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THESIS

IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ ABILTY IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE

TEXTS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE WRITING TECHNIQUE

(A Classroom Action Research at Grade VIII A Students of SMP Negeri 1 Pelaihari, Tanah Laut Regency, South Kalimantan Province in

the Academic Year of 2010/2011)

By:

S U P I A N I NIM. S 890809027

Submitted to Graduate School Sebelas Maret University As a Partial Fulfillment for Getting the Graduate Degree in

English Education

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT GRADUATE SCHOOL

SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY SURAKARTA

2011


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ABSTRACT

Supiani. 2011. S. 890809027. Improving the Students’ Ability in Writing Descriptive Texts through Collaborative Writing Technique (A Classroom Action Research at Grade VIII A Students of SMP Negeri 1 Pelaihari, Tanah Laut Regency, South Kalimantan Province in the Academic Year of 2010/2011). Thesis: English Education of Graduate Program. Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta. Consultants: (I) Dr. Abdul Asib, M.Pd, (II) Dr. Ngadiso, M.Pd.

The main objectives of the research are (1) to improve the ability in writing descriptive texts of the grade VIII A students of SMPN 1 Pelaihari through collaborative writing technique; and (2) to know the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of collaborative writing technique in improving students’ writing ability of descriptive texts in the grade VIII A students of SMPN 1 Pelaihari.

The classroom action research was employed in this research. The subject of the research is 28 of grade VIII A students of the SMP Negeri 1 Pelaihari in the Academic Year of 2010/2011. This action research was conducted in two cycles. Each consisted of planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting the action. In collecting the data, the researcher used quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data were taken from the writing tests scored by two scorers. The writing test was scored based on content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The quantitative analysis that was used to analyze the students’ achievement before and after the cycle was implemented by using descriptive statistics, finding out the mean of the scores in the test and the improvement of the scores. Meanwhile, the qualitative data were taken from the questionnaire, interview, and observation which were done before and after the treatment. Those were analyzed by using Constant Comparative Method proposed by Strauss and Glasser consisting of the following steps: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category; (2) integrating categories and their properties; (3) delimiting the theory; and (4) writing the theory.

The research findings are described in line with the problem statements as follows: first, by using collaborative writing technique the students’ ability in writing descriptive texts improves. This is proved by the significant increase of the mean score of the post-test cycle 1 and post-test cycle 2. Besides, they can also follow the writing process well which covers six steps in their activities namely idea generating/pre-writing, drafting, reading, editing, copying, and evaluating. Those steps help the students to produce their writing to be better. Second by implementing collaborative writing technique in teaching writing, the students’ behavior in learning writing changes and improves their motivation as well. Moreover, they are actively involved in pair work and the class situation becomes lively and also increases the students’ participation in writing class. In the teaching and learning process the students have interest and self-awareness in writing.

Third, based on the results of the research there are the strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are: (1) CWT can improve the students’ writing ability


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because they do in pair with his/her partner and every step of writing helps them to write better; (2) the students have become more motivated to study English; (3) the students have higher self-confidence and felt happy because the students were also actively involved in working in a pair; and (4) it builds the teacher or the collaborator’s awareness that there are many varied ways which can be used in teaching learning English. Besides, the weaknesses are: (1) the students have to spend a long time to complete every step of writing process in the classroom; (2) the condition of the class is noisy; and (3) sometimes the pair has different opinions or arguments in developing paragraphs so it can make a difficult working situation or poor finished product.

Based on the results of the research, it can be concluded that the use of the collaborative writing technique improves the students’ writing ability. Therefore, it is recommended that teachers apply collaborative writing technique in teaching writing. Keyword: Collaborative writing technique, descriptive texts, writing ability


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ABSTRAK

Supiani. 2011. S.890809027. Meningkatkan Kemampuan Siswa dalam

Menulis Teks Deskriptif melalui Teknik Menulis Kollaboratif (Sebuah Penelitian Tindakan Kelas yang Dilaksanakan pada Siswa Kelas VIII A SMP Negeri 1 Pelaihari, Kabupaten Tanah Laut, Provinsi Kalimantan Selatan di Tahun Pelajaran 2010/2011). Tesis: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Program Pascasarjana Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta. Pembimbing: (1) Dr. Abdul Asib, M.Pd, (II) Dr. Ngadiso, M.Pd.

Tujuan utama dari penelitian ini adalah (1) untuk meningkatkan

kemampuan menulis siswa dalam teks diskriptif di kelas VIII A SMP Negeri 1 Pelaihari melalui Teknik Menulis Kollaboratif; dan (2) untuk mengetahui kelebihan dan kelemahan pada implementasi dari teknik menulis kollaboratif dalam meningkatkan kemampuan menulis siswa dalam teks diskriptif di kelas VIII A SMP Negeri1 Pelaihari. Penelitian tindakan kelas diterapkan di penelitian ini. Subjek penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas VIII A yang berjumlah 28 siswa di SMP Negeri 1 Pelaihari tahun pelajaran 2010/2011. Peneltian tindakan kelas ini dilaksanakan dalam dua siklus yang terdiri dari perencanaan, pengimplementasian, pengamatan, dan refleksi tindakan. Dalam mngumpulkan data, peneliti menggunakan data kuantitatif dan data kualitatif. Kuatitatif data diperoleh dari tes menulis yang dinilai oleh dua penilai. Tes menulis dinilai berdasarkan pada isi, organisasi, kosakata, struktur kalimat, dan penulisannya (pengejaan dan tanda baca). Data analisa kuantitatif digunakan untuk menganalisa pencapaian siswa sebelum dan sesudah siklus yang diimplentasikan melalui statistik deskriptif, menemukan nilai rata-rata atau nilai mean di tes dan peningkatan pada setiap nilai-nilainya. Sementara itu, data kualitatif diperoleh dari kuesioner, interview, dan observasi yang dilakukan sebelum dan setelah perlakuan. Kemudian dianalisa dengan menggunakan Metode Komparatif Konstan yang ditulis oleh Strauss dan Glasser terdiri dari: (1) membandingkan kejadian yang dapat diterapkan pada tiap kategori; (2) memadukan kategori dan cirri-cirinya; (3) membatasi lingkup teori; dan (4) menulis teori.

Penemuan penelitian dideskripsikan sejalan dengan pernyataan masalah yaitu sebagai berikut: pertama, dengan menggunakan teknik menulis kolaboratif kemampuan siswa dalam menulis meningkat. Peningkatan tersebut dikarenakan mereka dapat mengikuti proses penulisan dengan baik yang meliputi enam langkah yaitu memunculkan ide/pra-menulis, mendraf, membaca, mengedit, mengkopi, dan mengevaluasi. Langkah tersebut membantu siswa untuk menghasilkan penulisan yang lebih baik. Disisi lain, teknik menulis kollaboratif memberikan banyak peningkatan bagi kemampuan siswa dalam menulis teks deskriptif. Ini dibuktikan dengan peningkatan secara siknifikan yang telihat dari hasil nilai rata-rata atau nilai mean siswa di siklus post tes 1 dan siklus post tes 2. Kedua, pengimplementasian teknik menulis kollaboratif dalam pengajaran menulis, sikap siswa pada pelajaran menulis berubah baik dan meningkatkan motivasi mereka juga. Demikan juga, mereka lebih aktif terlibat dalam kerja berpasangan dan situasi kelas menjadi hidup serta partispasi siswa meningkat di


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kelas menulis. Di proses belajar mengajarnya siswa tampak memiliki minat dan kesadaran diri dalam menulis.

Ketiga, berdasarkan hasil penelitian ini ada kelebihan dan kelemahan teknik menulis kollaboratif. Kelebihanny: (1) teknik menulis kollaboratif dapat meningkatkan kemampuan siswa menulis karena mereka melakukannya secara berpasangan dengan teman sebangku dan setiap langkah penulisan membantu mereka untuk menulis lebih baik; (2) siswa telah termotivasi untuk belajar bahasa Inggris; (3) siswa memiliki percaya diri yang tinggi dan merasa senang karena mereka juga aktif terlibat dalam menulis berpasangan; dan (4) ini membangun kesadaran guru bahwa cara-cara yang bervariasi dapat digunakan dalam belajar mengajar bahasa Inggris. Disisi lain, kelemahannya yaitu: (1) siswa menghabiskan waktu lama untuk menyelesaikan setiap langkah proses penulisan di kelas; (2) kondisi kelas lebih ramai; dan (3) kadang-kadang salah satu pasangan memiliki pendapat atau argument yang berbeda dalam mengembangkan paragraph sehingga membuat situasi kerja lebih sulit dan produk penulisan jadi tidak baik. Berdasarkan pada hasil penelitian dapat disimpulkan bahwa penggunaan teknik menulis kollaboratif dapat meningkatkan kemampuan siswa menulis. Oleh karena itu, ini dapat direkomendasikan bahwa para guru dapat menerapkan teknik menulis kollaboratif di dalam pengajaran menulis.

Kata Kunci: Teknik Menulis Kollaboratif, Teks Deskriptif, Kemampuan Menulis.


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TABLE OF CONTENT

COVER ............................................................................................................ i

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... ii

TABLE OF CONTENT .................................................................................. vi

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... x

LIST OF FIGURE ............................................................................................ xii

LIST OF APPENDICES .................................................................................. xiii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1

A. Background of the Research .............................................. 1

B. Problem Statement ............................................................. 7

C. Objectives of the Research ................................................. 8

D. Benefits of the Research .................................................... 8

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERARURE ............................... 10

A. The Nature of Writing ........................................................ 10

1. The Definition of Writing ................................................. 10

a. Micro and Macro Skills in Writing .............................. 11

b. Teaching Writing ......................................................... 13

1) The Meaning of Teaching Writing ......................... 13

2) Material in Teaching Writing ................................. 14

3) Writing Assessment ............................................... 14

B. Concept of Collaborative Writing Technique .................... 19

1. The Nature of Collaborative Writing Technique ........... 19

2. The Implementation of Collaborative Writing Technique. 21

3. The Strengths and Weaknesses of Collaborative

Writing Technique ....................................................... 25

C. Descriptive Writing ............................................................ 26

D. Rationale ........................................................................... 29

E. Hypothesis .......................................................................... 31


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CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY............................................ 32

A. The Setting and Time of the Research ................................. 32

B. Research Method ................................................................. 33

C. Subject of the Research ....................................................... 37

D. Technique of Collecting Data .............................................. 38

E. Technique of Analyzing Data .............................................. 39

CHAPATER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................... 42

A. Introduction ......................................................................... 42

B. Cycle 1 ................................................................................. 46

1. Planning the Action ......................................................... 46

2. Implementing the Action ................................................ 47

a. The first meeting ....................................................... 47

b. The second meeting .................................................. 50

c. The third meeting ...................................................... 54

d. The fourth meeting .................................................... 58

3. Observing ........................................................................ 59

a. The teaching and learning process ............................ 59

b. The students’ learning progress ................................ 60

4. Reflecting the Action ...................................................... 65

a. The result of implementation of CWT in cycle 1 ..... 65

1) The improvement of the students’ writing ability 66

2) The improvement of class situation .................... 68

3) The improvement of the students’ behavior

and motivation ..................................................... 68

4) The improvement of the students’ interest and

self-awareness ..................................................... 69

b. The strengths and weaknesses of CWT in cycle 1 .... 69

c. Revised plan .............................................................. 71

C. Cycle 2 ................................................................................. 72


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1. Planning the Action ......................................................... 72

2. Implementing the Action ................................................ 73

a. The first meeting ....................................................... 74

b. The second meeting .................................................. 76

c. The third meeting ...................................................... 80

d. The fourth meeting .................................................... 83

3. Observing ........................................................................ 84

a. The teaching learning process ................................... 84

b. The teaching learning progress ................................. 86

4. Reflecting the Action ...................................................... 90

a. The result of implementation of CWT ...................... 90

1) The improvement of the students’ writing ability . 91

2) The improvement of the class condition ............... 93

3) The improvement of the students’ behavior

and motivation ....................................................... 94

4) The improvement of the students’ interest and

self-awareness ........................................................ 95

b. The strengths and weaknesses in cycle 2 .................. 95

D. Discussion .......................................................................... 99

1. The improvement of the students’ writing ability .......... 99

2. The improvement of the students’ behavior .................. 103

3. The improvement of the students’ motivation ............... 104

4. The improvement of the class situation ......................... 105

5. The strengths and weaknesses of CWT ......................... 106

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION ....... 107

A. Conclusion ........................................................................... 107

B. Implication ........................................................................... 111

C. Suggestion ........................................................................... 112

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 114

APPENDICES ......................................................................................... 118


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LIST OF TABLES

Tables

1.1. The Average Score of Each Aspect of Writing ........................................ 4

2.1 Scoring Rubric for Aspects of Writing .................................................... 18

3.1. Time Schedule of the Research .................................................... 33

4.1. The Average Score of Each Aspect of Writing ........................................ 44

4.2. The Students’ Post-test Average Score of Cycle 1 from the First Scorer 62

4.3. The Students’ Post-test Average Scores Based on the Writing Aspects of

Cycle 1 from the First Scorer .................................................................... 63

4.4. The Students’ Post-Test Average Scores of Cycle 1 from

the Second Scorer...................................................................................... 63

4.5. The Students’ Post-Test Scores Based on the Writing Aspects of

Cycle 1 from the Second Scorer ............................................................... 63

4.6. The Students’ Post-Test Average Scores of Cycle 1 from

the Two Scorers ........................................................................................ 64

4.7. The Students’ Post-Test Scores Based on the Writing Aspects of Cycle 1

from Two Scorers ..................................................................................... 64

4.8. The Result of the Statistical Account of Points Score in Cycle 1 ............ 67

4.9. The Result of Statistical Account of Aspects of Writing from

Pre-Test to Post-Test in Cycle 1 ............................................................... 68

4.10. The Students’ Post-Test Average Score of Cycle 2 from the First Scorer 88

4.11. The Students’ Post-Test Average Score Based on the Writing Aspects of

Cycle 2 from the First Scorer ................................................................. 89

4.12. The Students’ Post-Test Average Score of Cycle 2

from the Second Scorer .......................................................................... 89

4.13. The Students’ Post-Test Average Scorers Based on the Writing Aspects

of cycle 2 from the Second Scorer .......................................................... 89

4.14. The Students’ Post-Test Average Scores of Cycle 2 from Two Scorers 90


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4.15. The Students’ Post-Test Average Scores Based on the Writing Aspects

of cycle 2 ................................................................................................ 90

4.16. The Result of the Statistical Account of Points Score in Cycle 2 .......... 92

4.17. The Summary of the Result of the Pre-Test, Post-Test of Cycle 1 and 2 93

4.18. The Summary of the Result of the Class Action Research ..................... 97


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LISTS OF FIGURE

Figure

3.1 The Model of Classroom Action Research ............................................... 36


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LISTS OF APPENDICES

Appendix

1. The Questionnaire in the Preliminary Research......................................... 118

2. Results of the Questionnaire in the Preliminary Research ......................... 120

3. Pre-Interview for the Teacher before Research and Pre-Test 122-123

4. Transkrip Hasil Wawancara Dengan Guru Sebelum Treatment ................ 124

5. Pedoman Wawancara Dengan Siswa ......................................................... 127

6. Transkrip Hasil Wawancara Dengan Siswa Sebelum Treatment .............. 128

7. Lesson Plan for Cycle 1 ............................................................................. 134

8. Worksheet of Cycle 1 Meeting 1 ............................................................... 141



11. The Post-Test of the Research in Cycle 1 .................................................. 146

12. Self-Assessment Checklist for the Post-Test in Cycle 1 ............................ 148

13. Lesson Plan for Cycle 2 ............................................................................. 149




17. The Post-Test of the Research in Cycle 2 .................................................. 169

18. Self-Assessment Checklist for the Post-Test in Cycle 2 ............................ 171

19. Analytic Scoring Rubric for Writing Product ............................................ 172

20. The Questionnaire after the Implementation of CWT ............................... 174

21. Results of the Questionnaire after the Implementation of CWT ................ 177

22. Pedoman Wawancara Dengan Siswa Setelah Treatment ........................... 180

23. Panduan Wawancara Dengan Guru Setelah Treatment ............................. 182

24. Transkrip Wawancara Dengan Guru Setelah Treatment ........................... 184

25. Transkrip Wawancara Dengan Siswa Setelah Treatment .......................... 187

26. Sample Observation of Field Note ............................................................. 196

27. Sample of Students Writing on Pre-Test .................................................... 198


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28. Sample of Students Writing on the Cycle 1 Post-Test ............................... 201

29. Sample of Students Writing on the Cycle 2 Post-Test ............................... 204

30. The Students’ Score of Pre-Test ................................................................ 207

31. The Teacher’s Scoring for Pre-Test ........................................................... 208

32. The Collaborator’s Scoring for Pre-Test .................................................... 209

33. The Students’ Score of Post-Test in Cycle 1 ............................................. 210

34. The Teacher’s Scoring for Post-Test in Cycle 1 ........................................ 211

35. The Collaborator’s Scoring for Post-Test in Cycle 1 ................................. 212

36. The Students’ Score of Post-Test in Cycle 2 ............................................. 213

37. The Teacher’s Scoring for Post-Test in Cycle 2 ........................................ 214

38. The Collaborator’s Scoring for Post-Test in Cycle 2 ................................. 215

39. Pictures of Teaching and Learning Process ............................................... 216


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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

Writing is one of the four skills- listening, speaking, reading, and writing-

that plays an important role in a daily international communication. It is estimated

that 75% of all international communication is in writing, 80% of all international

information is the world’s computers, and 90% of internet contents are in English

(Schutz, 2005: 1). This can be seen in the development of email, facsimile, short

message service (SMS) via a mobile phone as increasingly popular forms of

communication. Most developed and developing countries use them as a medium

for transferring information and technology from one to another. Moreover, there

are many books, magazines, and newspaper written in English. Since English has

great importance in daily interpersonal communication, Indonesia, as a developing

country, does not have much choice other than to teach students to be able to write

in English. The mastery of writing is used for preparing students to acquire

knowledge and technology in the globalization era.

It is stated in the 2006 School Based Curriculum (KTSP) that writing is

one of the language skills that must be taught at Junior High Schools. The

teaching of writing is aimed at enabling students to master the functional texts and

monologue texts or paragraphs in the form of descriptive, narrative, recount,

procedure, and report (Depdiknas, 2006). The work of writing is presented in the


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form of text types, usually known as genres, which are closely related to the

purpose of each type. For especially the eighth grade, it is limited on descriptive,

recount, and narrative. In writing descriptive text, the eight grade students are

expected to be able to write a simple descriptive text correctly. They should be

able to make sentences in the form of present tense and develop main idea into

short descriptive text.

In the teaching and learning process, Ur (1996: 162) states that writing can

be used as a means, as an end, and as means to an end. As a means, writing is

widely used in foreign language courses as a tool for involving aspects of

language other than writing itself. The objective of writing itself is used as a

means of getting students to attend and to practice a specific language point or

more frequently as a method of testing it. As an end, the writing itself is the main

objective of the activities. At the micro-level, the students practice specific written

forms at the level of word or sentence. At macro-level, they practice writing by

focusing on content and organization. In this category, the writing tasks invite

learners to express themselves using their own words, state a purpose for writing,

and specify an audience. As both a means and an end, the students combine the

original writing with the learning or practice of some other skills. In this case,

writing is integrated with other skills such as listening, speaking, and reading.

This view is supported by Harmer (2004: 33), who points out that writing is also

frequently useful to help students perform different kinds of activities in listening,

speaking, and reading. The teacher can use writing such as a free-writing related

to the topic in pre-speaking. The teacher can also use writing related to activities


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such as a dictation in listening and a composition in post-reading. Harmer (2004:

126) further states that writing can also be used as an integral part of a larger

activity where the focus is on something else such as language practice, acting

out, and speaking. The teacher often asks students to write short dialogues which

they will then act out.

Even though writing is an important skill, most English foreign language

students are not interested in writing and the performance on writing is

unsatisfactory (Mukminatien, 1991: 130). The students regard that writing is the

most difficult language skill to master (Richard and Renandya, 2002: 303;

Widodo, 2007: 116). The difficulty in writing also happens among Indonesian

students, especially at a Junior High School.

There are many reasons why writing is regarded difficult. According to

Simpson (1998: 34), the difficulty is due to the fact that a writer needs to have

enough language and general intellectual skills to generate and organize ideas and

put those ideas into coherent, logically ordered, intelligible sentences, paragraphs

and essays. Besides, Richard and Renandya (2002: 303) state that the difficulty

lies on how to generate and organize ideas using an appropriate choice of

vocabulary, sentence and paragraph organization, and translate these ideas into a

readable text.

Related to the difficulty in writing, the students of grade VIII A of SMPN

1 Pelaihari have similar problems. Based on the preliminary research of the

students of grade VIII A of SMPN 1 Pelaihari, the researcher finds the results of


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the pre-test were unsatisfactory. This distribution score of each aspect of writing

can be seen in the table below:

Table 1.1 The Average Score of Each Aspect of Writing

No Writing Aspects Average Score 1 Content 61.43 2 Organization 57.86 3 Vocabulary 54.64 4 Grammar 43.21 5 Mechanics 49.64

Average score of writing aspects 53.36

The result showed that the students had low ability in writing. The low

ability in writing a descriptive text could be seen from the low achievement of

writing test. The mean of writing scores in preliminary test was low, namely

53.36. It is still far from the minimum requirement criterion or Kriteria

Ketuntasan Minimal (KKM). For English writing score is set up by the teacher is

64. The consideration of score 64 is based on the minimum standard of writing

success as stated in the minimum requirement criterion or Kriteria Ketuntasan

Minimal (KKM) at the school. The unsatisfactory students’ achievement in writing

is a definite indicator of the problems.

In line with the statement above, the researcher also conducted

questionnaire and gave interview to the students in order to find out the students

perception toward writing ability. From the results of the questionnaire

instruments, the researcher found the students’ difficulties in writing. They stated

that they sometimes got difficulty in expressing the ideas into their writing 67.86

% and they always got difficulty in organizing them to become good paragraphs


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64.28%. They often got difficulty in choosing and using appropriate words or

vocabulary 46.42 %. So they did not know the meaning of words, it makes them

difficult to explore their ideas. Moreover, their sentences were influenced by their

mother tongue. They always got a difficulty in grammar to make sentences into

paragraph 57.14 %. And the last, they always had a difficulty in determining

mechanics (punctuation and spelling) 42.86 %. Therefore, it could be concluded

that writing is regarded difficult.

In addition, the writing class before the research was also described in

several conditions. The students’ attitude and motivation toward writing was still

low. It appeared that the students were not active and enthusiastic to ask questions

about writing to the teacher. They were shy and afraid to present their writings in

front of the class. It means that they did not want their writings being read or

known by other friends at the class. As said by their teacher in interview that:

“Tampaknya kalau writing mereka kurang antusias ketimbang speaking. Mereka tidak aktif dan malas untuk bertanya. Kalau kelas writing juga ramai dikelas. Tekadang mereka malu dan takut kalau disuruh untuk menulis beberapa kalimat dipapan tulis.”

Then, the students did not pay attention to the teacher’s explanation; they looked

bored or sometimes made noise. When the teacher was explaining, the students

tended to do their own activities. And the last, they needed a long time to write a

composition.

The causes of the problems above were: (1) the teacher did not give

adequate time, models, and practices for the students to write because the teacher

thought that for revising the students’ compositions needed a long time while the

other skills might be discussed not only for writing but also the others as well.


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(2) Writing got less attention from the teacher. This was because the teacher

tended to underestimate writing rather than reading. She argued that writing was

less important to help the students in National Examination (UN) which was

usually dominated by reading items. (3) There were no creative or varied

techniques used by the teacher in exploring the students’ ability in writing. The

techniques used were monotonous. Monotonous writing activity caused the

students’ motivation in writing to be low and not interested in learning English

especially writing. It was seen in the interview with the teacher who said that:

“Ya, tidak ada yang special lah. Yang saya lakukan hanya dengan cara memberi pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang mana jawaban-jawaban mereka kemudian dirangkai sendiri oleh mereka menjadi paragraph. Dan lagian menurut saya, writing belum begitu penting bagi mereka, yang lebih penting itu saya pikir adalah reading karena kita dituntut untuk bisa meluluskan siswa di UN yang soal-soalnya lebih dominan teks bacaan.”

As the result, the students did not have any strategies about how to find ideas or

explore them. Consequently, the students could not revise their drafts because

they thought that it was a final writing. In fact, the students’ drafts still had

numerous errors.

Referring to the case above, the researcher takes one of techniques for

solving the problem of writing that is collaborative writing technique. According

to Alwasilah (2004: 108) collaborative writing is the ways in which students work

in a community of readers and writers and negotiate meaning and symbols used in

the text. Students are required to jointly discuss a topic, plan an outline, and

contribute elements of the text (paragraphs, sentences, phrases, words) in a

collaborative writing. By working in groups, students enjoy more opportunity to

see how their peers think and create new ideas. Moreover, discussion in group can


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provide less anxiety- producing context in which learners are likely to feel free to

try out new ideas. Harmer (2002: 261) adds that generation of ideas is lively with

two or more students involved than it is when the writers work on their own. In

addition, Lyons and Heasley (1987: 2) state that collaborative writing provides a

co-operative relationship between writer and reader and makes the writing task

more realistic and interactive.

In this research, the researcher will apply the collaborative writing

technique at the grade VIII A students of SMPN 1 Pelaihari to improve the

students’ ability in writing a descriptive text. Hopefully, this technique can give a

positive impact on students’ behavior and motivation in studying English as well

as in developing their writing skill. In addition, the process of collaborative

writing can encourage students to write a descriptive text in which they may

initially be afraid to make errors. Furthermore, this technique can also be set to

increase the students’ self-confidence in writing.

B. Problem Statement

Based on the description of the background above, the problems are:

1. Can collaborative writing technique improve the students’ ability in writing

descriptive texts?

2. What are the strengths and weaknesses when collaborative writing technique

is applied to teach writing?


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C. Objectives of the Research

Based on the problems above, this research is directed to:

1. Improve the ability in writing descriptive texts of the grade VIII A students of

SMPN 1 Pelaihari through collaborative writing technique.

2. Know the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of collaborative

writing technique in improving students’ writing ability of descriptive texts in

the grade VIII A students of SMPN 1 Pelaihari.

D. Benefits of the Research

The result of the study can give some benefits as follows:

1. For the English teachers

This research can provide contribution for the English teachers to apply

another technique dealing with the teaching learning process especially in

teaching writing. And it will help English teachers not to use monotonous

technique in teaching and learning process.

2. For students

The result of the research will help them to write better. By implementing

collaborative writing technique, the students are able to write according the

steps suggested. As a result, their writing will be much better. It means that

this technique will improve the students’ writing ability, especially in writing

a descriptive text.


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3. For the researcher

This research gives the researcher understanding toward the implementation of

collaborative writing technique in teaching writing directly. By implementing

collaborative writing technique to improve students’ writing ability in a

descriptive text especially, it will provide useful practical experience for the

researcher himself.

4. For the other researchers

The other researchers can develop the research based on the result and use it

as one of references to study about writing skill in the next research and its

implementation in their research.


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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUE

A. The Nature of Writing

1. Definition of Writing

Writing is a complex process consisting of many constituent parts which

have to be considered. According to White and Arndt (1997: 1) the writers are

able to express ideas and feelings to persuade and convince other people. Heaton

(1975: 127) states that in writing the writers manipulate words in grammatically

correct sentences and link those sentences to form a piece of writing which

successfully communicates the writers’ thoughts and ideas on a certain topic. In

other words, the writers try to express their ideas in written form using

grammatically correct sentences for the purpose of communication.

Ghaith (2002: 1) asserts that the writer has to explore thought and ideas

and make them visible and concrete. The writer has to try to communicate his/her

ideas in the form of a written text from which the reader will eventually

understand the ideas and their meaning. The production of the written word that

results in the text must be read and comprehended so that the reader can

understand the message intended by the writer easily. Thus, the writer is

demanded to pay attention to some aspects of the production of the written text

which involves the content, organization, vocabularies use, grammatical use,

discourse, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation.


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In supporting definitions of writing, Sutanto, et al; (2007: 1) says that

writing is a process of expressing ideas or thoughts in words which should be

done at our leisure. He says that we cannot do something or express the ideas or

feeling in words or in sentences while we are getting some interventions. The

conditions of writer which is relaxing and enjoyable will be explorer of a long

visible of ideas or feelings and the result of this, the writer can write well, it

means he is able to move a pen, or find key words, remember rules of grammar

and syntax, place the brain in order to make sense, and think a head to what to

write next (Nathan, et al. 2002: 1), (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misuderstood

mind/writing basics.html, accessed: July, 5th 2010).

a. Micro and Macro Skills in Writing

In order to be able to do such things in writing, learners need to acquire

micro-skills and macro-skills of writing. Ur (1996: 162) states that writing should

maintain between micro aspect and macro aspect. In micro aspect, the students

practice specific written forms at the level of word or sentence (handwriting or

typing, spelling, punctuation). On the other hand, in macro aspect, the students

emphasize on content and organization. In this case, they express themselves

using their own words, state a purpose for writing, and specify an audience. More

detail description is given by Brown (2004: 220). He states that micro-skills are

related to imitative and intensive types of writing task whereas macro-skills are

related to responsive and extensive writing. The descriptions are as follows:

1) Micro-skills a) Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English; b) Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose; c) Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns;


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d) Use acceptable grammatical systems (e.g. tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns and rules;

e) Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms; and f) Use cohesive devices in written discourse.

2) Macro-skills a) Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse; b) Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts

according to form and purpose; c) Convey links and connections between events, and communicate such

relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification;

d) Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing; e) Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written

text; and f) Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as accurately assessing

the audience’s interpretation, using pre-writing devices, writing with fluency in the first draft, using paraphrases and synonyms, soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising and editing.

In writing, students will rely on at least four types of knowledge:

knowledge of the content, procedural knowledge to organize the content,

knowledge of conventions of writing, and procedural knowledge required to apply

the three other types of knowledge in composing a written product (Hillocks in

O’Malley, 1996: 136). It is also supported by Tribble (1996: 43) that in order to

understand a specific task in writing, a writer requires the range of knowledge

which can be summarized as follows:

1) Content knowledge : knowledge of the concepts involved in the

subject area.

2) Context knowledge : knowledge of the context in which the text

will be read.

3) Language system knowledge : knowledge of those aspects of the language

system necessary for the completion of the

task.

4) Writing process knowledge : knowledge of the most appropriate way of preparing for a specific writing task.


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Therefore, in order to be able to produce a good written text, a writer

should require the range of knowledge. Besides, the writer also focuses on the

macro and micro skills of writing. In addition, Nunan (1998: 37) states successful

writing involves:

1) Mastering the mechanics of letter formation; 2) Mastering and obeying conventions of spelling punctuations; 3) Using the grammatical system to convey one’s intended meaning; 4) Organizing content at the level of the paragraph and the complete text

to reflect given/ new information and topic/ comment structures; 5) Polishing and revising one’s initial efforts; and 6) Selecting an appropriate style for one’s audience.

Based on the definition above, the researcher concludes that writing is a

process in which the writer uses some aspects of the production of writing that

consists of the content, organization, vocabularies use, grammatical use, and

mechanics in order to demonstrate knowledge and express the ideas, feelings, and

thought in the written form so that other people can understand. It is very

important to be considered by the teacher that writing is a complex process. The

students need to explore or express their ideas, feeling, and thought in the form of

texts that enable them to have a better writing and give them opportunities to see

their own progress in writing, that is whether their writings are able to

communicate their ideas and can be easily understood by the other people or not.

b. Teaching Writing

1) The Meaning of Teaching Writing

Teaching writing is like swimming; if we learn to swim, we need water in

swimming pool and a teacher to teach us how to be a professional swimmer


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(Brown, 2001: 334). Like swimming, writing is taught if we are a member of a

part of language society and there is someone teaching us.

Not everyone can be an excellent writer; writing needs a long time and

hard work to create words, sentences, and arrange them in a good composition or

paragraph. Then, writing as communicative language is not only taught fluently

but also accurately and uses contextual and authentic materials in the classroom.

Furthermore, motivate the students to learn to write so that the students study

writing successfully.

2) Material in Teaching Writing

Teaching materials of the descriptive text in the class of Junior High

School spread on three levels of classroom. They are presented in themes or

topics. The themes or topics in the first grade are family life, school life, and

plants, animals or things. In the second grade, the themes or topics are flora and

fauna, travelling, recreation, and seasons. And in the third grade, the themes or

topics are nature, art, and public service (Depdiknas 2005: 179-190).

3) Writing Assessment

Experience has shown testing practices in English are not static but

dynamic and changing. One controversial area in testing writing requires that test

construction and evaluation criteria be based on course objectives and teaching

methodologies. In the English language classroom, especially at the junior high

schools, teachers are always challenged by how to reliably and validly evaluate

students’ writing skills, so that the students will be better prepared for internal and

external proficiency and achievement exams.


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There are many reasons for testing writing in the English language

classroom, including to meet diagnostic, proficiency, placement, achievement, and

performance. Each purpose requires different test construction. Referring to this,

there are two kinds of assessment, which can be used in assessing students’

writing. They are process assessment and product assessment. Thus, a teacher will

indicate that it is not only the product that is assessable, but that commitment to

the process is also expected (Brookes and Grundy, 1950: 54).

Process assessment is a kind of on going assessment used to keep tract of

students’ progress in writing or to monitor the students’ progress in writing in

which counting the number (score) of the composition is not regarded (Brookes &

Grundy, 1950: 54). The process assessment is designed to probe how the students

write, the decision they make as they write, and the strategies they use. Therefore,

the aim of process assessment is to give information about the students’

performance such as how far the students’ progress in writing is and whether any

change is needed in the way of teaching strategy or not.

Brown (2001: 335) says product assessment focuses on assessing the

students’ final composition, while Hyland (2003: 226) states that writing product

can be assessed through employing some methods of scoring. There are three

types of rating scales generally used in scoring writing. They are holistic, analytic,

and trait-based scoring.

Hyland (2003: 227) states that a holistic scale is based on single,

integrated score of writing behavior. A holistic judgment may be built into an

analytic scoring rubric as one of the score categories. One difficulty with this


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approach is that overlap between the criteria that is set for the holistic judgment

and the other evaluated factors cannot be avoided. When one of the purposes of

the evaluation is to assign a grade, this overlap should be carefully considered and

controlled. Holistic scoring would appear to be more subjective as it depends on

the impressions formed by the markers. It is obviously to be preferred where the

primary concern is with evaluating the communicative effectiveness of candidates

in writing. The evaluator should determine whether the overlap resulting in certain

criteria is being weighted more than what is originally intended. In other words,

the evaluator needs to be careful that the student is not unintentionally severely

penalized for a given mistake.

An analytic scoring rubric, much like the checklist, allows for the separate

evaluation of each of these factors. Each criterion is scored on a different

descriptive scale and assigned a numerical value. Analytic marking schemes are

devised in an attempt to make the testing more objective, insofar as they

encourage examiners to be more explicit about their impressions. It uses criteria of

the items measured. The items measured are: relevance and adequacy of content,

compositional organization, cohesion, adequacy of vocabulary for purpose,

accuracy of grammar, and mechanical accuracy for spelling and punctuation.

Different from holistic and analytic scoring, trait-based scoring focuses on

whether or not each paper shows evidence of the particular trait or feature you

want students to demonstrate in writing. Trait-based instruments are designed to

clearly define the specific topic and genre features of the task being judged

(Hyland, 2003: 229). Therefore, the advantage of this approach is in focusing on


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specific aspects of instruction that most reflect the objectives being covered when

the writing assignment is given.

Based on the theories above the scoring rubric applied in this thesis is as

follows:


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Table 2.1

Scoring Rubric for Aspects of Writing

Component Of Writing

Scale Indicator Qualification

5 Main ideas stated clearly and accurately, change of opinion very clear

Excellent

4 Main ideas stated fairly clearly and accurately, change of opinion relatively clear

Good

Content 3 Main ideas stated somewhat unclear or inaccurate, change of opinion statement somewhat weak

Average

2 Main ideas stated not clear or accurate, change of opinion statement weak

Poor

1 Main ideas stated not at all clear or accurate, change of opinion statement very weak

Very poor

5 Well organized and perfectly coherent Excellent 4 Fairly well organized and generally

coherent Good

Organization 3 Loosely organized but main ideas clear, logical, but incomplete sequencing

Average

2 Ideas disconnected, lacks logical sequencing

Poor

1 No organization, incoherent Very poor 5 Very effective choice of words and use of

idioms and word forms Excellent

4 Effective choice of words and use of idioms and word forms

Good

Vocabulary

3 Adequate choice of words but some misuse of vocabulary, idioms and word forms

Average

2 Limited range, confused use of words, idioms and word forms

Poor

1 Very limited range, very poor knowledge of words, idioms and word forms

Very poor

5 No errors, full control of complex structure

Excellent

4 Almost no errors, good control of structure

Good

Grammar 3 Some errors, fair control of structure Average 2 Many errors, poor control of structure Poor 1 Dominated by errors, no control of

structure Very poor

5 Mastery of spelling and punctuation Excellent 4 Few errors in spelling and punctuation Good Mechanics 3 Fair number of spelling and punctuation

errors Average

2 Frequent errors in spelling and punctuation

Poor

1 No control over spelling and punctuation Very poor

Adapted from Cohen (1994: 328-329)


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B. Concept of Collaborative Writing Technique

1. The Nature of Collaborative Writing Technique

Collaborative writing technique has been a trend in composition research

and pedagogy since the 1970s. A great deal of attention began being focused on

collaborative writing in early 1970’s when English and composition professor,

Kenneth Bruffee, began arguing that by having students write essays and fiction in

groups, students produced better work than when they worked alone. He argued

that students learned more through group work than when they interacted only

with their teacher (Spring, 1997: 2). It is also inspirited by psychologist,

Vygotsky, (1896-1934 citied by Kellough and Kellough, 1999: 302) studying the

importance of a learner’s social interactions in learning situations. Vygotsky

argued that learning is most effective when learners cooperate with one another in

a supportive learning environment under careful guidance of a teacher.

Murray (1992: 100) states that collaborative writing is essentially a social

process through which writers looked for areas of shared understanding. To reach

such an understanding, participants function according to several social and

interactional rules as follows: First, the participants discuss the goals which they

are going to write. They place the goals in rank order from high to low, and then

they share a higher order goal. From the sharing, they set a common goal for the

group. Meanwhile, specification of the goal is negotiated during the process.

Secondly, the participants must have different knowledge and there must be a gap

information between them. Because of this information gap, they (group

members) have to negotiate content, style, and even the goal of writing. Thirdly,


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the participants interact as a group. They exchange thought, feeling, ideas between

them, and result in reciprocal effect on each other. Fourthly, the participants

distanced themselves from the text. To see their collaborative text, they produce

many written drafts during one session and they move away from the text in time

and space. Setting the text aside for a time will make them have a new perspective

to find their mistakes in the text. In addition, Chin (1996: 5) asserts that

collaborative writing is an area where group ware may provide significant benefit.

It allows students to simultaneously work on different portions of the same

document and/or to review and critique the written work of others.

It is clear that collaborative refers to a writing group but there are as many

ways to write in group as there are combinations of individual. Accordingly,

Frakas (1991 citied by Spring, 1997: 1) offers four possible definitions useful in

approaching collaboration through an analysis of process, they are:

1. Two or more people jointly composing the complete text of a document;

2. Two or more people contributing components to a document; 3. One or more person modifying, by editing and/or reviewing, the

document of one or more persons; 4. One person working interactively with one or more person and drafting

a document based on their ideas of the person or persons.

By breaking the common-sensical concept of group-based writing into a four

distinct types of work, Farkas’s definitions paint a picture of what is, and what is

not collaboration.

From the points of view above, it can be concluded that collaborative

writing is the process of producing a written work as a group where all members


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contributed to the content, style, and even the goal of writing and also the

decisions how the group will function.

2. The Implementation of Collaborative Writing Technique

In response to the need for structured guidelines to make collaborative

more effective, the researcher makes different roles of the students. One of them

plays a role as a helper and the other as a writer. Specific tasks need to be done by

the helper and the writer when they write collaboratively. These steps are

described as follows:

Step 1 is idea generation. In this step, the students are hoped to understand

important components of the descriptive text such as identification and

description. The identification means the writer of the descriptive text identifies

phenomenon to be described and the description means the writer of the

descriptive text describes parts, qualities, and characteristics. To help the writer

stimulate ideas their helper raise questions which mostly use wh-words as

follows:

a. What tree/animal do you like? b. What does it look like? c. Where does it live? etc.

As the writers respond verbally to the questions, they jot down key words and are

encouraged to add any relevant information they might want to write about. Then,

the pair reviews the keywords in the notes and determines if the order or

organization should be changed. This could be indicated by numbering the ideas.

Alternatively, the ideas may seem to fall into obvious sections, which can be dealt

with in turn. Such sections can be color-coded and the ideas belonging to them are


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underlined or highlighted with a marker. Pairs may also choose to draw lines

linking or around related ideas, so that a "semantic map" is constructed.

In generating the students’ ideas is intended to motivate and brainstorm

the students to get ideas or to generate ideas for the topic. The teacher leads the

helper to raise questions about descriptive texts in order to stimulate the writer

ideas such as “What is your favorite animal/tree?”, “What does it look like?”,

“Where does it live?” etc. Then, the writer takes those three questions and makes

a list to answer each one. He/she then assigns the helper to review the writer’s key

words, to develop the ideas into paragraph, and to organize the ideas in order.

Step 2 is drafting. In this step, the teacher emphasizes that writers do not

have to worry much about spelling as they write their drafts. Rather, the stress

should be on allowing ideas to flow.

This step aims to give the writer chances to begin writing a rough draft

based on the discovered ideas to review from the helper. To write the drafts, the

writer is advised not care much more about the language, spelling or punctuation

or neatness. During the activity, the teacher goes around the class to provide

assistance, guidance, and comments if they are necessary.

Step 3 is reading. In this step, the writer reads the draft. If he/she reads a

word incorrectly, the helper provides support and gives some corrections.

This step gives the student chances to read the rough draft. The researcher

asks the student (helper) to correct the draft. The helper may comment on the

clarity and relevance of the ideas and their coherence. The helper can give written


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comment or in orals to the writer. The writer reorganizes what has been written in

the first rough draft and to refine ideas based on the feedback from the helper.

Step 4 is editing. In this step, the helper and the writer look at the draft

together and consider what improvement might be made. Error of words, phrases,

or sentences could be marked. The writer and the helper inspect the draft more

than once, check the five editing criteria:

1. Meaning 2. Order (organization of the separate ideas in the text, organization

within a phrase or sentence, and organization of order of sentences) 3. Spelling 4. Punctuation 5. Style (word choice and sentence structure)

While editing, the writer and helper consider the following question:

1. Does the helper understand what the writer wants to say? (idea and meaning)

2. Does the writing have a clear beginning, middle, and end? (style) 3. Are the words spelled correctly? 4. Is the punctuation correct and the right place?

The order of question shows its relative important in writing. With the

question in mind, the helper marks area the writer has missed, the helper can also

suggest other changes.

In this step, the teacher asks the pair to look at closely the draft and edits

them by using the five editing criteria which refer to aspects of writing such as

content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanic. The pair is advised to

check they used appropriate and varied linking devices and their work is cohesive

and logical. Then they may add new ideas; delete irrelevant sentences and

information and rearrange ideas to improve the organization. After that they look

at vocabulary. They think about mere appropriate or specific vocabulary. Finally,


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they check content, organization, grammar, spelling and punctuation. The teacher

provides editing guidelines for check list. After editing, they rewrite it for the final

writing version.

Step 5 is best copy. The writer then copies out a neat or best version of the

corrected draft. The helper provides help when necessary, depending on the skill

of the writer. In this case, the teacher asks the student (writer) to write the best

version of the product. The best copy is a joint product of the pair and is then hand

in to the teacher.

Step 6 is the teacher evaluation. Teacher evaluation is the final step. In this

step, students will have an opportunity to receive comments and instructive

feedback directly from the teacher. When the writer and helper submit in their

best copy, the teacher will meet them and provide them with explicit writing and

grammatical instruction as well as corrective feedback. The teacher's comments

focus on meaning/idea, order, style, spelling, and punctuation, which are the five

editing criteria stated in Step 4. The writers are then expected to review the

correction and feedback together as a pair.

In evaluating, the teacher holds a conference by assigning the pair to

exchange their composition to be proofread by other pairs. After that, the pair

discusses the corrections, feedback or comments from other pairs. If they still

have problems with the corrections, feedback or comments from other pairs. At

the end of conference the teacher and students discuss remaining problems

together. Next he asks the student (writer) to revise the composition based on the

correction, feedback given and comments from their friends or their teacher.


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Finally he asks the student (writer) to write the final composition and submit to

the teacher or researcher.

After the students know steps of writing, the researcher provides

opportunities to the students to write a short essay of a descriptive text. The

students are required to apply the technique in writing task to write a short essay

about certain topic of descriptive texts.

So, in this research the researcher asks the students to make a pair and the

student who plays as a helper or as a writer may have the more or less same

writing level and the role of them may be interchangeable. Besides, there are

additional activities in step 1, 4, and step 6. The researcher adds the activities for

step 1, in which the students do the activities to generate the ideas for topic, then,

the students elaborate the components of the text. In step 4, the five editing

criteria- meaning, order, spelling, punctuation, and style are changed into content,

organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanic since the components of

writing which the teacher is going to score are the content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. In step 6, in giving some corrections and

feedback, it is better for the teacher to hold a conference. In the conference,

students have a chance to negotiate the meaning by describing what they to

accomplish in the piece of writing and noticeable problems in doing this.

3. The Strengths and Weaknesses of Collaborative Writing Technique

Every technique has strengths and weaknesses. There is no technique

which is perfect and the best one. In order to maximize the teaching learning


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process of writing descriptive texts, the teacher should be smarter to choose the

technique used in the teaching learning process of writing descriptive texts.

There are some strengths of collaborative writing technique, they are as

follows:

a) More than one student has more ideas, more works are done and thus the goals

are achieved more efficiently and collaborative writing technique stimulates

students to creative new ideas and new directions.

b) It gives fun and happiness for the students to write a descriptive text.

c) The finished product may be better, etc.

In spite of the fact that there are some strengths of collaborative writing in

the teaching learning process, collaborative writing technique has weaknesses as

follows:

a) Pair work is likely noisy.

b) Sometimes between the helper and the writer have different opinions or

arguments in developing paragraph. So it can make a conflict between them.

c) Not all the students got the chance to consult and performed their writing to

the teacher because the time is limited in the class sessions, etc.

C. Descriptive Writing

One of the text types that should be learnt by the students in junior high

schools level is descriptive writing. Descriptive writing is a skill that needs extra

attention (Soejatmiko and Taloko, 2003: 62). A descriptive writing is used to

create a vivid image of a person, place, or thing. It draws on all of the senses, not


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merely the visual. Its purpose is to enable the reader to share the writer’s sensory

experience of the subject. Descriptive writing portrays people, places, things,

moments, and theories with enough vivid detail to help the reader create a mental

picture of what is being written about (Abisamra, 2001: 6).

Tompkins (1994: 111) points out that descriptive writing is painting

pictures with words, meaning that in writing a descriptive paragraph, a writer

should try to visualize something or someone using vivid words in order to show a

clear picture of what he or she is describing. Good description then should begin

with close observation. The observation should be recorded with specific details

to touch the reader’s senses, to picture out clearly of what is being described.

In addition, Smalley, et al., (2001: 66) support that descriptive writing uses

sensory details to paint a picture of a place, a person, or an object. The details in

descriptive writing should not only be logically arranged but also vivid. As a

painter with words, we want to give the reader as precise a picture as possible;

otherwise, the reader will have only a vague sense of what we are describing. To

make the details more vivid, we need to modify them (Modify means to restrict or

narrow down the meaning). According to Anderson and Anderson (1998: 26) a

factual description describes a particular person, place or thing. Its purpose is to

tell about the subject by describing its features without including personal

opinions. A factual description differs from an information report because it

describes a specific subject rather than a general group.

The general characteristics of descriptive writing include: elaborate use of

sensory language – what is heard, seen, smelt, felt, and tasted; rich, vivid, and


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lively details; figurative language such as simile, hyperbole, metaphor,

symbolism, and personification; showing, rather than telling the reader what

something/someone is like through the use of active verbs and precise modifiers.

According to Doddy, et al., (2008: 119) the structure of descriptive text is divided

into two parts: identification and description. The identification part is the part

where the writer of descriptive text identifies phenomenon to be described. The

description part describes parts, qualities, and characteristics. Description text

focuses on specific participants. It normally uses simple present tense.

From the opinions above, it can be concluded that descriptive writing is

used in all forms of writing to create a vivid impression of a person, place, object

or event e.g. to describe a special place and explain why it is special, describe the

most important person in our life, and describe the animal’s habitat in our report.

Descriptive writing is usually used to help a reader and writer develop an aspect

of their work, e.g. to create a particular mood, atmosphere, or describe a place so

that the reader can create vivid pictures of characters, places, objects etc.

Descriptive writing can be used in the following ways: to make scenes

realistic and memorable, to help readers experience an emotion, to share your

feelings more clearly, to bring characters to life, to convey key ideas, especially

complex ones, and to help readers feel like they are on the scene. Therefore, these

guidelines can be followed when we write descriptive pieces: (1) start by deciding

on a method of organization, spatial organization, for example, works especially

well if your details are mainly visual. If we are describing an animal, consider

parts of the animal; (2) select a point of view, the vantage point from which we


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will relate details; (3) clearly identify the subject; (4) use details to create a strong

mood or feeling about the subject; (5) as we write, draw on all five senses: sight,

touch, hearing, taste, and smell; and (6) consider including figures of speech,

those imaginative comparisons that evoke feelings in our readers.

D. Rationale

A descriptive text is a text in which the writer draws his/her ideas and

thought vividly based on his/her sense on the object he/she sees. The writer paints

pictures with words or re-creates a scene or experience for the reader. A

description must appeal to the reader’s senses and imagination. The writer’s goal

is to make the reader see, hear, smell, or experience what is described. In a

descriptive text, all parts of the paper work together to present a particular person,

place, or thing. The organizations of descriptive texts are identification and

description. In identification the writer mentions the name, occupation, a

profession, and a career, and in description the writer mentions the physical

features, the way he/she dresses, and his personality.

In writing a descriptive text, the students of the second grade are still

getting difficulties in mastering it and the results of the test are unsatisfactory.

Most of them found difficulties in organizing the ideas to become the paragraphs;

they made a lot of grammatical mistakes. Moreover, their sentences were

influenced by their mother tongue. They also found difficulties to choose the

appropriate vocabulary. They did not know the meaning of words, so it makes


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them difficult to explore their ideas. They did not know the correct capital and

spelling of some certain words.






known by other friends at the class. And the last, the students did not pay attention

to the teacher’s explanation; they looked bored or sometimes made noise. When

the teacher was explaining, the students tended to do their own activities.


adequate time, models, and practices for the students to write; (2) writing got less

attention from the teacher. This was because the teacher tended to underestimate

writing rather than reading. She argued that writing was less important to help the

students in National Examination (UN) which was usually dominated by reading

items; (3) there were no creative or varied techniques used by the teacher in

exploring the students’ ability in writing. The techniques used were monotonous.

Monotonous writing activity caused the students’ motivation in writing to be low

and not interested in learning English especially writing. As the result, the

students did not have any strategies about how to find ideas or explore them.

Consequently, the students could not revise their drafts because they thought that

it was a final writing. In fact, the students’ drafts still had numerous errors.


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Therefore, it is important for the teacher to use an appropriate technique in

teaching and learning process especially in writing a descriptive text. This

technique is expected to arise the students’ motivation in writing. Motivated

students will easily learn in class and lead them to reach the goal of the teaching

and learning. Motivated students will also easily improve their writing ability.

Collaborative writing technique refers to a project where a composition is

created by the pair together rather than individually. Collaborative writing

technique is a pair or group of students working together on a piece of writing

who can respond to each other’s ideas (both in terms language and content),

making suggestions for changes and so contributing to the success of the finished

product. This technique gives extra opportunity to write more by exchanging other

ideas, giving suggestions and contributing the success of the final product. The

chance to write in group or in pairs will motivate students and make students

joyful to learn how to write well. Therefore, it is assumed that collaborative

writing technique can be able to improve the students’ English writing ability.

E. Hypothesis

Based on the rationale of the research, the hypothesis is formulated as

follows: collaborative writing technique can improve students’ ability in writing

descriptive texts of the second grade students of SMPN 1 Pelaihari in the

academic year of 2010/2011.


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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Setting and Time of the Research

This action research is about improving the students’ ability in

writing a descriptive text through collaborative writing technique. This

research was conducted in the students of grade VIII A of SMPN 1 Pelaihari,

South Kalimantan, in the academic year of 2010/2011. SMPN Negeri 1

Pelaihari is one of famous junior high schools which is located in the heart

of Pelaihari town. Pelaihari is a town of Tanah Laut Regency in South

Kalimantan province. It is exactly at Jl. Gembira No.04 Pelaihari 70811,

phone number (0512) 22853. The location is very strategic and very good

for learning area. It is easy to get the location by foot, bikes or motorcycles

SMPN 1 Pelaihari is a good and comfortable school. It has sixteen

classrooms. It has been equipped with complete learning facilities such as

language laboratory, computer laboratory, LCD, multimedia room, natural

science laboratory, office administration laboratory, internet class and also

comfortable classroom, library, a large office for teachers, some teachers’

and students’ bathroom, a mosque, a large parking, and some other

facilities.

In addition, SMPN 1 Pelaihari is a small government school which has

480 students. The composition of the students in the classroom consists of


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males and females students. In mixed classroom, the female students are

sitting in front of rows of the male students.

The research was conducted from July 2010 to January, 2011. The

following is the schedule for conducting the action research at SMPN 1

Pelaihari.

Table 3.1

Time Schedule of the Research in the Academic Year of 2010/2011

ACTIVITIES JULY

AU

GU

ST

SEPT

OC

T

NO

V

DEC

JAN

FEB

MA

RC

H

APR

IL

Pre Survey X

Making Proposal X

Reviewing

Literatures

X X X

Developing

Instruments

X X

Collecting and

Analyzing the Data

X X X

Writing the Report X X X

Submitting the

document

X X X X

B. Research Method

The research method used in this research is a classroom action research.

In this case, the researcher wants to improve the students’ ability in writing a

descriptive text through collaborative writing technique. Here, there are some

definitions of action research. Kember (2000: 25) states that action research is


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portrayed as a cyclical or spiral process involving steps of planning, acting,

observing, and reflecting. Action research methodology offers a systematic

approach to introduce innovations in teaching and learning. It is normal for a

project to go through two or more cycles. Improvement is brought about by a

series of cycles, each incorporating lesson from the previous ones. The cycle of

Kember is the simplest and tidiest form.

Elliot (1991: 69) states that action research might be defined as the study

of a social situation with a view to improve the quality of action within it. It aims

at feeding practical judgment in concrete situation and the validity of theories or

hypothesis. It depends not so much on scientific test of truth, as on their

usefulness in helping people to act more intelligently and skillfully. In action

research theories are not validated independently and then applied to practice.

They are validated through practice. Furthermore, Ebbut (in Hopkin, 1993: 45)

argues that action research is the systematic study of attempts to improve

educational practice by groups of participants by means of their own practical

actions and by means of their own reflection upon the effects of those actions.

Besides, classroom action research has characteristics that meet the need

of the researcher. They are, according to Dick (in Nurkamto, 2002: 7) as follows:

1) Classroom action research is designed and applied in a certain classroom

setting; therefore, the research findings are applicable only to that classroom.

The extent to which the findings may be applicable elsewhere depends on the

empirical similarity of setting and receiving contexts.


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2) Classroom action research is aimed at finding the solution for local and

practical problems. Therefore, the researcher does not apply methodology as

rigidly as that in other formal researches in developing universal theories.

3) Classroom action research tends to be cyclical, meaning that certain steps

(planning, acting, observing, and reflecting) tend to recur in a more or less

similar sequence at different phases of an action research study.

4) Classroom action research tends to be participative. It means that the clients

and informants are involved as partner, or at least active participants, in the

researcher process.

5) Classroom action research tends to be reflective. Critical reflection upon the

process and outcomes are important parts of each cycle.

From the definitions above, it can be concluded that a classroom action

research in this study means the systematic study of attempts to improve

educational practices in order that the students’ achievement is very satisfying. It

tends to be cyclical, participative and reflective.

In addition, the design of classroom action research used in this research is

a cyclical process adapted from the model proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart

(1992: 11). It consists of four main steps namely: planning, acting, observing, and

reflecting. Here is the Spiral Model by Kemmis and McTaggart:


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Figure 3.1

The Model of Classroom Action Research

In each cycle, the procedures are:

1. Planning

The activities in planning are:

a. Conducting the diagnostic test, interviewing, and observing to identify the

real problem of the students in writing.

b. Planning the action program which will be conducted and preparing

everything dealing with the action research requirements such as:

preparing the material which consists of students’ worksheet, making

lesson plans, students’ questionnaires, preparing the sheets for classroom

observation, preparing test instrument, etc.

2. Action

The activities in action are:

a. Carrying out activities step by step based on the lesson plan.

b. Conducting teaching writing by using collaborative writing technique.

c. Conducting the posttest in every cycle.


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3. Observation

The activities which are going to be observed are process of teaching and

learning in the classroom and learning progress that students achieved. The field

notes of both the researcher and collaborator and the result of recording will be

the main resources for this observation.

4. Reflection

The researcher and the collaborator will analyze what is going on during

the teaching and learning process and the result of the writing test. Through this

activity, both the researcher and collaborator will hopefully find the strengths and

the weaknesses found during teaching and learning process. Both the researcher

and the collaborator will discuss the weaknesses and try to look for the solution of

the problems found during the observation for the benefit of betterment of

students’ writing ability.

C. Subject of the Research

The subject of the research is the students of second grade or grade VIII A

of SMPN 1 Pelaihari in the academic year of 2010/2011. There are 28

students in this class. They consist of 12 boys and 16 girls. The students

have different background. Mostly they come from low and middle social

status and their parents’ professions are labors, farmers, and civil servants.

In general, the students of grade VIII A of SMPN 1 Pelaihari have low

motivation especially in a writing English subject. This class is chosen as research

subject because most of the students got writing mark under the school standard


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(64). It is based on the researcher’s observation during the English lesson and

their daily test. It is difficult for them to express and organize their ideas in

writing. Besides, they lack of vocabulary. They find difficulties to choose

appropriate words or memorize the meaning of words and apply them in

sentences. They find difficulties not only in vocabulary but also in tenses

especially in present tense to write a descriptive text. So that is why, the

researcher wants to improve it through collaborative writing technique in order

that the students have high behavior and motivation in learning English especially

writing English subject. As everyone knows that the teacher’s task is to develop

the students’ ability to be able to participate in creating the descriptive text.

The students of grade VIII A of SMPN 1 Pelaihari in the academic year

of 2010/2011 are taken as the subject of the research since the research is a

classroom action research.

D. Technique of Collecting Data

There are two kinds of data that are used in this research. The data

are both qualitative and quantitative data. To collect the qualitative data, the

researcher conducts the observation at the classroom. The researcher

observes classroom events, interaction in the classroom, and the students’

responses during the teaching learning process. The observation is an

activity to watch and record action and behavior of research participants.

The researcher and his collaborator observe the students’ activities and the

progress of teaching and learning in writing subject.


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Then, interview is also done to find out information from the

students and the collaborator about the students’ writing ability and the

implementation of collaborative writing technique in writing. The last one

is questionnaire. It is given in the form of written questions with available

answers. The researcher can analyze the result of questionnaire to know the

students personal problem faced in writing. The students’ personal

impression and responses about the implementation of collaborative writing

technique.

Another type of data is quantitative data. The data are taken from

pretest and posttest that are carried out before and after the cycles are

implemented. The result of pretest and posttest show whether the students’

writing ability in writing a descriptive text improves or not.

E. Technique of Analyzing Data

There are two techniques in analyzing data, quantitative and qualitative.

To analyze the quantitative data, the researcher uses the students’ previous marks

(pretest) and in the end of the activity, the researcher gives the students posttest in

order to know whether collaborative writing technique can improve the students’

ability in constructing a descriptive text.

In scoring the students’ writing, there are five aspects to be scored; they

are content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The value of each

aspect ranged from 1 to 5. The maximum score of content is five, organization is

five, vocabulary is four, grammar is four, and mechanics is two. So the total score

of each aspect is twenty. Thus, the final score is one hundred derived from the


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maximum score times the total score of each aspect is one hundred or the

students’ individual score were computed by the using a simple formula:

Gained score x 100 Max score Furthermore, to obtain more valid score, the students’ writings were

scored using inter-rater. It means that the students’ writings are scored by both

teacher and his collaborator. So there are two sets of score results from teacher

and his collaborator which are used to state the significance of collaborative

writing technique in writing a descriptive text whether the students’ improvement

occurs or not. The score from five aspects will help the teacher’s attention. It

means that it provides the information about the difficulties that the students

encountered.

The result of students’ writings is analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Here, the researcher uses a formula proposed by Ngadiso (2007: 5- 7) by

comparing the mean score, and then the researcher calculates the students’ score

by using the following formula:

M = ∑

Where:

M= Mean (the score)

∑ = the total score

N= number of the students

If the mean score increases, the students’ writing ability is

considered improving. It means that collaborative writing technique can be


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used to overcome the students’ problem in writing a descriptive text.

In analyzing the qualitative data, the researcher analyzes the

improvement of teaching learning process by using the Constant

Comparative Method as suggested by Strauss and Glasser (1985: 339).

There are four stages of the Constant Comparative Method which is

designed by Strauss and Glasser namely:

1. Comparing incidents applicable to each category

The process is analyzed by coding each incident in the data into as many

categories as possible. The data are given the code taken from

observation, interview and questionnaire.

2. Integrating categories and their properties

The researcher compares the data which are taken during observation

and from interview and questionnaire. The researcher starts to note the

relationship among the concepts then the relationship to be emerged,

therefore, it is necessary for the researcher to notice all concepts

3. Delimiting theory

When the patterns of the concept get clearer, the researcher ignores

some of the concepts initially noted but evidently irrelevant to the

inquiry and reduced the categories of the theory so that the theory

becomes simpler.

4. Writing theory

Finally, the researcher arranges the research findings into words. These

steps regarded of the process of the research.


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CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the researcher would like to present research findings as

the answer for the problems which have been stated in the first chapter. It involves

introduction which consists of initial reflection and fact finding analysis, then it is

continued with cycle 1 and cycle 2 which include planning the action,

implementing the action, observing the action, evaluating and reflecting, and

revising the plan at every cycle. The result gained from cycle 1 determines the

next cycle. If the result seemed disappointing, it was important to conduct the next

cycle.

A. Introduction

This research began when the researcher realized that the students had

problems in English especially in writing. It was based on the preliminary

interview to the students that most of them reacted that writing was regarded

difficult. This condition is supported by the result of their writing task and their

daily test. The result is not good enough, so, this condition made the researcher

tried to find out the way how to teach writing more interesting.

In line with the statement above, the researcher also conducted interview

and gave questionnaire to the students in order to find out the students perception

toward writing ability. From the result of the interview and questionnaire to the


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students, it could be concluded that writing is regarded difficult. Most of them

found difficulties in organizing the ideas to become the paragraphs; they made a

lot of grammatical mistakes. Moreover, their sentences were influenced by their

mother tongue. They also found difficulties to choose the appropriate vocabulary.

They did not know the meaning of words, so it made them difficult to explore

their ideas. They did not know the correct capital letter and spelling of some

certain words. Then, the students needed long time to write a composition.






known by other friends at the class. And the last, the students did not pay attention

to the teacher’s explanation; they looked bored or sometimes made noise. When

the teacher was explaining, the students tended to do their own activities.


adequate time, models, and practices for the students to write; (2) writing got less

attention from the teacher. This was because the teacher tended to underestimate

writing rather than reading. She argued that writing was less important to help the

students in National Examination (UN) which was usually dominated by reading

items; and (3) there were no creative or varied techniques used by the teacher in

exploring the students’ ability in writing. The techniques used were monotonous.

Monotonous writing activity caused the students’ motivation in writing to be low


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and not interested in learning English especially writing. As the result, the

students did not have any strategies about how to find ideas or explore them.

Consequently, the students could not revise their drafts because they thought that

it was a final writing. In fact, the students’ drafts still had numerous errors.

The researcher also conducted a pre-test. The pre-test was done before

implementing the teaching and learning process using collaborative writing

technique. It was conducted to reinforce the problems which were stated before.

The aim of pre-test was to know the prior competence of the students’ English

writing.

The instrument of the test had been arranged and prepared before. Here,

the students were asked to write a short composition of a descriptive text. There

were five aspects to score namely content, organization, vocabulary, grammar,

and mechanics. The average score of each aspect of writing can be seen in the

table 4.1.

Table 4.1 The Average Score of Each Aspect of Writing

No Writing Aspects Average Score 1 Content 61.43 2 Organization 57.86 3 Vocabulary 54.64 4 Grammar 43.21 5 Mechanics 49.64

Average score of writing aspects 53.36

The result showed that the students had low ability in writing. The low

ability in writing a descriptive text could be seen from the low achievement of


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writing test. The mean of writing scores in preliminary test was low, namely

53.36.

The scores of the students showed that the worst aspect of writing was on

grammar. Then, it was followed by mechanics, vocabulary, organization, and

content. It can be concluded that their writing ability was under average or still

low because it was under the minimum requirement criterion or Kriteria

Ketuntasan Minimal (KKM) for English writing which was 64. Thus, it must be

improved by implementing the collaborative writing technique. The researcher

used the collaborative writing technique to improve the students’ writing ability

and the students’ behavior and motivation toward English writing lesson

especially in writing descriptive texts. The improvement of students’ writing

ability involved some aspects of writing, namely content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.

To reach the target, the researcher conducted the classroom action

research. Each cycle consisted of a series of steps, namely: planning the action,

implementing the action, observing, evaluating and reflecting, and the last is

revising the plan. The description of the research implementation is explained in

the following parts. There were eight meetings divided into two cycles with four

meetings in each cycle. After the treatments in three meetings were carried out on

November 27th, December 2nd, December 4th, 2010 and the test was done in the

fourth meeting on December 8th, 2010, it revealed that there were some strengths

and weaknesses dealing with the improvement of the students’ writing ability.


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Referring to the results, there were the strengths and weakness in the post-

test in cycle 1 and cycle 2. Every cycle had three meetings for treatments carried

out on January 6th, January 8th, January 12th, 2011, and one meeting for the post-

test on January 15th, 2011. The next step was then to compare the results which

were gained from cycle 1 and cycle 2. This was taken to know how successful the

technique applied to improve the students’ writing ability was. If the results were

disappointing, it was important to conduct the next cycle.

B. Cycle 1

Cycle 1 was done by the class teacher in three meetings on November 27th,

December 2nd, December 4th, 2010 and one meeting for post-test on December 8th,

2010. The stages of activities done in the first cycle covered planning the action,

implementation, observation, and reflection of the action.

1. Planning the action

Before conducting the first meeting of cycle 1, the researcher gave the

students a pre-test. The aim of this test was to know how far the students’ prior

competence in constructing descriptive texts. After knowing the reality that the

English writing failure was caused by the fact that the students faced difficulties in

constructing descriptive texts, the researcher tried to improve their ability by using

collaborative writing technique.

Therefore, the researcher (as a teacher) prepared lesson plans which

consisted of objectives, materials, technique, and learning steps. Besides,


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preparing lesson plans, the researcher also copied some worksheets for the

students and teaching aids to support the teaching learning process.

For cycle 1, the theme was fauna/animal. It was related to the curriculum

at eight grade of junior high schools which focused on the descriptive texts as one

of texts in the third semester. There were five writing aspects to score. They were

content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. Furthermore, to

obtain a more valid and objective score, there were two scorers to score the

students’ works. It means that their works were scored by both the researcher and

the collaborator, so there were two sets of scores from the researcher and the

collaborator. Then, the scores were calculated to find out the averages which were

used to state the significance of collaborative writing technique in writing

descriptive texts whether the students’ improvement occurred or not.

2. Implementing the action

In this cycle, the researcher implemented the technique in the class. There

were four meetings in the first cycle.

a. The first meeting

On Saturday, November 27th 2010 at 07.30 am, the researcher began his

research. He entered the class with his collaborator, and then greeted the students.

Meanwhile, the students a little amazed with the coming of a new comer in their

class. Because the researcher as teacher had been introduced before to the students

by their teacher in the previous class and explained that the classroom action

research would be applied in the class, the students responded it well. Afterwards,


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the researcher checked the students’ attendance by asking them whether there was

any student absent or not that day while the collaborator took seat at the back row

of the class. Fortunately, for the first meeting, all of the students were present. The

total of them were 28 students that consisted of 12 males and 16 female students.

In the first meeting, the teacher emphasized on brainstorming and

modeling steps. The brainstorming step was aimed to guide the students to have a

clear idea about what they were going to discuss in the class. The modeling step

was aimed to give an example of the model of a descriptive text and the specific

participants of the text, the generic structure, and the grammar of the text. Then,

the teacher told the students that the purpose of this lesson was to write

descriptive texts.

Before beginning to write, the teacher told the students about the technique

of using collaborative writing in teaching writing and the objectives of the lesson.

The teacher said that collaborative writing referred to a pair of students working

together on a piece of writing to respond to each other’s ideas, make suggestions

for changes, and also contribute to the success of the finished product. In peer

response, students are given the opportunities to brainstorm ideas in pairs, to give

feedback on each other's writing and to proofread and edit for each other. Before

doing the activity, teachers asked the students to make a pair (a group of two) and

choose one of them as a helper and a writer. The one who was at a higher writing

level played the role of a helper, and the one who was at a lower writing level

played the role of a writer.


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Then, the teacher distributed the students’ worksheet and showed the

animal pictures and also asked some questions to stimulate the students’

background knowledge, like “What animals are these?” Most the students

answered well “These are frog, dog, and cow.” The next question was “Do you

recognize them?” The students’ answer, “Yes, we recognize”, then, “What do you

think of these? In short answers like a clever student could describe those animals

“Frog lives in the water and on the land. That is why frog is called amphibian.

Mostly, the color of the frog is green.” “Dog is a mammal animal. It has sharp

teeth. Usually dog can help the people.” “Cow is a mammal animal. Cow has

beautiful colors, for example, white and black.” While, an average student

described that: “There are three frog. Frog is amphibian animal. Frog live in the

water and continent.” “Its a dog. Dog has four legs. Dog has sharp teeth too.”

“Its a cow. Cow an herbivore animal.” And a lower student described those

animals: “Frog alive in swamp. The animal to form amphibi”. “Dog is the most of

friendly animal. be able belive keep your house”. “Cow big animal and make a

milk”.

After receiving the good responses, the teacher told the students the topic

that was going to be discussed about the animal. Then, the teacher asked the

students to make a pair (a group of two) and choose one of them as a writer and

the other as a helper. Next, he asked the students to look at a model of descriptive

text about an animal and learn it. After learning the model of descriptive text, the

students were asked to answer some questions as mentioned on the worksheet.

The students (pairs) answered the questions based on the text what they had


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learnt. After answering the questions, the teacher asked the students (the pairs) to

pay attention to the generic structure of the text and discussed it together. Then, he

asked them whether they had any difficulties in understanding it or not. They just

kept silent and were not active to ask questions. It seemed that the students still

had problems with the generic structure of the text. He explained the parts of

descriptive text such as an identification and description. Then, he asked the

students (the pairs) to identify verbs and mention the tense, such as “find and

underline verbs in the text,” what is the tense?” The students (the pairs) found

and underlined the verbs and mentioned the tense on the worksheet provided.

The next activity was to do the exercise in writing; the teacher gave an

opportunity to the students to begin writing drafts about an animal in the

descriptive text. They wrote collaboratively. Then, after writing drafts, they were

asked to rewrite them into a short composition by using simple present tense and

submit it to the teacher when they had finished writing.

For the last activity, the teacher asked the students to summarize the lesson

about the descriptive text, and then made a conference to discuss the problems

faced by the students. Because the time was over, the teacher and his collaborator

closed the class by saying good bye. Before going out the class, the teacher

announced that the following meeting would discuss the same topic of describing

the animal and apply the collaborative writing technique.

b. The second meeting

On Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 at 9.50 am, the teacher entered the class

with his collaborator to conduct the second meeting. On that day, the teacher


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together with the students used the collaborative writing technique to write a

descriptive text about the animal. The second meeting was focused on the

collaborative writing technique steps. The purpose of the collaborative writing

technique was to provide the students an opportunity to write collaboratively.

After his collaborator took a seat in the corner of the class, the teacher

opened the class. He greeted the students, then checked their attendance and

reviewed the previous lesson about descriptive text and present tense. Then, he

asked the students to sit in the same pair as the previous meeting and informed

them what they would do in the class. Besides, the teacher reminded them about

activities that had ever been done in the previous meeting. It was intended to

familiarize them with the structural features of writing, to reinforce the students’

familiarity with the use of vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics in writing, and

arise the students’ interest in the topic of the writing lesson.

After that, the teacher distributed the worksheet to the each pair. Then, the

teacher provided an opportunity to the students to write a short composition in the

form of descriptive text. Before writing collaboratively, the teacher explained the

students’ worksheet about how to use the collaborative writing technique in

writing a descriptive text to the students for the modeling. He also explained the

steps in the collaborative writing technique from ideas/pre-writing, drafting,

reading, editing, copying, and evaluating. They did collaboratively as a helper and

as a writer.


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1) Ideas/pre-writing

In this step the teacher wanted to motivate and brainstorm the

students to get ideas or generate ideas for the topic. The teacher led the

helper to raise questions to stimulate the writer’s ideas. The questions

had been already provided in the worksheet, and then the helper could

develop their own questions. If the students had ideas and could generate

them, they would be motivated to carry on the next steps. After having

the topic, the teacher asked the helper to discuss or review the writer‘s

key words, to develop the ideas, and to organize the ideas in order. Most

the helpers or the writers still seemed confused to do that. The teacher

helped the students (writers) to write down everything that came in their

mind.

2) Drafting

The teacher asked the students (writers) to begin writing a rough

draft as the first draft based on the discovered ideas and review from the

helper. To write the first draft, the writers were advised not to care much

about language, spelling, punctuation, or neatness. During the activity,

the teacher and his collaborator went around the class to provide

assistance, guidance, and comments if they were necessary. The teacher

reminded the students to see the model of the text explained in the

previous meeting. In writing the drafts, most the writers only had a short

rough draft.


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3) Reading

In this step the teacher gave chances to 14 students as writer to read

the rough draft. The teacher asked 14 students as their partner or helper

to correct the draft. The helper was asked to comment on the clarity and

relevance of the ideas and their coherence. The helper could give written

comments or orally to the writer. The writer reorganized what had been

written in the first rough draft and refined ideas based on the feedback

from the helper. This gave the writer a fresh perspective on his/her own

work and this stimulated them thoughtful revision.

4) Editing

In this step the pair was incorporated with editing activities. They

were assigned to edit their drafts in term of content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. But most of the students were

confused how to edit well their drafts. Then, they asked the teacher about

the ways to edit; the teacher just said that the students could do it by

following editing guidelines which were provided in the worksheet.

5) Copying

In this step the teacher asked the students (writers) to write the best

version of the product. The activities could be done well. The best copy

respected a joint product of the pairs; both students should have their

name on it.


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6) Evaluating

In this step, before evaluating, the teacher held a conference by

asking the students to exchange their works with another pair. They gave

comments to other pairs’ works, and they used editing guidelines to

check and write any comments or corrections for improvement. While

the students were checking their pairs’ works, the teacher and his

collaborator went around and helped them to check. The teacher found

that the students made a lot of mistakes caused by their limited grammar

mastery and limited vocabulary mastery. Then, the student (writer) was

asked to revise the composition based on some corrections from the

other pairs. After revising, the students submitted their works to the

teacher.

At the end of the lesson the teacher said good bye. However, before

closing it, the teacher summed up the lesson and gave chances to the students to

ask questions whether they had questions or not. Because of no questions, the

teacher and his collaborator reminded the students to study hard.

c. The third meeting

It was December 4th, 2010, at 07.30 am; the teacher and his collaborator

entered the class, greeted them and took the students’ attendance. The students

were complete and ready to study. The teacher started the lesson by asking their

activities which had been done in the day before. The aim of this activity was to

refresh their mind about descriptive text by using simple present tense. Then, he

reviewed the previous lesson about descriptive text. After that, he provided an


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opportunity again for the each pair to write a short composition in the form of

descriptive text. The topic was about an animal. The steps of writing were the

same with the previous meeting by using the collaborative writing technique.


The student (helper) was asked to do brainstorming activity by

developing his/her own questions to stimulate the writer’s ideas. In this

step, each pair still had difficulty and was confused for the helper

because the helper was not guided to have some questions by the teacher

before, but it was different, the helper made and developed his/her own

questions. Then, the helper reviewed the writer’s key words and helped

organize the ideas.

2) Drafting

The teacher asked the student (writer) to begin writing a rough

draft and the helper gave and suggested ideas to be written in the draft.

During the activity, the teacher and his collaborator monitored the class

to provide assistance, guidance, and comments if they are necessary. The

teacher told the pairs that they were allowed to open their dictionaries.

Sometimes, they were reminded to follow the model of the text

explained in the previous meeting and not to cheat the pairs’ work.

Moreover, the teacher asked the pairs not to write the drafts too long

time because they still had to do to the next steps. In writing the drafts,

most the writers still had a short rough draft.


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3) Reading

In this step, each writer was asked to read the rough draft and the

helper was asked to comment on the clarity and relevance of the ideas

and their coherence. Then, the writer reorganized what had been written

in the first rough draft and refined ideas based on the feedback from the

helper. In this case, the helpers gave his/her comments orally to the

writer. Those appeared when they often made jokes that were not related

to the topic discussed. So, the results of theirs drafts were still not good

yet.

4) Editing

After revising their drafts, the teacher asked both the helper and the

writer to edit their drafts based on the appropriate use of content,

organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. Editing guidelines

had been provided in the worksheet by the teacher, they just followed the

role of editing. Here, each pair was permitted to consult with the teacher

when they got difficulties in editing. Some of the students asked about

editing because they were still confused about the elements of writing,

then the teacher answered what they asked.

5) Copying

Here, the writer then copied out a neat or best version of the

corrected drafts. The helper provided help when necessary, depending on

the skill of the writer. The best copy is a joint product of the pair and

was then submitted to the teacher.


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6) Evaluating

In this step, before evaluating, the teacher held a conference by

asking the students to exchange their works with another pair. They gave

comments to other pairs’ works, and they used editing guidelines to

check and write any comments or corrections for improvement. While

the students were checking their pairs’ works, the teacher and his

collaborator went around and helped them to check. The teacher found

that the students made a lot of mistakes caused by their limited grammar

mastery and limited vocabulary mastery. Then, the student (writer) was

asked to revise the composition based on some corrections from the

other pairs. After revising, the students submitted their works to the

teacher.

In this step, like the previous meeting, the teacher held a

conference. The conference was intended to minimize the students’

mistakes in writing so that the teacher got the better compositions before

evaluating. Here, the students could not do the conference maximally.

They were still reluctant to make questions and answer, to give feedback

to their friends. They also did dare to express their problems to the

teacher.

At the end of the lesson the teacher said good bye. However, before

closing it, the teacher summed up the lesson and gave chances to the students to

ask questions whether the students still found difficulties in writing the descriptive

text. Some of them answered that they found some difficulties especially in


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sentence structure or grammar and in choosing appropriate words. In short time,

the teacher explained sentence structure or grammar. Then, the teacher advised the

students to study hard to enrich their vocabularies.

On that day, the teacher told them that for the next meeting, they would

have a writing test and asked them to study hard. Finally, the teacher had to end

the lesson because the time was over, and then asked the pairs to submit their

writing.

d. The fourth meeting

In this fourth meeting, the post-test of cycle 1 was done on Wednesday

December 8th, 2010. There were 28 students who took the post-test. It means that

all the students followed the post-test. The teacher gave the students a post-test

aimed to know the students’ achievement and progress in writing a descriptive

text. The students were asked to write at least three paragraphs. The topic was

about the animal which provided in the question sheet. The teacher told them to

choose one of animals to write and the time was forty five minutes. They were

asked to pay attention to the writing elements- content, organization, vocabulary,

grammar, and mechanics. Besides, the teacher distributed a sheet of self-

assessment checklist as guidelines in writing so that the students could write better

and follow aspects of writing well.

Then, the students’ works were scored by both the teacher and his

collaborator, so there were two sets of scores which were used to find out the

significance of collaborative writing technique in teaching writing.


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3. Observing

There were two important things that the teacher and his collaborator

observed. They were the process of teaching and learning in the classroom and

learning progress that the students achieved.

a. The teaching-learning process

In the first meeting, the collaborator observed the teacher’s and students’

activities in teaching learning process in the class. At that day, the students were

still ashamed and awkward to the teacher. They were asked to pay attention to the

teacher, but some of them in the back rows were noisy. Then, the students seemed

interested in the animal pictures when the teacher showed them in LCD. The

teacher did it to brainstorm the students’ ideas. After that, the students joined the

lesson actively and gave responses to the provided questions in the worksheet.

In the teaching-learning process of first meeting, the teacher explained the

material clearly about the descriptive text. After explaining about the descriptive

text and the students understood about it, the students then were asked to make the

pair. The role was as a helper and writer. After that, the teacher gave a model of

descriptive text about an animal which has been provided in the worksheet and the

students were also asked to answer the questions related to a descriptive text.

Then, students did an exercise to write a short descriptive composition

collaboratively.

In the second meeting, the teacher provided an opportunity for each pair to

write a short composition in the form of the descriptive text. Each pair started

writing and did his/her job as a helper and the other as a writer. They looked


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happy when they have a friend to write collaboratively. The material was still

about an animal and then they were asked to develop it by their own ideas.

And the last, in the third meeting, the teacher reviewed the material of the

previous meeting and explained it. In the third meeting, some of male students

still made noise. Here, the teacher asked them again to write a short composition

by using steps of collaborative writing technique. The topic was still about an

animal which was different from the previous meeting. The helper and writer were

active in writing a short composition. They did it based on their role. The result of

their writings had been good but it was short and not too detail.

In writing the text, the students were guided by the teacher. They still did

not know about the collaborative writing technique because the technique was not

familiar yet to them. The teacher then explained it and asked them whether they

had questions or not. At that time, they kept silent and no questions. After that,

they wrote it collaboratively as a helper and a writer. When they wrote

collaboratively, the class situation was very noisy and sometimes they were not

serious to write. As the result, their writing was not good. They had some

problems in vocabulary and incorrect grammar.

b. Students’ learning progress

In the first meeting, the students had not yet been able to write a

descriptive text well, but they were just able to answer the teacher’s questions

dealing with the activities. In this case, the teacher showed animals’ pictures in the

LCD projector so that the students could answer and describe them easily. Then,

the teacher explained about a descriptive text, gave an example of descriptive text,


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and asked them to answer the questions related to the text. In doing the exercises,

the students were asked to write collaboratively in the first meeting but they still

had many problems in all aspects of writing.

In the second meeting, the students were supposed to be able to write a

descriptive text based on the collaborative writing technique in the pair. Since the

collaborative writing technique was a new technique for them, at the beginning

they were confused and not enthusiastic to start writing. In doing writing in the

pair at that time, the students felt free to express and explore their ideas in writing.

They shared their knowledge to one another. The students were also actively

involved in working in a pair. Therefore, they could interact with his/her partner

to create a descriptive text. They could arrange and organize the sentences into

paragraphs. Besides their progress, they had problems in choosing appropriate

words or vocabulary and grammatical mistakes of the text. After following step by

step, they could finish it but the result of their writings was still not good.

In the third meeting, there was also a progress of their learning. Here, they

were still asked to write the descriptive text about an animal which was different

from the previous meeting. The pairs did the task more silently and more

enthusiastically because they had had a writing practice in the previous meeting

collaboratively. Their writings in this meeting were better than the previous one.

The pairs improved in expressing their ideas but their writings only had some

little elaboration and lack of detail in writing.

In addition, the students also improved their mastery of descriptive text,

learned the generic structure of descriptive text, and the example of descriptive


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text. By doing the exercises related to descriptive text, they had mastery on

understanding descriptive text. Besides, the understanding of mechanics improved

in their writing. It appeared when they were more carefully in using mechanics to

create and write a descriptive text. Their problems were still low in choosing

appropriate words or vocabulary and mastering of grammar especially in using

present tense.

The last meeting was post-test of cycle 1. It was done on December 8th,

2010. They did individually. The teacher explained the instruction clearly before

the students did the test. The topic was about an animal. The students chose one of

animals which were provided in the question sheet. In writing, they did not feel

nervous or anxious at all due to the fact they had got enough exercises and

experiences from the previous meetings from the pre-test. There were 28 students

who took a post-test. They were given forty five minutes to finish it. They were

asked to pay attention to the writing aspects to score. They were content,

organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. Based on the result of the

post-test, the teacher could report as follows:

The post-test scores from the first scorer could be reported that the highest

score was 92.00, the lowest score was 44.00, and the average score was 63.14. In

summary, it could be shown in the following table.

Table 4.2 The students’ post-test average score of cycle 1

from the first scorer No Explanation Score 1. The highest score 92.00 2. The lowest score 44.00 3. The average score 63.14


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Furthermore, those scores could be analyzed in more details into five

aspects of writing. They were score of content, organization, vocabulary,

grammar, and the last is mechanics. The result of the analysis can be seen on the

following table.

Table 4.3 The students’ post-test average scores based on the writing aspects of

cycle 1 from the first scorer No Writing Aspects Average Scores 1 Content 70.00 2 Organization 63.57 3 Vocabulary 62.14 4 Grammar 55.71 5 Mechanics 64.29

The post-test scores from the second scorer could be reported that the

highest score was 92.00, the lowest score was 40.00, and the average score was

64.14. In summary, it could be seen on the table below.

Table 4.4 The students’ post-test average scores of cycle 1

from the second scorer No Explanations Scores 1 The highest score 92.00 2 The lowest score 40.00 3 The average score 64.14

The result of each aspect for writing could be shown on the following

table. Table 4.5

The students’ post-test scores based on the writing aspects of cycle 1 from the second scorer

No Writing Aspects Average scores 1 Content 72.86 2 Organization 65.71 3 Vocabulary 61.43 4 Grammar 56.43 5 Mechanics 64.29


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From the average of two scorers, the researcher could report that the

highest score was 92.00; the lowest score was 42.00, and the average score was

63.64. In short, it could be shown in the following table below:


from the two scorers No Explanations Scores 1 The highest score 92.00 2 The lowest score 42.00 3 The average score 63.64

There were five writing aspects that were analyzed: content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The results of the analysis could be shown

on the following table.

Table 4.7 The students’ post-test scores based on the writing aspects of cycle 1

from the two scorers No Writing Aspects Average scores 1 Content 71.43 2 Organization 64.64 3 Vocabulary 61.78 4 Grammar 56.07 5 Mechanics 64.29

From the table above, it could be concluded that grammar and vocabulary

became the main problems for the students since the average scores of them were

lower than other writing aspects in spite of the fact that there was a bit increase on

the students’ achievement. Those were because the teacher did not give

explanation and material more about the vocabulary and grammar due to the

limited time in the teaching and learning process. Most of the students could not

choose appropriate words for the topic which they wrote and sometimes they

forgot to implement the words into writing. For the grammar, the students did not


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understand well about present tense. They did not know how to use the verbs or to

be in the present tense and they also forgot to add s/es in the verbs and singular or

plural. Besides, the teacher did not train them as well for focusing in vocabulary

and grammar. Then, in evaluating step of writing process the students still seemed

passive or lazy to ask questions about the problems what they faced especially in

vocabulary and grammar. So that was why the students got the lower average for

the aspects of vocabulary and grammar in the post-test cycle 1.

Based on the observation in cycle 1, it was found there were improvement

of students’ ability in writing a descriptive text, improvement of students’

behavior, and improvement of students’ motivation.

4. Reflecting the action

Based on the teacher and his collaborator observation and the result

interview to the students and collaborator, the researcher could give reflection to

what had been implemented in cycle 1 and the result was as the basis for

arranging the revised plan for the next cycle. There were two aspects noted from

the observation. They were (a) the result of implementation of the collaborative

writing technique, and (b) the strengths and weaknesses in cycle 1, (c) Revised

plan for the next cycle. The detail description was as follows:

a. The result of implementation of collaborative writing technique in cycle 1

In cycle 1, based on the results of teaching and learning process of writing

a descriptive text using collaborative writing technique, there was a significant

progress. The researcher found three more results including: (1) improvement of


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the students’ writing ability; (2) improvement of students’ behavior and

motivation; and (3) improvement of students’ interest and self-awareness. The

brief description was as follows:

1) The improvement of the students’ writing ability

The improvement of the students’ writing ability could be seen from the

result of post-test in cycle 1 that there was improvement in some aspects of

writing descriptive texts, especially in aspects of content, organization, and

mechanics. However, vocabulary and grammar were still low. In vocabulary, the

students could not use appropriate words in written texts while in grammar, the

students found difficulties especially in using correct simple present tense. They

forgot to add “s or es” at the end of verbs for third person singular number.

The improvement of the content, organization, and mechanics could be

seen when they were doing process of CWT, which covered writing paragraphs.

In expressing or exploring the ideas, they could share to each other so it made

them easier to find some ideas of their own words, even the students said in the

interview that:

“Penyusunan kalimat saya menjadi lebih baik dan dapat menuangkan ide-ide lebih banyak.” Another student also said that:

“Saya dapat mengembangkan isi pada setiap paragraph dan mengetahui teknik atau tahap-tahap membuat teks deskriptif.” Meanwhile, in organizing the words into paragraph, the students felt better

to organize them and their mechanics (spelling and punctuation) also improved

better. Related to the interview, the students said that:


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“Iya, lebih tahu cara menyusun kalimat dan kata yang sesuai dengan aturan.” “Iya, alasannya ide banyak didapatkan, vocabulary lebih luas, spelling dan punctuation serta grammar juga meningkat”. From the analysis of cycle 1, it could be concluded that first, the result of

cycle 1 could improve the students’ achievement in writing. The average score of

students writing improved from pre-test 53.36 to 63.64. The students who fulfilled

the passing grade improved from 2 students to 13 students and those who got

under the passing grade decreased from 26 students to 15 students.

Table 4.8 The result of the statistical account of points score in cycle 1

No Points Pre-test Post-test 1 The students who fulfilled the

passing grade 64 2 13

2 The students who got under the passing grade 64

26 15

3 Passing grade 64 64

The aspects of writing also improved: the content increases from 61.43 in

the pre-test to 71.43 in the post-test of cycle 1, the organization increases from

57.86 in the pre-test to 64.64 in the post-test of cycle 1, the vocabulary increases

from 54.64 in the pre-test to 61.78 in the post-test of cycle 1, the grammar

increases from 43.21 in the pre-test to 56.07 in the post-test of cycle 1, and the

mechanics increases from 49.64 in the pre-test to 64.29 in the post-test of cycle 1.

From the scores above, vocabulary and grammar were still low but both of them

were better than before. The result of the improvement of them could be seen in

the following table:


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Table 4.9 The result of statistical account of aspects of writing from pre-test to

post-test in cycle 1 No Aspects of Writing Score of Pre-Test Score of Post-Test 1 Content 61.43 71.43 2 Organization 57.86 64.64 3 Vocabulary 54.64 61.78 4 Grammar 43.21 56.07 5 Mechanics 49.64 64.29

2) The improvement of class condition

The teacher stated that there were some positive results from the

implementation of collaborative writing technique to the students’ writing. The

result included: (1) the students learned that the writing process is not taken in

once draft but it can be many drafts as long as the draft could be reached into a

good final writing; (2) the writing process gave more understanding to the

students that there were many aspects in writing that they should focus on

including content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The

students felt happy when collaborative writing technique was implemented in

teaching writing descriptive text because they got an enjoyable technique in

writing descriptive text although some of them were still crowded when the

teacher explained the lesson and did their tasks with their partner.

3) The improvement of students’ behavior and motivation

Collaborative writing technique could improve their behavior and

motivation. It happened when they were writing in pairs. They discussed and

worked together among them in discussing a task, therefore their writings were

better than before as stated by one of students:


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“Iya, ini dapat meningkatkan motivasi untuk rajin menulis, kreatifitas dalam mengolah kata, dan kerja sama yang luar biasa.”

4) The improvement of students’ interest and self-awareness

The students who joint in the classroom felt happy in teaching and

learning English especially writing by using collaborative writing technique. The

students worked and discussed together about their pair’s writing result. They had

self-confidence and creative in cooperative interaction between them to finish

their work as well as possible. One of the students said:

“Menurut saya, ini dapat meningkatkan motivasi, kreatifitas, kerjasama, dan pengetahun diantara kami.”

b. The strengths and weaknesses in cycle 1

The researcher and his collaborator stated that there were some strengths

and weaknesses from the implementation of collaborative writing technique to the

students’ writing. The results were found during teaching and learning process.

The strengths were: (1) the students were enthusiastic to work in pairs although at

first they seemed reluctant. They ‘take and give’ action really worked in the pair

since in each pair there were always ‘good students’ as the helpers of the pair.

From the questionnaire, most of the students were happy with the learning

process. (2) The students had higher self-confidence and felt happy because the

students were also actively involved in working in a pair. Therefore, they could

interact with his/her partner to create a descriptive text. One of students said:

“Menurut saya kegiatan tersebut sangat membantu saya memiliki percaya diri yang tinggi dibanding mengerjakan sendiri. Selain itu, dalam kegiatan tersebut saya dapat saling berpendapat untuk menghasilkan kalimat yang baik”.


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(3) The students learned to make good cooperation and interaction with their

partner through sharing ideas in making paragraphs. It could be seen from the

result of interview to the one of students that:

“Saya bisa lebih mudah dalam membuat teks paragraph dengan teman saya. Dan collaborative writing technique bisa melatih kerja sama dengan teman sebangku.”

(4) The collaborative writing technique could improve the students’ writing ability

in exploring or expressing their ideas, organize them into paragraphs, and much

better in mechanics (spelling and punctuation). And (5) the students could also

pay more attention about punctuation and spelling in writing.

However, there were also weaknesses found in this part: (1) most of the

students were still confused with vocabularies and grammar related to descriptive

text in their writing; (2) the students had to spent a long time to complete every

step of writing process in the classroom; (3) lack of control from the teacher in

pair work, the students made noise at the class; and (4) some students did not

follow the steps of collaborative writing technique well because the teacher

explained the collaborative writing technique not too clear to the students. In this

case, the students got difficulties in how to become a better writer or helper and

conducted the steps in writing process. It could also be proved from the result of

interview to the collaborator:

“Tidak ada saran-saran tertentu, hanya dimohon agar dalam pemberian perintah atau petunjuk lebih diperjelas lagi sehingga mudah diikuti oleh siswa.”


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c. Revised plan

Based on the result of the first cycle, the researcher realized that there

were improvements of the students’ writing ability, but the researcher still found

problems faced by the students. The students had difficulties in choosing

appropriate vocabularies and sentence structure or grammar of using simple

present tense. In doing writing collaboratively, they spent the long time in

conducting the steps of collaborative writing. Besides, there were also some

students who were busy with other activities during teaching and learning process.

Dealing with those problems in the first cycle, the researcher revised his plans.

The revised plan were: (1) the researcher needed to engage the students to find

many vocabularies related to the descriptive texts and give the students

understanding of the meaning of any difficult or new words; (2) the researcher

gave more explanation about grammar of simple present tense; and (3) the

researcher should give more time and attention much more for the students to do

the tasks.

To understand about collaborative writing technique easier, the teacher

asked the students to play their role as a helper and a writer as well as possible in

doing writing process. In this case, they should work together and need to jointly

discuss a topic, plan an outline, gave suggestions, and contributed the success of

the final product of writing in order to make a good composition.


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C. Cycle 2

Based on the reflection in the previous cycle, the students encountered the

problems what the students faced. The problems dealt with language aspects,

especially grammar, concept of simple present tense, their function, and its time,

and also vocabulary. That is why the researcher introduced and explained them

about the good writing dealing with the grammar and vocabulary. In addition, the

process of writing needed a long time especially in conducting the steps of

collaborative writing. So, the teacher provided more time in doing each step so

that the students could finish their work well.

1. Planning the action

After knowing the result of cycle 1, the researcher designed the action.

The researcher also shared with his collaborator related to the activities that could

be implemented in the second cycle. The researcher (as a teacher) prepared a

lesson plans which consisted of objectives, materials, technique, and learning

steps for cycle 2. Besides preparing lesson plans, the researcher also copied some

worksheets for the students and teaching aids to support the teaching learning

process. In this case, the topic was about describing the trees using the descriptive

text. In this cycle was also designed for three meetings. The first meeting was

brainstorming and modeling, second and third meeting were the implementation

of collaborative writing technique, and the fourth meeting was conducting the

post-test.

This action plan was to improve the results of cycle 1. The solutions

offered by the researcher were: (1) introducing and explaining more about


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grammar and vocabularies in the descriptive texts; (2) giving more explanation

about collaborative writing technique to the students so that they could understand

what to do based on step by step of the technique; and (3) providing more the time

and enhancing the role of the teacher to help the students when they needed.

The plan of cycle 2 was arranged as follows:

a. In the pre-activity, to conduct brainstorming, the researcher provided pictures

on the worksheet about trees so that the students could see the pictures clearly.

Besides, the researcher also displayed the pictures through LCD. In the

modeling, the researcher gave the students’ chance to make a pair and chose

one of them as writer and the other as helper.

b. Since their difficulties were grammar and vocabulary, the researcher

introduced and explained sentence pattern and structure in which the students

frequently made mistakes. Besides, the researcher gave them two descriptive

texts about trees so that they could know more the words in the texts. And

then, they would conduct them in written exercises.

c. The researcher gave more time and attention to write the descriptive text

collaboratively so that each pair became more active and creative in the

teaching and learning process.

2. Implementing the action

In this cycle, the researcher started implementing the actions which have

been formulated in the revised plan. There were four meetings in the second

cycle:


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a. The first meeting

On Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 12.10 pm, it was attended by the

researcher as a teacher and his collaborator. The collaborator said to the teacher

that the schedule of time for English lesson changed. Usually the time for English

lesson was in the morning but it became at noon.

Then, the teacher entered the class with his collaborator and greeted the

students. Afterwards, the teacher checked the students’ attendance. At that time,

there was no student absent at the class.

Because of the time change, the English lesson on Thursday started after

the students had a sport lesson. That was why, at that time, they looked tired and

sleepy. The teacher asked them by saying “Are you tired?” spontaneously, all of

them answered “yes”. Then, the teacher asked them to relax and wash their face

with water outside the class so that they could concentrate on the lesson. Besides,

the teacher tried to grab the students’ attention by showing an English joyful song

through LCD to them and they followed by singing together. After they sang, the

students seemed had spirit again and ready to have lesson at that time.

Then, the teacher opened the class; the teacher told the students that his

aim of coming to the class was for the second cycle. The teacher started the lesson

by engaging the students to brainstorm about trees. Then, the teacher distributed

students’ worksheet to all students in order to be followed easily the lesson by the

students. Besides, the teacher also showed it in LCD screen.

In this meeting, the focus was the same with the first meeting in cycle 1

but the implementation was different. In the brainstorming step, to activate the


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students’ background knowledge, the teacher asked the students to match the tree

pictures with the name provided in the box. After matching them, the teacher led

the students to the next task matching the pictures to the topic which was going to

be discussed in the subject. That was the tree. In the modeling step, the teacher

asked the students to make the pair as a writer and the other as a helper. It was

done to prepare them to write collaboratively in the second and third meeting

later. After that, the teacher introduced and explained the sentence pattern of

present tense and structure in which the students frequently made mistakes.

Besides, the researcher gave them two descriptive texts including their

pictures about trees so that they could know more words in the texts. Here, the

students were asked to read the text, and then they were asked to find or mention

the new vocabularies based on the two texts and their pictures. After that, they

wrote and gave meaning of words that they had found. The teacher asked them to

use the words and implement them into writing later.

Then, the teacher distributed a set of hand out covering some exercises.

Before doing exercises, the teacher explained about the verbs, which can be used

in the simple present tense. The teacher discussed about sentences, which covered

to be, and the other was verb 1, or V+ (e/es). In the teacher’s explanation, they

paid attention and kept silent. Besides, the teacher also gave an opportunity for

them to ask questions. Most of them were enthusiastic to ask questions and the

others paid attention seriously.

Doing the exercises, the students were asked to use those new words in

making simple sentences by using present tense related to the tree which also


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covered singular or plural verbs. The teacher reminded them to carefully use the

verbs or to be. It looked easy, but if the students were not careful, they would

make mistakes in making sentences. Then, the teacher asked the three students to

move forward in the class and write their simple sentences by using present tense

related to the tree. They then wrote one by one on the white board. They did well

in making sentences. The teacher asked them to implement it in making sentences

in the descriptive text for the next meeting. Finally, they were asked to have an

exercise by writing a short composition collaboratively about a tree using present

tense which they had learnt.

After finishing writing, the teacher held on a conference to discuss the

problems faced by the students. The teacher asked the students whether they still

had problems concerning with the material that had been studied or not. It seemed

that they still had a few problems; therefore the teacher discussed the problems

together.

At 13.30 pm, the teacher stopped the teaching and learning activity on that

day. He summed up the lesson by reviewing the explained materials and reminded

the students to study the lesson given at home. Moreover, the teacher told the

students to follow the steps of collaborative writing technique well for the next

meeting. The teacher ended the class by saying goodbye.

b. The second meeting

It was on Saturday, January 8th, 2011. Like in the previous meetings, the

teacher and his collaborator entered the class, greeted the students, and checked

the students’ attendance list. After reviewing the materials that were discussed in


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the first meeting about the sentence pattern of present tense or structure and

vocabularies in the descriptive texts, the teacher asked the students to sit in the

same pair as the previous meeting and informed them what they would do in the

class. Then, the teacher distributed the worksheet and provided them an

opportunity to write a short composition collaboratively in the form of a

descriptive text. The topic was about the trees. Each pair had a freedom to choose

the tree as their topic to write. Before starting writing collaboratively, the teacher

explained first to the students about the steps of collaborative writing technique so

that they could do better than the previous meetings. He also gave the allocated

time to do each step of collaborative writing technique in order not to waste long

time like in the previous meetings. Then, he asked them to follow its steps well.


Like in the previous meetings, in this step the teacher asked the

student (helper) to do brainstorming activity to his/her partner (writer) in

order to get the ideas from the writer. The questions have been provided

in the worksheet, the helper then could develop them by his/her own

questions. After having the topic, the teacher assigned the helper to

discuss or review the writer‘s key words, to develop the ideas, and to

organize the ideas in order. In the second meeting of this second cycle

some of the students could do the activity. In doing pre-writing, the time

was ten minutes.


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2) Drafting

After getting ideas in prewriting step, the students were asked to

arrange their ideas into paragraph. The students were allowed to use a

dictionary. The writer began writing rough drafts based on the

discovered ideas and reviewed from the helper. The writer focused on

the arrangement of words and phrase into sentences and further

organized into paragraph. The writer was also advised by the helper not

to care much about grammar, spelling, punctuation, or neatness. During

the activity, the researcher went around the class to provide assistance,

guidance, and comments if they are necessary. In this second cycle, the

students only had a short rough draft, however in the second cycle the

students had a longer paragraph than the first cycle. To do in this step,

each pair had ten minutes to finish it.

3) Reading

Actually this step was the same with the previous steps. Here, as

writer had a chance to read the rough draft. The helper gave comments

on the clarity and relevance of the ideas and their coherence. The helper

also gave written comments or orally to the writer. Then, the writer

reorganized what had been written in the rough draft and refined ideas

based on the feedback from the helper. In this part, it was found that

there was better improvement to the helper in giving corrections,

comments to the writer. Each pair needed ten minutes to read it.


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4) Editing

Editing is to edit, revise, and to correct the mistakes and errors.

The main purpose of this step was to make the students more critical in

facing problems in their writings. Here, the pairs (writer and helper)

started to edit together about the content, organization, vocabulary,

grammar, and mechanics of a descriptive text they made. They added

some information needed and reduced unnecessary information. They

arranged their writing into chronological order. The teacher walked

around the class and monitored the students’ worksheet.

After that, they edited their drafts in term of the vocabulary,

grammar, and mechanics of the text. In the second cycle, the students

made better improvements since the teacher gave explanations and

provided editing guidelines so that they could edit their drafts easily.

They did it for fifteen minutes.

5) Copying

After editing, the teacher asked the students (writers) to write the

best version on a piece of paper. The best copy respected a joint product

of the pairs; both students should have their name on it. They could do

well for ten minutes.

6) Evaluating

Like in the previous meetings, after exchanging their works with

another pair, they were asked to give some corrections or comments and

feedback to another pair’s composition by using five editing criteria. The


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situation in the class was rather crowded because each pair discussed the

task with their own partners. At the same time, the teacher and his

collaborator walked around to help them check their writings. During

this process, most of the students could do the activity by giving

corrections, comments, or suggestions in a simple form.

Here, the teacher asked one of the pairs to write and present their

corrections from another pairs’ works on the white board. The pair then

explained and gave reasons about mistakes which were made by other

pairs. Besides, the teacher and his collaborator also gave comments or

corrections to their writings. Finally, the students (writers) were asked to

revise the composition based on some corrections from the other pairs.

After revising, the students submitted their works to the teacher. In

evaluating they did it for fifteen minutes.

In closing, the teacher summed up the lesson and gave a chance to the

students to ask questions whether they had questions or not. Because there were

no questions and the time was over, the teacher and his collaborator then say good

bye.

c. The third meeting

It was on Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 at 08.50 am. At the beginning,

the teacher and his collaborator entered the class and greeted them, and checked

the students’ attendance list. No student was absent at that time. Then, the teacher

reviewed briefly the previous materials about a descriptive text including simple

sentence pattern of present tense and vocabularies of the text. After that, the


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teacher again provided a chance for the pair to write a short composition about a

tree in the form of a descriptive text. The teacher explained what they would do

first and the students paid attention much more to the teacher’s explanation. The

activities were the same in the previous meetings. They were ideas/pre-writing,

drafting, reading, editing, copying, and evaluating.


On the students’ worksheet, the student (helper) developed own

questions to stimulate his/her partner’s ideas (writer) without

guidelines from the teacher. Then, the writer wrote everything that

came into his/her head about the chosen topic and jot down ideas that

arose from it. Prewriting means to come up the writer’s ideas and the

helper reviewed and also helped organize them. Here, the students had

been able to be more productive and creative in doing that. They did it

in ten minutes.

2) Drafting

After the student (writer) got the ideas, then she/he began writing

in rough drafts. Besides, the helper gave suggestion the ideas to be

written in the draft and always kept reminding the writer not to care

much about the grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Each pair looked

seriously to do that. In doing in this step, each pair had ten minutes.

3) Reading

As the pair (the writer and the helper) did in the previous meetings,

this step was done well. Mostly the writers did their own work


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seriously and enthusiastically but the condition of the class was very

crowded. Each pair needed ten minutes to read it.

4) Editing

Here, the helper and the writer both looked and edited at the drafts.

Actually this step was also the same with the previous meetings. In

editing the rough drafts, the helper and the writer used the guiding

questions about content, organization, the use of vocabulary, grammar,

and mechanics which had been already provided in the students’

worksheet. In the second cycle of this meeting, the students made

better improvements and they were also confident when they did the

task. They did it for fifteen minutes.

5) Copying

In this copying step, they (writers) were all busy with their works

to copy out a neat or best version of the corrected writing. They (the

helpers) provided a help when was needed. They were given a time to

do it for ten minutes.

6) Evaluating

As usual, the teacher asked the students whether they had finished

their task or not. It was found that a few pair had not finished yet in

copying their works. Five minutes left and they had to exchange their

work with another’s pair. At the same time, the teacher and his

collaborator always walked around to help the students and give

corrections or comments to another’s pair by using five editing criteria.


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The condition of the class was also crowded. Then, the teacher asked

one of pairs to move forward in the front of the class to write another’s

pair works and presented it. The pair corrected it by giving reasons

why it was mistake. Besides, the teacher and the collaborator also gave

input or comments about it. Finally, after revising some corrections

the students then wrote the final composition and submitted to the

teacher. In evaluating step, they did it for fifteen minutes.

Because the time was very limited, the teacher summed up the lesson and

asked them to have questions. Most of students were satisfied and happy about

what they had done recently because they could understand steps of writing. At

the end of the lesson, before leaving the class the teacher reminded the students to

study harder because for the last meeting was the post-test. They said that they

were all ready to have the post-test. Then, he and the collaborator said good bye to

them.

d. The fourth meeting

The post-test was held on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 and followed by 28

students. There was no student absent at that time. In fact, the post-test could run

well as the teacher planned before. The teacher asked them to write a descriptive

text at least three paragraph about a tree individually. The teacher provided a

instructions sheet and self-assessment checklist to all students so that they could

write well in a composition. The students were asked to choose one of provided

pictures in the instructions sheet, the students then developed and described into

the paragraphs. They were given forty five minutes to accomplish their text. Five


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aspects of writing were important aspects which needed to consider namely

content, organization, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics.

3. Observing

In cycle 2, the observing process was carried out during the

implementation of the action. Basically, the teaching learning process had

changed better than the first cycle. It was shown by the students’ attention and

motivation in following the lesson on account of the fact that the presented topic

was based on the mistakes made by the students from the previous cycle. Besides,

the improvement of the students’ ability in constructing a descriptive text got a

progress well. The teacher helped them to solve the problems by giving more

explanation and gave them more chances to ask questions what they had not

understood yet.

a. The teaching-learning process

During the implementation of cycle 2, the observation was conducted by

the teacher and his collaborator. The students were trained to create a descriptive

text through collaborative writing technique. By following the steps of

collaborative writing technique, the students were happy, enthusiastic, and felt

interested in learning English focusing on writing. Before writing, the teacher

introduced the discussed topic by showing them through LCD. It looked

interesting for them. In the teaching and learning process here the teacher guided

the students in the process of writing in order to make a good final writing.


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In the beginning of first meeting of the cycle 2, the teacher introduced and

explained much more about grammar of simple sentence pattern in present tense

and vocabularies in the descriptive texts about trees. To enrich the vocabulary, the

teacher gave the descriptive texts included their pictures and showed them so that

the students felt happy. Here, the students were asked read the texts silently, then

they were asked again to find the new vocabularies based on the texts and their

pictures. After that, they gave meaning of words what they have found. The

teacher asked them to remind the words and implement them into writing later. In

fact, they had many new words and ideas by doing exercises.

In the teacher’s explanation, they paid attention and kept silent. Besides,

the teacher also gave an opportunity for them to ask questions. Most of them were

enthusiastic to ask questions and the others paid attention seriously. After that, the

students were asked to make three simple sentences by using present tense related

to the tree which also covered singular or plural verbs. The teacher reminded them

to carefully use the verbs or to be. It looked easy, but if the students were not

carefully, they would make mistakes in making sentences. Then, the teacher asked

the three students to move forward in the class and write their sentences by using

present tense related to the tree. They then wrote one by one on the white board.

They did well in making sentences. The teacher asked them to implement it in

making sentences in the descriptive text for the next meeting.

Then, the second and third meeting had the same activity like the previous

meetings. But, in this cycle 2 the students had been given the allocated time to do

every step of collaborative writing. Thus, they could focus and pay attention


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carefully from steps of collaborative writing and also the result of their works

were good. In implementing the technique, every student was busy with their

works; no one kept silent in writing collaboratively. The effect was increasing

students’ participation in writing activity and the result of their works was also

better than before. In cycle 2, the each pair worked more effectively than in the

cycle 1 because they had known and could run the technique well. Therefore,

most of the students said that the collaborative writing technique was very

interesting for them in writing text as stated by the students through an interview

as follows:

“Ya menarik, karena dengan semua itu saya menjadi lebih tahu cara menulis dalam bahasa Inggris.” “Menarik, karena kita dapat saling bercanda untuk menghilangkan kepenatan dan juga kita harus mengetahui cirri-ciri dari objeknya.”

In addition, the collaborator also responded well about the technique that

was implemented by the teacher because there were many advantages to

implement it as stated by the collaborator in the interview that:

“Ya, karena banyak manfaatnya dan kelihatannya siswa sudah mampu memahami langkah- langkah bentuk pembelajaran.”

b. The students’ learning progress

Dealing with their problems in grammar in the first meeting of cycle 2, the

teacher explained the sentence pattern of simple present tense in details and gave

some exercises about it. Most of them could answer and do the exercises well.

While about the vocabularies, the students were asked to read the given texts

about trees in the students’ worksheet. The aim of reading the text was to enrich


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their vocabularies so that they could use in writing. In fact, it was seen that the

results were better than the previous exercise. It means that there was the

improvement of learning progress.

During the second and the third meetings, the students (the pair) were

asked to write a short composition about a tree in the form of descriptive text.

Each pair was involved in the discussion. Every step of process writing was done

by the students. They enjoyed the activity because they could get more

understanding about the descriptive text. They made better progress in writing and

the students worked in pair lively than in the cycle 1 because the technique had

been familiar with them so the writing process could run well in creating better

writing. The process of writing in the collaborative writing allowed the students to

express their ideas in their own text. Then, their ideas were organized to become

better paragraphs. It made them feel more confident with their writings. They felt

satisfied because they could create and organize their own descriptive text.

The students also made some progress in the mastery of vocabulary. They

found new vocabularies in the provided texts by doing exercises related to the

topic which they had to write. When they got difficulty in finding appropriate

words, they used to look up in the dictionary or ask the words to his/her partner or

the teacher.

Moreover, the students improved their understanding about grammar. The

activity in cycle 2 allowed the students to be better in grammar by doing some

exercises in the first meeting of cycle 2. So, in the second and third meetings’

tasks they could check and edit their grammar mistakes. By realizing that they


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made mistakes and corrected, they would not make the same mistakes later. In

writing, they also paid more attention on mechanics (spelling and punctuation) so

that their result of writings improved better before.

The fourth meeting was for the post-test done on Saturday, January 15th,

2011. There were twenty eight students who joined the post-test. They were asked

to write at least three paragraphs in the form of descriptive text. They could do the

test better than before since they had got enough experience and exercise from the

previous activities. The results of the post-test could be reported as follows.

From the first scorer, the researcher could report that the highest score was

96.00, the lowest score was 52.00, and average score was 73.29. In summary, it

could be shown in the following table.


from the first scorer No Explanation Score 1. The highest score 96.00 2. The lowest score 52.00 3. The average score 73.29

Then, the scores could be analyzed into five aspects of writing. They were

content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The results of the

analysis can be seen on the following table.


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cycle 2 from the first scorer No Writing Aspects Average Scores 1 Content 78.57 2 Organization 72.14 3 Vocabulary 70.71 4 Grammar 65.71 5 Mechanics 80.00

The scores from the second scorer could be reported the highest score was

92.00, the lowest score was 52.00, and the average score was 72.00. In summary,

it could be shown in the following table.


from the second scorer No Explanation Score 1. The highest score 92.00 2. The lowest score 52.00 3. The average score 72.00

The result of each aspect for writing could be seen on the following table.


cycle 2 from the second scorer No Writing Aspects Average Scores 1 Content 77.14 2 Organization 74.29 3 Vocabulary 66.43 4 Grammar 67.14 5 Mechanics 75.00

From the average of two scorers, the researcher could report that the

highest score was 94.00, the lowest score was 52.00, and the average score was

72.64. In short, it could be seen in the following table.


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from two scorers No Explanation Score 1. The highest score 94.00 2. The lowest score 52.00 3. The average score 72.64

There were five aspects that were analyzed namely content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The result of the analysis could be seen on

the following table.


cycle 2 No Writing Aspects Average Scores 1 Content 77.86 2 Organization 73.21 3 Vocabulary 68.57 4 Grammar 66.43 5 Mechanics 77.50

4. Reflecting the action

This was the final stage of the second cycle which was also the final cycle

in this research. Based on the observation, the result of interview, and

questionnaire, the researcher could give reflection to what had been implemented

in cycle 2. There were two important aspects noted from the observation. They

were: (a) the result of implementation of collaborative writing technique; and (b)

the strengths and weaknesses in cycle 2. The detail description was as follows:

a. The result of implementation of collaborative writing technique

In cycle 2, based on the results of teaching and learning process of writing

a descriptive text using collaborative writing technique, there was a significant


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progress. The researcher found three more results including: (1) improvement of

the students’ writing ability; (2) improvement of students’ behavior and

motivation; and (3) improvement of students’ interest and self-awareness. The

brief description was as follows:

1) The improvement of the students’ writing ability

Based on the result in cycle 2, it could be seen that the students’ ability

improved in writing descriptive text: content, organization, vocabulary, grammar,

and mechanics.

There were improvements in mastery descriptive text, content,

organization, and also mechanics in cycle 1. This improvement’s aspects in cycle

1 were also followed in cycle 2. The improvement of writing descriptive text:

content, organization, and mechanics were also improved in cycle 2. Besides, the

problems in cycle 1, were vocabulary and grammar, were also improved.

Vocabulary and grammar had significant improvement in cycle 2. The description

of the improvement of vocabulary and grammar were as follows:

Firstly, the students also made a progress in using vocabulary. They found

some new of vocabularies that they used in their writing descriptive text. In

showing the pictures and providing its texts, the students were asked to find new

words in the texts. In fact, they found about the meaning of words easily and

quickly. If they still did not know about the words, they would open or look up the

dictionary or ask his/her friend or the teacher. In addition, they got some new

information and knowledge about the tree from reading the descriptive texts as

one of students said on interview:


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“Menurut saya dapat menambah atau memperbanyak kata-kata yang belum pernah dikenal dan cara spelling saya menjadi lebih baik.” Secondly, the students made a quite progress in grammar. After they got

explanation about simple present tense, they were able to use nominal and verbal

sentences of simple present tense correctly. They also used time signal to make

their writing readable. The students were asked to write simple sentences by using

present tense and move forward to write their sentences on the white board. By

doing exercises and implementing it in their writing, the students had more

progress in grammar especially on the use simple present tense as the students

gave response on their interview as follows:

“Sebenarnya cara ini dapat memperbaiki grammar dan spelling saya dalam mengarang.” “Ini dapat mempermudah saya dalam menulis descriptive teks juga memperbaiki grammar dan tenses pada khususnya.” The improvement of the students’ achievement in writing could be seen

from the analysis of cycle 2, it could be concluded that the result of cycle 2 could

improve the students’ achievement in writing. The average score of students

writing improved from post-test 63.64 in cycle 1 to 72.64 in cycle 2. The students

who fulfilled the passing grade increased from 13 students to 20 students and

those who got under the passing grade decreased from 15 students to 8 students.

Table 4.16 The result of the statistical account of points score in cycle 2

No Points Post-test in cycle 1 Post-test in cycle 21 The students who fulfilled the

passing grade 64 13 20

2 The students who got under the passing grade 64

15 8

3 Passing grade 64 64


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The aspects of writing also improved from post-test in cycle 1 to post-test

in cycle 2 including: the content increases from 71.43 to 77.86, the organization

increases from 64.64 to 73.21, the vocabulary increases from 61.78 to 68.57, the

grammar increases from 56.07 to 66.43, and the mechanics increases from 64.29

to 77.50. From the scores above, all indicators of the students’ writing had a

significant improvement than before.

The summary of the results of the pre-test, post-test of cycle 1, and cycle 2

can be seen in the following table.

Table 4.17 The summary of the results of the pre-test, post-test of

cycle 1 and cycle 2

No Test The lowest score

The highest score

The average

1. Pre-test 32.00 74.00 53.36 2. Post-test of cycle 1 42.00 92.00 63.64 3. Post-test of cycle 2 52.00 94.00 72.64

2) The improvement of the class condition

The implementation of collaborative writing technique could improve the

teaching learning situation. The students were trained to create descriptive text

through some processes. By following the steps of writing process in collaborative

writing technique, the students were happy and felt easy in learning English

focusing on writing. In the teaching learning process, the teacher guided the

students in the writing process in order to make a good writing as stated by the

students as follows in interview:

“Ya, senang karena sekarang saya telah mengetahui tahap- tahap menulis dalam bahasa Inggris, lebih baik dari pada sebelumnya.”


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“Senang, karena tulis-menulis menjadi hobi saya dan dengan bahasa Inggris, saya bisa mencoba hal yang baru.” Besides, the classroom condition was lively, because there was

communication between the teacher and the students interactively. When the

teacher asked the questions about simple present tense, the students answered the

questions enthusiastically.

By applying the techniques, the students were given allocated time in

doing the writing process so that they produced the final product more effectively

and better. In the previous meetings the students needed a long time to do every

step of writing and their product of writing was not too good.

3) The improvement of students’ behavior and motivation

The improvement of students’ behavior and motivation could be seen

when the teacher and his collaborator entered the class. They sat quietly and put

learning materials on their tables. It was found that they were ready to follow the

lesson. Besides, their motivation increased as well. It could be seen from their

enthusiasm to answer questions and also their bravery to ask questions about the

materials which could not be understood by them. In doing the pair project, the

helper and the writer involved in the discussion actively. Besides, they got closer

between them and the interaction between them increased too. This was said by

the students in the interview:

“Ya, karena pasangan (teman sebangku) bisa mempermudah untuk menulis dan menemukan ide.” “Ada, karena kita bisa saling bertukar pendapat dan saling bisa mengoreksi tulisan kita.”


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4) The improvement of students’ interest and self-awareness

The students had interest and self-awareness to increase their ability. The

students tried to make a better writing by practicing. They also were not lazy to

open the dictionary to look up the appropriate words and expression. They

seriously did every steps of collaborative writing. Those activities were done by

the students in order to make their writing become better because they could carry

out on the steps of the collaborative writing technique. Most of the students could

play their role as a writer and a helper. They did the activities well than before

when they got more explanation about the collaborative writing technique from

the teacher.

“menarik, karena kegiatan ini memacu kemampuan saya dalam menulis bahasa Inggris yang semula tidak bisa menjadi bisa dan lebih memahaminya dan menguasainya.” “Menarik, karena menggunakan teknik belajar yang mengasyikkan, tidak membuat saya bosan.”

b. The strengths and weaknesses in cycle 2

The researcher and his collaborator stated that there were some positive

results from the implementation of collaborative writing technique to the students’

writing. The results included: (1) CWT could improve the students’ writing

ability. As one of students stated from their comments in the questionnaire that:

“Ini dapat menambah kemampuan menulis bahasa Inggris, memudahkan mendapatkan ide-ide mengenai apa-apa yang akan ditulis, bisa mengoreksi kata yang salah dalam bahasa Inggris dan lebih semangat untuk menulis dalam bahasa Inggris.”

(2) They were happy and not lazy in doing every step of writing process. (3) CWT

made the classroom more alive. (4) Each pair could run well their role as a helper


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and a writer so that the finished product of their writing was better than before;

and (5) it built the teacher or the collaborator’s awareness that there are many

varied ways which can be used in teaching learning English.

Besides, there were also weaknesses found in this part including: (1) there

were some students who still had difficulties in developing paragraphs using

simple sentence pattern of present tense correctly; (2) the condition of the class

was still crowded; and (3) sometimes between the helper and the writer had

different opinions or arguments in developing paragraphs. It could make a

difficult working situation or poor finished product. It is also proved from one of

students in his comment of the questionnaire that:

“pertentangan pendapat dan kata-kata yang harus digunakan digunakan dalam menulis dapat membuang waktu dan memperlambat kerja.”


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Table 4.17 The summary of the results of the class action research

No Pre-research findings Before action research After action research 1 Improvement in

students’ writing ability a. Achievement of all

aspects of writing: ∼ Content ∼ Organization ∼ Vocabulary ∼ Grammar ∼ Mechanics

b. The students’ writing ability.

c. Mother tongue use.

Mean of pre test: 53.36 61.43 57.86 54.64 43.21 49.64 ∼ Sometimes students

could not express and explore the ideas.

∼ Students also got difficulty in organizing the ideas.

∼ They got many mistakes in choosing appropriate words, ungrammatical form of simple present tense and uncorrected punctuation and spelling.

∼ Students used

mother tongue in writing.

Mean of Cycle 1: 63.64 Mean of Cycle 2: 72.64 Cycle 1: Cycle 2: 71.43 77.86 64.64 73.21 61.78 68.57 56.07 66.43 64.29 77.50 ∼ Students could

express and explore ideas.

∼ Students could organize the ideas.

∼ The students were able to use appropriate words and grammatical form of present tense and also correct punctuation and spelling.

∼ They as well could

decrease the mistakes all of them.

∼ The use of mother tongue reduced.


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2 Improvement in class situation a. Atmosphere b. Students’

participation in writing class

c. Students’ behavior

d. Students’ motivation

e. Teacher’s behavior

∼ Not alive, boring

and uninteresting writing activities.

∼ Low, the students

did not give attention the lesson and they did not care of the lesson.

∼ Passive, the students

were lazy to ask and answer the questions and they looked happy when the lesson was over.

∼ Low, the students

were not enthusiastic or not happy to learn writing.

∼ Low, used

monotonous technique, did not give adequate time, models and practices for the students to write.

∼ Alive, interesting

activities. ∼ Higher, the students

gave attention to the lesson and they cared of the lesson.

∼ All active, the

students were creative to develop their writing and always answered and asked if they did not understand.

∼ All high, they were

enthusiastic and they had high awareness and self-confident to learn writing.

∼ The teacher used the

collaborative writing technique more creative and attractive for the students to write. The teacher gave adequate time, models and practices for the students to write as well.

3 Students’ perception about CWT

∼ The students were not familiar with CWT.

∼ The students were familiar with CWT and could run well in writing process.


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Based on the data presented above, it can be concluded that the

collaborative writing technique is able to improve the students’ writing ability

especially in writing the descriptive text, the improvement of the students’

behavior, the improvement the students’ motivation, the improvement of the class

situation, and the strengths and weaknesses of collaborative writing technique.

D. Discussion

1. The improvement of the students’ writing ability

The implementation of collaborative writing technique could improve the

students’ writing ability. Collaborative writing technique deals with writing

process in which a process was done in pair (writer and helper) to create a

descriptive text based on the steps of collaborative writing. It is also a natural step

that writers take to create a finish piece of work.

(http://www.danielcraig.wikispaces.com).

After doing the research, it can obviously be seen that collaborative

writing technique which was applied in the writing class successfully improves

the students’ writing ability. It can be seen from the improvement of mastering

writing a descriptive text, content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and

mechanics. In collaborative writing, students in pairs write a composition. Each

student contributes at each stage of the writing process, brainstorming ideas,

gathering and organizing information, and drafting, revising, and editing the

writing as stated by Elizabeth, et. al (2005: 256) that working together can help

students to learn and perform the stages of writing more effectively. Additionally,


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students typically write better and take more pride in their writing when they are

writing for audience. It encourages students to proofread beyond a word-by-word

level and review at the level of sentences, paragraphs, and whole sections. They

should be checking for a clear thesis, good support, coherent transitions, and

overall organization as well as grammar, spelling, and punctuation (259).

In implementation of the collaborative writing technique, the students

work in pair as a helper and a writer in which a helper started by generating ideas

through pre-writing step. In this case, every student was actively involved in

answering questions from the teacher and made a list to the questions. Then, a

helper developed their own questions to stimulate the writers’ ideas which led

their ideas about the topic they chose. The number of the students who shared,

asked, and answered questions was increased. This occurred since the technique

encouraged the students to share ideas, asked questions as well as answered

questions between the pairs. Through this technique the students could dig up the

content easily. Then, they put their ideas down into sentences and also they

organized the sentences into good paragraphs. Harmer (2002: 261) states that

generation of ideas is lively with two or more students involved than it is when

the writers work on their own. After that, they had a chance to edit all aspects of

writing. And they also checked and evaluated their writing by sharing with the

other pairs and the teacher as it is stated by Tompkins (1994: 26) through this

sharing, students communicate with genuine audiences who respond to their

writing in meaningful ways. Finally, the students could write and create good

writings.


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Furthermore, here the students were also drilled to focus on aspects of

writing, then they were given opportunities to correct and revise their written

work in the pairs. After that they practiced the language knowledge of structure or

grammar, vocabularies in meaningful context, and mechanics and also they did

interaction in order to finish their activities in writing. In this case, the students

gained their own satisfaction as they had a willing to revise their own grammatical

errors, correct the choice of words and the mechanics, and then rewrote them in

the best version of the corrected drafts of writing. It is line with the opinion of

Murcia et. al (2000: 100) that a writing class should bring the students to the point

where they are willing to revise and feel comfortable about revising what they

have written. Therefore, they needed to write their work correctly as Harmer

(1991: 53) states that a piece of writing should be correct. If it has mistakes and

half-finished sentences, it will be judged by native speakers as illiterate.

In fact, by writing collaboratively the students’ ability in writing a

descriptive text increases. It could be seen which the students’ final draft is better

than before. They feel that before using collaborative writing in writing is difficult

in writing a descriptive text, but after using it, they can write and develop their

knowledge easier and effectively as stated by Nunan (in Murray, 1992: 103)

collaborative writing was essentially a social process through which writers

looked for areas of shared understanding. To reach such an understanding,

participants functioned according to several social and interactional rules; they set

a common goal; they had differential knowledge; they interacted as a group; and

they distanced themselves from the text. They know not only about content,


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organization but also they know much more about word choice, grammar,

punctuation, and spelling included their criteria’s. The criteria to develop the

descriptive text cover of language elements, Steve Peha (2003: 1) says that there

are six having simple phrases to describe the good writing that the writers do

make learning easier, namely: (1) ideas that are interesting and important, it

means ideas are the heart of the piece-what the writer is writing about and the

information he chooses to write about it; (2) organization that is logical and

effective, it means organization refers to the order of ideas and the way the writer

moves from one idea to the next; (3) voice that is individual and appropriate, it

means voice is how the writing feels to someone when they read it, it is formal or

casual, it is friendly and inviting or reserved and standoffish, voice is the

expression of the writer’s personality through words; (4) word choice that is

specific and memorable, it means that good writing uses just the right words to

say just the right things; (5) sentence fluency that is smooth and expressive, it

means that fluent sentences are easy to understand and fun to read with

expression; and (6) convention that are correct and communicative, it means that

conventions are the ways, we all agree the use punctuation, spelling, grammar,

and other things that make the writing consistent and easy to read

(http://www.ttms.org/writing_quality/writing_quality.com.htm).

Thus, it was indicated that all aspects of writing had a significant

improvement using collaborative writing technique. Therefore, collaborative

writing technique is able to solve the students’ problems in writing a descriptive

text. Every stage in writing process really helped their writing. It is stated by


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Nunan (2001: 56) that writing process allows for the fact that no text can be

perfect, but a writer will get closer to perfection by producing, reflecting on,

discussing, and reworking successive draft of a text.

2. The improvement of the students’ behavior

The changing of the students’ behavior could be seen at the beginning of

teaching learning process. Most of students looked unwilling to follow the English

lesson and kept talking with other friends. Then, when the teacher introduced the

collaborative writing technique in teaching writing, their learning attitudes

changed gradually. At the first time, the technique was not familiar for them; they

got confused to implement the steps of CWT. After that, the teacher explained

clearly, finally they could use the technique well as stated by Grabe and Kaplan

(1996: 306) that the goal of the teacher is to model strategic behavior, facilitate

group interaction, monitor progress, and clarify the problems and the means to

solve them. Furthermore, Richards and Renandya (2005: 213) state the teacher is

the sole source of input and feedback and often a dominating participant in the

practice, exemplifying a typical pattern of teacher stimulus followed by student

response, further followed by teacher evaluation of students response.

By following the steps of CWT, the students felt happy and interested in

learning English focusing on writing. Besides, the students changed into active to

answer the teacher’s questions whereas they were so passive before the research

done. Then, the teacher asked the questions about the difficulties the students met.

In addition, the atmosphere of the class was more alive because there were many

interesting activities. The students gave attention to the lesson when the teacher


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explained the lesson to them. They did not look bored anymore. In other words,

the students were enthusiastic to follow the steps of the writing process in

collaborative writing technique. According to Alwasilah (2006: 15) through

collaborative writing practice in groups, students were empowered to develop

confidence, authorship, and enjoyment of being part of the writer community.

According to Harris (1993: 60) giving pupils access to the processes of writing

should be a developing awareness of the kinds of behavior that will enhance the

possibilities of success and satisfaction in writing.

3. The improvement of the students’ motivation

Before the technique was applied, most of the students had low motivation

in learning writing. Even, this tendency of having low motivation was still seen in

the initial meetings of cycle 1. Then, the teacher explained clearly about the

technique, finally they started becoming more motivated in learning writing,

following the activities, involving in discussions, and doing the provided

exercises. Moreover, in editing and evaluating steps in which the students

involved in checking their own pair’s works will create a much more positive

attitude than the traditional technique of the teacher correcting students’ text. This

sharing of the work helped them to keep motivation and concentration at high

level. According to Roger, Oslen, and Kagan as stated in Kessler (1992: 3)

cooperative learning classes are often relaxed and enjoyable than traditional

classes. This creates a positive environment, with more students attentive to

assigned tasks (Kagan, S. 1992. Cooperative learning. San Juan Capistrano, CA:

Resources for Teachers, Inc.


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Finally, their motivation continued increasing as they learned writing by

using the newly introduced technique - collaborative writing technique. It can be

seen from the fact that most of the students got actively involved in discussion,

joined the discussion eagerly, and did the tasks seriously.

4. The improvement of the class situation

Before conducting the research, the teaching-learning process was not

alive as the teacher used to apply the conventional technique. The students

showed low participation on writing class as they were seldom taught to make a

better writing by using various techniques because the teacher was monotonous in

teaching writing. After implementing the collaborative writing technique, the class

situation showed improvement. It could be seen at the atmosphere of the class was

more alive and better than before. The students gave attention to the lessons and

they were active and creative to develop and do the activities in the writing

process. And also they were not bored anymore in writing as the teaching

technique in general is not monotonous anymore. The teacher used the

collaborative writing technique more creative, attractive, and interactive for the

students to write. According to Lyons and Heasley (1987: 2) state that

collaborative writing provides a co-operative relationship between writer and

reader and makes the writing task more realistic and interactive.

Moreover, the research findings also showed that the students spent

effective time in writing and they were able to finish their writing process on time.

It can be concluded that the technique had made the productive learning time

increase. As Gettinge in Elliot (2000: 559) who identifies three aspects of learning


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time that could be increased. The first is the time used for instructions, the second

is engaged time, and the third is productive learning time. The productive learning

time means the more things can be done in a certain time. In the other words, if

the activity had been decided (writing a descriptive text), the productive learning

time will be shorter.

5. The strengths and weaknesses of collaborative writing technique

There are some strengths and weaknesses of using CWT in writing class.

The strengths of CWT could improve the students’ writing competence especially

related to the aspects of writing, such as content, organization, vocabulary,

grammar, and mechanics. It was really able to improve the students’ achievements

from cycle to cycle. The students could explore or express and generate the ideas

freely and they are able to produce the final product of writing better. This finding

is line with Anshari (2004 citied by Alwasilah 2006: 15) experimented a four-

cycle workshop model of collaborative writing in the Department of Indonesian

Literature of UPI. His study shows that the students become more able to solve

the writer’s block, more productive, and mature in style. Besides, they felt happy

and it gave a fun to do the writing process of collaborative writing technique. The

class situation was lively.

On the other hand, the weaknesses of using CWT is time consuming

because it took a lot of time in doing the writing process of implementing CWT

namely idea generating, drafting, reading, editing, copying, and evaluating. In the

process of implementing CWT, the students were noisy to do every activity.


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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

Based on the findings of improving students’ writing ability through

collaborative writing technique in this research, the researcher drew some

conclusions. The major conclusion of this research was that the implementation of

Collaborative writing technique had many advantages to help the students

improve their writing competence and encourage them to be more active in

writing class. Based on the result of the research above, the conclusion could be

drawn into three points as follows: (1) collaborative writing technique could

improve the students’ writing ability; (2) collaborative writing technique could

improve the students’ behavior and motivation; (3) collaborative writing

technique could improve the class situation; and (4) There were some strengths

and weaknesses of using collaborative writing technique in writing class. The

conclusion could be described in the following descriptions.

1. Collaborative writing technique could improve the students’ writing ability.

The students could state main ideas of the topic, then express or organize

their ideas dealing with a descriptive text such as identification and description in

written form. The identification part is the part where the students were able to

identify phenomenon to be described. The description part, the students were able

to describe logically about parts, qualities, and characteristics about an animal and


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a tree. Besides, the students could improve their vocabulary. It means that they

were able to choose appropriate words and use them in making sentences.

The students were able to perform minimum grammatical errors especially

in the use of simple present tense. And the last, they could avoid mechanics

(spelling and punctuation) mistakes on their composition. It means they were

carefully to use mechanics in their writing. Then, the students’ writing

achievement was also improved from pre-test to post-test cycle 1 to cycle 2.

2. Collaborative writing technique could improve the students’ behavior and

motivation.

a. The students were more actively in asking to the teacher about their

problems of writing. When they got difficulty to find the new vocabulary

or to apply the correct grammar, they were more confident to ask for to the

teacher individually or through discussing in pair. Besides, they felt happy

and interested in learning English focusing on writing.

b. The implementation of writing process could be implemented effectively

in teaching writing and the students were enthusiastic to follow the steps

of the writing process: (1) Ideas/pre-writing. In this step the teacher

wanted to motivate and brainstorm the students to get ideas or generate

ideas for the topic. The teacher led the helper to raise questions to

stimulate the writer’s ideas. (2) Drafting. This step, the teacher asked the

students (writers) to begin writing a rough draft as the first draft based on

the discovered ideas and review from the helper. (3) Reading. In this step,

the teacher gave chances to 14 students as writer to read the rough draft,


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and the other 14 students as their partner or helper to correct the draft. (4)

Editing. In this step the pair was incorporated with editing activities. They

were assigned to edit their drafts in term of content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. (5) Copying. In this step the teacher

asked the students (writers) to write the best version of the product. And

(6) Evaluating. The teacher held a conference by asking the students to

exchange their works with another pair. They gave comments to other

pairs’ works, and they used editing guidelines to check and write any

comments or corrections for improvement. Those steps were carried out by

the pair of the students based on their role as a writer and a helper. Their

motivation also increased gradually in doing their own writing with his/her

partner from cycle one to cycle two.

c. The way the students doing self reflection to their writing activity and to

the response of the process of the research improved from cycle one to

cycle two. They had interest and awareness in doing the steps of the

writing process to produce the final writing.

d. The teacher was more innovative not only in planning teaching writing to

make the students to be more motivated in writing, but also in conducting

discussion, evaluating and doing teaching reflection.

3. Collaborative writing technique could improve the class situation

a. Collaborative writing technique has already made changes to class

learning situation of the grade VIII A students of SMPN 1 Pelaihari in the

academic year of 2010/2011. During teaching and learning process, the


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class learning situation was alive and better than before. The students were

happy and enthusiastic and also to do activities of writing process.

Besides, they had high awareness and self-confidence to learn writing.

b. This situation also gave effects to the students to pay attention more in the

lesson of writing. They became more active and creative to develop their

writing and always answered and asked if they did not understand during

the lesson. Moreover, they were not bored anymore in writing as the

teaching technique in general is not monotonous anymore. The teacher

used the collaborative writing technique more creative and attractive for

the students to write. The teacher gave adequate time, models and

practices for the students to write as well. So, through this technique could

increase their motivation and behavior towards the writing lesson.

4. There were some strengths and weaknesses of using collaborative writing

technique in writing class.

For strengths are as follows:

a. The implementation of the collaborative writing technique in writing

class was successful to improve the students’ writing ability especially

related to the aspects of writing, such as: content, organization,

vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. It was really to improve the

students’ achievement scores if it was compared with the result of a pre-

test in which the average score was 53.36 and the result of a post-test in

cycle 1 the average score was 63.64 and also the result of a post-test in

cycle 2 the average score was 72.64.


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b. The influences of collaborative writing technique in writing a descriptive

text were as follows:

1) It enabled the students to explore or express the ideas freely in

constructing a descriptive text.

2) It gave a fun and happiness for the students, and

3) The atmosphere of the class was more alive.

For weaknesses are as follows:

c. It took a lot of time in the implementation of collaborative writing

technique which they had to follow and do the process of writing steps:

ideas/pre-writing, drafting, reading, editing, copying, and evaluating.

They sometimes needed a longer time to make them more

understandable in each step.

d. The students made a noisy in doing writing process.

B. Implication

Teaching English, especially teaching writing needs many techniques that

encourage the students to use it as communication. Collaborative writing is one of

techniques that can be implemented to teach writing. By using collaborative

writing technique, the teacher can create a good situation and make the students to

have fun.

Based on the result of the research, teaching writing through collaborative

writing is a suitable technique to improve the students’ writing ability. This

research can be used as a reference for the teacher in improving the students’


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writing ability because every step of writing process can be followed easier and

more flexible by the students. In this case, the teacher can be more creative and

innovative in teaching and learning especially writing lesson. Besides, it is also

hoped that the products of writing have the good quality.

C. Suggestion

Here, the researcher would like to give some suggestions related to the

research. He hoped that the suggestions would be useful for English teachers,

students, and other researchers.

1. For English teachers

a. This research has revealed that the use of collaborative writing gave great

impact to the students’ writing performance. So it is suggested to English

teachers to use this technique in teaching and learning process to reach the

target of writing class.

b. English teachers should be more creative and innovative in using this

technique in teaching writing for the students to avoid getting bored and to

empower their writing competence so that teaching writing will be more

meaningful for developing their ability in writing.

2. Students

a. The students should realize that writing is one of the language skills that is

very important to be applied in daily life because expressing the ideas

through writing bring a lot of benefits for the writers and the readers.


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b. Students should realize that they actually have good abilities to be writers

because every person was born to bring talented potentials. Being good

writers brings the positive effects in self-correction and self-reflection so

that the students will be cooperative and open minded people in the future.

c. The students should build their psychology in expressing ideas to public

bravely. So, they will be more motivated in writing something that is

meaningful for everyone.

3. Other researcher

This research is just one effort to improve the students’ writing ability

through collaborative writing technique in teaching and learning writing in the

classroom. The findings of this research are expected to use it as starting point to

conduct the further research in the different field and different text types.


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