Improving Students’ Descriptive Writing Ability through Clustering Technique at MTs. At-Tadzkir Loa Janan Academic Year 2024/2025

Abstract

Mega Priska, 2024. Improving Students’ Descriptive Writing Ability through Clustering Technique at MTs At-Tadzkir Loa Janan Academic Year 2024/2025 – Undergraduate Thesis. Supervisor: (1) Dr. Umar Fauzan, M.Pd. (2) Dra. Sitti Hadijah, M.Pd.

Writing is one of the most challenging language skills that students must master in learning English. There are several types of texts in writing, such as narrative, descriptive, exposition, and persuasive texts. Descriptive text is one type of text that seventh-grade students at the junior high school level are required to understand and master. However, seventh-grade students at MTs At-Tadzkir Loa Janan face several difficulties in writing descriptive texts, which leads to low learning outcomes. Therefore, to improve students' descriptive writing ability, the researcher implemented the clustering technique in the learning process.

The clustering technique is known to be an effective method for helping students develop their ideas when writing paragraphs. The purpose of this research is to determine whether the clustering technique can improve students' descriptive writing ability.

This study is a classroom action research project involving 16 seventh-grade students and was conducted over two cycles. Each cycle consisted of planning, action, observation, and reflection. Data were collected through writing tests to assess students' understanding of writing descriptive texts. Additionally, observation techniques were used to gather data on students' learning activities, and documentation methods were employed to support the information related to the English learning process. This research was conducted in collaboration with the English teacher at MTs At-Tadzkir Loa Janan.

The research findings show that the clustering technique plays an important role in improving the writing skills of seventh-grade students at MTs At-Tadzkir Loa Janan. This improvement is evident from the increase in students' average scores, from 53 in the preliminary study to 67 in cycle I, and the percentage class of passing grade was 44%. The score further increased to 75 and the percentage class of passing grade was 80% in cycle II. Based on these results, the researcher concluded that teaching descriptive writing using the clustering technique can significantly enhance the writing abilities of seventh-grade students at MTs At-Tadzkir Loa Janan.