the background

Most of the time, many teachers still carry on the technique in teaching writing by having them write an assignment and then score it without giving back to them (Alwasilah, 2001). Actually, giving back the students their writings is needed in order to suggest a feedback which is important to let them know how the quality of their compositions are. Furthermore, such condition only provides teachers to evaluate the product in spite of the process of how the students accomplish their writings. This still happens up to now since most of teachers only assess the composition which is written at that time. The method is by having the students write down a composition, generally in 30 minutes to one hour, and collect them to the teachers to be evaluated. This is not fit for students-centre learning where students are the focus of learning. Obviously, teachers should find more ways in improving students’ progress in writing skills. Alwasilah (2001) suggest a collaborative work where students are divided into small groups involving five to six students and allocate time for them to have another look at one another’s writing before they rewrite their compositions. This is appropriate to classes in our country since we have 35 to 40 students in a class.

One of the points in collaborative work is to have students experience their own process of writing. Having given comments of their writing—both on grammar and content—and rewrite it make them conscious of their process of writing. The students will know that writing is not an instant job. That it needs much time to write a good writing.

Generally speaking, there are three stages in writing process. They are planning, drafting, and revising. In spite of doing these stages alone, student can share them with the class in collaborative work. Besides the classmates, teacher can also have a role to be a collaborator. Thus, teachers can function not only as an evaluator but also a consultant.

Recently, collaborative work has introduced only for class interaction. The collaborators are the classmates and teacher. Evidently, it is very helpful for the progress of learning writing. The students are urged to share their writings with others. Furthermore, it is interesting to find out if their writing process is spread out all over the world. Students let the entire world have a look at their writings and—the foremost—their process. Internet makes it possible. As the development of technology, internet can be applied in learning activity. In this case, Internet provides students the chance to publish their writings. Using free software which is called a weblog, students can easily publish their writings. It is a new phenomenon in this virtual world that many people have made use of weblogs for their own interest (Nasution, 2004). Yet, the using of weblogs has not applied in educational settings. Related to teaching writing, weblogs can be used as a device in writing process because of theirs properties. Kapur (2003), a journalist, says that

“Blogging is a way of organizing your thought process….”

while Armstrong et. al., state a weblog as

“A web-based space for writing where all the writing and editing of information is managed through web browser and is immediately and publicly available on the Internet.”

Nasution (2004) in his article entitled Apa Itu Blog, said that Jorn Barger, in December 1997, is the person who firstly used the term weblog to mention the community of personal websites that is updated continually containing links of other websites which they think interesting. They also add their comments while they were surfing from one website to another. Blog, a short term for weblog, has been developing to be a personal website that not only consists of links but also personal writings of the blogger's—someone who has a blog—thoughts, feelings, and daily activities. It happens to be an online diary or journal that is published and can be read by anyone. Blog can also free us to share and express our feelings to others. Writing in blog can also be more fun since many people can easily access our writings and enrich our thoughts then.

In teaching writing, as stated before, weblogs are very helpful for students to be a channel in gathering and keeping their thoughts, some students think weblogs can alter the function of books (Armstrong). Additionally, Armstrong reveals in her study that students can capture their learning development.

Another benefit of weblogs is that students can publish their writings easily and be read by people who connected to Internet. This sharing-writing activity is important since it is involved social interaction. Moreover, the webs provide community who will interact closely with the students. It will support the students to become solemn in writing a composition since they realize their writings will be accessed by many people. As stated by Catherine Smith (cited in Lowe and Williams) that students “take real-world writing more seriously when it is done on the web, where it might actually be seen and used.”

It’s time for teachers to take weblogs into account in teaching writing. The public characteristic is one of the advantages that will make students’ writing process more meaningful

References:

Alwasilah, A. Chaedar. (2001). “Language, culture, and education: a portrait of contemporary Indonesia.” Writing is neglected in our schools, 23-29. Bandung: Andira.

Armstrong, Laurie, et al. Blogs as electronic learning journals. [Online] Available at [http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/Vol17_No1/CurrentPractice/Blogs.htm] Retrieved on February 20, 2005

Kapur, Rohini. (2003). Can blogs help students? [Online] Available at [http://www.rediff.com/netguide/2003/jun/12media.htm] Retrieved on January 13, 2005

Lowe, Charles and Williams, Terra. (2004) Moving to the public: weblogs in the writing classroom. [Online] Available at [http://www.blog.lib.umn.edu/blogoshpere/moving_to_the_public.html] Retrieved on January 11, 2005

Nasution, Enda. (2004). Apa Itu Blog. [Online] Available at [http://enda.goblogmedia.com/apa-itu-blog.html] Retrieved on November 2, 2004