USING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES TO TRIGGER THE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING IN ESSAY WRITING CLASS

Lestari Setyowati, Sony Sukmawan, Ana Ahsana El-Sulukiyyah

Abstract


The advancement of technology and information in this 21st century brings heavy consequences on the environment. Therefore, the young generation needs to be introduced and educated about the environmental issues so that they become an active agent in environmental protection.  The use of environmental issues in the language classroom offers wide opportunity for the students to think and respond critically to the environmental problem. This paper is intended to describe the students’ ability in writing an  essay  by using an environmental topic about  the use of  water. The design of the study is content analysis design. The sujects of the study  were 32 students of 2017 batch taking essay writing course in the academic year 2018-2019. The instrument used was mainly documentation. The result of the study showed that almost two thirds (72%) of the students were able to state a thesis statement. The majority of the students (88%) were able to give elaboration and explanation in the body of the essay, but 66% of them failed to give details and examples. Most of the students developed the essay by using cause and effect, problem solution, and reasoning paragraph organization. Not not all students were able to write a proper conclusion for the essay. The conclusions written by the students mostly contained advice (62%) of what others should do to preserve nature.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17977/um046v3i22019p53-62

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