TEACHING WRITING BY USING COMBINATION OF RAFT WITH UNSENT LETTERS STRATEGY FOR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
By
Ade Winda Lestari*)
**) Yelliza, M M.Pd Staff Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
Abstrak
Menulis (Writing) merupakan salah satu keterampilan yang penting dalam bahasa inggris yang harus diajarkan oleh guru kepada siswa selain membaca, berbicara dan mendengar. Penulisan makalah ini bertujuan untuk membantu salah satu dari sekian banyak permasalahan yang ada dalam pengajaran bahasa inggris, khususnya dalam menulis di sekolah menengah utama (SMA). Selain itu, makalah ini dimaksudkan bagi guru- guru bahasa inggris dalam mengajar menulis sehingga dapat menjadi daya tarik bagi siswa dalam belajar. Dalam makalah ini, penulis menulis membahas tentang bagaimana mengajarkan writing dengan menggabungkan dua strategy yaitu RAFT dan Unsent Letter. Dalam pengaplikasiannya guru menggunakan strategy secara beriringan.
Dengan menggunakan strategy ini, diharapkan siswa dapat meningkatkan pemahaman mereka dalam menulis.
Hal ini juga diharapkan tercapainya tujuan
Writing is one of important skill that should be mastered by the students besides reading, speaking and also listening.
Writing is a process to express students’
feeling. In writing they can share anything into written form whether they are happy, sad and angry depend on their conditions.
Sometime when the students start to writing they got difficulties on it such as lack vocabulary, hard to find an idea, they do not know how to write into good sentence or paragrap. RAFT and Unsent Letter can solve the students’ problems.
According to Johannah (2011:1-2), writing is not just one thing, writing as a process, an activity, a record and a word
on a page. It means that writing is not only written something on piece of paper but also writing is a process to develop an idea into writing form. People can write an activity, a process and many others..
Based on the explanation above, the writer can conclude that writing is a process. Process to get an idea and then the students can express their ideas or opinion into written form. After that, they could share their writing product to get rewards from their teachers or their friends.
Teaching writing, the teacher does not only teach the students how to express their idea into word, but also teach
the students the process of writing.
According to Nunan (2003), there are four principles for teaching writing. First, understand your students’ reason for writing. Second, Provide many opportunities for students to write. Third, Make feedback helpful and meaningful.
Last, Clarify yourself and your students, how their writing will be evaluate. It means that, the principles of writing must introduce to the students to teaching writing by giving a reason for writing, provide many opportunities, make feedback helpful and meaningful, then clarify yourself and your students how to evaluate their writing.
In conclusion, teaching writing is not focused on the product of writing but also the process of product resulted. It means that writing is not about the product only but a process in writing is the most important than a product, to produce a good product it has to know about the process.
In writing process, the students need some ways that can help the students to develop their ideas into writing and the teacher have to teach the students about writing process. According to Housel (2008:4), the processes of writing in the middle school are: Prewriting, Writing, Revising, Editing, Publishing.
From explanation above, it can be concluded that principle of writing process are: prewriting, planning, drafting, revise, final writing and evaluate to teach the students about writing process the teacher may use the interesting media to support students’ understanding. The most
important in writing process is to make the students enjoy when they are write their piece.
In learning writing, students are excpected to write something. The teacher should use a strategy that help their students easy to develop their ideas in writing activities, and produce it into good sentences.
To help students in improving their ideas, the teacher asks the students to make their own frame work before they start to writing. It can make student easy to share their ideas by using sharing ideas with their friends in that group. That is including the strategy that must be used for the teacher. One of these strategies is RAFT strategy is based on the students work. Begin by telling the students that they are going to write about the topic that they have studied. According to Urquhart (2005:96), RAFT is a strategy that helps the students to make determination while they are drafting. Knowing who the audience will be and the purpose for the writing influences how the students processed with their work. It means that the students should write based on the draft that they have write and it would help the student to write well after they writing a draft.
In summary, RAFT is a strategy that use by the students before writing.
The students have to use RAFT while they are drafting and after that they start to write based on the draft they made. This strategy is useful for the students in writing because there will be no jumping
idea and all of the ideas have been arranged in a draft.
There are some procedures of RAFT from Urquhart (2005:96-97) the procedures of RAFT are:
a. Brainstorming possible role students could assume in their writing and discus how it role will impact their draft.
b. Decide who the audience will be and determine how the audience will influence the draft.
c. Determine the format most appropriate for the audience and discus why the format is appropriate.
d. Have students share their draft with peers to determine the fit of the RAFT.
Based on the explanation above the writer will apply the RAFT strategy proved by Urquhart (2005:96-97). First step, brainstorm possible roles students could assume in their writing and discuss how to each role will impact their draft.
Second step, decide who the audience will be and determine how the audience will influence the draft. Third step, determine the format most appropriate for the audience and discuss why the format is appropriate. Last step, have the students share their draft with peers to determine the fit of the draft.
Based on the explanation from the expert, there are some advantages that students can get from RAFT strategies.
RAFT is easy to explain to the student it mean that this strategy easy to except and
understand by the students and also RAFT is an adaptable strategy for the students.
The combining strategyy is Unsent Letter. Unsent letters strategy is like free writing, students can write everything based on their imagination about something. According to Richard and Joanne (1999:285) unsent letters is a strategy to establish a role-play situation in which students are asked to write a letter in a respond to issue, and requires the students to use their imagination and engage in interpretative and evaluative thinking. It means that teacher set a role- play that asks students to write a letter based on their imagination and often demands the students engage in interpretative and evaluative thinking.
In summary, unsent letter is a strategy that helps students in writing.
This strategy allowed the students to direct the information they are learning to viewing it from particular perspective, plus allowing them to articulate those thought. So unsent letters strategy is good to improve students’ writing skill.
There are some procedure by the expert, they are: Richard and Joanne (2009:285) states that procedure of unsent letters strategy in writing activity.
Students enter a role play situation in which they respond to the material by studied in the lesson by writing letters.
The students have to use their imagination and often require students to engage in interpretative and evaluative thinking. The letters may be written to a historical figure, a famous person or someone in the students’ life. The letters should reflect the
students understanding of the material being studied.
Based on the explanation above, the writer will apply the unsent letter strategy proved by Richard and Joanne (2009). For the first students enter a role play situation, tell students that they will write a letter and students have to use their imagination on written a letter, then the letter may be written to a historical figure or famous person and last the letter should reflect their understanding about the material.
Teaching procedures of Combining Strategies
In this chapter, it will be discussed about the implementation of teaching writing by combining RAFT and Unsent Letters. The writer choose the procedure of RAFT by Uquhart and Mclver and Unsent Letter by Richard and Joanne. RAFT (Role, Audience, Format and Topic) is a strategy that can help the students to write a letter easily.
RAFT and Unsent Letters strategy can be used in whilst activity.
These strategies are mixed in applying them. There procedure of combining the strategies are: The first step, students enter a role-play situation. Second, step the students decide the audience will be determine and how the audience will influence their letter. Third step, the teacher asks the students to used letter as a format that suitable for the audience then they write appropriate topic for the letter.
Fourth step, the students share their draft with peer to determine the fit of draft.
Fifth step, teachers explain to the students
that they have write is a RAFT then. Sixth step, the teacher asks the students to write a letter based on the RAFT that they have write. Seventh step, the teacher asks the students to use their imagination and often require students to engage in interpretative and evaluative thinking and share it on a letter. Eight step, the letter may be written for historical figure and famous person or current event. Ninth step, the letter should reflect their understanding of the material being studied.
The teacher should following this step: procedures of RAFT combine with Unsent Letters strategy. In teaching writing process the implementation of RAFT that combine with Unsent Letters Strategy start from pre-teaching, whilst teaching and post teaching.
Preparation
Preparation is very important for the teacher in teaching writing process.
Before teaching writing process begins, the teacher has to prepare everything to make teaching writing process success.
There are some preparations that should be done by the teachers:
1. Prepare the Lesson Plan
2. Choosing a Topic or Writing Material
3. Time Allocation 4. Media
Implementation
Pre- teaching activity that should be done in the beginning of the class used to explore students’ background knowledge and build up their confidence.
Pre-teaching consists of several functions.
It can give new information, to take
students attention and also to increase their concentration. So, pre-teaching is important for the teacher to begins the class. There are some activities are described as follows:
a. Teacher greets the students and asks to pray
b. Teacher checks the attendance list
c. Giving Brainstorming
Before start to study, the teacher has to give brainstorming to the students.
It can help the students easily understand the material to be discussed. The teacher will show the pictures to the students as brainstorming and giving some questions.
1) Do you know who are in the pictures?
2) Tell your background knowledge about these pictures?
3) What did you know about their contribution for the people
d. Teacher tell the students about material that will be discuss Whilst activity should be done by the teacher to explain the topic and material that will be discussed. There are some steps in whilst teaching, they are:
a. Exploration
1. The teacher sets role-play situation to build the students interesting in teaching writing process. Role the students could assume their writing and discuss each role will impact their letter.
2. Then, the teacher asks the students to decide the audience
will be determined and how the audience will influence the letter.
3. Teacher asks the students to use letter as a format that appropriate for audience and also choose an appropriate topic for a letter.
4. The teacher asks the students to share their RAFT with their peer to determine the fit of RAFT.
5. After these activities, the teacher explains to the students what they have written.
6. The teacher give the students the example of RAFT
7. Next, the teacher asks the students to use their imagination and often require students in interpretative and evaluative thinking and share it on a letter.”
8. The teacher reminds the students to write a letter based on the RAFT and it should reflect their understanding of the material being studied.
9. The teacher gives the student copy sheet for their task.
10. The teacher asks the students to write their RAFT on the copy sheet and start to write a letter.
11. The teacher sets time for writing a letter. Its only take 10 minutes to finished the task.
12. After finished their task, the teacher asks the students change their letter with their peers.
13. While discuss it, the teacher ask the students to check their friends’ RAFT then come to the letter is there connecting between RAFT and Letter.
b. Elaboration
1. The teacher gives questions to the students related to the activity before.
c. Confirmation
This activity that has been done by the teacher to explain the lesson that they learned and give feed back to the students. Then, the teacher and the students will discuss students’ writing together.
a. The teacher collect students’
writing
b. The teacher discuss about students’ grammatical error that almost the students’ did
c. The teacher looks at the students RAFT then check is there connecting with a letter.
d. The teacher asks the students to conclude the material
e. The teacher gives reward to students
Post Teaching
a. The teacher asks the students about the material that has been discussed.
b. The teacher gives the students homework related to the material today.
c. The teacher gives the topic to the students.
b. After that, the teacher closes the teaching learning process.
REFFERENCES
Brown, Kristine and Susan Hood. 2003. Writing Matters. Writing skills and strategies for
students of English. Cambridge University.
The Edinburgh Building. United kingdom.
Browne, Ann. 1999. Teaching Writing at Key Stage 1 and Before. P.3. Stanley Thornes Ltd. Wellington Street.
Brunner, Judy Tilton. 2011. P.95. I Don’t Get It!
Helping Students Understand What They Read. Rowman & Littlefield Publisher.Inc.
Estover Road. United Kingdom.
Buehl, Dong.2013. Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning. International Reading Association, Inc. ISBN.
Caswell, Rodger and Brenda Mahler. 2004.
Strategies for Teaching Writing. ASCD.
North Frearegard Street, Alexandria, Virginia.
Housel, J Debra. 2008. Reading & Writing Lesson Using Graphic Organizer. Grade 7-8.
Teacher Created Resources, Inc. USA.
Isaacs, Judith Ann and Janine S. Brodine. 1994. P.
41. Journal in the Classroom. A Complete Guide for the Elementry Teacher. Piguis Publisher Ltd.
Kartehner, Sarah Clark.2007.Wrting Strategies for Science. Huntington Beach. ISBN.
Nickelsen, LeAnn. 2003. Comprehensive Activities Reading in Social Studies and Science.
Scholastic, Inc. ISBN. 555 Brodway , New York.
Nunan, David. 2003. Practical English Language Teaching. 1st Edition. McGraw-Hill Companies.Inc. New York.
Oshima, Alice and Ann Hogue. 1999. Writing Academic English. Third Edition.
Longman. Bank street. New York.
Pasquerelli, Susan Lee. 2006. Teaching Writing Genres Across the Curriculum. Strategies for Middle School Teachers. P.2.
Information Publishinh Inc.
Richards, Jack C. 2007. Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. P.18.
Cambridge University Press.
Richard and Joanne.2009. Exploring African Life and Literature. International Reading Association.
Rodgers, Johannah. 2011. What Is Writing. ISBN.
Urquhart, Vicki and Monette
Mclver.2005.Teaching Writing in the Contents Areas. Parker Road, Suite 500.
ASCD.
Wiesel, Elie. 2005. Unsent Letters Writing Strategy. Pdf
