The Influence of Interest in Writing on Kisaran State Middle School Students’ Poetry Writing Skills

The Influence of Interest in Writing on Kisaran State Middle School Students’ Poetry Writing Skills

Nova Yuandani Br Sinaga, Sarwiji Suwandi, Atikah Anindyarini

Universitas Sebelas Maret

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1107002

Received: 20 June 2024; Accepted: 04 July 2024; Published: 25 July 2024

ABSTRACT

Writing is difficult for students, especially writing poetry. One of the factors that influences this is how interested the students are in writing poetry. Therefore, this research was conducted to ascertain how interest in writing influences poetry writing skills, especially for state junior high school students in the city of Kisaran. This research is comparative quantitative research, with the design of this research using a one-shot case study. The population in this study were students in class VIII of Kisaran State Middle School who had used the independent curriculum, as the sample, 32 students had a high interest in writing and 32 students had a low interest in writing. Data were collected using writing interest questionnaires and poetry writing tests. Data analysis used the t-test formula assisted by the SPSS 25 application and the effect size test assisted by Excel calculations as a further test. The results of the research show that the ability to write poetry of students who have a high interest in writing is better than that of those who have a low interest in writing. Therefore, participation from teachers and parents is needed to increase students’ interest in writing in order to improve their writing skills, especially in writing poetry.

Keywords: Writing, Poetry, Interest in Writing, Middle School, Writing Skills

INTRODUCTION

Humans have tendencies in their lives. Interest is a great desire or inclination towards a particular field and feeling happy when doing (Slameto, 2010, p. 57). This is reinforced by Uyun dan Warsah (2021, p. 161), who state that interest has a very big influence on a person’s activities because, with interest, he will do something he wants. Without interest, it is impossible to produce writing. Because writing must come from the heart without coercion paksaan (Nugraha, 2022, p. 18). Someone will carry out something or an activity without anyone telling them because their liking and interest give rise to an interest (Slameto, 2010, p. 180).

Writing is the process of expressing what is on your mind in written form. Based on Dalman’ statement (2016, p. 4), writing is a stage of expressing the results of thought patterns, fantasies, and feelings through signs, symbols, and text. Semi (2007, p. 14) also believes that writing is a creative process that turns thoughts into written symbols. However, apart from just expressing ideas, writing is an activity to explore thoughts that involves a person’s ability to plan and organize as well as language knowledge (Hyland, 2003, p. 22).

One form of writing is literary writing. Poetry is part of literary works. Waluyo (2003, p. 1) explains that the definition of poetry is a literary work that uses concise, short, and rhythmic language and has a combination of sounds with the use of figurative (imaginative) terms. The skill of writing poetry is the activity of expressing thoughts and feelings appreciatively to form poetry so that it becomes something meaningful by utilizing various experiences in real life (Wijiyanti, 2022, p. 41). Being skilled at writing poetry does not come only because of talent; one must go through training, study diligently, and be active in practicing (Wiyanto, 2005, p. 48). Kang and Hou (2020) found that poetry writing skills are characterized by how a poet is able to convey a combination of ideas and place them into short poetry poems.

A person is said to be skilled at writing poetry if he is able to compose beautiful words in short lines, uses the right diction, and conveys his thoughts well so that other people can understand them and be full of appreciation (Purwati, 2022). Furthermore, lanjut Rasyid, et al. (2021, p. 4) state that a person’s ability to write poetry can be seen in his ability to express it in the form of creative written literature that can arouse the spirit, mind, and soul of the reader. In this way, readers can gain wisdom based on the poetry they read.

Based on the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Decree number 262/M/2022, it is explained that junior high school Indonesian language learning outcomes are in phase D. Elements in phase D consist of listening, reading and viewing, speaking and describing, and writing. In the writing aspect, students are asked to be able to convey writing based on facts, experiences, and imagination beautifully and interestingly in the form of prose and poetry with creative use of vocabulary, so that learning to write poetry becomes something that must be mastered by students at phase D or level Junior High School (JHS).

Through research conducted by Fitriani and Huda (2022), Putri (2023), Sukiman (2022), it was found that without interest in writing poetry, students’ poetry writing skills will decline. This also has an impact on the value of learning to write poetry, which is below the minimum completeness criteria (KKM). Basri et al. (2024) found that only 46% of students met the KKM score of 70 at the MIN 1 Jeneponto school for grade IV students. Barus et al. (2024) also found that only 45% of students who met the KKM wrote poetry for class VIII students at National Hero Middle School. Furthermore, Fitriani and Alim (2024) found that as many as 41% of class VIII students at Ar-Risala Integrated Middle School Ciamis did not meet the KKM score. Based on the findings above, it can be seen that there are still many students who are not able to write poetry well. This problem occurs due to students’ lack of interest in writing poetry, as found by Gunadi et al. (2023). The same thing was also found by Rahmawati and Citrawati (2023), who found that students had difficulty writing due to a lack of interest in writing poetry.

Writing should not be done because it is forced or just a chore, but because of the writer’s need, awareness, and commitment to sharing information (Leo, 2017, p. 14).. If writing activities are not of interest, then someone will never be able to write. Candra dan Febriyanti (2018, p. 8) state that everyone has the potential to write, but not everyone is interested in writing. Interest in writing can be pursued to get maximum results. A person’s ability to write cannot be separated from an interest. This is because with interest, a person will carry out activities continuously without coercion and comes from strong encouragement (Sukino, 2010, p. 13). Interest is something that is learned and not present from birth, so interest will change depending on needs, experience, and fashion (Jahja, 2015, p. 64). Through the explanation above, it can be seen that the most important thing in writing poetry is interest in writing.

However, research conducted by Fazriyah et al. (2023) found that interest is not something that influences students’ writing results. Research conducted by Fazriyah et al. (2023) found that many students were not interested, but the results of writing poetry were not bad. So this research was interesting to conduct to see how interest in writing influences the poetry writing skills of students, especially those at the junior high school level.

METHOD

This research is comparative quantitative research that uses statistical analysis to compare two or more variables (Mubarak, 2021, p. 171). The design of this research uses a one-shot case study where the subjects in this research are subjected to certain treatments, and then measurements are taken of the independent variables (Nasrudin, 2019, p. 42). The population in this study were class VIII students at Kisaran State Middle School, which had used the independent curriculum. As a sample, 32 students had a high interest in writing and 32 students had a low interest in writing. Data were collected using writing interest questionnaires and poetry writing tests. Data analysis used the t-test formula assisted by the SPSS 25 application, and the effect size test was assisted by Excel calculations as a further test.

DISCUSSION

The independent t-test has prerequisites, namely the normality test and the homogeneity test (Mubarak, 2021, p. 174). So this research will be divided into three research results, namely the prerequisite test, t-test, and further effect size test. The prerequisite tests are as follows:

Prerequisite Test Results

Data Descriptive Statistics

After processing the data, descriptive statistics will be obtained. Descriptive statistics were processed with the help of the SPSS 25 program to obtain maximum, minimum, and average value data, as well as standard deviation and variance. This is intended to compare and find out the results of differences between research subjects. Below is a descriptive statistical analysis of high-interest and low-interest class data.

Table 1 Descriptive of Research Results

After the previous process had identified the statistical picture of the descriptive data on the poetry writing score results, a normality test was then carried out on the average scores for the pre-test and post-test results. The normality test is a statistical test to see whether the distribution of numerical data is normally distributed or not (Santoso, 2017, p. 43). In this test, the Shapiro-Wilk test will be used with a significance level of 0.05. After the data is processed using the SPSS 25 program, there is an output display, which can be seen in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Normality Test Results

Normality test with a small sample or less than 50 using Shapiro-Wilk with a sig of more than 0.05 with a normal distribution (Yamin, 2021, p 79). So, based on Fig. 1, the normality test results for both high interest and low interest with Shapiro-Wilk are more than 0.05, which can be interpreted as normality test data having a normal distribution.

Homogeneity Test

The second prerequisite is homogeneity. The homogeneity test is used to determine whether several population variants are the same or not. The homogeneity test can be carried out if the data group is in a normal distribution. The homogeneity test is carried out to show that differences that occur in parametric statistical tests (for example, the t test, Anava, Anacova) really occur due to differences between groups, not as a result of differences within groups (Usmadi, 2020). The research homogeneity test can be seen in Fig. 2 below.

Fig. 2 Homogeneity Test Results

By using the Levene statistics method, a significance value (sig.) of 0.593 was obtained. This shows a significant value (sig.) of more than 0.05. So, the research data is homogeneously distributed. So this research has met the prerequisite tests and can be continued with the t-test.

Uji t

The t test aims to find out whether the independent variable has a partial influence on the dependent variable (Darma, 2021, p 41). Decision-making in the independent t test can be seen from the sig value. If the sig t count is > 0.05, then Ho is accepted, and vice versa, if the t count is < 0.05, Ho is rejected (Wibowo, 2023, p. 212). In the research, there is no difference in poetry writing skills between students who have a high interest in writing and those who have a low interest in writing, and in this study, there is a difference in poetry writing skills between students who have a high interest in writing and those who have a low interest in writing. The independent t test for this research can be seen in Fig. 3 below.

Fig. 3 Independent t test results

Based on the results of the independent t test via SPSS above, it can be seen that the sig t value is smaller than 0.05. So Ho in the research is that there is no difference in poetry writing skills between students who have a high interest in writing and those who have a low interest in writing is rejected, and Ha in this study there is a difference in poetry writing skills between students who have a high interest in writing and those who have an interest in writing. low is acceptable. So research requires further testing.

Effect Size Test

Through the results of the independent t test, it can be seen that poetry writing skills differ between those with low interest and those with high interest. To see how big the difference is, a test called effect size is carried out (Naga, 2009, p. 97). Effect size testing is carried out using Cohen’s formula as follows:

It is known that the Effect Size index = 1.18 is greater than 0.8 and smaller than 2.0. So it can be stated “the effect of high interest in writing on poetry writing skills at Kisaran Middle School is categorized as large”

Based on the calculations above, it can be seen that the lower the students’ interest in writing, the lower their poetry writing skills, and conversely, the higher the students’ interest in writing, the higher the students’ poetry writing skills. According to Sitohang et al. (2022) students’ difficulties in writing poetry include a lack of interest so that students do not focus or concentrate on learning and a lack of students’ imagination. The problem of students’ low interest in writing is supported by several factors, such as those found by Aryani et al (2024) in their research, who found that students’ low interest in writing is a result of a lack of consideration of literacy at school, a lack of support from the home environment, a lack of good models, and a and a lack of reading materials. diverse and interesting, excessive use of technology, and how the environment includes the condition of the participants sitting, the education patterns of parents at home, and the form of social interaction. Based on this, the responsibility for interest in writing is not only borne by the teacher, but parents must also participate in increasing interest in writing.

Writing activities can, without realizing it, encourage intellectual development, so writing activities are often associated with learning to think critically (Syarif et al., 2009). (Kim et al., 2023)found that writing and reading are related. This is because writing involves the reading process in the revision process and the writing process, so that understanding of the text will further develop. Waer (2023) also found that writing activities can improve linguistic aspects and develop grammatical knowledge, so that writing activities carried out without coercion and based on an interest in writing can provide many benefits. This is in accordance with the opinion of Witherington (1985, p. 136), which states that paying attention to something being studied will provide a positive attitude and pleasure, whereas if you do it with feelings of displeasure, it will hinder you. Because interest is present due to internal and external factors that determine a person’s interest.

CONCLUSION

Interest is an aspect of attitude where a person can grow based on his tendency to carry out activities. A person with low interest will not be interested in this activity. Based on the results of research conducted at a state middle school in the city of Kisaran, poetry writing skills are greatly influenced by one’s interest in writing. This is proven by the sig value being smaller than 0.05 in the t test and the effect size value of 1.18, so it can be concluded that there is an influence of interest in writing on the poetry writing skills of students, especially at the junior high school level in the city of Kisaran. Based on this, you need to pay attention to how to increase your interest in writing so that your poetry writing skills can also improve. Interest is not only pursued by formal education at school but also needs encouragement from parents as non-formal educators at home.

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