Questioning is the way to generate ideas by asking several questions, such as what, who, when, where, why, and how. The answers of those questions are the
ideas which are used to develop the writing. Chesla 2006: 37-39 states that this technique is particularly useful when students choosing a topic and when focusing
a topic selected. Unlike some of the other brainstorming techniques, students should ask questions deliberately with great thought given to each question. The
better focused the answers, the more information will be gathered to use in the writing.
Questioning is a great brainstorming technique that the questions will help students quickly develop a great deal of information about their subjects.
However, not every question can be applied to each writing. In short, in applying this technique, students have to be flexible and use the format as it best fits to the
topic.
B. Review of Related Studies
There are some relevant studies related to the use of the Brainstorming Technique in teaching writing. Actually, brainstorming is effective to improve
students‟ writing ability. The studies conducted in different settings in which English is regarded as a foreign language. The studies are described as the
following. Al-
khatib 2012 conducted a study entitled “The Effect of Using Brainstorming Strategy in Developing Creative Problem Solving Skills among
Female Students in Princess Alia University College ”. The research findings
showed that there were statistical significa nt differences at the level of α = 0.05
between the experimental group and the control group in the total score and the sub scores of the creative thinking in the favor of the experimental group. The
research study indicated that the use of brainstorming strategy was effective in developing creative thinking skills.
In addition, a study conducted by Noor 2012 entitled “The Use of Brainstorming to Improve S
tudents’ Writing Skill in Descriptive Text A Classroom Action Research of the Tenth Grade Students of SMA 2 BAE Kudus in
the Academic Year 20122013”. The result of the study proved that the implementation of brainstorming technique improved the students
‟ writing skill in writing descriptive text. The research findings indicated the positive direct impact
of implementation of brainstorming technique was shown by the writing test score of students in each cycle.
The studies above prove the effectiveness of the Brainstorming technique to improve students‟ writing skill in educational technique and professional areas.
Brainstorming helps the students to build their critical thinking. Therefore, the teachers will gain many advantages if they can apply the Brainstorming technique
in their writing class.
C. Conceptual Framework
Writing is very significant for learning English as a foreign language, especially for high schools students. First, writing is a productive skill that is one
of the important skills for junior high schools in the English learning. It is to
convey the messages in a written form. Writing also involves students‟ creativity
in forming a message by creating some signs commas, slashes, quotation marks, and full stops, forming letters and words, and joining them together to make
sentences on a page. Second, writing skill is a basic skill in learning English which is neccessary to communicate with others by using written language forms
such as letters, emails, websites or social networks. Third, writing becomes an important skill that should be mastered well by the students. It is clear that writing
skill is very important in the teaching and learning process. However, the writing ability of gradeVIII students in SMP N 1 Nanggulan Kulonprogo was low. Their
low ability deals with the students, techniques, materials, and media. Many students in this school tended to assume that English was a difficult subject to
learn, especially writing. They also had difficulty in generating ideas and organizing them into good paragraphs. They tended to be stuck in generating ideas
before they really developed sentences into paragraphs. Related to the technique, the techniques applied were less attractive and interactive so it causes difficulties
in students‟ acquisition. Related to the materials, the materials being used also have a big contribution dealing with the efforts to improve students‟ writing skills.
Most of the materials being taught are boring and monotonous, so the students are not attracted to get involved with the material. The impact is that they will not
have good writing mastery. Related to the media, teacher rarely used media in teaching and learning process so that the teaching and learning process will be less
attractive and interesting. Thus, media is important to be used as the teaching and learning aid which helps students to learn in better and easier ways.
Based on the consideration above, the researcher tries to improve students‟ writing skills by implementing the brainstorming technique. The implementation
of the technique involves the researcher, the English teacher, the collaborator, and the Eighth grade students of SMP N 1 Nanggulan Kulonprogo. Then, the action
step consists of planning, implementing, evaluating, and reflecting the actions, which are carried out to solve the problems. The students were given
brainstorming technique in each meeting. It is expected that there will be some changes in the teaching learning of English at the Eighth grade students of SMP N
1 Nanggulan Kulonprogo after the technique is applied. In summary, it is expected that Brainstorming technique is able to improve
the students‟ writing skill. The implementation of Brainstorming in the teaching and learning process is expected to overcome the writing problems encountered
by the students of SMP N 1 Nanggulan Kulonprogo.
