THE IMPLEMENTATION OF KEY WORD CLUSTERING TO FOSTER

STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT AT 9th

GRADE OF MTs NURUL HUDA MUNJUL, ASTANAJAPURA, CIREBON

Agus Umar Akmad

112060203/3 K

Abstract: This paper is about how effective key word clustering to improve the

students’ ability in writing recount text. The research is held at 9th grade in Mts

Nurul Huda Munjul, Astanajapura Cirebon. The purpose of this paper is to look

for how effective the key word clustering in recount text students’ writing ability..

The population of ninth grade students are 168 from 9A to 9D. The writer used

cluster random sampling. The writer applied experimental study on his research

with one class as the control group and the other class is the experimental group.

The control class is 9A while the experimental group is 9D. The author used an

observation to find out the data of writing’s problem in junior high school

involved English teacher’s database. In order to assess the the students’ writing

skill, the writing test was used as a pre and post-test. Based on the research, the

implementation of clustering method in teaching writing recount text is effective.

It is proved by the result of the student’s post test which is the average score is 90.

It is higher than in a pre test which is 70.

Keywords : writing, recount text, key word clustering

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Writing plays a vital role not only in conveying information but also in

transforming information to create new knowledge in such a demanding life

(Weigle, 2002) in Saliha Chelli (2014). It is thus of central importance for

students in academic, second and foreign language learning.

From the four language skills leamed, writing is the most difficult one to

master because it involves some activities. It requires other skills and needs

special preparation. It is the subject that students are not interested because they

have to think and write at the same time. The writer has found out that the third -

year students of MTs Nurul Huda Munjul Cirebon usually get difficulties in

writing English especially in the pre-writing. it influences the result of the

students' composition. They get difficulties in generating and grouping ideas and

correctly. Besides that, they also have problems in arranging jumble sentence into

a correct construction.

Students are also uninterested in writing particularly because they are afraid

of making mistakes and the teachers seldom encourage them to write in English,

They also worry about expressing their ideas within the boundaries of correct

usage of grammar, spelling and punctuation. The focus is on the creative aspects

of writing. The techniques which are used by most students also develop their fear

of writing and what they write is riddle with errors. These fears hinder them and

ftequently make their writing process slow and also unsuccessful. Although there

are many people that have tried to use suitable techniques as a writing states and

to develop the students' creativity, the writer will also try to get the best answers

for those problems.

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1.2 The aims of study

1. To find out the influence of Keyword clustering method to the Junior High

School students’ writing ability

2. To find out how the keyword clustering method is applied and gives

influence.

1.3 Questions research

Based on the background of the study, the problem to be investigated

covered:

1. Does Keyword Clustering method influence junior high school students’

writing ability in English subject?

2. How is the Keyword Clustering method implemented?

1.4 Limitation of The Study

To avoid this research from wide disscussion that can make this research far

from the goal, the writer limited and scope this research on the subjects and

objects. It is for keeping the disscussion has a spesific result that is planed in the

goal of research, or to evidence the hypothesis in this research.

1.4.1 Subject

The participants will be limited to the grade one of junior high school student

in three class of MTs Nurul Huda Munjul Kabupaten Cirebon.

1.4.2 Object

This study will be limited to the focus of writing ability in English subject.

Writer will analyze the influence of implementation of Keyword Clustering

method in teachin writing English subject.

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1.5 Significance

From the result of this research, it is expected to be useful contribution in the

world of education, at least it can possibly be used as a reference in many others

good references. It is also expected to reveal to be valuable research for lecturer,

students in educational faculty that will use the same variable as their paper topic,

the students that become subject of this research, the teacher of young learners

and for the writer itself.

1.5.1 Writer

For writer, it will give some advantages such as for knowledge itself and

experiance. For knowledge, the writer will be given a useful knowledge about the

fact and the advantages of Keyword Clustering method, so writer can implement

this result of research. For experience, the writer surely got the advantages that

can be a useful information which writer can tell the junior if they are going to do

research.

1.5.2 Readers

If there will be next researchers that use Keyword Clustering method for the

variable, or at least using the same topic or use same methodology, this research

can be one of the refference for them in order to make more useful and better

research.

1.6 Hypothesis

In Jeannie L. Steele and Patty Steele journal titled “The Thinking-Writing

Connection: Using Clustering to Help Students Write Persuasively” (1991)

defined clustering as a "nonlinear brain storming process akin to free association".

It is a powerful technique which allows students to discover or "uncover" what

they think about a subject; it provides organization to thoughtwithout slowing the

flow of thoughts; it can help the thinker assess the quality of thought and serve as

a guide for writing. However it is used, clustering is a dynamic process best

understood by experiencing it first hand. Based on the research, the

implementation of clustering method in teaching writing recount text is effective.

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Ha : The Keyword Clustering method gives influence in teaching recount text.

2 Statistic hypothesis

Ha : r ≠ 0

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Study

Ivana Najmuddiyah, Urai Salam, Sumarni, The Use Of Key Word Clustering

To Increase Students’ Ability In Writing Recount Text, 2014. This thesis is about

how effective key word clustering to improve the students’ recount writing. The

research is held at SMP Negeri 17 Pontianak in academic year 2013/2014. The

writer applied quasi experimental study on her research with one class as the

control group and the other class is the experimental group. From research

findings, the mean score of posttest in experimental group was higher than the

mean score of posttest in control group (78.3 >54.7). Moreover, the interval of the

students’ mean score in experimental group was higher than control group (25.1>

0.2). The result of Effect Size was 14.4 (categorized as “strong effect”). The

significant difference could be interpreted that the use of key words clustering is

effective to improve the students’ achievement in writing recount text. This could

prove that teaching recount writing by using key words clustering is effective.

Farikah, The Effectiveness of Thematic Progression Patterns with Jingle

Button Technique in Teaching Writing of Narrative Texts, 2015. The purposes of

this research are to examine the effectiveness of Thematic Progression Patterns

with Jingle Button Technique (TP-JB) on the improvement of the students’

writing skill of narrative text and the students’ learning motivation. It becomes a

model of teaching writing. This mixed method research was conducted in the

English Department of Tidar University (Untidar) in 2014/2015 academic year.

The subjects were the third semester students of English Department of Untidar

who took writing 2 (paragraph writing) subject.The results show that

implementing TP-JB technique can improve the students’ writing skill of narrative

text. The pre-test score of writing is 53.64 and the post-test score is 73.10. In other

words, the implementation of TP-JB can improve the students’ writing skill of

narrative texts. Besides, the implementation of this technique also improves the

students’ learning motivation in joining teaching-learning activities of writing

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class. Based on the data, 98.50% of the students have good motivation after the

implementation of TP-JB.

Saliha Chelli, Developing Students’ Writing Abilities by the Use of Self

Assessment through Portfolios, 2013. The purpose of this paper was to show how

effective the use of self-assessment through portfolios was in developing students

written productions in terms of accuracy, grammatical complexity and

organization. To achieve this goal, a pre-questionnaire was administered to 100

third year participants at Omar Driss High School, and a pre-test given to an intact

group of 30 students from the same population to analyse the situation before the

treatment. The results can provide pedagogical implications for integrating

selfassessment through portfolios in teaching and assessing writing in that it fits

the tenets of the competency-based approach recently implemented in the

Algerian school.

The similarity of the three previous researches above is their dependent

variable which is about writing ability. The author tried to apply key word

clustering method in teaching writing recount text at the 9th grade.

2.2 Key Word Clustering

In this research the writer applied key word clustering in her research.

Keyword Clustering is used to refine something that makes sense and gives better

organize information that can make writing process is done easily. Hogue

(1996:91) in Ivana Najmuddiyah, Urai Salam, Sumarni (2012) states that key

word clustering like listing is another way to get ideas to write about something

and write them in circle or bubbles, around the topic. It means that key word

clustering is the writing technique to develop their ideas (learners) and write the

words or phrases in circles or bubbles. Based on this theory, it can be concluded

that key word clustering is a strategy to stimulate the learner for developing their

idea that’s difficult to say.

The goal of key word clustering is to determine the intrinsic grouping a set of

unlabeled data. It can be shown that there is no absolute “best” criterion which

would be independent of the final aim of the key word clustering. Consequently, it

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is used to supply this criterion, in such way that the result of the key word

clustering will suit their needs. Based on this statement it can be concluded that

key word clustering is to help generate ideas and arrange them into good writing.

Dawson state that:

To begin to cluster, choose a word that is central to your assignment. For example, if you “expectations” and write that word in the middle of your sheet of paper. Circle “expectations,” then write words all around it—words that occur to you as you think of “expectations.” Write down all words that you associate with “expectations,” words that at first may seem to be random. Write quickly, circling each word, grouping words around your the central word. Connect your new words to previous ones with lines; when you feel you have exhausted a particular avenue of associations, go back to your central word and begin again. Dawson and Essid (2010:1) in Ivana Najmuddiyah, Urai Salam, Sumarni (2012)

Based on the statement, it can be concluded that in key word clustering technique,

there are some steps: (1) Choosing a word or phrases; (2) Putting the word or

phrases in central; (3) Circling the word or phrases; (4) Writing words all around

the word or phrases that associate with the word in central; and (5) Connecting the

new word or phrases to previous ones with lines. Example of clustering :

Dawson and Essid (2010:1) in Ivana Najmuddiyah, Urai Salam, Sumarni

(2012) said that key word clustering is a type of prewriting that allows the learners

to explore many ideas as soon as they occur to the learners. Like brainstorming or

free associating, key word clustering allows learners to begin without clear ideas.

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So, it can be concluded that key word clustering can explore many ideas from

mind. It is a good way to develop idea before starting the writing activity. The

learners can do it on their own or with friends or classmates to try to find

inspiration or ideas. Based on this statement, key word clustering is an activity

that generate idea by using circles and it starts from a stimulus word or the words

expectation, then develop them into several groups.

2.3 Writing

So far there are some definitions of writing made by different linguists. Some

are summarized as follows. Writing is trying to produce or reproduce written

messages (Bram, 1995:7) in Farikah (2015). Before writing, the writer needs to

determine what to write, and should have something meaningful to convey and

put forward his/her messages successfully. In conclusion, based on the above

opinion, it can be stated that writing is producing written messages. It is a method

of representing language in visual form. In line with Bram, Oshima and Hogue

(1997: 2) in Farikah (2015) state that writing is progressive activity. This means

that when we first write something down, we have already been thinking about

what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. Then after we have

writing, we read over what we have written and make changes and corrections.

Therefore, writing is never a one-step action. It is a process that has several steps.

According to Boardman (2008:18-25) in Natanael Saragih, Roswita Silalahi &

Hilman Pardede (2014)There are three characteristics in writing a good text or

paragraph, namely:

2.3.1. Coherence

A paragraph has coherence when the supporting sentences are ordered according

to a principle. The sentences are put in order so that the reader can understand

your ideas easily. The principles for ordering depend on the types of paragraph

you are writing. Coherence means stick together, coherence is basically a matter

of having the part of a piece of writing in the right with the clear process.

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2.3.2. Cohesion

Another characteristic of a good paragraph is Cohesion. When a paragraph has

cohesion, all the supporting sentences connect to each other in their support of the

topic sentence.

2.3.3. Unity

The final characteristic of a well-written paragraph is unity. All the supporting

sentences should relate to the topic sentence. Order in text or paragraph is like

organization easy, but is smaller in space so it may be simpler to consider order as

direction. Thus order chronological steps to express the idea the written form.

2.4 Recount Text

In curriculum level of education unit (KTSP) recount text is a text genre must

be learnt by the ninth grade students. In this curriculum, recount text is defined as

a text that retells events in purpose of informing or entertaining. There are two

types of recount text, historical recount text and personal recount text. Historical

recount text tells about the other person’s life and personal recount text tells about

the writer’s experience. The writer chose personal text recount as the type applied

in this research, therefore in this text genre the students can write about their

experiences.

According to Knapp (2005: 224) in Natanael Saragih, Roswita Silalahi &

Hilman Pardede (2014) , Recount Text, basically it is written out to make a report

about an experience of a series of related event. A recount is written out to inform

an event or to entertain people. Recount Text is text function as for telling an

incident in the past. Recount is to tell “what happened”. A recount text has a

social function. The purpose of a social function is to retell an event with a

purpose to inform or entertain the readers (Siahaan and Shinoda, 2008: 9) in

Natanael Saragih, Roswita Silalahi & Hilman Pardede (2014). Recount tells a

series of events and evaluate their significance in some way. It is also to give

audience a descriptions of what occurred and when it occurred. The story recount

has expressions of attitude and feeling, usually made by narrator about the events.

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2.5 Constructing in Written Recount Text

Boardman (2008:287) in Natanael Saragih, Roswita Silalahi & Hilman

Pardede (2014) stated that the steps for constructing of written recount text are:

a. The First paragraph that give background information about who, what, where

and when. It is called on orientation.

b. A record of events usually recounted in chronological order, named; event 1,

event 2, event 3.

c. A personal comment and or evaluative remarks, which are interspersed

throughout the record of events named evaluation.

d. A reorientation which “rounds off “the sequences of events or retell about what

happened in the end.

Boardman (2008:287) in Natanael Saragih, Roswita Silalahi & Hilman

Pardede (2014) the language features usually found in a recount:

a. Use of nouns and pronouns to identify people, animals or things involved.

b. Use of past action verbs to refer the events.

c. Use of past tense to located events in relation to speaker`s or researcher`s time.

d. Use conjunctions and time connectives to sequence the event.

e. Use of adverb and adverbial phrases to indicate place and time.

f. Use of adjectives to describe nouns.

According to Boardman (2008:287) in Natanael Saragih, Roswita Silalahi &

Hilman Pardede (2014) in making of functional grammar, the significant

common grammatical patterns of recount include:

a. Focus on specific participant.

b. Use of material process or action verb.

c. Circumstance of time and place.

d. Use past tense and focus on temporal sequences

In the ninth grade one writing text learnt by the students is recount text. In

exploring how text work (Derewinka, 1990: 15-17) in Ivana Najmuddiyah, Urai

Salam, Sumarni (2012) there are three types of recount. They are personal

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recount, factual recount and imaginative recount. In this research the personal

recount text chose to be developed by the students and would be discussed more

at the next discussion. A good writing comes with process. Usually, teaching

writing mostly concerned to the final product of writing rather than its process.

However, we have to give the students a chance to be the creator of the language

(Brown, 2001: 320) in Ivana Najmuddiyah, Urai Salam, Sumarni (2012). The

process of writing now has some approaches in order to develop students’

capability in writing.

The independent variable has big impact to improve the author’s aim in

dependent variable. The students can make recount text with a helpful method.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

3.1 Method of the Research

According to Fraenkel & Wallen (2009: 259) Research methodology is the

overall plan for collecting data in order to answer the research question also the

specific data analysis techniques or methods that the researcher intends to use.

Many methodologies fit within the framework of research. If we learn how to use

more of these methodologies where they are appropriate and if we can become

more knowledgeable in our research efforts, we can obtain more reliable

information upon which to base our educational decisions.

This research use experimental research. “Experimental Research is the

most conclusive of scientific methods. Because the researcher actually establishes

different treatments and then studies their effects, results from this type of

research are likely to lead to the most clear-cut interpretations.” (Fraenkel &

Wallen, 2009, p7). To further specify, The research use quasi experimental

design which do not include the use of random assignment. Researchers who

employ these designs rely instead on other techniques to control (or at least

reduce) threats to internal validity.

3.2 Research Design

Reduced to the simplest of terms, “research design is a mapping strategy. It

is essentially a statement of the object of the inquiry and the strategies for

collecting the evidences, analyzing the evidences and reporting the findings

(Yogesh, 2006).

According to Mcmillan & Schumacher (2006: 23), Quantitative research

designs were initially developed from research in agriculture and the hard

sciences. A very important subclassification of quantitative design is

experimental/nonexperimental. Once you have determined that the research being

reviewed is quantitative, then you should think about whether it is experimental or

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non-experimental. This difference has major implications for both the nature of

the design and the types of conclusions that can be drawn.

Table of The Matching-Only Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design as

Fraenklen & Wallen (2012) is as follows:

Treatment Group M O1 X O2

Control Group M O3 C O4

From the design above, subjects are chosen for the experiment. One class is an

Treatment group (A) which is given treatment (X) and another class is a control

group (B) which is not given a treatment. A pre-test (O1 and O3) is conducted

before the implementation of plot devices on nanofictionary game as a treatment,

and then at the end of the treatment a post-test (O2 and O4) is held to assessing

the students’ responsive writing skill. “The M in this design means that the

subjects in each group have been matched (on certain variables) but not randomly

assigned to the groups” (Fraenklen & Wallen, 2009, p 271).

3.3 Research Variables

The research consists of two variables; the first variable is keyword

clustering method as the independent variable and the second is writing recount

text as dependent variable. So, this research try to find out the effectiveness using

this keyword clustering method in teaching writing recount text.

3.4 Population

According to Muijs (2004: 15), the population is the group of people that

were experimented in general scope. For example, there are 168 students in ninth

grade in MTs Nurul Huda Munjul of the academic year 2014/2015 are chosen as

the population.

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3.5 Sample and Sampling

3.5.1 Sample

According to Muijs (2004: 38), sample is drawn at random from the

population. The sample of the research will be class IXa as control group while

the experimental group is IXd with number of the students are 30 each.

3.5.2 Sampling

The technique to get the sample are using the student's average assessment

in each IX classes from teacher database and choose the lowest class.

3.6 Techniques of Collecting Data

According to Fraenkel et.al (2009), The Procedure or data collection

subsection is used to explain how the study was conducted. The authors describe

when the information was collected, where, and by whom. They describe what

was done to the subjects (i.e., the intervention) and the manner in which the data

were collected.

3.6.1 Observation

This research employed observation as the instrument to add the data for

background of the research and to know students’ writing skill using plot devices

in nanofictionary game. The first observation was focused on the finding data

about teacher and student difficulties in teaching and writing learning. The

researcher conducted observation in three junior high schools or three classes to

find the data. The second observation will focused on the students’ activities in

experimental group during the treatment.

3.6.2 Pre-test and Post-test

In addition, the writer will use some instruments in collecting the data to

answer the research questions. It consists of tests (pre-test and post-test).

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3.6.2.1 Pre-test

Muijs (2004:18) described that pre-test is used to assess the effect of the

experiment (e.g. a test) before the treatment is given. The pre-test is given to the

experimental and control group. It is given before the teacher gives the treatment

to find out the students’ scores in writing recount text skill.

3.6.2.2 Post-test

Muijs (2004:18) also stated that post-test is usually used on the same

instrument, after the treatment has been given. The post-test will be carried out

after the treatments of teaching writing recount text by using keyword clustering

method for the experimental group. The test will be given to both the

experimental and the control groups.

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REFFERENCES

Chelli, S. (2013). Developing Students‟ Writing Abilities by the Use of Self

Assessment through Portfolios. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ)

Volume.4 Number.2, 220-234. Retrieved from http://www.awej.org

Farikah (2015). The Effectiveness of Thematic Progression Patterns with Jingle

Button Technique in Teaching Writing of Narrative Texts. Arab World

English Journal (AWEJ), Vol.6 No.12, 326-334. Retrieved from

http://www.awej.org

Fraenkel, R. J., & Wallen, E. N. (2009). How to Design and Evaluate Research in

Education (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

McMillan, H. J., & Schumacher, S. (2006). Research in Education: Evidence-

Based Inquiry (6th ed.). Longman Pearson.

Muijs, D. (2004). Doing Quantitative Research in Education with SPSS. London:

SAGE Publication Ltd.

Najmuddiyah, I., Salam, U., Sumarni (2014). The Use Of Key Word Clustering To

Increase Students’ Ability In Writing Recount Text. English Education Study

Program, Tanjungpura University Pontianak.

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