To check the students’ critical opinion or critical response

The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class 16

2. To check the students’ critical opinion or critical response

In Academic Reading Course, the teachers need to check the students‘ critical opinion about the academic text to gain the students‘ critical response and of course, it can be seen through ordering the students to make journal. It is mentioned in Reading Response Journals. It is stated clearly in the Academic Reading Syllabus Semester 2- 20112012, ―These journals are NOT just your own opinion about the article. However, they are also NOT a summary of the journal. Instead, you will use critical reading skills to offer your own response to specific ideas, arguments, or parts of our text. ‖ If I take a look at this description of reading response journals, then I can conclude that not all the content of journal is about the students‘ opinion and students‘ summarizing about the text. The students need to pour down their opinion about main idea in certain paragraph or in some writer‘s point of views in the text. This journal also helps the students read the text earlier in order to make them think first before the class discussions begin. 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 2: Mrs. A: I ask them to write a journal on certain text, especially the text related to reading critically of critical reading that if when we discuss reading critically, and then, I ask them to write journal just to see how critical their respond to that text, I mean, it’s not only understanding, but also critical response and how, what is their opinion of the text, of the issue discussed The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class 17 in the text and how they used the text to support their argument as well. It was clearly stated from Mrs. A‘s statement that she assessed only on certain texts not in every text the students must write a journal, but her emphasized here is on the students‘ critical response about the issue discussed in the text. The journal is assessing on how the students using several arguments in the text to sustain their respond. Here the focus is not only on the students‘ understanding about the content of the text but also the students‘ response and the students‘ opinion whether they have deeper opinion to the text or just giving general opinion. However, Mr. D claimed that journal is not only about the opinion even though he thought that opinion itself is still important. He admitted that critical response skills were part of analyzing. So, when the students do analyze the content of the text, they have to be critical in responding. As well as Mr. D statement, Mrs. E also gives personal reasons about journal: Mrs. E: For me, journal is a kind of personal. I mean, actually it is subjective. So, the journal that I assign to write, mostly were their immediate response to the text. And we cannot write any comment unless we are critical to the text, ok? It can be seen clearly that Mrs. E preferred to have a direct response through the text rather than applying the skills on the journal assignments. She also mentioned that journal helps the students to make their idea visible by putting down their idea on the paper, so she can see every student‘s idea which are different from one student to another. However, she agreed that to be able to give a comment or opinion, the students have to be critical with the text. The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class 18 Similar to all of the lecturers‘ reasons about checking the students‘ critical opinions in responding or in giving opinion, there is a researcher that stands in the same line with my participants‘ reason the lecturers‘ reason. Simon Evans 2008 said that student reactions to the ideas and arguments presented in a text are extremely important. Students need to give reasons and examples to support their reactions p. 243. Here, the teacher tries to train the students not only give opinions, but the critical response. For the students‘ critical response, they need to explain their underlying reason why the students saying their response, I mean, the students not just give their opinion but, they also need to support their argument related to their response. Simon Evans 2008 also did his own research and said that, “First-year students at ICU are required to enroll in the English Language Programme ELP, which trains students in critical thinking, reading expository texts, and argumentative writing. Students read set texts which form the basis of their Academic Reaction Papers ARP, where they summarize a writer’s arguments and ideas, before presenting a critical response.” p. 242. In this line, the researcher tries to give the students steps that lead the students into critical response. He provides the texts which had been in the category of academic text, and he wants the students to be able to do the academic skill first, just like summarizing th e writer‘s point of view. Finally the students will find their comprehension about the text, and they can understand what that text meant, then they can respond and share their critical response. The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class 19 The researcher‘s goal is just the same as my participants‘ goal in teaching Academic Reading Course that is to make the students able to produce critical opinion or critical response to the academic text, and to the writer‘s argument. Usually, the teachers found that the students do not really engage in responding to everything written in the text, because the length of the text, the unfamiliar words that appeared in every paragraph. But then, the teachers try to encourage the students to be more critical in some creative way, like fun discussion related to the text during the classroom, or question answer that lead the students to find the writer‘s argument or idea, etc.

3. To see the way the students work with synthesizing and summarizing