1. Concept of Writing

a. What is writing

Writing terms from verb of write, which is Chamber English dictionary means to form

letter or words with a pen, pencil or other implement on surface. In other case, it means to

compose, to draw, engrave, etc. it also could be to communicate with, to perform or practice by

letter.

Lindblom (1983) defines writing as a way of learning to focus our mind on important

matter, and learning about them. By writing activity, a person can find a solution of a difficult

problem; a person can also master the facts and even by writing. This is because the process of

writing needs a greater attention on the problem. In this condition, a writer gives some efforts to

explore as many ideas as possible and tries to communicate to the reader intended.

Wullur Dumais in Rede( 2007: 9) defines the writing is the ability to express ideas,

feeling, opinion and others in the written form.

Barly Bram in Rede, (2007: 9) defines that writing is producing or reproducing written

message. It is an active process to organize and formula the ideas on paper, therefore, before we

write we need to determine what to write should have something meaningful to convey.

Bell and Burnaby in Yanri, (2004: 6) defines that writing is an extremely complex

activity with the control of language both of the sentence level (Grammatical, structure,

vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and later information), and beyond the sentence rank

(organizing and integrating information into cohesive and coherent paragraph or text.

Ludlom in Haslina, (2000: 7) defines writing as a way of learning them. By writing

activity, a person can find a solution of a difficult problem. People can also find knowledge

through writing process.

According to Tariggan (1985) writing is:

1. A form of communication.

2. A thinking process begins with thinking about idea that will be delivered.

3. Communication form that is different to conversation because there is no mama

gesture, and situation.

4. A kind of communication that needs explanation, regulation and punctuation.

5. A kind communication to deliver writer’s ideas and opinion to the audience that is

restricted by place, distance and time.

Birne (1984:1) defines writing is clearly much more that the production of graphic

symbols just a speech more than the production sounds. The symbol has been arranged according

to certain conversation to form word has and word has to arrange to sentence form.

River (1987:71) defines writing as an existing challenging skill that permits students to

indulge in fantasy, humor, fiction or fact in language.

According to Webster’s Dictionary writing is something written as:

a. Letter or characters formed on surface the serves as visible sign of ideas word or

symbol.

b. A letter, note or notice use to communicate or record information

Based on the some definitions above, the writer concludes that writing is kind of activity

where the writer expresses all ideas in his mind on the paper start from words to sentence,

sentence to paragraph, and paragraph to essay.

b. Components of Writing

According to (Jacob et al, (1981) there are five main components of writing, they are:

1. Content

The content of writing should be clear for readers so that they can understand the

message easily on it. In order to have good content of writing the content has to be unified and

complete. This term usually known as unity and completeness which become the characteristic

of good writing

a. Unity

Writing has good unity if it has some main ideas and the sentences contained in it

developed that idea. The main ideas have to support each sentence developed. It writers want his

writing unified they don’t have to include the sentences that don’t support the main idea in the

topic sentences.

b. Completeness

Writing is said to have completeness if the main idea has been explained and developed

fully. Baker in Baharuddin (2000) comments out that completeness as the controlling idea with is

developed fully by the use of particular information it is related to how complex or general the

topic sentences is. By having complete writing, it is expected that the content of the writing will

be clear and understand able.

2. Organization

In organization of the writing concern with the ways the center arranges and organizes

the ideas or the message in the writing. There are many ways used by the writers to organize or

arrange the writing. This organization is mainly recognized as:

a. Spatial Order

Spatial Order is frequently followed in descriptive writing. In which the information is

presented to the reader by orderly movement strong space. Arrangement by space is usually

characterized by a movement from one visual reference point to the next, left to right, top to

bottom, east to West and North to South. Description can be effectively ordered by spatial

arrangement of material; additional consideration can be given to created central point of

reference to which the other entire thing described in the paragraph is related.

b. Chronological Order

The type of organization is commonly used in the narration and exposition. In narration if

deals with the events that are given in tin the order where they accursed. In exposition, it deals

with the process that is described from beginning to the end.

3. Vocabulary.

Pincers (1982: 45) comments out that in order to convey though a feeling is possible, we

do several things, we arrange our ideas into sentences, we construct whole essay, story and etc.

We use special works, phrase, sentence and paragraph actually related to each other. The result is

a stretch of language that have composed of writing.

4. Language Use

Language use in writing narration and others forms of writing involves usage and point of

structure and grammar.

5. Mechanics

The usage of mechanics in due to capitalization, punctuation and spelling appropriately.

The use of favorable mechanics in writing will make reader easy to group the conveying ideas

or message to the written material

c. The Important of Writing

Margarita in Hariston (1996:2) states that there are some reasons why writing is

important. These reasons are:

Writing is a tool for discovery we stimulate our thought process by the act of

writing and into formation and image we have in our unconscious mind.

Writing generates new ideas by helping to make connection and see the

relationship with other aspect.

Writing helps us to organize our ideas and clarity concept by writing down ideas

into coherent form.

Writing helps us to absorb and process information when we write about the topic

we learn it better.

Writing down ideas allow us to distance our selves from evaluate them.

d. Goals of writing

According to Lannon in Bidu (2000:6-7) there are 3 (theree) goals of writing as follows:

1. Expressive writing

This writing form contain about the writer’s himself, especially of feeling, impression,

personality, etc. it goals is readers to understand something about writer.

2. Referential writing

This part expresses about the writer’s opinion, attitude, observation or suggestion on the

outside object. The focus of this writing is not in the reader but rather n the subject.

3. Persuasive writing

This writing is mostly about the audience beyond merely informing reader. The goal of

this writing is to motivate the audience to change their thinking or take some actions on a

controversial issue.

e. Characteristic of Good Writing

Following are some characteristics of good writing according to Edelstein and Piral

(1980) as follow:

Good writing reflects the writer’s ability to use appropriate voice.

Good writing reflects the writer’s ability to cruise the first draft and revise it.

Good writing reflects the writer’s pride into willingness to spell and punctuates

accurately and checks word meaning and grammatical relationship with the

sentence before submitting the finished product to the audience.

Good writing reflects the writer’s ability to organize the material into a coherent

whole, so that it move logically from a central dominant idea to the supporting

points and finally to coincident ending conveying to the needs a sense at well

though out plan.

Good writing reflects the writer’s ability to write clearly and unambiguously to

use sentence structure, language and example; so that the one possible meaning is

the writer intended one.

Navilla grant (1987) states that a good writing exercises should have the characteristic as

following:

Writing exercise should be neither too hard not too easy.

Writing exercise should not to be long.

They should be interesting.

B. General Concept of Recount Text

2. Definition of Recount Text

A recount text is a piece of text that retells in the past events, usually in the order in which

they happened (Anderson, 1997:8).

The social function of Recount text is to tell though sequence of events. The events must be

in order in which the events occurred. Recount usually presents the past experiences in order of time

or place. The purpose is to entertaining or informing the readers.

3. The Types of Recount Text:

According to Anderson (1997:8) the types of Recount Text as follows:

a. Past experience

b. Historical books

c. Biography / Autobiography

d. Diary entries

e. News reports

4. Generic Structure of Recount Text:

4. Language Features

a. The use of the simple past tense Example: on Saturday, I went to Jakarta.

b. The use of action verbs Example: walked, worked, bought, etc. c. The use of adjectives

Example: beautiful, excited, sad, pleased, hate, etc. d. The use of noun and pronoun

Example: I, you, we, they, etc. e. The use of adverbs and adverbs of phrases

f. The use of time conjunction

Example: First, then, next, finally etc. g. Focus on specific participants Example: I (the writer)

Example of recount text

C. Writing a Recount Text

In the eighth year students of Junior High school , one of the basic competencies in English subject is

“to express meaning and generic structures in simple short essay using written language that is

accurate, fluent acceptable to interact with the circumstances in recount genre” ( Depdiknas. 2006 ).

According to Anderson (1997:8) writing a recount text has general education value and it helps the

students to improve their language and their creativity

1. Cooperative Learning

a. Nature of Cooperative Learning

As we have known, there are 4 key skills when you learn a language: listening,

speaking, reading, and writing. Speaking is the different from the others. For three

others skills people can do alone without anyone else for example somebody can listen

to the radio alone, read a book alone and write a letter alone. But people can't really

speak alone.

That is why we should make every effort possible to find somebody to speak with.

The students cannot practice speaking when she or he is alone so that in speaking

teaching activities, especially the teachers should create some interaction activities.

During the past decade, a new approach called “Cooperative Learning” seemed to

attract a lot of attention and became popular. This conceptual approach is based on a

theoretical framework that provides general principles on how to structure cooperative

learning activities in a teacher’s specific subject area, curriculum, students, and setting.

Teachers can use this approach to stimulate students to acquire the knowledge as well as

create interpersonal and team skills. Traditionally, classes always consist of good

students and weak students. The weak students sit in isolation as they lose confidence in

their ability to learn English. Working in groups, therefore, is believed to help solve this

problem. Mousy students who don’t like to speak in a large class are more comfortable

speaking out in smaller groups. Group members can complement each other’s strengths

and weaknesses in English. Each student has a different background and ability in

English, which he or she can bring to the group. For example, one student might have a

strong vocabulary that can supply to students with a solid background in grammar.

Furthermore, poor students will benefit from interaction with better ones, and good

students will feel proud that they play an important role in helping their weaker

classmates.

Cooperative learning is one strategy for group instruction which is under the

learner-centre approach. Many educators give the definitions of cooperative learning:

1) Slavin (1997) Cooperative learning is an instructional program in which students

work in small group to help one another master academic content.

2) Brown (1994).Cooperative learning involves students working together in pairs or

Groups and they share information .They are a team whose players must work

together in order to achieve goals successfully.”

1) Kessler (1992) proposes the definition of cooperative learning particularly in

language learning context: “Cooperative learning is a within-class grouping of

students usually of differing levels of second language proficiency, who learn to

work together on specific tasks or projects in such a way that all students in the

group benefit from the interactive experience.”

2) According to Johnson (2005), cooperation is not assigning a job to a group of

students where one student does all the work and the others put their names on the

paper. It is not having students sit side by side at the same table to talk with each

other as they do their individual assignments as well. It is not having students do a

task individually with instructions that the ones who finish first are to help the slower

students. On the contrary, cooperative learning is a teaching strategy in which small

teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning

activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is

responsible not only for learning what is being taught but also for helping

teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through

the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it.

Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams,

each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to

improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not

only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an

atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the assignment until all group

members successfully understand and complete it. 

Cooperative efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit so that all

group members:

a) Gain from each other's efforts. (Your success benefits me and my success benefits

you.)

b) Recognize that all group members share a common fate. (We all sink or swim

together here.)

c) Know that one's performance is mutually caused by oneself and one's team members.

(We cannot do it without you.)

d) Feel proud and jointly celebrate when a group member is recognized for

achievement. (We all congratulate you on your accomplishment)

b. The Role of Teacher in Cooperative Learning

McDowell in Indahyanti, Riska (2010) describes the roles of the teacher in

cooperative learning as follows:

1) Teacher as an inquirer

Effective learning is to know what the students learn and how they learn.

Therefore, the teacher, before giving or presenting materials to the students, he

personally asks and examines the students of their belief, values, and assumptions, and

of the teaching method or the material lesson.

2) Teacher as a creator

Johnson in Kessler (1992) pointed that the teacher is creating the social climate,

setting goal, planning, and structuring the task, establishing the physical arrangement of

the classroom, assigning students to groups and roles, and selecting materials and time.

Moreover, he designs the learning environment based on what he knows about the

students’ prefer and what would be appropriate in term of approach and resource.

3) Teacher as an observer

Observing and monitoring his students are the most basis of making decision

about each learner’s progress. He may reflect and intervene but in supportive way

toward the students’ learning. This observation could be global observation which the

teacher uses checklist in order to identify essential skills for cooperative interaction. But

the observation is being objective and non-judgmental.

4) Teacher as a facilitator

The teacher is based on what the problems or learning environment evolve in the

classroom. It could be he interacts, teaches, refocuses, questions, clarifies, and

supports, expands, celebrates, and emphasizes. Mostly, he nudges the students toward

the goal of successful problem solving.

5) Teacher as change agent

In this role, the natural agent for change is classroom inquiry. Therefore, the

teacher becomes researcher to be an advocate to collaborative and generate with the

students to answer the questions or solve the problems by possible active

professionalism. Moreover, the teacher can also become an adviser, guide, helper,

supporter, and partner in a cooperative venture based on the students’ communicative

needs.

c. Elements of Cooperative Learning

Cooperative efforts are expected to be more productive under certain conditions.

The followings are the five basic elements of cooperative learning.

1) Positive Interdependence

The first requirement for an effectively structured cooperative learning

environment is that students believe they “sink” or swim together. (Johnson, Johnson &

Stanne, 2000) That is, cooperation occurs only when students perceive that the success

of one depends on the success of the other. Whatever task students are given to perform,

each group member must feel that his or her contribution is necessary for the group’s

success. Students have to learn to work together in order to accomplish tasks. This is

why learning task must be designed in a way that makes them believe, “they sink or

swim together.” Through the assigned material, students learn to achieve the goal.

Therefore, a number of ways of structuring positive interdependence are carried out

such as reward, resources, or task responsibilities to supplement goal interdependence.

Each group member has a unique contribution to make to the joint effort because of his

or her resources or role or task responsibilities.

2) Face-to-Face Interaction

The second element of cooperative learning requires face-to-face interaction

among students within which they promote each other’s learning and success. Johnson

(2005) suggests that it is necessary to maximize the opportunities for them to help,

support, encourage, and praise each other. Such promote interaction helps to promote

the following: orally explaining how to solve problems, teaching one’s knowledge to

other, checking for understanding discussing concepts being learned, and connecting

present with past learning

3) Individual and Group Accountability

The third element leads to the belief “What students can do together today, they

can do alone tomorrow.” The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each

member a stronger individual. Individual accountability exists when the performance of

each individual student is assessed, and the results are given back to the groups.

Therefore, the group knows who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in

completing the job. Johnson & Johnson (1991) suggest some common ways to structure

individual accountability. These include giving an individual test to each student,

randomly selecting one student to represent the entire group, or having students teach

what they have learned to someone else.

4) Interpersonal & Small – Group Skills

Students must be taught the social skills and be motivated to use them. Social

skills which are needed for both teamwork and task work include leadership, decision–

making, trust–building, communication, and conflict–management skills. (Johnson,

Johnson, & Holubec, 1993)

5) Group Processing of Interaction

Processing means, giving students the time and procedures to analyze how well

their groups are functioning and how well they are using the necessary collaborative

skills. Processing can be individual, team-wide, or at the whole collaborative class level.

These five essential components must be present for small group learning to be

truly cooperative. There needs to be an accepted common goal on which the group will

be rewarded for their efforts (Johnson & Johnson, 1991). Cooperative learning can be

structured in many different models. As Olsen & Kagan (1992) stated all cooperative

learning models share the idea that students work together to learn and are responsible

for their teammates’ learning as well as their own.

d. Three Kinds of Cooperative Learning Technique

In general there are three kinds of cooperative learning technique they are Student

Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD), Jigsaw and Teams-Games-Tournaments

(TGT).

1) Student Team-Achievement Divisions (STAD)

STAD has been used in such diverse subject areas as math, language arts, social

studies, and science. In STAD, students are assigned to four-member learning teams

that are mixed in performance level, gender, and ethnicity. STAD has five major

components. These are class presentation, team study, quizzes, individual improving

scores, and team recognition. (Slavin, 1995). The teaching phase begins with the

presentation of material, usually in a lecture-discussion format. Students should be told

what it is they are going to learn and why it is important. During team study, group

members work cooperatively with provided worksheets and answer sheets. Next, each

student individually takes a quiz. Using a scoring system that range from 0 to 30 points

and reflects degree of individual improvement over previous quiz scores, the teacher

scores the papers. Each team receives one of three recognition awards, depending on the

average number of points earned by the team. For example, teams that average 15 to 19

improvement points receive a GOOD TEAM certificate. Teams that average 20 to 24

improvement points receive a GREAT TEAM certificate, and teams that average 25 to

30 improvement points receive a SUPER TEAM.

The teacher presents the content or skill in a large group activity in the regular

manner such as direct instruction and modeling. Then as opposed to individual study,

students are provided with learning materials that they use in groups to master the

content. As students are provided with learning materials that they use in groups to

master the content, the teacher circulates around the room to monitor group progress

and interaction. When students are ready, a test is administered and scored by the

teacher, who then uses this information to compute improvement points. These are

added up for each team, and teams earning a specific number of improvement points are

recognized (e.g., award, free time, or certificate of achievement)

2) Jigsaw

Jigsaw is a teaching technique used in small group instruction. Students of a

normal-sized class (26 to 33 students) are divided into competency groups of four to six

students, each of which is given a list of subtopics to research. Individual members of

each group then break off to work with the "experts" from other groups, researching a

part of the material being studied, after which they return to their starting body in the

role of instructor for their subcategory.

The jigsaw strategy is a cooperative learning technique appropriate for students

from 3rd to 12th grade. It is also used extensively in adult English Second Language (or

ESL) classes. The strategy is an efficient teaching method that also encourages

listening, engagement, interaction, teaching, and cooperation by giving each member of

the group an essential part to play in the academic activity. Both individual and group

accountability are built into the process. In ESL classrooms, jigsaws are a four-skill

approach, integrating reading, speaking, listening and writing.

3) Teams Games Tournaments (TGT)

Teams-Games-Tournament is a classroom management technique in which

students are placed in mixed ability teams to compete in a game based style of learning.

The purpose of TGT is to create an effective classroom environment in which students

are actively involved in the teaching process and consistently receiving encouragement

for successful performance. The TGT structure encourages competition and cooperation

in a way that promotes peer group rewards for academic achievement. Having students

participate in a Teams-Games-Tournament, it helps students review what they have just

learned at the end of their unit. This activity will be fun for students in helping them

prepare for a future test. Furthermore, students are able to demonstrate good

sportsmanship within TGT. There is an incentive for playing the game. The team that

wins the tournament gets a reward. (The method of giving reward can be same in

STAD) or others reward For example, stickers, extra time to play outside etc.

Student Team Achievement Division (STAD) method

1. Definition of STAD Method

From etymology method came from “met” and “hodes” that mean through. While Titus

(2004: 55) states that method is the orderly way and pattern to affirming of knowledge. According to

Slavin (2008:11) in student Team Achievement Division (STAD) student are assigned to four or five

members learning that are mix in performance level, gender, and ethnicity. The teacher present a

lesson and then student work within their teams to make sure that all team members have mastered

the lesson. Finally, the students take individual quiz on the material at which time they may not help

one another To ensure success of a teaching learning process, the lesson plan and the manner in

which the step are executed will determine the outcome.

2. The Components of STAD

Slavin (2008:143) states that the main components of STAD are as follows:

a. Teaching

The applying of STAD is beginning by presentation of the lessons of that day. The

presentation consists of opening, development, and guidelines of the whole components of each

lesson.

1) Opening

a) Give some information to students about the lessons that will be learned and grow up the

students curiosity.

b) Teacher asks the students to work in their team to raise their interest toward the lesson.

c) Report the information briefly.

2) Development

a) Always constant to things that will be learned.

b) Concern with meaning not memorizing

c) Teacher has to use model or visual aid in teaching and learning process.

d) Give students more questions to evaluate the student‟s skill.

e) Explain the right answer clearly

3) Orientation of implementing

a) Solve the students‟ problem by giving the right answer toward teacher‟s questions.

b) Call the students randomly in order to make students always prepare their selves to answer.

c) In this time do not give the questions that need more time. Make students finished one or two

questions and give them a feedback.

b. Team studying

Team is the most important component in STAD. Slavin (2008:149) states that to divide the

students into a team, teacher can follow the steps as follows:

1) Make a team summary that is given for students.

2) Arrange the students‟ achievement.

3) Determine the members based on the number of team.

4) Divide the students into a team.

5) Fill the paper of team summary.

The assignments of the members of team are to master the material that taught by teacher and

help their friends to master those materials during the time of team studying. Each students has a

project paper and an answer sheet to practice their skill and evaluate themselves and their friends in

teaching learning process.

c. Test ( examination)

According to Slavin (2008:157) in applying STAD method each students are given an

individual test and it is usually called a quiz. The teacher can follow these instructions:

1) Give the quiz and time to the students. Do not allow the students to work together. Students

have to show what they have learned individually in this time.

2) Allow the students to exchange the paper or collect the quiz to evaluate them. Teacher has to

calculate the team score and quiz score on time. It is expected teacher to use it in the next

cycle.

d. The progressive score

Each student is given the first score that is acquired from average of score in doing the same

quiz. Then, students can collect the point for their team based on increasing of quiz score that be

compared with their first score.

e. Team recognition

Team recognition is used to calculate the individual development score and team score and

give the reward. In team recognition, teacher has to pay attention several things such as:

1) Calculate the individual development point:

Students collect point for their team based on the level where their quiz score exceed their

first score (Slavin, 2008:159)

3. The Technique of Applying STAD Method

According to Slavin (2008:148) the steps of applying STAD method as follows:

a. Teacher explain the objective of the lesson for that day

b. Student divided in to heterogeneous groups

c. Students receive their assignment ( essay tittles ) from the teacher

d. Each group then initiates discussion among its members and proceeds to prepare the draft of

given topic

e. The teacher assumes the role of facilitator .

f. The teacher analyzed student‟s learning problem and try to solve them

g. The teacher constantly observed that the five basic elements of the cooperative approach that is,

positive reliance on each other, individual responsibility, group effort in writing and editing the essay

and use social skill are adhered to

h. A presentation of the group‟s essay is done continuing evaluation by the teacher and other group.

i. The last step is a spontaneous quiz (Questions based on the task and language proficiency). The

group‟s score are added to the score for the essay then the teacher will comment on the best group

follow by recognition and reward and the best essay will be published on the notice board.