Teaching writing to intermediate and/ or advanced students through reading comprehension passages

The teaching of English in Indonesia covers the four language skills. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In learning a language, one should ideally master all these four language skills. The teaching of English in the Senior High School also covers these four language skills. Writing, one of these skills, has to be learnt by the students. Since writing is a productive skill, it is more difficult for the students to learn. Sometimes it is hard for them to get suitable ideas. Even if they have got the ideas, it is still difficult for them to develop these ideas into a coherent paragraph. Studying at the English Department of Widya Mandala University for ten semesters, the writer finds that when the students are asked to write a composition in the classroom, most of them have difficulties in developing a given topic into a whole piece of composition. Attempting to overcome this problem, in this thesis the writer suggests a technique to teach writing through reading comprehension. There are many kinds of writing but the writer only discusses Narrative and Descriptive Writings (Places and Object). The reason of teaching writing through reading comprehension is that reading passages may arouse the students' interest upon a certain ideas and enable them to develop it more easily. Dobson (1973;3) states that reading can bring exciting dimensions into classes where English is taught as foreign or second language i.e. (1) It gives students access to information written in English, (2) It combines with and reinforces other English language learning activities, providing fruitful practice of these activities. The writer has conducted a library research to get most of information from various books to write this thesis. The aim of this study is to present ideas about the nature of teaching writing through reading comprehension passages, to present some advantages of reading writing through reading comprehension passages, and to present some techniques of teaching writing through reading comprehension passages to intermediate and I or advanced students. The writing activities that can be integrated in reading comprehension activities are among others : (1) Question and Answer. The comprehension questions relate to the general details of the reading passage : Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. After the students are asked to read the reading passage given and answer the questions, they are asked to make a composition by completing the sentences given using their own words based on the reading passage, (2) Creating coherent texts out of the given scrambled sentences by using sentence linking and sequencing, (3) Completing a text containing randomly introduced blanks by using their knowledge of sentence patterns, vocabulary, and linking devices, (4) Combining sentences to form an acceptable sequence by using the linking devices, (5) Filling out the introductory or concluding sentence or paragraph of a reading passage, (6) Constructing a new text based on an original text from the clues given, (7) Producing sentences drawn from information given in a text as answers to comprehension questions, (8) Summary writing. In summary writing, after the students are asked to read a reading passage given, they are asked to rearrange the sentences given to make a summary of the text, (9) Short story report. The students are divided into a group of three persons. Each group is required to find one short story and the members of the group read the short story. For each short story question, for comprehension and discussion are designed. Then, they are asked to make a report from the short story. This thesis is not the result of a field study. Thus, the writer hopes that there will be other researchers conducting experimental research to see whether the techniques of teaching writing through reading comprehension passages is really advantageous