IMPROVING THE SKILL IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH OF ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT STUDENTS

Abstract

Abstract: The objective of the study is to find out how clustering can improve the students' skill in writing descriptive paragraph. The research design was collaborative classroom action research. The procedure of the research consisted of four major steps namely: planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting. The subjects of this study were the second semester students of English Education Department of STKIP PGRI Tulungagung in the 2010/2011 academic year. This study was conducted in two cycles. It means that clustering was effective to improve the students' skill in writing. It can be seen from the increase of their final works. The result was categorized in "good" level at five criteria (format, punctuation and mechanics, content, organization, and grammar and sentence structure) prescribed for succesful writing a descriptive paragraph. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that clustering improves the student' writing skill.

Key words: clustering, descriptive paragraph, writing skill