CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED REVIEW

This chapter consists of the following sections; theoretical descriptions, rationale,

and action hypothesis. Meanwhile, the theoretical description presents some discussion
which are related to the present study. It covers the explanation about writing skill and
social media.
A. Theoretical Description
a) The definition of writing
In learning English, they are four skills that should be mattered. Such as listening,
reading, speaking and writing. Among the four skills, writing is the most difficult skill to
be learnt. This argument is supported by Richard and Willy (2002: 203),” writing is the
most difficult skill for second language learner to master”. The difficulty is not only in
generating and organizing ideas but also in translating idea into real text. The other
different definitions about writing from some expert from many resources. According to
Hamy-Lyons in O‟malley (1996: 136) said,” writing is a personal act in which writers take
ideas or prompts and transform them into self-initiated topics." The writer draws mental
on background knowledge and complex mental processes in developing new insights.
They can go through what they want in their minds and even consult dictionary,
grammar books, or other material to help them. Writing encourages students to focus
an accurate language use and because they think as they write it will provoke language
development as they resolve problems which the writing puts into their mind.

b) Teaching Writing
The review of related theories to teaching writing will be discussed in this chapter.
They are presented in some discussions consisting of the theory of writing process and the
role of teacher in writing.
1) Process of Writing
Richards and Renandya (2002: 316) state that the process of teaching writing
consists of four basic stages. They are planning, drafting, revising, and editing.
For each stage, various learning activities that can support the learning of specific
writing skills are suggested. For instance, in the planning stage, teachers can
help their students to improve their writing skills in generating ideas by
 giving activities, such as brain storming, clustering, and rapid free writing. The
planned writing experiences for the students can be described as follows:
a. Planning
Planning or pre-writing is an activity of writing that aimed to encourage and
stimulate the students to write. Since its function is to stimulate students’ ideas to
write, the writing activities must be prepared to provide them learning
experiences of writing, such as brain storming and etc.
b. Drafting
At this stage, the students will focus on the fluency of writing and write
without having much attention to the accuracy of their works. During the
process of writing, the students must also focus on the content and the meaning
of the writing. Besides, the students may be encouraged to deliver their
messages to different audience, such as peers, other classmates and etc.
c. Revising
The students review and reexamine the text to see how effectively they have
communicated their ideas to the reader. Revising is not a simply activity of
checking language errors but it is done to improve global content and organization of
the ideas so the writer’s intention is clearer for the reader.
d. Editing
At this stage, the students are focused on tidying up their works as they
prepare the final draft to be evaluated by the teacher. The main activity done
by the students at this stage is editing their mistakes on grammar, spelling,
punctuation, sentences, diction and etc.
To sum up, the arrangement of the steps cannot be separated because it works
like a wheel. Each stage in the process of writing will work in line to help the students
in composing the text.
c) Roles of Teacher in Writing
In relation to teacher’s roles in the process of writing, Harmer (2004:41) also
purposed some tasks that the teachers must perform before,during, and after the
process of writing. They are 1) demonstrating, 2) motivating and provoking, 3)
supporting, 4) responding and 5) evaluating.
The first task that must be done by the teacher in the process of writing is
demonstrating. It is a need for the students to be able to understand writing conventions
 and genre constraints of particular types of writing. As a result, the teacher has to be
able to draw the two features to their attentions.
The second task done by the teacher in the process of writing ismotivating and
provoking the students. It is difficult for some of the students to write in English.
Besides, they sometimes have no idea of the words used to write their messages. This
is the situation where teachers can help them by provoking them to get the ideas and
then persuading them to work on their writings.
Supporting the students is the third task that needs to be performed by the teachers.
In the process of writing, teachers become the main supporters for the students when
they are writing in classroom, especially when the students face difficulties. They
must be available and well prepared to help them solve the difficulties. Thus, the
students will be motivated in doing their writings.
Then, the next task is responding to the students’ writing works. Responding
refers to how the teachers react to the students’ writing works. Content and construction
are the focus of this task. After looking at the writing works produced by the
students, the teachers can give feedbacks or suggestions for the students’ improvement in
writing.
The last task done by the teacher in the process of writing is evaluating the
students’ works. This task refers to how the teachers will evaluate the students’ writing
works and then grade them. This is done by the teachers to see the students’ progress
in writing. As conclusion, the teachers are required to be able to perform those tasks in
the process of writing. This will enable the students to be better writers, especially when
they are hesitant to express the ideas.

d) Social media
Social media is media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable
communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies
to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Antony Mayfield (2008) stated that social
media is media which easily to join within, sharing, making a text, included blog,
wiki/ensiklopedia online, and social networking such as virtual world with avatar and 3D
character. Social media is designed for make interaction social easily which is interactive
or two direction. Social media is based by internet technology that chanhes the pattern of
deployment information and it can publish news, photo, video, and podcast through site of
social media.
e) Functions of social media
Social media is made not just for entertainment or education, but it has several
functions. First, media is designed for expand social interaction social among people using
internet and technology of web. Second, social media is successfull to transfrom
communication practice with media of broadcasting from one institution media to many
audience ("one to many") and as communication practice among many audience ("many to
many"). The last function is social media supports democratication of science and
information. Transfrom people from who use the content of message become who make
the message.

f) Benefits of social media

Nowadays, the impact of social media give the change to human life. With billions of
people connecting from around the globe, the world has become a smaller place. Social
networking sites have totally changed our lives. While some of us may argue that social
media have brought more negatives than positives in our lives, the majority of the people
believe that the quality of our lives has been enhanced by the use of social media. There
are benefits of social media to people live, as follows : Connectivity, making relationships,
sharing your thoughts and feelings, to be in touch with the world, loosing your potential,
promotional function, sharing information rapidly, education, consciousness, and joint
people (Nepal,2016).

B. Rationale
Language as a means of communication has a central role in human life. To be able
to share the ideas, thoughts, and feelings to one another, people need a language. The
communication does not necessary in the form of spoken language, but it can also be in
the form of written language. However, in the real practice the writing skills in most
schools were not given equal attention as in the speaking skills. Based on the
observation, it found some problems in teaching writing. The problems were commonly
come from the students and the teacher. Students found themselves unconfident to write
because they thought that they had nothing to write. When they had already got the
idea, the lack of vocabulary and grammatical mastery also made their ideas could not
be properly conveyed. The other problems also came from the teacher. First, the teacher
did not give adequate practices for the students to write because the teacher did not want
to waste the time. It is because teacher had to give all the materials to the students
and had to finish it on time as it was scheduled. Second, the students‟ motivation to
join the writing class was low. It was because the teacher usually used pictures as the
main media when teaching writing. By looking at the fact that the students lacked of
writing practices, the researcher employed social media as a medium to give them
moren writing practices outside the classroom. The use of social media as the
instructional media brought some influences in the teaching and learning process. The
students became more enthusiastic and willing to do the tasks. In addition, their motivation
in writing also increased. In this research, the researcher integrated the use of diary
writing with a text type, recount text. Since a recount text and diary usually tell about past
events or experiences, the use of diary writing would help the students in understanding
the recount text. The researcher planned to give the information about what a
recount text is and its characteristics as the classroom activities. Meanwhile writing
through social media is used as the outside classroom activity. The use of social media in
this research was mainly to put the students‟ knowledge of writing into practice and to
give them more writing practices so that they will be accustomed to write and when they
were asked to write a recount text in the classroom, they would write it fluently and it
would lower their anxiety to write. By improving social media and getting regular
feedback, the students got an opportunity to practice their writing skills or at least their
writing would get better day by day. So, it can be assumed that social media can improve
the writing skills of the tenth grade students of SMAN 4 Surakarta academic year
2017/2018.

C. Action Hyphotesis
Considering the previous descriptions of related theories and the basic assumption, the
writer can make conclusion the action hypothesis of the current study that using social
media can improve the students’ writing skill at SMAN 4 Surakarta academic year
2017/2018.