revising, and final draft.
4
Langan also explained the process of writing as follows:
5
a. Prewriting, as a starting point in writing activity to develop the topic that
will be discussed by the writer in hisher writing. There are five techniques in prewriting stage that can be applied by the writer such as free writing,
questioning, making a list, clustering and preparing a stratch outline. b.
Writing a first draft, the writer is just focused on what heshe wants to write about, keeps on the fluency of hisher writing and does not worry yet
about grammatical and writing mechanic. c.
Revising, the writer rewrite hisher paper based on what has already been written by himher. The goal is to make hisher writing be stronger.
d. Editing, as the last stage in writing process. The writer will identify and
correct hisher writing for mistakes and errors in grammatical and mechanic of writing that covering punctuation and spelling.
In summary, all the experts’ explanations above have similar ideas dealing
with the process of writing. In producing a writing product, there are some steps that should be done by writer as explained above. The writer will go through those
steps until heshe finished hisher final draft.
3. The Purpose of Writing
There are many experts who explain about the purpose of writing, among them Penny Ur, Halliday, and Ann Raimes. The
first, Penny Ur said that ―The purpose of writing, in principal, is the expression of ideas, the conveying of a
message to the reader; so the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the mos
t important aspect of the writing‖.
6
The second, according to Halliday in Nunan, the written language is used for: action for example, public signs, product
labels and instructions, recipes, maps, television and radio guides, bills, menus,
4
Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach Writing, United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited, 2004, pp. 4
–6.
5
John Langan, College Writing Skills with Readings, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005, Six Edition, pp. 23
–34.
6
Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 163.
telephones directories, ballot papers, computer manuals, information for example, news and current affairs magazines, hobby magazines, nonfiction books,
public notices, advertisement, political pamphlets, reports, entertainment for example comic strips, fiction books, poetry and drama, newspaper features, film
subtitles, games. The third, Raimes mentioned the purpose of writing as belows: ―Writing helps our students to learn. How? First, writing reinforces the
grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that we have been teaching our students. Second, when our students write, they also have a chance to be the
adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learned to say, to take risks. Third, when write they necessarily become very involved with the new
language.‖
7
In conclusion, the purposes of writing are to give a message, to express ideas, to get things done, to provide information and entertainment, and to give a
chance to our students for applying the language in written form.
B. Recount Text
1. The Definition of Recount Text
Recount text is one of common text types that used in writing. It is the unfolding of a sequence of events over time and reconstruct past experience.
Many experts propose the definition of recount text but their words lead to the same meaning. Anderson defines recount text as a piece of text that retells past
events, usually in the order in which they happened.
8
The purpose of recount text is to give the audience a description of what occurred and when it occurred.
Hyland, in other word, said that recount text is a text that reconstructs past experiences by retelling events in original sequence.
9
The social function of recount text is to retell events for the aims of informing or entertaining. Some
7
Ann Raimes, Techniques in Teaching Writing, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 3.
8
Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English, South Yarra: Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd, 2003, p. 48.
9
Ken Hyland, Second Language Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 20.
