The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class
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Data Analysis Procedure
After finishing all the interview sessions, I collected the data in the recorder and note-taking, then I started to analyze the data by transcribing the recording
first. Second, I would analyze their reasons based on the questions, whether the answers were different or same. Moreover, I would categorize the answers into
several themes to analyze the data easily. Finally I could find out the results based on the themes.
Findings and Discussion
In this section, I will categorize the results of the data analysis that I got from several interview sections. There are six big reasons and three additional
reasons for giving journal as an assignment in Academic Reading Class, and I will discuss them one by one from the first main reasons to the last reasons told by the
participants I had been interviewed.
1. To develop the students’ critical thinking skills.
My topic was The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignment in Academic Reading Class and my research question was about what the underlying
reasons for giving journal as assignments were. I got the answer by interviewing some lecturers. I conclude their statements started from the first rank to the
bottom rank. Some of my participants said their reasons by giving journals as assignment is
to develop the students‘ critical thinking skills, which means that the teachers want the students to think about the text, the content of the text and then the
teacher will give them an activity in order to see their students‘ critical thinking about the issue discussed in the text. Some teachers will try to push the students to
The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class
13 give solutions based on the problems that appear in the text. Its purpose is just to
raise the students‘ awareness about the problems discussed in the text, so that the students will automatically think deeper to find the solution that might help to
solve the problem in the text. These are some of the participants‘ opinion that said to develop the students‘
critical thinking skills in giving assignment in the form of journal in Academic Reading Class:
Extract 1:
Mrs. A: I the third and Mr. C’s syllabus and then asking the
students to write journal, especially to find out whether the student have read the text critically or
not. The journal reflect how critical the student about the text.
According to Mrs. A, who has ever become the coordinator of this course, actually she never ordered her students to write a journal while she was the
coordinator of this course. And then, after the coordinator changed, and Mr. C was chosen, he gives journal as the assignment to develop the students‘ critical
thinking. The purpose is to find out whether the students have really read the text or not, and it
will be shown in the students‘ journal. This is the statement of Mr. C who delivered his goal for giving journal as assignments:
Mr. C: Because I want them to be more brief to think about the article, to try to think deeper to the article. It helps
them reflect and think before.
Furthermore, for Mrs. E, she thought that the skills to be learned and the criticality could not be separated because according to her, the students could
The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class
14 annotate one of the skills that had to be learned if the students read and tried to
respond to the content critically. Mrs. E: We cannot just separate those skills. I mean, in doing
Annotation as well, it requires readers’ criticality. We cannot annotate the important part or the
relevant part unless we are critical to the text , ok? …
And we cannot write any comment unless we are critical to the text, ok?
Moreover, according to Mrs. F and also Ms. G, both of them stated that they applied the required skills but in order to develop the students‘ critical thinking
skills. In the same line with Mrs. E who said that skills and criticality to the content of the text cannot be separated especially in annotation; Mrs. F also
focuses in developing the critical thinking skills, but she emphasizes on synthesizing skill which means that the students have to support their position
with some arguments stated in the text. Whether they agree or disagree, they need to collect the arguments; in other words, students must read and think about it. All
of this makes the students read and decide in what position they must be in. Besides that, Ms. G stressed on how to get the main idea in academic text,
she thought that the students need to be taught first before they start writing their journal. She also stated that in every reading passage, the students must find the
main idea or the message delivered by the writer; by trying to find the main idea of every paragraph, it automatically raises the students‘ critical awareness.
From the lectures‘ quotation above, it can be seen that their purpose is just to train the students to be more critical in thinking about any issue or problems
discussed in the text through writing in the form of journal. There are some researchers statement related to my participants‘ reasons. Davies
E. as cited in
The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class
15 Walker E 2006
stated that journal writing provides students with an opportunity to return to their experiences in an attempt to develop new perspectives, also
writing encourages and provides an opportunity for students to reflect on an experience, connect, and think critically about ideas or situations. According to
Davies as cited in Stacy E. Walker‘s journal 2006, a journal in the form of writing can raise the students‘ critical thinking skill to broaden their ways of
thinking about the issue or problem discussed in the text. It also generates the students‘ point of view; they will try to think in a different way about the issue in
the text; they will be trained to think deeper about the situation given in the text. Campbell et al., as cited in McDowell 2008 suggest that students need
explanations, modeling and opportunities to practice activities such as ‗critical analysis‘ in order to acquire ‗full understanding of [the] academic conventions
and ways of thinking‘ 467. Here, as stated by Campbell et al., as cited in McDowell‘s journal, to have a critical thinking skill, the students must be given
an example by the teacher, such as the teacher lead the students to find the main idea of paragraph one, and then let the students to find the main idea in the next
paragraph. It is a teaching modeling to make the students think critically about the main idea of every paragraph in the text. Or, the teacher can give a little guidance
to guide the students in finding the purpose of the academic text discussed during the cla
ss; the teacher‘s focus is on expanding the students‘ critical thinking skill to see how far the students try to think deeply on the text. It can be seen from their
journal, how they find the main idea in those texts.
The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class
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2. To check the students’ critical opinion or critical response
