Inggris dalam mengajar menulis (writing), sehingga menjadi daya tarik bagi siswa dalam belajar. Dalam makalah ini penulis membahas tentang penggabungan dua strategi yaitu Brainwriting dan Mind Mapsstrategi. Kedua strategi ini berfungsi untuk mempermudah siswa dalam membuat sebuah paragraf. Ide-ide dari sebuah topik akan dibuat dalam suatu diagram atau sketsa yang membuat siswa akan tertarik untuk belajar menulis.
Selanjutnya siswabisa membuat draft dan membuat sebuah teks yang mempunyai makna. Dan dengan adanya strategi ini siswa dapat menuangkan semua imajinasinya kedalam sebuah tulisan yang bisa dinikmati oleh pembaca. Strategi ini juga memberi kesempatan untuk guru menggunakan media seperti gambar untuk menarik perhatian siswa, sehingga strategi ini mampu meningkatkan motivasi dan kemampuan menulis siswa dalam menulis teks, khususnya teks deskriptif.
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INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of important skill in English subject beside the other skills. Since it uses in communication process. By writing, someone can communicate by exploring their idea, thinking or feeling, and also experience to another people. Beside someone can explore the other person ideas, someone can also express everything in their mind in to the form of writing.
Writing should be emphasized on teaching and learning process at Junior High School grade VIII. According curriculum KTSP 2006 (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) the students are expected to be able to write and understand the meaning of functional text and short essay such as narrative, descriptive and recount to be interacted in student’s daily life. Thus, the teachers have to be able to guide the students to write well because it not easy for students.
The students should be undertsand of language component such as grammar,
vocabulary and mechanics. For that, the teacher should explain about how to use of languange component in order to make students understand to used it. Thus, it will help them in doing writing process.
But, based on the writer experience in SMPN 4 Sutera, the students writing skill was still low, most of students did not know how to write well. There are some problems that the writer found in writing class. The first problem is most of students were difficult to find and others do not have idea in writing. It makes them difficult to do brainstorming. The second is they are difficult develop their ideas. This case is occured, because they have lack vocabulary.
The last one is they are difficult to write their idea in correct grammar. Sometime, writer found that they write sentences without subjects or verbs and used uncorrect verbs and prepositions.
Beside the students problem the witer also found other problems come from the
2 teacher. Most of them used monotonous strategy, it makes students not interesting in learning writing. The teacher only explained about generic structure of the text without explaining meaning from descriptive text.
In teaching writing the teacher only gave topic without helping the students to develop their ideas. Unfortunately, the teachers do not guide them how to write well. It makes most students were bored in learning writing process.
Dealing with the problem above, teacher as facilitator in teaching, have to be a creative teacher in teaching writing.The teachers have to use appropriate strategy that will make the students interest and enjoy in learning writing. By using appropriate strategy, the teachers can increase students motivation, the teacher will help students write to the text correctly and increase students’ writing ability. Brainwriting strategy is a strategy to guide the students to develop their ideas. Mind Maps strategy is a strategy to help the students to write their ideas in sketches form. Those strategies can help the teacher and the students in teaching and learning writing.
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
There are some definitions of writing according Nunan (2003:98), “writing is combination of process and product.
In addition, Brown (2004:255) states that writing is a process to create some ideas of students’ knowledge to be a written report. Next, Harmer (2007:258) explains that writing is a complex cognitive process that sustained intellectual effort over a considerable period.
Based on the explanation above, it is concluded that writing is the ability to express our ideas, opinion, feeling, emotion, and estimation as well into written form. In doing writing process, there are some steps have to be followed, such as generating ideas, organizing information, and communicating meaning. In addition, five components should be considered in writing for produce a good writing product such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanic.
Components of Writing
According to Harris (2001: 68),
“writing is a complex skill for learners, consequently they find difficulties to express
their opinion, feeling, emotion, ideas, and estimation as well. He adds that the writing process should be analyzed in many different ways, most teachers would probably agree in recognizing at least the following five general components in writing, namely: content, form, grammar, style, and mechanics. Then, Nunan (2003:94) states that component of writing consist of three components such as content, organization, grammar.
Last, Jacob (2003:90) explains that there are five components of writing, such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanic.
Based on the explanation writing components above, it can be concluded that the components of writing are very important when the students write a paragraph or an essay, because if they can use the components in writing, the reader can understand and get the meaning of what they are writing easily.
Teaching Writing
According to Harmer (2003:84), in teaching writing, the teacher can be as a facilitator to correct mistakes of students’
writing. In additional, Nunan (2003:92) mentions that there are four principles for teaching writing: Last, Hyland (2003:2) adds that in teaching writing there are seven ways to support the teacher to teach writing.
Based on the explanation above, the writer concludes that teaching writing is an integrative process that the teacher does in teaching writing process. In the class, the teachers have to guide the students to activate their background knowledge to write a text. Besides that, the teacher should encourage the students to find and create their ideas about the good topic in their writing. Moreover, most important thing is the teacher supports and motivates the students to follow some steps in writing to produce a good writing.
Descriptive Text
According to Boardman (2002:6), descriptive text is to describe the things that we see. Meanwhile, Pardiyono (2007:35) defines that descriptive text is to describe living things and nonliving things. Thus, Setiadi (2012:39) defines that descriptive text is a text that tells an idea by providing details about characteristic of people, place, and things.
3 From the explanation above, it can be concluded that descriptive text is a kind of texts which is used to describe the real object (person, place, and things) it will help the reader more understand clearly about the real object. Then descriptive text consists of identification and description. Identification is a process how to an object that want to describe. Then, describe is a process how to describe the object. In addition, identification, it has to be known something that present to be described and in description, it has to describe the object as real.
Definition of Brainwriting and Mind Maps Strategies
Brainwriting Strategy
According to Pauline (2007:361) add that Brainwriting strategy is a strategy that will help students to organize ideas and information, understand the purpose of writing and record ideas following teacher direction. In addition, according to Brokopand Persall (2009:9)Brainwriting strategy is a strategy allows individuals to share ideas with a group through the exchange of ideas written on paper, or to share ideas through a computer network.Furthermore, Rodrigues in Sejnost (2009:69) said that Brainwriting strategy is a variation of brainstorming, gives the students an opportunity to share what they know about a subject without taking the risk of being wrong.
In conclusion, Brainwriting strategy is a strategy can help the students in find ideas based in computer network on the topic, and they can to share ideas with a group. Besides that, the students can get information from what their write and what they know without mistakes. And then, the students can present their ideas in a paper and they also should be creative in develop ideas. Thus, the students will can make a good paragraph.
Procedures of Brainwriting Strategy Brainwriting strategy is a good strategy to help the teacher in teaching writing and good solution to give motivation for the students. Procedure of Brainwriting is very important for teaching, especially writing because this strategy to help the teacher to make easier to do it. Some experts’ said that Brainwriting has several procedures in teaching writing. First, Pauline
(2007:362), Brainwriting has several steps in teaching writing, they are:
a. Students work in a small group on an assigned topic.
b. Each student writes for a few minutes and then all students put their papers in the middle of the table.
c. Each student reads another’s paper and adds to it until all the papers have been read and added to by each group member.
d. Each group develops a master list of idea from all the papers to be used for drafting.
e. After all the groups have shared their information, students are ready to read, research, or listen to information to verify or refute the knowledge they shared.
Thus, the students can improve ability in learning English, especially writing.
Based on explanation above, the writer can conclude about steps of Brainwriting strategy. The writer chooses steps Brainwriting strategy from Pauline (2007:362), because this strategy explains more details about how to write a paragraph.
Teaching writing by using Brainwriting strategy makes the teacher easier to apply it and can be facilitated by the teacher in writing class, the teacher can be innovative and creative to introduce teaching material for the students. Then, this strategy described about how the teacher to guide the students in detailed and explain step by step how his way to encourage students to be more understand. Thus, the students can be easy to write and they can practice this strategy by themselves. Besides that, this strategy can also helpful for the teacher in teaching writing, because it is very important in writing.
Advantages of Brainwriting Strategy Pauline (2007:362) states that the Brainwriting strategy is a useful strategy for helping students to write a paragraph. Then, Rodrigues in Sejnost (2009:69) explains that there are six advantages of Brainwriting strategy. First, the students can generate a greater number of ideas from each member of group discussion. Second, each member
4 have chance to write some ideas of their mind on a paper, then group discussion will discuss the ideas until get the result. Third, the students have chance to share their opinions about a topic in discussion process.
Four, the students confront the issue or problem through using problem solving in discussion. Then, the groups prioritize ideas democratically. Last, the groups are provided to explain about their product in written report.
Last, Conklin (2012:174) adds that there are four advantages of Brainwriting strategy. First, the students can solve the problem through group discussion. Second, the group is given opportunity to contribute to the discussion and decision. Last, the students can get a sense of priority concerns that are represented by the group’s members.
Based on the expalanation above, the writer conclude that advantages Brainwriting strategy is the students can explore their ideas and share information with the other friends on this discussion in writing class. After that, the students can oppurtunity to write something in group discussion. Last, the students can solve the problem about what are they in group discussion.
Mind Maps Strategy
According to Bennet (1991:286), Mind Maps is a strategy that will help students to identify and visually recode current understandings and summarize key information, clarify relationship or associates between information and ideas and draw conclusions. In addition, Buzan (2004:145) adds that Mind Maps strategy is a strategy for helping students order and structure their thinking through mentally mapping words or/and concepts.
In other hand, Steele (2005:3) states that Mind Maps is a strategy for making notes on a topic, prior writing. Last, Manis (2012:287) support that Mind Maps strategy is designed to provide structural organization for interrelated bodies of content in the minds of learners.
Dealing with explanation above, the writer can conclude that Mind Maps strategy is a strategy which can help the students in choosing the topic. By learning Mind Maps strategy, the students can how to develop their ideas. And then, the students know about how to write well because to learn
Mind Maps strategy. Thus, this strategy will help and easy for students in writing. In discussion process, the students are asked to create some opinions and ideas about the topic. Besides that, the students must share and give information about good ideas that the students want to use in making a paragraph as well.
Procedures of Mind Maps Strategy According to Rog (2011:50) mention that there are some steps of Mind Maps strategy are:
a. Start with a blank piece of paper.
b. In the center of the page, draws a picture or symbol to
represent the main idea, theme, or topic of writing. Label it with a working title.
c. Around outside of the central picture, a draw additional labeled sketches of ideas that might be included with this topic.
d. Feel free to extend lines outward as you think of supporting details related to the main idea.
e. Include as many ideas as you want. You can always sort and sift them later.
f. Use numbers or arrows to put the ideas in the order that you might want to use them in your draft.
g. Remember that time is a tool from writing not a pretty pictures. Thus, the teacher gives instructio to the students in learning writing through step-by-step. It is start from with a blank a piece of paper, write topic and main idea, to develop topic and idea, to make supporting details and list to write ideas and finish to make became paragraph.
Referring experts’ explanation above, the writer choose steps of Rog (2011:
50). This strategy will be used in this paper because this strategy explain how the teacher and students completely in teaching writing.
This strategy explain how the way to choose topic, how the way to develop ideas, and ask the students share ideas to their friend. This
5 strategy to make the students interest and increase knowledge in teaching writing.
Besides, the teacher can apply this strategy easy in the writing class.
Advantages of Mind Maps Strategy According to Silberman(1996:126), there are some advantages ofMind Maps strategy in teaching writing. First, the students can create ideas about their learning. Second, the teacher can be easy to apply this strategy in teaching writing.
Third, the teacher can guide the students in writing. Next, the students can work in- group discussion. Last, the teacher can help the students to write in English.
Next, Velliaris (2009:2) states that there are five advantages of Mind Maps strategy in teaching writing. First, the students can develop their ideas about a text.
Second, the students can use relevant example of the text. Third, the students can use the tone, vocabulary, and sentences structure of in formal conversation in initial writing. Fourth, the students can find information and ideas about the text. Last, the students can understand about what they write about the text.
Furthermore, Rog (2011:50) argues that there are six advantages of Mind Maps strategy. First, the students can generate a greater number of ideas from each member of group discussion. Second, each member has chance to write some ideas of their mind on a paper, then group discussion will discuss the ideas until get the result. Third, the students have chance to share their opinions about a topic in discussion process.
Four, the students confront the issue or problem through using problem solving in discussion. Then, the groups prioritize ideas democratically. Last, the groups are provided to explain about their product in written report.
Dealing with explanation above, the writer conclude that advantages Mind Maps strategy are this strategy can help the students to create their ideas in writing activity. Besides that the students can use relevan example of the text to find information about the text. Finally, the students can explain about their product in written form.
The Combination of Brainwriting andMind Maps Strategy in Teaching Writing Descriptive Text
Writing is one of important skills in teaching learning process. In this section, the writer will write about combination of two strategies, they are mind maps and Brainwriting strategy. Combine from this strategy can help teacher easy in teaching learning process, especially in teach descriptive text. The combination of those strategies are:
1. Teacher explain about descriptive text
2. Teacher ask students work in small groups (Brainwriting) 3. Teacher give a topic to
students (Brainwriting)
4. Each groupprepare with a blank piece of paper (Mind Maps)
5. Each group write topic or ideas in the centre of page with use symbols or picture with give a few minutes (Mind Maps and Brainwriting)
6. Each group can develop their ideas with make sketches related with topic (Mind Maps) 7. Each group may make as many ideas and supporting details as students want (Mind Maps) 8. Each group put their papers in
the middle of table (Brainwriting)
9. Each student read another paper and each group members may develops and add their ideas (Brainwriting)
10. Each group members make a drafting (Brainwriting and Mind Maps)
11. After that, each group develop drafting become a short text.
(Brainwriting and Mind Maps) DISCUSSION
Before the teacher start to teach by using brainwriting and mind maps strategies, the teacher prepare teaching material, lesson plan, time allocation and media.
In pre-teaching activity, the teacher can do some steps, such as greet, check attendance list and brainstorming to the students. In whilst-teaching activity, the teacher applies by using brainwriting and
6 mind maps strategies. In post-teaching activity, the teacher concludes the material.
CONCLUSION
Based on the previous chapters, it can be concluded that writing is one of skill that should be mastered by students. As we know, writing is a process to express ideas, opinion, and feeling into written form. Then, writing is also one of the way to communicate with others person after speaking. In teaching writing, the students must apply the knowledge about language component such as grammar, vocabulary and mechanics. This is useful to make good written in writing class.
In this paper, the write focuses in teaching writing by using combining Brainwriting and Mind Maps strategies.
Brainwriting strategy is to guide the students to collect their ideas. Then, the students can share their opinion. Next, each group can also give addition with other groups into a draft. After that, they can make a good paragraph while teaching and learning process.
Furthermore, Mind Maps strategy is a strategy to help students in writing their ideas into a diagram before they write something. In this strategy, the students get free to collect their ideas based on the topic.
All of ideas should be relate with the topic at that time. In Mind Maps strategy, the students prepare a piece of paper to make a topic in the middle of page. After that, the students can develop their ideas in diagram or sketches form. From this diagram the students can make supporting details to make a good paragraph.
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