Recount Text Weekly Diary Assignment

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2. Recount Text

According to Hyland 2003, based on the purpose, he organizes a recount text into a genre p. 20. It is factual genres. Butt et al., 2000 and Martin 1989 state that there are five texts which are included into factual genre. They are recount, procedure, description, report, and explanation as cited in Hyland, 2003, p.20. Butt et al., 2000 and Martin 1989 also state that the purpose of a recount text is to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events in an original sequences. The generic structure of a recount text consists of orientation, events in chronological order, and reorientation personal comment. According to SACS Library 2012 , the language feature of a recount text is the characteristi c of the first person whose character usually “I”. The next is the tenses which uses past tense and past continuous tense to tell the stories. The writer also uses time and sequences words like then, next, finally, etc. It shows the order of events. The materials of a recount text are stated in the junior high school curriculum as written in the standard competence number twelve. In this study, the researcher found that the students of VIII D of SMPN 1 Wungu had some problems in writing a recount text.

3. Weekly Diary Assignment

The name of weekly diary was made by the researcher based on a writing technique stated by Raimes 1983. It is daily notes as a technique for practical 20 writing. This technique asks the students to keep a certain notebook as the media to write the record of the events of the day or their ideas about those events p. 90. This technique would make the students write often and more. Then, their fluency increased and they will not only think for being correct p. 90. Meanwhile, the researcher adapted this technique with some modifications, for example, the researcher asked the students to write twice a week rather than everyday. The researcher also gave some feedback and scores in the students‟ diaries because feedback and score were very important for their improvement in writing a recount text . The researcher took the students‟ scores to analyze the students‟ improvement from each cycle. Besides, according to Progoff 1975, a diary is included into journal writing. Journal writing is an instructional or learning tool in adult education as cited in Hiemstra, 2002, p. 2. Adult educator Malcolm Knowles 1975 introduced readers to notions of personal reflection through activities such as self-assessment and proactive reading of materials. Another useful source is Christensen 1981, in which she describes how a diary can be used as a learning tool for adults. Brookfield 1987, 1995 provides various ideas pertaining to critically reflective writing through such tools as autobiography, critical incident citing, and seeing ourselves as others see us. In this research, the researcher offered the diary as the media to improve the students‟ writing abilities in writing a recount text. The diary was chosen because there are a few teachers who use a diary as the media in writing activities. Besides, the students needed writing assignment which would make them accustom to writing in English properly. The weekly diary assignment could help them to work based on the behaviorism theory. 21 The researcher used the diary in the form of weekly diary assignment which would be followed by teacher‟s feedback as Progoff 1975 writes Another feature of a diary is being able to look back on specific days or time periods in an attempt to sort out personal feelings. Combining such features with instructor feedback, the development of something like a statement of personal philosophy, and subsequent student writing and reflectioncan begin desired or even unanticipated personal changes. I recommend to learners C hristensen‟s 1981 work in which she describes how a personal diary can be used as a supplement to classroom activities as cited in Hiemstra, 2002, p. 2.. This kind of assignment had been implemented by Miyuki 2001. Miyuki 2001 used a diary as an assignment for EFL classroom. It is also including the teacher‟s feedback. At the end of class, the diaries are collected, then during the week I add comments before returning the diaries at the beginning of the next lesson. As the year has progressed, students have begun submitting their diaries without prompting from me at the end of the lesson. Students have even been known to write entries in their diary in response to events in the lesson, submitting them before the class has finished p. 2. In this assignment, the researcher asked the students to write their personal experiences in the form of a recount text twice a week. After each submission, the researcher gave the feedback and gave it back to the students. The researcher gave a topic per week submission, for example, the researcher gave a topic about the most embarrassing experiences in the second week. Then, the students had to write their embarrassing experiences twice a week. The researcher asked the students to write their personal experiences in the diaries for 100-150 words. Then, the researcher would give the feedback written in the diaries and orally in front of the class in each meeting. The researcher also gave the scores to this assignment based on Brown and Bailey ‟s scoring rubric. 22 This assignment required the students to write in English twice a week. The researcher hoped that it could improve students‟ writing abilities so that their problems in writing a recount text could be solved.

4. Teacher’s Feedback