The Characteristics of Senior High School Students

Next, shared writing strategy also encourages close examination of texts, words and options of authors Routman, 2005: 58. This means that a writing process is a shared experience and it makes an experience visible. During the process of shared writing, teacher also models a certain text to the students. It is done continuously to demonstrate the conventions of writing, spelling, punctuation, and grammar through the process of writing. At last, students may focus on the composing while the teacher helps to do the revision. To sum up, shared writing strategy is a specific method of writing in which teacher models the thought of process to achieve a particular result and allows students to engage in and focus on the process. The teacher, acting as a scribe, frees students from that aspect of the writing process so that they can focus exclusively on the thinking involved in writing. Furthermore, shared writing is considered as a powerful method to teach directly the key skills and concepts needed in a writing process. The power of sharing between students and teacher is tied during the process of shared writing.

E. The Characteristics of Senior High School Students

High school students are qualitatively known as early adult learners Pennington, 2009. They start to know what they want to do and what they are going to be in the future. They also generally demonstrate full, adult and abstract reasoning because previously they have experienced challenges during early period in junior high level. Most high school students have achieved the formal operational stage, as described by Piaget in Pribilova 2008 that in this age, students become more concerned with the hypothetical, future and ideological problems, means, they are also able to think abstractly and need fewer concrete examples to understand complex thought patterns. In Indonesia, high school students are mostly called as teenagers in which they are between age fifteen and nineteen. They grow physically and develop cognitively during the school days. Their views also develop faster by having social interaction with surrounding society. In teaching learning area, high school students tend to be very skeptic. According to Clark Starr 1991: 27, that because high school youths entering the formal operation stage of cognitive development may be inclined to be unrealistic, teachers should quiz them about their facts and ask them to back up their theories, hypotheses, and solutions to society‟s problems. Means, they are eager to learn, full of curiosity, energetic, sociable and ready to be a problem solver. In line with Kerangka Kualifikasi Nasional Indonesia Indonesian Qualification Framework as cited in Nuh 2010, the level of senior high school students are expected to 1 accomplish a specific task by employing tools, information and standard procedure in order to perform their measurable qualities under supervision, means they are required to draw a close of any tasks given with teacher‟s control 2 have basic competency and factual knowledge in performing their task which can be deduced that high school students need to be fulfilled with authentic tasks in order to have actual basic competencies after they finish their study, 3 responsible on their own tasks and reliable in advising others, means, they have to be conscientious to waht they are doing and able to share with their friends. Furthermore, the teaching learning process cannot be separated from the teacher‟s presence. Teacher need to be familiar with the students as well. To be au fait with the students, the teacher can teach an old dog new trick by understanding the cognitive and social characteristics of them. It is hoped that heshe would be able to use the right instructional strategies to maximize the learning advantages and address the learning challenges of high school students which can make all the difference in their success. In relation, Pennington 2009 identifies two essentials high school students‟ characteristics namely, cognitive development and social development.

1. High School Cognitive Development

In cognitive development, there are five characteristics of high school students. First, high school students as conscious learners generally seek for answers. They mostly curious on what would they do and what they have done during the teaching learning process. Thus, they are able to retain instructions, to visualize learning purpose and organize behavior for effective use. Therefore, their curiosity might be the acceleration of developing cognitive structures Heckhausen and Farrugia, 2003. According to Pennington 2009, it is customarily known as the need of understanding the purpose and the relevance of instructional activities. Secondly, high school students like to be motivated and challenged. By having competition during the teaching learning process, they are capable to compete with their friends and prospectively prompted to do the best things in different situation. According to Warren and Cantu 2003 competition rises the qualities of achievement, success, outstanding performance, drive, ambition and motivation. They will internally and externally motivated with different challenges. The more challenges given, the more students would be interested in teaching learning process. Conversely, competition sometimes emerge unsecure feeling towards high school students. Some educators believe that any competition that causes students left behind and even temporarily do not belong in class Rimm, 1995: 127. Students who have cognitive barriers may pull out themselves far away from the competition. As the result, they lack of confidence because of cognitive barriers. Therefore, sometimes high school students may have “shut down” in certain cognitive areas and will need to learn how to learn and overcome barriers to learning. After they fell down from the competition, the desire of learning would disappear for few moments. However, they are provided with the ability to choose and typically they would be back to catch up what they have left before. Afterward, high school students also like to show their independence, want to establish immediate and long-term personal goals and want to assume individual responsibility for learning and progress toward goals Wiggins, 1958; 37 Pennington, 2009. Although they ever fail, new adult world impose them to adjust and discover them in. To abridge, high school students have been able to let themselves grow cognitively, think abstractly and wrap up things with their own ability. Therefore, teachers can let their students to find out what the facts are, throw facts at them, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI face them with any incongruities in their positions, and face the facts and consider the various sides of issues. It occurs because senior high school students are able to think creatively and originally. Elements of this type of thinking may include an increased ability to think in hypothetical ways about abstract ideas, the ability to generate and test hypotheses systematically, the ability to think and plan about the future, and meta-cognition Table 2.1 Characteristics of High School Cognitive Development Pennington, 2009 Cognitive Development 1. Need to understand the purpose and relevance of instructional activities. 1. Internally and externally motivated. 2. Have self-imposed cognitive barriers due to years of academic failure and lack self-confidence 3. May have “shut down” in certain cognitive areas and will need to learn how to learn and overcome these barriers to learning. 4. Want to establish immediate and long-term personal goals. 5. Want to assume individual responsibility for learning and progress toward goals.

2. High School Social Development

The second characteristic is the growth of social development of high school students. In this phase, they will begin to form many different types of relationships, and many of their relationships will become more deeply involved and more emotionally intimate. During childrens younger years, their social sphere included their family, a few friends, a couple teachers, and perhaps a coach or other adult mentor. But during this time, teens social networks greatly expand to include many more people, and many different types of relationships. As a PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI result, high school social development involves a dramatic change in the quantity and quality of social relationships. Afterward, they are trying to adjust and discover themselves is a world of diversity of values, tensions and problems, and unexpected challenges Wiggins, 1958: 42. They are experimenting with adult- like relationships. They are also look for opportunities to be adult-like and to be trusted by others. They want privileges of adulthood without being willing to take the reciprocal responsibilities. As this concern, Pennington 2009 clarifies four characteristics of high school social development as follow; Table 2. 2. Characteristics of High School Cognitive Development Pennington, 2009 Social Development 1. Interested in co-educational activities. 2. Want adults to assume a chiefly support role in their education. 3. Developing community consciousness. 4. Need opportunities for self-expression. In the first point, it is stated that high school students are interested in co- educational activities. A co-educational activity creates a feeling comradeship in which during the process of teaching learning advocates students equally. There is no differentiation between male and female students; both have the same opportunities, chance and status in the class. They also have a tendency to explore various possibilities and are able to establish a clear sense of identity and self- awareness Erikson, 1997. As the result, teenagers who always try to communicate with different communities, they apt to be treated as the same as the other person in that group. The teacher, therefore, have to be able to create various activities, friendly atmosphere and allow the students to express their views openly and assertively in the class, so that the teaching learning process is more interesting and challenging. Secondly, high school students mostly want adults to assume a chiefly support role in their education. During school days, high school students using their new thinking abilities in which adult plays role to support whatever the processes are. By the time, they quest for identity shifts from relying on others to self-reliance Parkay and Stanford, 2010: 76. In this stage, as stated by Pennington, high school students would also develop their community consciousness as well. They experience themselves in a peer group, with a school or with a cause to test their sense of fidelity. Moreover, by testing themselves into different causes, they would be able to strengthen their confident at the end of the process. At last, high school students which mostly known negatively as wild, rude, irresponsible Scale, 2001 need opportunities for self-expression Pennington, 2002. Their array of interests, talents and goals in life call for teacher‟s understanding in order to achieve independence. To go over the main points, since high school students have their own distinctive characteristics, they need a great deal of assistance in making choices for themselves in this important phase of decision making immediately affecting their adult living. Opportunities of sharing and interaction between teacher and students would provide students a large room to develop themselves in achieving their independence in teaching learning process. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Considering those developments, there are some implications for teacher of high school students Table. 2. 3 Cognitive Development Teacher should………… Social Development Teacher should…………  Without giving up more concrete instructional tools such as charts, illustrations, graphs, and diagrams, move students toward higher-order thinking whenever possible by encouraging them to explain how they solve problems  Create projects that enable students to experience the tasks and dilemmas of professionals in the disciplines your subject area represents  Be acutely aware of social pressures and anxieties among students  Actively encourage non-violent conflict resolution  Attempt to ease anxiety about the future by offering assistance about career choices and options for higher education  Recognize that students may be reluctant to risk their self esteem and egos when asked to try a new skill in front of peers  Develop, support and enforce policies against gender-related harassment Retrieved from: http:www.pbs.orgwgbhpagesfrontlineshowsteenbrain, accessed 7102010

F. English teaching writing in Senior High School in Indonesia