The Definition of Writing

6

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This part talks about the topic-related matters which focus on writing skill. There are some parts in this chapter, they are: the definitions of writing, the purpose of writing, the process of writing, definition of recount text, the purpose of recount text, types of recount text, the structure of recount text, the language features of recount text, the definition of technique, the definition of clustering, steps of using clustering, and teaching recount text by using clustering technique.

A. Writing

1. The Definition of Writing

In learning English language, writing becomes one of the important skills beside listening, reading, and speaking. But from those skills, writing is the most difficult skill in the language skill. 1 It also can be said that writing is the most difficult skill because in writing, the students should know more on the language itself, the vocabulary, the grammatical structure, and the characteristics of good writing. Moreover, they should use appropriate language to make the readers understand about what they write about. In other words, the students should study harder in learning how to write well. As explained before, learning to write is not as easy as learning the other skills; reading, listening, and speaking. Writing is a productive skill that only can be mastered by the students who have good knowledge in learning the language. Therefore, before students make a good writing, they should have courage and idea to write them down. Even they are still as Senior High Schools’ students that do not have much experience in writing, it does not mean they could not write anything at all. Writing is not a simple skill in English Language, therefore the students must learn it in order to accomplish their learning goals as written in the 1 Jack C. Richards, Language Teaching Matrix, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.100 Competency Standard- Standard Kompetensi SK and Basic Competency- Kompetensi Dasar KD. Richards said that only few people can master writing either in a first or second language because learning to write is the most difficult tasks. 2 His opinion could support the argument above that writing is the most difficult skill in the language skills. Raymond defined that writing is more than a medium of communication. 3 It means that writing is not only the media to communicate to each other but also as a means of ideas and emotional expression. In writing, the students also could deliver all of their feeling to the readers, sharing many things or tell about anything to make the readers feel it without seeing each others. Here the students must construct their own views on a topic that will be shared to the readers. Writing is also a way of finding out what people know and what people need to learn. 4 It means that writing could be one of the media in sharing information to each other. Writing also could be a message for giving more details about something. From the definitions above it can be concluded that writing is a way to communicate without seeing each other directly from facial expressions or body language. But other people could know what information that wanted to be shared by the students. Here, the students can build up a relation to the readers by delivering a massage into a written form which comes during writing process. It means that the students try to engage their writing to the readers.

2. The Purpose of Writing