Enhancing Paragraph Writing and Developing Character of the Tenth Graders
through the Teaching of Haiku
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this study were to find out whether or not the teaching of Haiku
could (1) significantly enhance students’ writing achievement after the
interventions given; (2) develop students’ character; and (3) show the contribution
of writing ability to character development. The sample consisted of 41 tenth
graders. Time series design was used in this study with 23 meetings including pre
and post-tests and 6 tests after every two interventions. To measure students’
writing achievement, paragraph writing test was used and to develop their character,
Emotional Quotient Inventory and Class Behavior Observation were used. The
findings showed that (1) there was a significant difference in students’ writing
achievement (t. 21.35; p< .000) after interventions were done, (2) the teaching of
Haiku could develop students’ character with the mean difference between pre and
post-test of EQ was 5.70; p< . 004 and of CBO was 2.07; p< . 000, (3) there was
also a significant correlation between CBO and students’ character development (R
.646) with the contribution of students’ writing ability to character development for
43.7% (R2. 437).
Key words: The Teaching of Haiku, Writing achievement, Character development
Summary
Enabling students to write well is one of the main objectives of teaching writing.
However, EFL students do not write as well as we expect they should (e.g., Rijaarsdam, et
al., 2005). According to Smith (1991) there are some reasons which make students are
inability to write well as the expectations of teachers: (1) the laziness of students, (2) boring
lesson, and (3) difficult skill. Further he also claims that actually the most obvious reason
that students do not write well is that they do not receive a great deal of instructions, practice,
and feedback in writing.
Based on English curriculum (2006), School-Based Curriculum or Kurikulum Tingkat
Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP), students of senior high schools are expected to understand the
information provided in their surroundings through English to prepare themselves to get their
higher education level (Depdiknas, 2003, p. 6). They have to be able to express their ideas
oral and written. It means that students have to master English literacy. In other words, the
students should have the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate,
compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts (UNESCO).
However, the condition in Indonesia is contradictive with the goal of Indonesia
education curriculum. Based on some researches which were done by Agustina and Wijaya,
it proves that the low level of writing skill is not only at the level of elementary schools but
junior high school and senior high school level.
Based on the writer’s experience in teaching English she found that writing was quite
difficult for the tenth graders of the school where she teaches until now. This condition
occurs because of some cases: : (1) their vocabulary mastery was not well exposed so that
they were not able to express their feeling and ideas in appropriate English, (2) they found
difficulties in finding the topics of their writing without given clues, and (3) they also made
some errors in grammar.
Based on the above findings, I was inspired to use one of the literary works that is
“poetry” as a technique to enhance students’ ability in writing. Iida (2010) introduced a
simple form of poetry from Japan, Haiku, a short, three-line poem with a specific number of
syllables in each line. It is a poetic form that allows Japanese writers to express their
thoughts and feelings without being restricted to the simple observation and description of the
natural phenomena surrounding a human life. . It would be the effective way to emerge
students’ awareness to their environment and social condition which occurs recently.
The condition that has been faced by our beloved country, Indonesia, also has inspired
me to insert character education in my writing class by adapting the six pillars of young
people character proposed by Josephson Institute (2010). They are: trustworthiness, respect,
responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship or TRRFCC. It is very important to educate
students not only related to their intelligence but also their characters as well.
To prove whether my technique was effective or not, I did this research using time
series equivalent sample design. It took three month time to finish the research. There were
three ways used to collect the data, they were open test, emotional quotient test and class
behavior observation.
Based on the results of the analyses and interpretation, several conclusions can be
drawn. During the time series, the teaching of Haiku showed a significant difference in
enhancing the tenth graders’ English writing achievement and in developing their character.
Then, only vocabulary and mechanics aspects gave significant contribution on the
students’ character development aspects: self awareness, self management, self motivation,
empathy and social skill which were considered as the prior requirements to become a good
citizen.
The contribution occurred because of some reasons: (1) before writing their Haiku,
they had to choose the right words to express their ideas. When they developed the topic
sentence into a paragraph, they put the certain words from their Haiku into their mind as
guideline to develop their paragraph, (2) they made their Haikus to be their life motto. It
might influence their behavior since they remembered the words and keep them in their heart
then reflect them in their behavior, (3) if someone can write good paragraph, it means that
he/she is not only good at the idea of the paragraph but also good at the rules of writing, like
punctuation, capitalization, spelling, etc. Obeying the rules means understanding the rules
itself and have willingness do everything well. It can be assumed that he/she has good self
motivation which will influence his/her ability to behave in the right way when he/she has to
socialize with others.
Finally, since the contribution of writing has such a significant value in developing
students’ character, then it is suggested that the teaching of Haiku can be used as one of the
alternative strategy to enhance students’ writing ability and develop their character.