1. The Purpose of Writing
In the book Reasoning and Writing Well by Dietsch, Dietsch defines the purpose of writing in general are to inform, to persuade, to express, or to
entertain.
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On the other hand, Penny Ur describes the purpose of writing as a way of conveying the feeling and ideas of the writer to the reader that she argues the
ideas of the writing is the most important aspect of the writing.
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In the teaching learning activity, the main reason of teaching writing is to help students to learn in a way where writing is connected to another skill like
grammar and to know the progress of the students. Raimes states that the main reason of teaching writing can be classified as below:
a. To reinforce the grammatical structure, idioms, and vocabulary that has
been given to the students during our teaching. b.
To give the students a chance to be more creative with their language, to go beyond the given materials, and to take risk in expressing their ideas that they
have not understand how to express. c.
To reinforce the learning in which the sense, knowledge, and feeling are connecting to each other is a unique way of developing one self.
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Based on the explanation, writer takes a conclusion that the purpose of writing is to express the ideas that the writer wanted to scream about in a way
where the reader will feel something from it, like entertained, persuaded, or got informed. The learning of writing would also gives reinforcement to the learning
process in which the materials given before like grammar, vocabulary, etc., could be applied during writing and could be explored even more in order to find a
better way of expressing the write r’s ideas.
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Betty Mattix Dietsch, Reasoning and Writing Well: A Rhetoric, Research Guide, Reader, and Handbook, Ohio: McGraw-Hill, 2003, p. 10.
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Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Melbourn: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 163.
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Ann Raimes, Technique in Teaching Writing, London: Oxford American English, 1983, p. 3.
2. The Types of Writing
There are a number of types of writing based on different kind of classification. Based on McDonough and Shaw there are three types of writing,
they are free composition, controlled sentence construction and guided writing.
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a. Free Composition
Free composition is writing without stopping. It is done through the way in which the writer writes whatever in their mind without worrying about the
grammatical rules or coherence of the writing, and other rules of writing. The aim is to free up the mind so that the ideas can be connected and associated.
Apparently at the other end of the spectrum, a ‘free writing’ task requires learners to create an essay on a given topic, often as part of a language
examination. Sometimes students are simply invited to write on a personal topic- their hobbies, what they did on holiday, interesting experiences and the like. Other
materials provide a reading passage as a stimulus for a piece of writing on a parallel topic, usually with comprehension questions interspersed between the two
activities.
b. Controlled Sentence Construction
If the focus of a language program is on accuracy, then schemes for controlling learners’ writing output will obviously predominate. The learners will
focus to practice on getting words down on their paper and they have to concentrate on one or two problems at the time.
Controlled writing focuses the learners’ attention on specific features of the written language. It is a good method of reinforcing grammar, vocabulary, and
syntax. The range of activity types is considerable, and the typical approaches include:
1. Providing a model sentence and asking to construct a parallel sentence with
different lexical items.
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Jo. McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher‟s Guide.
Oxford: Blackwell Publisher, 1993, p. 178.
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