Abstrak

The research is aimed to find out whether (1) Inquiry Based Learning Method is more effective than Direct Instruction Method to teach writing; (2) the students having high critical thinking have better writing skill than those having low critical thinking; and (3) there is an interaction between teaching methods and students’ critical thinking in teaching writing.
This research was conducted at the eleventh grade of SMA N 5 Surakarta in the Academic Year of 2016/2017. There were nine classes of eleventh grade; two out of nine classes were picked up randomly by using cluster random sampling to be the sample of this research. Class XI IPS 1 was used as the control class and class XI IPS 3 was used as the experimental class, each class consists of 28 students. The instruments used in this research were critical thinking test and writing test. The validity, reliability, and readability of the instruments were measured before the instruments were distributed and administered to get the data. The data were analyzed by ANOVA and Tukey test after the completion of pre-requisite tests covering normality and homogeneity tests.
The results of data analysis show that: (1) Inquiry Based Learning Method is more effective than Direct Instruction Method to teach writing to the eleventh grade students of SMA N 5 Surakarta; (2) the students who have critical thinking have better writing skill than the students who have low critical thinking; and (3) there is an interaction between teaching methods and students’ critical thinking in teaching writing.
The findings of the research imply that Inquiry Based Learning Method is an effective teaching method to teach writing. Students who were taught using Inquiry Based Learning Method performed better in writing than those who were taught using Direct Instruction Method. Therefore, it is recommended for English teachers to apply Inquiry Based Learning as a method of teaching writing especially in writing analytical exposition text.

Keywords : experimental research, inquiry based learning, critical thinking, direct instruction method, writing skill