Definition of Writing General Concept of Writing

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter is concerned with some theories and ideas which are related to the study and support my opinions. It consists of four subchapters. The first is general concept of writing, the second subchapters explains about general concept of report, the third subchapter is teaching and learning media, the fourth subchapter is video compact disc as a media, the fifth subchapter is general concept of All About Animals VCD, and the last subchapter is teaching writing report text with All About Animals VCD.

2.1 General Concept of Writing

In this subchapter discusses the definition of writing, teaching writing, and teaching writing in junior high school. The explanations are presented as follow:

2.1.1 Definition of Writing

Writing is one way to communicate with other people. It is representation of language which is used to express and explain ideas in a textual medium through the use of signs or symbols. There are several definitions of writing, as Meyers 2005: 2 states that writing is an action, a process of discovering and organizing your ideas, putting them on the paper and reshaping and revising them. While Harmer 2001: 154 states that writing is a process that what we write is often heavily influenced by 7 the constraints of genres. Based on those definitions, it can be concluded that writing is a process to produce language which comes from our thought. Writing is a complex skill, it involves a complex process done step by step to pass on knowledge or messages in our mind in a written form, in which we have to use certain grammatical rules and choose the right words in our sentences. Each of sentences in a paragraph must have certain correlation with each other and organize in a good order. Actually, paragraphs discuss the main idea of the essay. Oshima and Hogue 2006: 16 states that a paragraph is basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develop one main idea. A well-written paragraph contains six elements. They are: a. Topic sentence. It states the main idea of the paragraph. b. Supporting sentences which develop the topic sentence. c. Concluding sentence. It indicates the end of the paragraph and leaves the reader with important points to remember. d. Unity. It means that the discussion in the paragraph is only one main idea, which is stated in the topic sentence, and then each and every supporting sentence develops that idea. e. Coherence. It means that the paragraph is easy to read and understand because the supporting sentences are in logical order and using appropriate transition signals connects the ideas. f. Cohesion. It means that all supporting sentences “stick together” in their support of the topic sentence. 8

2.1.2 Teaching Writing