DEVELOPING WRITING MATERIALS BASED ON LOCAL CULTURAL CONTENT FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

The aim of this study was to develop the appropriate students’ materials in writing skill based on local cultural content for the grade eight students at MTsN 3 Medan. This study was conducted by using Research and Development (R & D)
design through five stages; collecting data (need analysis), designing materials, validating by the experts, revising and final product. The subject of the study was grade eight of MTsN 3 Medan. The data were gathered by administering interview to English teacher to know the students’ problem and distributing
questionnaire to 31 respondents to get the students’ needs. The interview and questionnaire result prove that the students need English materials in teaching writing which can stimulate students’ ability and develop thinking process. Using student writing materials in learning process also helps students to understand the material by themselves. The product has been validated by an English lecturer and an English teacher with the interval was 4.6. The product was categorized as
“Very Good” for students’ writing materials of descriptive text. The final product of this study was a set of developed students’ writing materials based on local culture of North Sumatra. There were 3 units with each topic is related to local
culture of North Sumatra and each unit consisted of five parts which were adapted from Scientific Approach. Every part has 6-8 tasks that covered the students’ learning needs.