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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
