IMPROVING STUDENTS‟ WRITING SKILLS AT CLASS X IS 1 OF SMA NEGERI 1 SEYEGAN THROUGH „BLOGGING‟

The objective of this action research study was to improve students‟ writing skills at the first grade class of SMA N 1 Seyegan through blogging. This action research was conducted in two cycles. The research steps are reconnaissance, planning, action and observation, and reflection. The action was implementing blogging for writing done outside the class as the activity in production phase of PPP method. The data were qualitative and quantitative. The validity of the data was obtained by applying the democratic, outcome, process, catalytic, and dialogic validities. The qualitative data were obtained from the observations, interviews, questionnaires, and documentations. The data were in the form of field notes, interview transcripts, students‟ responses, and photographs. The qualitative data were analyzed by assembling, coding, comparing, and building interpretations of the data, and then reporting descriptively the outcomes. Meanwhile, the quantitative data were derived from conducting a pre-test and post-test. The data were analyzed by comparing the mean scores and the standard deviation of the pre-test to the post-test. The results show that the students‟ writing skills significantly improved through blogging. The findings were supported by the students‟ mean scores which increased by 14.85 points from 63.65 in the pre-test to 78.50 in the post-test. Moreover, students were more motivated and interested to do writing by using blogs. In addition, the teaching writing using blogs was also more efficient for the teacher