Definitions of Writing Writing Skill

17

2.1.2.3. Self-Management to Enhance Writing Skill in Argumentative Essay

The word management is a key term in understanding successful learners Dembo, 2004. The students ’ self-management influences their learning process. As the students develop their personal qualities to manage their learning, they will find that they are able to apply the same skills to situations outside the classroom. The students who realize the importance of self-management will be able to do a great deal to promote their own learning through the use of motivational strategies and time management. Moreover, the students who do self-management will be able to solve their problem in writing, especially for writing an argumentative essay. Writing is a complex activity and that learning to write is even more complex Sitko, 1998, McCutchen, 2006, Hayes, 2006 as cited in Hacker, Dunlosky and Graesser, 2009. Writing is considered as the complex skill because it involves multiple processes and abilities that can arise some problems for students. There are five areas of competence that have been identified as particularly difficult in learning to write: a generation of content, b creating an organizing structure for compositions c formulation of goals and higher-level plans, d quickly and efficiently executing the mechanical aspects of writing, and e revising text and reformulating goals Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1986. If the students do not have the strategies to solve the problems on their writing, they will feel that writing is the most difficult thing to do all the time and that kind of thought should be stopped. As it is mentioned earlier, there are two self-management strategies used to become a successful language learners, those are self-motivation management and PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 18 time management. In self-motivation management proposed by Schunk et al., there are indexes of motivation which will help the students to stay motivated. There are choice of tasks, effort, and achievement. There is also one way to manage the time by joining the quadrant II as conceptualized by Covey. These two strategies will help the students to enhance their writing skill in writing an argumentative essay.

2.1.2.3.1. The Use of Indexes of Motivation

As it is mentioned earlier, a good writer should have been motivated. The way to be motivated is by setting a goal. There will be no product if there is no goal. Goal is part of self-motivation. The students cannot be motivated if there is no goal in the learning process. Brophy 2005 notes related concerns about motivational goal orientation and its assessment generally, though his critique focuses largely on the performance goal. Writing is goal-directed activity and thus, a problem solving activity that involves both main goals and sub goals Hayes and Flower, 1980. Therefore, the students need to set a goal when they are in writing course. The goal could be writing a product. A product in this context is an argumentative essay. The students need to be reinforced that they are in the class which obligates them to produce an argumentative essay, so the students will learn about it first and be motivated to do the assignment. There are two rules proposed by Schunk et. al in order to assess motivation on the students’ argumentative essay writing. The first rule is choice of task. The choice of task is also important to assess the motivation of students on writing an argumentative essay. By doing the choice PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 19 of task, the students will be able to choose what tasks they are willing to do first Schunk, Meece, and Pintrich, 2014. If the students keep continuing the writing product without any complain and difficulty, it means that the choice of task is suitable for the students and makes them to stay motivated to accomplish the task. The examples of choice of task in this research are the freedom to choose hisher own title, the willingness to write based on its interest, the belief that the students could accomplish the task, and the responsibility which the students have as ELESP students in the fourth semester. The second rule is the effort needed by the students. Learning is not easy. In addition, the students have to learn to write an argumentative essay CRW II class. The students need some effort to accomplish the task Schunk, Meece, and Pintrich, 2014. There is one law of effort that has the relationship with the result. If the students put high effort especially on a difficult task, the students will get better achievement than they who do not put any effort on it. The difficult task here is writing an argumentative essay. Therefore, the students should put bigger effort to write an argumentative essay in order to get a better achievement, so the students will stay motivated during the process of writing. The examples of putting effort in this research are the students’ planning, organizing, ability, hard work as it is challenging while performing the task. After knowing the rules of assessing motivation, the achievement is used to assess the students’ ability of doing something. The students who choose to engage the task, expend effort, and persist are likely to achieve at higher levels Pintrich and Schrauben, 1992 as cited in Schunk, Meece, and Pintrich, 2014. The students