which it plays as a kind of social interaction. People can interact with the reader through a text. However, this is a kind of interaction in which the writer cannot
respond directly and immediately to the reader and vice versa. Thus, a writer should make the writing as clear as possible for the reader.
a. The Process of Writing
Generally, writing in a second language involves a process of constructing the writer’s linguistic and vocabulary knowledge, syntactic patterns, and cohesive
devices. Hyland 2003: 3 says that writing results from a process of imitating and manipulating models. First of all, the writers should be familiar with grammar and
vocabulary through their experiences. Then, when they are required to write something, they recall what they have in their linguistic storage to be performed in
their writing. Roswell and Natchez 1989: 226 sum up that “a whole piece of writing results from the selection, combination, arrangement, and development of
ideas in effective sentences, paragraphs, and often, longer units of discourse.” There are four stages of writing process according to Hugley et al. 1983:
11. The first stage is searching on what a writer is going to write about, which can be called as deciding the topic of writing. The next stage is discovering
meaning, ideas, and linking them into coherent thoughts. The next stage is generating. This stage is almost the same as the second one in which the writer
starts to expand the discovered ideas. The last stage is shaping the ideas into a well-organized writing.
Concerning the last stage, shaping, there are three types of shaping Hugley, 1983: 23. They are 1 rhetorical shaping which concerns the
formulation of concepts, proposition, and theme. Here, the writer states the purpose of his writing, the audience reader, and the context for the message. In
other words, Hugley 1983: 25 says that this step is the deep structuring of writing, 2 linguistic shaping in which a writer uses his ability to compose and
correct appropriate words and sentences. In this case, a writer should be able to consider the cohesion and coherence of his writing, and 3 mechanical shaping
which is also known as editing. By reviewing the writing and reading relationships in a constructive task
theory by Langer and Flihan as quoted in Indrisano and Squire 2000: 119, it can be concluded that the students are able to improve their writing by developing
their reading strategies as well. This notion is based on the assumption of Lopes 1991: 42 that in reading process people extract information according to their
interest and motivation. Later on, this reading experience will help them identify and understand cohesion, coherence, rhetorical organization, and conventions of
written language. It is commonly known that writing in the second language is different
from that in the first language. Writing in the second language is more complicated. Therefore, the students need to employ strategies as they use other
skills of second language learning strategies. From the ten strategies that the students use in writing English as a second language, Leki 1995: 247-253
concludes that the students’ writings are influenced by the clarity of the instructional task, first language culture, and their past experiences in writing. The
students’ past experiences in their writing activity also supports bottom- up and top-down reading process.
b. Writing Criteria
