TEACHING WRITING BY COMBINING

CUBING AND SENTENCE COMBINING STRATEGIES

AT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Oleh:
Ikawaty Amalia Masril *)

**) Herfyna Asti, M.Pd. Pembimbing atau Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan
Bahasa InggrisSTKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat

ABSTRAK
Ikawaty Amalia Masril. (09040172). Pembelajaran Menulis Melalui Penggabungan Cubing
dengan Sentence Combining Strategi untuk Siswa Sekolah Menengah Pertama. Makalah
Program Sarjana. STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat. Padang 2014.
Bahasa Inggris adalah mata pelajaran yang harus dipelajari di Indonesia sejak sekolah
dasar sampai perguruan tinggi. Walaupun bahasa Inggris telah dipelajari bertahun-tahun, tapi
para siswa masih memiliki kesulitan khususnya dalam menulis. Untuk membuat sebuah paragraf
yang menggunakan bahasa Inggris siswa banyak mengalami masalah. Siswa mengalami masalah
serius di dalam struktur bahasa Inggris, kurangnya penguasaan vocabulary dan susah
menimbulkan ide kreatif dalam menulis serta sulitnya menggunakan grammar dan kata hubung
yang tepat dalam bahasa Inggris. Dalam makalah ini penulis membahas bagaimana mengajarkan
writing dengan menggunakan dua strategi yaitu cubing dan sentence combining. Cubing adalah
salah satu strategi yang dapat digunakan untuk mengembangkan kemampuan writing. Strategi ini
merupakan strategi yang tepat untuk membantu para siswa meningkatkan kemampuan
menulisnya. Sehingga siswa tidak kesulitan untuk memulai menulis karena guru akan
mengembangkan ide-ide siswa berdasarkan perspective yang ada dalam cubing strategi. Sentence
combining adalah juga salah satu strategi yang sangat bagus untuk menunjang kemampuan
writing siswa karena dengan menggunakan strategy ini, semua siswa akan tahu bagaimana cara
menggabungkan beberapa kalimat menjadi sebuah paragraph yang baik dan benar.
Dalam makalah ini penulis berharap kepada guru, siswa dan semua pihak yang terkait
dapat mengaplikasikan dan menggunakan penggabungan dari dua strategi ini dalam proses
belajar mengajar.

Key Words: Cubing, Menulis, Pembelajaran, Sentence Combining

*Penulis
**Pembimbing
Introduction
Writing is an activity to deliver
ideas, thoughts, and meaning in written
form. By writing, the writer can express
what s/he thinks in written form. For
expressing the ideas and thoughts in writing,
the writer should create a form of a
communication between the writer and the
texts which will be produced based on its
ideas. For expressing ideas in written form
and produce writing well, students in school
must have ability in writing. Writing is done
for making the students be able to express
their ideas in written form. Therefore, all
students must have ability and competency
in writing.
In writing, the students have to know
how to organize ideas well. The ideas which
are organized well are used to make writing
becomes easy to understand. And also, the
students have to consider the choice of
words, spelling, grammar, and punctuation
for making a good writing. Writing is one of
the teaching English goal which should be
possessed by the students. Therefore,
improve the writing ability and study about
the structures need to produce a good
writing is very important to be attended by
the students. Moreover, by doing writing,
students are able to deliver their ideas and
thoughts in written form. Exploring ideas in
good writing is a form of a writing product.
Review of Related Literature
Writing is an activity to deliver ideas
using written language for created written
form. There are some definitions of writing
which are stated by some experts. According
to Oshima and Hogue (1991:3) writing is a
process, not a product. It means that, the
process to produce writing is more important
than the result of writing because writing is
not an instant and easy activity. In writing,
there are some processes that must be done
by a writer. All these processes relate to
each other and must be done in sequence to
produce a paper. Thus, writing is stresses on
the process of doing it and not just about the
result.
Then, Hyland (2003:9) states that
writing is a way of sharing personal
meanings and writing courses emphasize the
power of the individual to construct his or
her own views on a topic. It is stated that,
writing is fundamentally a form of
communication, and so the aim is to
successfully transmit information and ideas
from writer’s brain to the reader. To make
sure the readers get information from writer
about a topic, the writer have to know and
understand what they are trying to write
first. It is impossible to effectively
communicate if writer do not know what
they are trying to write, so the most
fundamental and essential part of the writing
process is clarifying writer’s thoughts and
ideas to first.
Based on the definitions of writing
above, it can be concluded that writing is the
process of using symbols (letters of the
alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to
communicate thoughts and ideas in a
readable form. Generally, writing is done by
using a pen/pencil (handwriting) or a
keyboard (typing). Writing is a creative
process that combines skill and art. For
create or produce a good writing, the writer
should do some process that is drafting,
writing, revising and editing, and last
publishing. all of that must be done
sequentially and systematically. There are
some writer’s reasons for writing, such as to
inform, entertain, explain, and persuade. In
writing, it takes hard work and the efforts of
the writer because writing in itself is not a
magic and this is difficult to do. So that, it’s
purposes and results depend totally on the
intentions and hearts of writers and their
readers.
Process of Writing
Process writing is a natural set of
steps that writers take to create a finished
piece of work. It is a process of organizing
ideas and creativity through text. The
writing process presents students with a step
by step procedure that leads to the
completion of a piece of writing. According
to Caswell and Mahler (2004:5) there are
some steps in writing process:
1. Prewriting.
Prewriting allows writers to discover
what they know and how to proceed. During
this stage students learn to make decision
about the topic as they ask question : do I
know enough about this topic to continue?
How can I gather more information? Do I
like this topic? At this time the teacher has
an opportunity to monitor students’
progress.
2. Writing
For the writer, this is time to record
the ideas collected and discovered during
prewriting. Student can express their words,
or ideas in written form to create a good
writing.
3. Revising
Revising means make changes. The
writer works with the draft to add details
that bring clarity and voice and that involve
the reader. Revising is the most intimidating
stage of the process because students do not
know what to do.
4. Editing
With a revised draft (probably
several drafts after the original) the writer
makes the final touches during editing to
ensure a reader’s comprehension.
5. Publishing
The writer proudly displays the
finished product. This is a time for being
satisfied with one accomplishment. It is a
time for celebration. Often students have
produced great pieces of writing only to
have them handed in to the teacher, graded,
and returned.
In addition, there are several
components of writing process that proposed
by Clark (2007:10) such as:
1. Prewriting
At this stage, writers generate ideas,
brainstorm topics, web ideas together, or
talk or think about ideas. Teachers explain
that students may get writing ideas from
personal experiences, stories, pictures,
magazines, newspapers, television, and a
variety of other sources.
2. Drafting
Here, students begin to put their
ideas on paper. Students need to keep in
mind the genre or format, audience, and
purpose.
3. Revising and Editing
Revision looks at the organization
and the structure of the writing. When
revising, students analyze their writing for
required traits: sequencing words in a lab
report, descriptive language in science
fiction story, topic sentences and supporting
details in a persuasive essay. They also ask
questions of their writing: “Does it make
sense? Is anything out of order? Should
anything be added or deleted? ”. While
editing, looks at the mechanics of the
writing. So, students must understand how
to do both.
4. Publishing
At this stage, teacher allows students
to celebrate their hard work. It occurs after
the other steps are completed and the
students are ready to produce the final copy,
which can be handwritten or typed on a
word processor.
5. Reflecting
Reflecting is a key element in the
writing process. It encourages the writer to
think about his or her writing. Reflection
also allows the writer to look back at
brainstorming and the beginning of a writing
project to see if the original goals were met.
Based on the explanation above, it
can be concluded that the writing process
describes the ways to create a piece of
writing and allows students to work through
a step-by-step process to succeed at their
own pace. There are five stages of the
writing process as a framework for writing
well and easily. In prewriting process,
students choose a topic and gather or
organize their ideas about that topic. Then in
drafting, students write paragraph or essay
from start to finish. Next, students will re-
enter their writing because this is an
opportunity for them to revision and make
changes to improve their writing. After that,
students need to correct all errors to improve
their grammar and spelling. This may be the
most important part of the writing process.
Finally, students could publish the result of
their writing.
Teaching Writing
When teaching writing, teacher must
be sure to select resources and support
materials that not only aid them in teaching
how to write, but that will also be the most
effective in helping their students learn to
write. Teaching writing in classroom has
function to enable to have ability in writing.
In teaching writing, the students are hoped
to be able in communicating and compose
ideas into written form.
There are some statements of
teaching writing which are given by the
experts. According to Harmer (2003:79)
states the reason of teaching writing for
students of English as foreign language
include reinforcement, language
development, learning style and most
importantly. It is meant that in teaching
writing, the teacher should give knowledge
for the students about reinforcement in
doing writing, developing the language to
express their writing, and also doing the
variety ways in writing. Then, it is important
for the students to know how to write letter,
how to put written report together, how to
replay advertisement and any other forms of
writing. The students also need to know
some of writing special convention in
punctuation and paragraph construction in
writing.
Then, Hyland (2003:4) defines that
teaching writing predominantly involves
developing learners’ skill in producing fixed
patterns, and responding to writing means
identifying and correcting problems in the
student’s control of the language system. It
means that, in teaching writing involves
developing learners’ skill to produce a
written. The teacher should identifying and
correcting problem that faced by students in
writing class.
Based on the explanation above, it
can be concluded that in teaching writing,
the students need to select their ideas that
are relevant to the writing purpose, do the
writing process by thinking clearly in order
to make a good and fine writing. And also,
in doing the writing process, the students
should consider about the ideas construction
in sentences to build paragraphs and have
attention about the coherence among
paragraphs. Produce a good writing is the
goal which should be achieved by the
students after teaching writing.
Cubing Strategy
Cubing strategy is an instructional
strategy that asks students to consider a
concept from a variety or different
perspectives. According to Axelrod and
Cooper (2010:568) cubing is useful for
quickly exploring a writing topic, probing it
from six different perspectives. It means
that, in applying cubing strategy students
can develop their ideas about the topic. By
using this strategy, students also can analyze
a topic in depth.
Then, according to Perez (2013:35)
cubing is a strategy designed to help
students think about topic or idea from many
different angles. It means that, cubing
strategy help students more understanding
about the topic using six different
perspectives that appropriate with the topic.
Cubing encourages students to look at
information in different ways and to use
different ways of thinking—critical
thinking! The information that comes from
the different considerations of the material
can be used to complete writing assignments
that can begin with short paragraphs and
evolve into longer essays or research papers.
In conclusion, cubing is giving the
students an opportunity to charge and
improve their ability in writing. Because
writing by using the cubing strategy, the
students are provided to do writing based on
their knowledge about certain topic. By
following the cubing strategy, the students
can build writing ability. This strategy is not
only helping the teacher to give appraisal to
the students’ level understanding of how to
do writing, but also providing the students to
develop their ability in writing.
Perspective of Cubing Strategy
According to Meredith and Steele
(2011:73) state that the standard cube has
one of the following six prompt on each
side.
a. Describe it. Think about the topic and
describe it as you envision it.
b. Compare. Write about it resembles and
what is does not resemble. This could
refer to its shape or function of operation
or implication.
c. Associate. What is the first thing that
comes to your mind when you hear the
word or topic? Does it prompt some
connection to something else familiar or
perhaps strangely linked in your story? It
can be events, inanimate objects, places,
or people.
d. Analyze. Describe what it is composed
of, what happens in its inner workings,
what its source of power or purpose is.
e. Apply. State its use. Its intended use or
some other purposes it might serve other
than what it was originally designed to
do.
f. Argue for or Against. Judge whether
you believe it is useful, thoughtful,
appropriate, helpful, well constructed,
well considered, harmful, clever,
efficient, or whatever you might decide
about the topic and state your belief.
Then, According to Nazario et al
(2013:329) proposes that six perspectives of
cubing strategy that is.
a. Describe. Visualize your topic and list
as many details, qualities, and
characteristics as you can.
b. Compare or contrast. What is your
topic similar to? What is it different
from? List as many comparisons as
possible.
c. Associate. What does your topic remind
you of? What does it make you think of?
What other ideas, events, or issues can
you associate with your topic.
d. Analyze. What does your topic consist
of? What are its parts? How does it
work? What types does it consist of?
How is your topic meaningful and
significant?
e. Apply. What can you do with your
topic? How is it meaningful? How is it
useful?
f. Argue for or against. What
controversies surround your topic? What
strengths or weaknesses does it have?
What challenges does it face? How can
it be improved?
Based on explanation above, cubing
strategy has six different perspectives. It is
known as cubing because a cube has six
sides. In cubing, students must examine a
topic from every different perspective before
writing more fully. The perspectives are:
describe, compare, associate, analyze, apply,
and argue. In describe explain about what
does subject look like, size, color, and
shape. Meanwhile, in compare tell about
similar of subject or what is subject different
with others. Next, in associate contain the
first thing that comes to our mind when we
heard the word or topic. Then, in analyze tell
about what does our topic consist of and
what are its parts. Meanwhile, in apply tell
about what can our do with our subject. The
last, argue tell about what arguments can our
make for our subject.
Procedure of Cubing Strategy
There are some experts which are
proposed the procedure of cubing strategy.
According to Schlemmer and Schlemmer
(2008:30):
a. Divide the class into six small groups
and assign each group one of the
perspectives just listed.
b. Each group’s task is to compose a
paragraph that looks at the reading from
the assigned perspective.
c. The groups share their paragraph with
the class, and the other students provide
feedback and ideas
d. The small groups then reconvene and
make needed revisions.
e. Finally, the paragraphs are turned in and
each one is mounted on one side of a
large cardboard cube that is then
displayed in the room
f. The display cube demonstrates how the
reading can be viewed from each of the
six perspectives.
Furthermore, according to Sejnost
(2009:169) procedure of cubing strategy
follow as:
a. Introduce the topic and the six
perspectives from which it might be
considered.
b. Next, allow students five minutes to
consider each side of the cube.
c. Finally, ask students to talk or write
about the topic from any one of the six
possible aspects.
Based on the procedure above, it is
understood that cubing strategy is begun by
divide students into some groups. After that,
teacher introduced the topic based on each
perspective. Then, teacher asks students
write a paragraph about the topic. Finally,
teacher collects students’ written.
Sentence Combining Strategy
According to Mather et al
(2000:145) sentence combining strategy is a
strategy that help writer develops their skill
in writing more complex sentence structures.
For these activities, a writer is asked to
combine several short sentences into one
longer sentence. It means that, writer
combine simple sentence into a complex
sentence structure. Students could combine
several sentences into a paragraph.
Furthermore, Johnson (2009:111)
also states that sentence combining is a
strategy that can helps students understand
the relationships relevant to academic
writing. In other word, this strategy can help
students understand the relationship or
connection of some sentence. In sentence
combining, students also learn how the way
to combine each sentences.
Based on explanation above the
writer concludes that sentence combining
strategy is very useful in teaching process.
This strategy can help students understand
the relationship or connection of some
sentence. Students can use sentence
combining to develop their ability to write a
paragraph well.
Procedure of Sentence Combining
Strategy
There are some procedures of
sentence combining strategy which are
proposed by the experts. The first is
According to Mather and et al (2000:145)
the procedures of sentence combining as
follow:
a. Write two or three simple sentences on
the chalkboard
b. Ask students to combine the sentence
c. Discuss all suggestions and write all
acceptable sentences produced by
students on the board.
d. Provide oral practice with the sentences
before asking the students to combine
them in writing.
e. Take sentences directly from a student’s
written work.
The second, Billingsley (2013:254)
proposes that:
a. The teacher models how to write a
simple sentence and then students
practice writing simple sentences until
they reach a certain level of fluency.
b. The teacher models combining sentences
using coordinating conjunction cues.
c. After teaching them to combine
sentences using cues, the teacher omit
the cue but underline key words, such as
first and then in the previous example.
Dealing with the explanation above,
the writer concludes procedure of these
strategy is easy in apply. Firstly, the teacher
aks students to make two or more simple
sentences. After that, teacher writes
sentences from students on the chalkboard.
The last, teacher asks students to combine
the sentence.
The Combination of Cubing and Sentence
Combining Strategies in Teaching
Writing Descriptive Text
In this paper the writer chooses the
procedure from Axelrod and Cooper for
Cubing and to be applied in Whilst-
Teaching activity Exploration part and for
Sentence Combining will use procedure
from Mather and et al to be applied in
Whilst-teaching activity Elaboration part.
The combined steps are:
a. Select a topic, subject, or part of a
subject. This can be a person, a scene, an
event, an object, a problem, an idea, or
an issue. (cubing)
b. Limit your writing to three to five
minutes for each perspectives. The
whole activity should take no more than
half an hour. (cubing)
c. Keep going until you have written about
your subject. (cubing)
d. As you write from each perspective,
begin with what you know about your
subject. (cubing)
e. Write two or three simple sentences on
the chalkboard (sentence combining)
f. Ask students to combine the sentence
(sentence combining)
g. Discuss all suggestions and write all
acceptable sentences produced by
students on the board. (sentence
combining)
h. Provide oral practice with the sentences
before asking the students to combine
them in writing (sentence combining)
i. Reread what you have written. Look for
bright spots, surprises. Recall the part
that was easiest for you write. (cubing)
j. Take sentences directly from a student’s
written work. (sentence combining)
Those are the steps of combining
cubing and sentence combining in teaching
writing descriptive text at junior high
school.
CONCLUSION
Writing is an activity to deliver
ideas, thoughts, and meaning in written
form. By writing, the writer can express
what s/he thinks in written form. For
expressing the ideas and thoughts in writing,
the writer should create a form of a
communication between the writer and the
texts which will be produced based on its
ideas. For expressing ideas in written form
and produce writing well, students in school
must have ability in writing. Writing is done
for making the students be able to express
their ideas in written form. Therefore, all
students must have ability and competency
in writing. One way to improve the student’s
writing ability is the combination of cubing
and sentence combining strategy.
There are some activities which can
be done by teacher in teaching writing by
combining cubing and sentence combining
strategies. They are: pre-teaching activities,
whilst-teaching activities, and post-teaching
activities. Pre-teaching activities are the
activities while teacher brainstorms the
students mind as the beginning of the
process teaching activity. In whilst-teaching
activities, the teacher presents the material
by applying the steps through combining
cubing and sentence combining strategies. In
this process, the teacher guides the students
to do writing and provide them to improve
their writing ability. Finally, in post-
teaching activities, the teacher takes the
students writing product, checks the errors
of their writing, and evaluates their writing
continuously to get a good writing.
So, the writer concludes that the
combination of cubing and sentence
combining strategies can be used in teaching
writing, especially for improving the
students’ writing ability. Teaching writing
by combining cubing and sentence
combining strategies provides the students
an opportunity to do writing easily. The
activity of using the strategies combination
has begun with introduced topic to the
students. Then teacher explore ideas by
students appropriate with perspective in
cubing strategy. The students could
complete their writing into a good paragraph
by knowing sentence combining strategy. In
doing sentence strategy, their writing of
cubing will be developed into paragraphs
and united to be a complete writing. Thus,
the use of combining cubing and sentence
combining strategy can motivate students in
mastering the process of writing and provide
them with a good ability in writing.
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