Implementing Mind Mapping Strategy to Improve the Writing Ability in Recount Text of the Eighth Graders of SMPN 9 Malang

ABSTRACT Novarina, Niesia. 2011. Implementing Mind Mapping Strategy to Improve the Writing Ability in Recount Text of The Eight Graders of SMPN 9 Malang. Thesis, English Education Program, Faculty of Letter, State University of Malang. Advisor: Dr. Johannes A. Prayogo, M.Pd., M.Ed. Keywords: Mind Mapping, Writing Ability, Recount Text Prewriting activity is a stage which all writers go through before composing a writing product. The process involves generating idea and making a connection between ideas. A teaching and learning activity in writing ability which put less attention to this stage would affect the students' achievement. Based on the observation result on the teaching and learning activity especially in writing ability of eighth graders at SMP Negeri 9 Malang, it was revealed that the teaching and learning activity in the class put no attention to the prewriting stage so the students' achievement was low. The strategy used to improve the writing ability in writing recount text in this research was mind mapping as mind mapping is helpful to help organizing idea and make it easier to be understood. Mind mapping was used as students had difficulty in developing the idea they were about to write and mind mapping help them develop the idea in an interesting way. Mind mapping was used in the prewriting stage and fit the function of outline. The steps in implementing the strategy was adapted by the steps of making mind map by Buzan (2007) which was modified to fit the learners' need. The research was a Classroom Action Research with 2 cycles. Each cycle consisted of four stages which were planning, implementing, observing, and reflection. The criteria of success of the research were if 85% of the students were able to reach the SKM which was 75 and they were active during the teaching and learning activity. The change made in Cycle 2 was on focusing in the process of making outline in form of mind map. The data analysis resulted from implementing mind mapping strategy in writing recount text was done descriptively. The subject of the research was a class of eighth graders of SMP Negeri 9 Malang consisting of 40 students. Based on the data obtained on the research, there was an improvement on the students' score of writing especially in term of content and organization. in comparison with the result of preliminary study which there were no students passed the SKM, there were an improvement in the result of Cycle 1 and Cycle 2. There were 23.68% of students (5 students) who passed the SKM in Cycle 1 and 86.84% of the students (33 students) in Cycle 2. In line with the students' writing performance, the students' participation in class was improved as well. More than 85% of the students (34 students) who raise their hands in every questions given by the researcher and participate actively in every instruction given by the researcher. In summary, the students were more active and possessed the motivation to write. Mind mapping was used in pre activity and whilst activity of three phase technique used in the lesson plan. In pre activity mind mapping was used to explain the theory of recount text and in whilst activity, mind mapping was used in the prewriting stage. The implementing of mind mapping strategy follows a set of steps:1) introducing mind mapping to the students by giving direct example of it, 2) discussing the generic structure and language feature as well the mistake often occurred in writing recount text, 3) giving the students direct exercise in correcting mistake made in recount text, 4) asking the students to make mind map of their experience, 5) self correcting by the students to their mind map, and 6) writing the recount text. In conclusion, the implementation of mind mapping strategy can be used to improve students' writing ability of eight graders of SMP Negeri 9 Malang. The researcher suggests to English teacher that to overcome any problem occurred in class, especially in writing ability, to bring a fun and interesting strategy into the class as students' motivation will increased when they deal with something fun and fit their interest. And for the future researcher, it is recommended to explore further the implementation of mind mapping strategy in other kind of texts and grades.