Developing Writing Materials for the Students of the Eighth Grade of SMP N 3 Tempel

Abstract

The objectives of this study were: (1) to  identify the learners’ needs for eighth grade students of SMP N 3 Tempel, (2) to develop appropriate materials for eighth grade students of SMP N 3 Tempel. This was a Research and Development (R&D) study.  The subjects of the study were the students of eighth grade of SMP N 3 Tempel. The research procedures, adapted from Jolly and Bolitho’s model in Tomlinson (1998) with some modifications, consisted of conducting the need analysis, writing the course grid, developing the first draft, getting expert judgment and evaluating the first draft, also revising the first draft of the materials. The instruments to collect the data were a need analysis questionnaire and an expert judgment questionnaire. The data from the need analysis were analyzed quantitatively using frequency and precentage, then the results were used to develop the course grid. The data from the expert judgment were analyzed quantitatively through descriptive statistics while the suggestions were used to revise the first draft of the materials. The product of this study was a set of writing materials entitled “Guide for Writing” for students of eighth grade of SMP N 3 Tempel. The writing materials consisted of three units, “My Best Friend”, “My Unforgettable Experience”, and “My Favorite Story”. Each unit consisted of Pre-writing, Drafting, Responding, and Editing tasks ranging from 15-17 tasks. Based on the research findings from the expert judgment, the whole aspects of the developed materials were 3.62 which was in the range of 3.25 < x ≤ 4 and could be categorized as “very good”.