IMPROVING STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXTS THROUGH MIND-MAPPING

This research objective is to improve students achievement in writing descriptive text taught through mind mapping. Mind mapping is simply a diagram used to represent words, ideas which can help the students to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas to construct a written paragraph. In this case, the researcher is eager to investigate the significant of mind mapping technique in improving students` achievement in writing descriptive text. The research method is classroom action research and it is conducted to grade VIII-1 of 33 students of SMP Negeri 2 Delitua in the second semester 2013/2014 academic year which is to intervene in a deliberate way in the problematic situation in order to bring about changes and, even better improvement in practice. In classroom action research, the researcher applies some instrument such as, writing test, observation sheet to see the progress of each session, namely; plan, action, observation, and reflection. Then, the data are analyzed qualitatively. Qualitative data consist of the observation result of students` and teachers activities. Quantitative data are taken from the writing test to look the increase of students` achievement in writing descriptive text in cycle 1 and cycle 2. The improvement increase based on KKM (Criteria Completeness Minimal) is 80. In cycle 1, the mean of students` score in level mastery% was 70,22 with 12 students (36%) pass KKM, and in average category as fair. It increased in cycle 2, the mean of students` score in level mastery% was 81,29 with 26 students (79%) pass KKM, and in average category as good. then, during teaching learning process, the students were active in attending the learning activity. In conclusion, mind mapping technique is able to improve the students` achievement in writing descriptive text.