20
d. News Writing
“News writing doesn’t mean only the physical act of putting words on paper rather it is a process, 90 percent of which is not putting words on paper”, says Berner
1992:1. This is supported by Ishwara 2005:95 in that in the process of news writing, a journalist must write with his heart and brain. The process of news writing
begins with reporting and collecting all the necessary information. The next step is organizing the information and starting to write the lead and the body. When the news
is already written, it must be evaluated and re-written. The process of re-reporting is needed when the information collected is insufficient.
Reddick 1941:56-58 provides three steps in writing a news story after collecting the necessary information. They are:
1 List the facts in accordance with their importance This first step can be done mentally or on paper. A journalist should take
5W+1H What, who, where, when, why, and how as the formula. 2 Write a condensed statement of the important facts
It is also called as writing the lead. All the most important facts are written in the lead.
3 Write the body of the story The less important facts are written in the body. The body also explains the
outlined facts in the lead more detail.
3. Journalistic Extracurricular
According to
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 1996:412, extracurricular means something that is “related to officially or semiofficially
21
approved and usually organized student activities connected with school and usually carrying no academic credit”.
In accordance with this definition, journalistic extracurricular allows students to improve their skill in newspaper journalism that they do not get in class. The
common products of journalistic extracurricular are newspapers and magazines because these two media cover almost all of the journalistic skills and are low-costed
productions. Siregar as cited in Pasaribu 1995:10 says that “learning journalism is the
best practice to recognize and reveal the reality”. The ability of recognizing and revealing the reality will be useful in making a decision in the real life.
Pasaribu 1995 explains the functions of school newspaper. They are: a. As communication medium
Students are able to deliver the important information to all the school members. By reading the school newspaper, the readers are able to know what
and why an event can happen and to understand the motive behind someone’s deed. The existence of school newspaper builds the understanding among all the
school members. b. As an instrument to solve problems
School newspaper can communicate the problems that occur in school environment. The follow-up action can be done after all the matters have been
reported. c. As an instrument of self-development
School newspaper allows the students to learn how to express their thoughts in written form. To compose a good writing, the students must be able to think
22
systematically and critically in a well-organized way. By writing the news, the students also learn how to respect the public interest.
The writer has discussed the instructional models and the basic theories of newspaper journalism. They provide the writer with adequate data that function as the
basic theories in designing the materials. Thus, the writer still needs an approach to apply the designated materials. The writer chooses task-based learning as an
appropriate approach.
4. Task-based Learning
The writer has selected task-based learning as an approach in applying the designed materials. This study aims to design a set of English instructional materials
to provide the students with a lot of exposures in learning English and task-based learning approach can give some tasks that enable the students to learn English
naturally through newspaper journalistic activity. This section will explain the characteristics of task-based learning, types of task, and the procedure of task-based
learning.
a. Characteristics of Task-Based Learning
Task-based learning is one of the approaches in communicative language teaching. Larsen-Freeman 2000:144 says that a task-based approach aims to provide
learners with a natural context for language use. The learners work on some tasks and they will use the target language naturally. Willis 2003:24 also supports the
statement by saying that the learners are free to choose whatever language forms they wish to convey what they mean, in order to fulfill the task goal. In completing the