The Nature of Writing Teaching Writing

10

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In this chapter, the researcher presents a discussion on some theories that underlie the topic of this research. This chapter is divided into two major parts which are theoretical description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description consists of review of related theories which are discussed in the research, while the theoretical framework discusses the implementation of the theories which are used to answer the research problem.

A. Theoretical Description

This part discusses theories about writing, spelling accuracy, direct written corrective feedback, and also classroom action research.

1. Writing

a. The Nature of Writing

Bell and Burnaby 1984; as cited in Nunan, 1989 explain that writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity that demands the writer to demonstrate control of a number of variables simultaneously; at the sentence level, include control of content, format, sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and letter formation; beyond the sentence, structure and also integrate information into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and texts. From this explanation it is obvious that the students must be able to organize their ideas, use correct punctuation and also well PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 11 spelling in order to write something well. Besides, they have to be able to arrange the writing into cohesive and coherent paragraph or text. According to Sokolik 2003, writing can also be defined by series of contrast. It is both physical and mental activity that is aimed to express and impress. It means that writing is the physical activity of committing words or ideas into passage and also a mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express and organize them into statements and paragraphs which enables the readers as the audience in understanding the ideas of the written work. Besides, writing is also both a process and product since the writers experience cyclical process of writing, which is by imagining, organizing, drafting, editing, reading and rereading. It means that in order to produce a good writing, the students have to experience the writing process itself. Next, the researcher will discuss about teaching writing.

b. Teaching Writing

In order to deliver a meaningful learning to the students, teacher needs to consider some principles in teaching writing. As stated by Sokolik 2003, there are four principles of teaching writing. The principles are understanding students‟ reason for writing, providing many opportunities for the students to write, making feedback helpful and meaningful, and clarifying how the students‟ writing will be evaluated. The first principle is understanding students‟ reason for writing. It is about the importance of both teacher and stu dents‟ goals. Teacher needs to understand and 12 convey goals to the students so that the students can apply the writing skills that they learn. The second principle is providing many opportunities for the students to write. Since writing is in part a physical activity, the teacher should give more practice for the students in the learning activities and the practice itself should provide different types of writing. By practicing more, the students can construct correct English words and also sentences. The third principle is making feedback helpful and meaningful for the students. In writing, students need feedback from their teacher. Teacher should give clear feedback to the students in which the students understand the vocabulary or symbol that is used by the teacher. If it is necessary, teacher can discuss the feedback with the students in the class so that the students can see the errors on their writing. In this way, the students can learn from their mistakes and be more aware of making errors. The last principle is clarifying how the students‟ writing will be evaluated. The teacher should give an evaluation which is clear for the students such as how important creativity or originality of ideas is; how important following a particular written format is; how important grammatical accuracy is; how important that the assignment include recently taught material is; and how important accuracy is in spelling and punctuation. Besides, the teacher needs to make a scoring rubric so that the students know what kind of aspects and requirements that will be assessed in writing. Next, it will discuss spelling accuracy in the next part. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 13

2. Spelling Accuracy