10 must be designed also to help them develop their writing strategies so that they
will be able to improve their writing skill.
B. Teaching Writing News Item Text to Tenth Grade SMA
According to the curriculum by BSNP 2006, the English teaching of Senior High School in Indonesia is to develop
students’ competencies. They are 1 developing students’ oral and written competence to achieve the informational
competence which makes it possible for the students to access various knowledge, 2 developing students’ awareness of the importance of English in improving
Indone sia’s competence at the world’s level, and 3 developing students’
understanding on the relationship between cultures and language. Moreover, according to the Regulation of Ministry of National Education no.22 year 2002
about the standard of competencies and basic competencies for the tenth grade students of SMA Semester 2 is that they have to perform several writing
competencies as shown in the Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Standard Competence and Basic Competence of Writing Skill for Senior High School Students Grade X Semester 2.
Standard Competence Basic Competence
12. Expressing meaning in short functional texts in
the forms of narrative, descriptive and news
item in daily contexts. 12.1 Expressing meaning of short functional
written texts such as, announcements, advertisements, invitations, etc.
accurately, fluently, and acceptable by using written language in daily contexts.
12.2 Expressing meaning and rhetoric stages accurately, fluently, and acceptable by
using written language in daily contexts in the form of: narrative, descriptive, and
news item.
11 The table above shows that in the second semester, the tenth grade students of
SMA will learn narrative, descriptive, and news item and short functional texts. However, in this study, the researcher only focuses on one particular text type that
is news item text. News item text is one of text types that the students have to learn in senior
high school. Derewianka 1990 defines that news item text is to inform readers, listeners, or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or
important p. 46. According to Nugroho 2014 supported in her thesis. She writes:
According to Pardiyono 2007, news item is a text which gives information to readers about important events. It gives information about
“events of the day” Hammond, Burn, Joice, Brosnan, and Gerot, 1992: 84. Based on Gerot and Wignel 1995, the generic structure of news item
is head line, newsworthy event, background event, and sources. Davis 1985 adds that the language features of news item are action verbs,
saying verbs said, added, passive verb, and direct-indirect speech p. 8. Writing news item text will move through a set of stages: headline,
newsworthy event, background events, and the sources. In general, a headline contains the title of the text, that reflects the whole contents of the background
events, while the newsworthy event is the first paragraph which functions as the summary of the whole event that tells the readers who are involved in the event or
the participants, where the event takes place, how and why the event takes place. In brief, it recounts the event in a summary form. The background event is the
12 next paragraph that elaborates what happened, to whom and in what
circumstances. It might be written in two or three paragraphs depending on what could be the backgrounds of the event. In brief, it elaborates what happens to
whom in what circumstances. The sources paragraph contains comments by participants in, witnesses to, and expert on the event. These news item texts
elements can come in various orders, depending on its purposes. The generic structure of a news item text is presented in the table below:
Table 2.2: An Example of a News Item Text and its Generic Structure Title
S ’Pore to Double Arts, Media by 2012
Newsworthy event SINGAPORE: The Singapore government wants to double
the size of the country ’s media, design and arts industries to
6 percent of the economy by 2012, a minister said on Saturday.
Background event The target comes as officials have said they want the
country to move away from its stuffy, rule-bound image and embrace more creativity as it seeks ways to sustain
economic growth.
Background event The creative industries are poised to play a significant role
in transforming our economy and society ,” Lee Boon Yang,
Minister for communication and the Arts, told in a graduation ceremony for fine arts students.
Source Singapore
’s government has set aside more than S 200 million US 116 million over five years to invest in the
arts sector, Lee said, without giving details. – AP
Writing news item texts is somewhat similar to communicating information through spoken language. Ideally, someone who can communicate
well using oral communication will also be able to communicate through writing. So, writing activities should be done by integrating speaking skill and writing
skill so that students will easily generate ideas. Most students get difficulty in generating ideas when they have to construct a text. Harmer cited by
Ardianti and Esti: 2013 says that during the process of learning writing, students
13 have lots of difficulties. It becomes a problem because frequently writing is
relegated to the status of homework p. 1. It happens because they lack of exposure to a text construction, they have inadequate grammar knowledge,
and they do not use inappropriate technique. A news item text as one of the texts proposed for the tenth grade students
of SMA should be taught in an appropriate way and with teach er’s assistance.
This is done to avoid boredom and assumption that writing is a nonsense activity and difficult to do. Ardianti and Esti 2013 write that some students are
lack of excitement and motivation to study under the teacher’s guidance. It can be a major problem for teachers because if students have lack of passion in writing,
they cannot develop their writing well p.1. This difficulty can happen because students need something to stimulate their creativity. Teacher must give students
more exposures and teach them how to make an outline before they write a full text.
Therefore, writing an outline for an essay is both important and beneficial. An outline records ideas; it is a way to help organize the stude
nts’ thinking. Most students tend to write and think at the same time. This will
block their thinking and cause many mistakes in their writing.
B. The Use of Photographs to Teach Writing to Tenth Grade SMA
Based on the above suggestion by Brown, the writer comes up with a thought that the use of media in teaching writing is an urgent matter to create the
most interesting and suitable topic for the student. Therefore the use of the right
14 teaching media may
increase students’ attention and motivation in learning the writing skill. The writer’s statement is in accordance with statements of several
experts like Gerlach and Ely cited in Arsyad 2002, who state that media is human or equipment that can give knowledge or skill to the students.
The using of media such as photograph brings six benefits which are important in teaching news item texts to the tenth grade of SMA students.
1. Photographs are Useful in Teaching Writing News Item Texts
Canning-Wilson 2001 argues that learners prefers visual media that are colored, contain a story, relate to previous experiences and can be associated with
places, objects, persons, events or animal of which they are familiar.
The writer’s statement about the advantages of media in teaching is also supported by Siti 2012 in her thesis that discusses the use of picture to improve
studen ts’ writing skill. Besides, she concludes that the implementation of picture
series in the teaching and learning process of writing is believed to be effective to improve the students’ skills in writing p. 112.
Siti states that the use of picture series in writing enables the students to gain the ideas within their minds and express them into readable text. In addition,
the implementation of picture series and other supporting picture series-based activities are effectively proven to facilitate the students to improve their writing
skills as well as raise their interest and motivation to write 2012: 112. Derived from the explanation above, it can be inferred that photographs are
very useful and play an important role in supporting the teaching learning
