Improving Students’ Writing Skill Through Four Square Writing Method (A Collaborative Action Research at the Eight Grade of SMP Negeri 1 Takeran Magetan in the Academic Year of 2010/2011)

Oleh :
Lusi Mayangsari - K2207034 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

Lusi Mayangsari. K2207034. IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL THROUGH FOUR SQUARE WRITING METHOD (A Collaborative Action Research at the Eight Grade of SMP Negeri 1 Takeran Magetan in the Academic Year of 2010/2011). A Thesis, Surakarta: Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sebelas Maret University, 2011. This research is aimed at: (1) identifying whether or not FSWM improves the students‟ writing skill of eighth year students of SMP Negeri 1 Takeran Magetan and (2) describing what happens when FSWM is applied in teaching writing. The method used in this research was a collaborative action research with an English teacher (SM). The research was conducted in two cycles at the VIII A grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Takeran Magetan from February to June 2011. There are two kinds of data: qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were collected by using observation, questionnaire, interview, and field notes. Then, the quantitative data were collected by using test (pre-test and post-test). Qualitative data were analyzed by using 5 steps suggested by Burns (1999: 157- 159) as follows: assembling the data; coding the data; comparing the data; building interpretation; and reporting the outcomes. Meanwhile, the quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. In counting the students‟ test score, the writer used the writing scoring rubric for evaluating narrative writing. The computation result of mean score in pre-test and post-test showed whether there is improvement of the result of pre-test and the post-test. The research findings show that the use of FSWM could improve students‟ writing skill and classroom situation of English class. The improvement of students‟ writing skill includes students are able to: (1) express and develop the topic of the text; (2) organize the paragraph in a text cohesively; (3) use appropriate vocabulary; (4) construct sentences using past tense and use appropriate transition words; and (5) use convention in writing. Besides, the improvement of students‟ writing skill can be seen from the improvement of the mean score of pre-test (61.68), first post-test (70.03), and second post-test (77.61). The classroom situations also improve. The improvement of classroom situations includes: (1) the students are more active and enthusiastic in teaching-learning process; and (2) the students pay full attention and involve in the activities during the teaching-learning process. In the implementation of FSWM, teacher must provide the interesting materials and stimulate the students‟ motivation using brainstorming and FSGO to successfully improve students‟ writing skill. The teacher can make collaboration between this method and media to make interesting teaching-learning process.