RIRIN PUJI SAPUTRI CHAPTER II

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Writing 1. The Definition of Writing There are a lot of theories about definition of writing. Some

  experts in the world have their own point of view, and opinion about what the writing exactly is. It may be different from one‟s definition to the other definitions, but it may be the same from both of definitions.

  According to Tarigan (1994: 21), writing is drawing symbols that describe a language understood by people, so that other people can read those symbols if they understand about the language and those drawing of symbols.

  According to Klein in Tan (2009), writing is the ability to put pen and paper to express ideas through symbols. Representations on the paper will have meaning and content that could be communicated to other people by the writers.

  Based on the previous definitions of writing, the same point about writing is something (namely symbols or sign) that is expressed or explored as a language in written form, and it is understood by people.

  Indeed, it can be said that writing is the ability to express or explore the ideas about something in written form.

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2. The Process of Writing

  Many people said that learning is a process, and writing is a part of learning; therefore, there is a process in writing. When writers want to make a draft, they should do some steps in making it, so that they can produce the final draft read by the readers.

  According to Harmer (2004: 4-6), process of writing has four main elements. Those are planning, drafting, editing, and final version.

  a. Planning Experienced writers plan what they are going to write. Before strating to write or type, they try and decide what is they are going to say. When planning, writers have to think about three main issues.

  1. The purpose of their writing skill since this will influence (amongst other things) not only the type of the text they wish to produce, but also the language they use, and the information they choose to include.

  2. The audience they are writing for, since this will influence not only the shape of the writing (how it is laid out, how the paragraphs are structured,etc), but also the choice of language.

  3. The content structure of the piece that is how best to sequence the facts, ideas, or arguments which they have decided to include.

  b. Drafting One can refer to the first version of a piece of writing as a draft.

  A number of drafts may be produced on the way to the final version. c. Editing (reflecting and revising) After writers produce a draft, then they usually read what is the result of the draft in order to see where it works and where it does not.

  Perhaps, the order of the information is not clear. Perhaps, the way something is written is ambiguous or confusing.

  Reflecting and revising are often helped by other readers (or editors) who comment and make suggestions. Another reader‟s reaction to a piece of writing will help the outhor to make appropiate revisions.

  d. Final Version After the writers edit their draft, it may be different from the original plan and the first draft because they make the changes which they consider to be neccesarry. However, in the final version, the writers is now ready to send the written text to intended audience. One might decide to represent these stages in the following way :

     planning drafting editing final draft

  Based on the previous description, it can be concluded that in producing the final draft which can be served to the readers, it need some steps such as : planning, drafting, and editing.

3. The Task of Teacher in Writing

  Succes of writing for the students is not far a way from the roles of the teachers in the classroom. The teachers have some tasks in writing class.

  According to Harmer (2004: 41- 42), there are some of teachers‟ tasks, those are as follows : a. Demonstrating

  Teacher should make the students aware of writing conventions and genre in each type of writing and pay attention to the features of writing.

  b. Motivating and Provoking Teacher has to help the students by motivating or provoking them in order to have ideas when the students are lost for words, especially in creative writing tasks.

  c. Supporting Students need a lot of help and comfortable feeling when they write ; therefore, when students are writing in class, teacher is needed to be extremely supportive, always available (except during exam writing of course), and be ready to help students to solve the problems and overcome the difficulties.

d. Responding Reaction to students‟ written work can be in form of responding.

  When responding, there are suggestions for its improvement, and there is no grading of the students‟ work.

  e. Evaluating The teacher can know the real condition of the students‟ ability when she or he evaluate the students‟ writing result. Evaluation can also be used as consideration for the teacher to create a better teaching and learning process.

  Those are descriptions about the teachers‟ tasks in writing classroom activities. Hopefully by obeying the tasks, namely demonstrating, motivating and provoking, supporting, responding, and evaluating, it can make the students have more ability in writing. So that, the teachers should do the tasks with full of responsibility.

4. The Criteria of Good Writing

  It is important to get the purpose of writing. If we cannot get the purpose, it means that we do something useless. In order to get the purpose of writing activity, we have to build up our writing well. Adelstein and Pival in Tarigan (1994:6) explain some characteristics of good writing :

  a. A good writing result shows the abilities of the writer in using the tones.

  b. A good writing result shows the abilities of the writer in arranging the materials to be a good structure.

  c. A good writing result shows the abilities of the writer to write clearly (unambiguous), to use the sentence structure well, language,and examples, therefore, it makes the readers easy in understanding the explicit and implicit meaning.

  d. A good writing result shows the ability of the writer to write surely: it can take the readers‟ interest to main idea of the writing ; it can describe the main idea clearly and logically. In this case, the writer has to avoid the use and the repetition of useless phrases. The words used must support the main idea harmonically which want to be reached. e. A good writing shows the ability of the writer to criticize his draft of writing and then revise it to get the better one. The key of the successfulness in writing is the willingness and the abilities of the writer in revising his first draft.

  f. A good writing result shows the proud of the writer to his writing ; the willingness to use a good punctuation, to reread the words meaning in correlation to the grammar used before sending it to the readers. A good writer knows well that those things are important since they may give a bad effect to the result.

B. Descriptive Text 1. The Definition of Descriptive Text

  Based on the topic of the thesis proposal,this research is focused on descriptive text. Lexically, descriptive refers to “giving a picture in words: describing something, especially without expressing feelings or judging” (Hornby, 1995:314). Descriptive text means text which describes a particular place, person, or thing (Gerot and Wignell, 1995:208). In descriptive text, there are three major things that can be described :

  a. Describing an object Like any text, a descriptive text usually has a topic sentence, in which the writer introduces the objects. Usually the topic sentence gives a general impression of the object. b. Describing a place Place is something thought of only in terms of sight, it may also offer details of smell taste, sound, and touch.

  c. Describing a person When the writer wants to describe someone, his/her purpose is to convey to the reader the person‟s individual qualities.

  Descriptive writing is usually used to help a writer develop an aspect of their work, for example : to create a particular mood, atmosphere or describe a place so that the reader can create vivid picture of characters, places, objects, etc.

  Description is a style of writing which can be useful for variety of purposes : to engage a reader‟s attention; to create characters; to set a mood or create an atmosphere; and to bring writing to life.

  2. The Generic Structure of Descriptive Text

  The generic structures of descriptive text are as follows :

  a. Identification which identifies the person, place, or thing to described, or identifies phenomenon to be described .

  b. Description : describes parts, qualities and characteristic.

  3. The Language features of Descriptive text

  The language features of descriptive text are :

  a. Specific Participant Descriptive text describes about specific object, not in general, and unique. b. The Use of Adjectives to Clarify Noun When people want to describe a thing, they may use certain adjectives to clarify the appearance of the thing. They may add the look, perceptions, smell, colours, etc. To make the things described clearer. For example : beautiful flower, handsome man, red book, etc.

  c. The Use of Simple Present Tense Descriptive text is dominated by simple present tense. It because the factual features of descriptive text itself. As we know that descriptive text describes in reality.

  d. The Use of Common Adverbs, for examples : 1) Every morning , day, week, month, year.

  2) Once, twice, three times, four times, etc. 3) Always, usually, sometimes, often, never, seldom.

  e. The Use of Action Verbs Action verbs are verbs which show the performance of an action, the activity can be seen. For examples : run, go, study, read, etc.

  f. The Use Determiners There are determiners which are usually used : articles (the, a, an), demonstratives (this, that), numerals (two, three, etc), possessives (my, their, her, etc), quantifiers (some, many,etc).

4. The Social Function of Descriptive Text

  Social Function of descriptive text is to describe a particular person, place, or thing.

5. The Sample of Descriptive Text Title My family Identification Well, there are four people in my family.

  We live in a small but cozy house. We have different characteristics but we understand each other. Let me explain to you about my little family.

  Description There is me. My name is Rebecca Yulin. I am slim and tall. I have an oval face, with pointed nose, big brown eyes and wavy black hair. I have a brother, Brad. Unlike me, he is short and fat, because he likes to eat. My mom‟s name is Anne. She is like me, tall and slim. And of course, beautiful. And My dad is Bill. His appearance is like my brother. He is fat, short and bald headed. He is good in making money because he is a successful businessman. My mom is always sympathetic when we are upset or worried about things, we always talk to her when we have problem. She is also very even-tempered. She never gets mad annoyed. I wish like her! My dad, well, is really sociable. He has a lot of friends and he loves to meet people. I get really embarrased, because he always talks to people in the street, but he is really annoying sometimes, because he is very stubborn. When he decides to do something, no one can stop him. My brother Brad...Well, he is really bossy, he always tries to tell what to do. He is also very easygoing. As for me, well, my friends say I am really generous because I like to give present and help people. But I am a little muddy. Sometimes I get really annoyed and upset about things. Well, we are very different in characters but we are a happy family.

6. Evaluating Descriptive Text

  The type of test to evaluate writing descriptive text is subjective test. The subjective test which will be used is essay question. From the question given, students make descriptive text by using its generic structure; identification and description. They also use the language feature of descriptive text such as simple present tense, action verbs, noun phrase, and adverbial phrase.

  There are some aspects of writing that can be evaluated. According to Nurgiyantoro (2001: 307), the aspects that can be evaluated in writing are :

  a. Content (The Agreement with the Title Chosen) This means that a good writing is when the title represents the content of it. The content of a text should be relevant or equivalent and describe the title in complete. Brown (2004 :73) states the writing section measures the ability to write English, including the ability to generate, organize, and develop ideas, to support those ideas with examples or evidence, and to compose a response to one assigned topic in standard written English. So, it can be concluded that the more students can develop their ideas which also loads some good supporting ideas to be a good content, the better their writing will be.

  b. Organization (Paragraph Unity, Coherence, and Cohesion) The way students organize their paragraph is important if a teacher wants to evaluate their writing. However, a good text consist of paragraph which are arranged well with some connecting words which can make the paragraph coherence. c. Vocabulary (The Precision of Using Vocabulary) Vocabulary is the most important thing that forms a phrase, sentence, and further, paragraph. Rivers in Nunan (1992:11) writes that vocabulary is essential for succesful study on the second language. In writing, a writer should use the appropriate vocabulary to express what they want to write. The diction chosen will determine the level of students‟ vocabulary mastery.

  d. Language (Tenses and Structure) However, tenses and structure mastery is really necessary to have paragraph constructed. It is difficult for students to arrange a good paragraph if they lack of tenses and structure mastery.

  e. Mechanics (Spelling and Punctuation) Paragraph is a combination of some sentences which needs good spelling and punctuation. If the use of punctuation is not appropriate, the paragraph will be unreadable.

  In this research, students‟ writing such as content, organization, language, vocabulary, mechanics will be evaluated. Fluency is also important to be considered. The flow of students‟ thoughts is important since it is the basic thing that the students must have in writing any kinds of text especially descriptive text.

7. The Organization Pattern of Descriptive Text Descriptive text does not have difficult text pattern like other text.

  Descriptive text describes something. The order is not so important. The sentences flow continuously.

  For example :

  

My family

  Well, there are four people in my family. We live in a small but cozy house. We have different characteristics but we understand each other. Let me explain to you about my little family.

  There is me. My name is Rebecca Yulin. I am slim and tall. I have an oval face, with pointed nose, big brown eyes and wavy black hair. I have a brother, Brad. Unlike me, he is short and fat, because he likes to eat. My mom‟s name is Anne. She is like me, tall and slim. And of course, beautiful. And My dad is Bill. His appearance is like my brother. He is fat, short and bald headed. He is good in making money because he is a successful businessman. My mom is always sympathetic when we are upset or worried about things, we always talk to her when we have problem. She is also very even-tempered. She never gets mad annoyed. I wish like her! My dad, well, is really sociable. He has a lot of friends and he loves to meet people. I get really embarrased, because he always talks to people in the street, but he is really annoying sometimes, because he is very stubborn. When he decides to do something, no one can stop him. My brother Brad...Well, he is really bossy, he always tries to tell what to do. He is also very easygoing. As for me, well, my friends say I am really generous because I like to give present and help people. But I am a little muddy. Sometimes I get really annoyed and upset about things. Well, we are very different in characters but we are a happy family.

  So, a descriptive text is a text which describes a particular place, person, or thing (Gerot and Wignell, 1995:208). It has some characteristics which can be evaluated. In this case, the generic structure of the text consist of identification and descriptions. We can evaluate identification of a desriptive text by pointing the most important thing that shows the part of the paragraph that introduces the character of something. To evaluate descriptions of a descriptive text is also by pointing the part of the paragraph that describes the character.

C. Peer Review 1. The Definition of Peer Review

  According to Moloudi (2011: 6), Peer Review is an activity where students discuss their writing with each other and exchange their oral and/or written comments usually based on the guidelines and /or task sheets given to them.

  In line with the previous definitions, it can be concluded that Peer Review is activities in the classroom especially in the writing class where the students discuss their writing‟s result with their friends or peers, and they give their oral and written comments for their peers based on the guidelines and task sheets that the teacher give to the students.

2. The Advantages of Peer Review Teaching writing for the students is not easy thing for the teacher.

  It needs something that can help the teacher in teaching writing namely Peer Review. Why Peer Review is effective to teach writing because it has some advantages are as follows: a. Peer Review gives useful feedback for the students.

  When the students do Peer Review about their writing, they give constructive comments to each other, so that it can bring useful feedbacks or comments for the students to make a better final writing result. As said by Rollinson (2005 : 24), peer readers can provide useful feedback, and peer writers can and do revise effectively on the basis of comments from peer readers.

  b.

  Peer Review can improve the students‟ self-revision skills By giving comments for peer writing result, the students are trained to revise a text or writing result, so that if the students make their own writing result, they can revise it by themselves. As said by Wakabayashi (2008:95), one of the advantages of peer feedback is learners can gain more insight into writing and revision processes by critically reading each other‟s text, thereby gaining a better understanding of the necessary steps required for succesful revision. c. Peer Review enriches information for the students Sometimes, teacher forgets something in giving feedback for the students‟ writing result. It makes the comments from the teacher is not complete enough, but by reviewing each other text the students can get some information about writing besides the information from the teacher. According to

  Moloudi (2011:7), students find peers‟ feedback as a valuable source of information and supplement to teacher‟s feedback.

  Based on the previous description, it can be concluded that Peer Review will be efective in teaching writing because it is beneficial for instance Peer Review give useful feedbacks for the students, then it can improve the students‟ self-revision skiils, moreover it enrich information for the students.

3. The Purpose of Using Peer Review in teaching writing.

  Some purposes of using Peer Review in teaching writing class are as follows : a. Learners are able to gain more insight into writing and revision processes by critically reading each other‟s texts.

  b. Learners are able to improve self revision skills.

  c. Learners are able to enhance critical reading and critical thinking skills.

  d. Learners are able to have variations of ideas by reviewing each other text.

  e. Learners are able to learn more about writing and revision by reading each other‟s draft.

4. The Procedure of Using Peer Review

  Peer Review should properly be implemented in the classroom activities. Teacher has to facilitate the students in doing the task, for example when the discussion is unfocused and the comments not specific enough. Teacher need to intervence and support students to explain what they mean. Students with lower language proficiency should also be given more help with the construction of their sentences and other grammar problems; furthermore, the teacher should give guidelines for the students (Moloudi, 2011: 10-15).

  Some instructions for Peer Review according to Moloudi (2011: 16-17) are as follows :

  a. Teacher asks the students to bring a copy of their previous essay to the classroom.

  b. Students are asked to choose partner and exchange the copy of their essay with their own partner.

  c. Teacher asks the students to sit with their partner.

  d. Students are asked to decide who will be the first reviewer.

  e. The first reviewers are asked to proceed reading these instructions.

  Then, they read the partner‟s essay once to the end to get the general feeling for the topic (three minutes). After that they begin to discuss the essay and give very specific comments to the questions following these instructions.

  In short, some stages of teaching writing using Peer Review are : after the teacher gives explanations about the material he or she gives some instructions for the students. Those instructions can be described as follows :

  Write assignment (writing a text) Submit the first draft,peer‟s comments

  Exchange the writings‟ and second draft result with the peer Both read for 3 minutes

  Note peer‟s comments, suggestion,error identification individually

Take turns to discuss your writing with your peer for 12 minutes

following peer review guidelines

  ( Moloudi, 2011:16-17 ) In this research, the previous procedure can be adapt with the material descriptive text.

  D. Basic Assumption

  Writing is a complex skill because the learners need a good content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanic when they are writing; therefore, it is better for the teacher to make the learners have agood ability in writing.

  In this research, Peer Review is one of technique that is assumed to increase students‟ writing, especially in descriptive writing. Peer Review gives useful feedback for the students and can enriches information for the students, because when the students analyze the peers‟ writing, they have to give error identification, suggest, or comments about descriptive writing. From this activity the students can enrich information about descriptive writing from their peer.

  Automatically, students‟ knowledge about descriptive writing be better.

  In line with the previous fact, this research has assumption that Peer Review is effective for teaching descriptive writing.

  E. Hypothesis

  Based on the previous basic assumption, the hypothesis is Peer Review effective to teach writing.