A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF WRITING TASKS IN THE “LIFE TODAY” TEXTBOOK FOR GRADE XII

Oleh :
Aflah Rasendriya Wasa - K2222002 - Fak. KIP

This study examines the writing tasks in the Grade XII English textbook Life Today. The primary objective is to investigate the task attributes by addressing two specific research questions: 1) What types of writing tasks are included in the English textbook Life Today for Grade XII? and 2) How are the writing task types proportionally represented in the textbook? This study uses the taxonomy developed by Brown and Abeywickrama (2019), which classifies writing into imitative, intensive, responsive, and extensive types. The researchers applied a qualitative content analysis method based on the systematic approach by Krippendorff (2018). Data were collected from the writing sections of four learning units, resulting in a total of 16 writing tasks as units of analysis. Data collection involved familiarization, unitizing, recording, and coding. The data analysis stages included tabulation, percentage calculation, and interpretation. Regarding the research questions, the findings reveal that: 1) for the types of tasks, the textbook exclusively includes responsive and extensive writing, while imitative and intensive writing tasks are completely absent, and 2) for the proportional representation, responsive tasks account for 37.50%, while extensive tasks dominate at 62.50%. The dominance of extensive tasks reflects the high cognitive demand for Grade XII, which is essential for fostering authentic communication and academic literacy. However, English teachers are advised to include supplementary materials for students requiring foundational support.