COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN WRITING OF TENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMAS AMIR HAMZAH MEDAN

The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe the cognitive processes of tenth
grade students in writing descriptive text and (2) explain the reasons behind the
way cognitive processes of tenth-grade students occur in writing descriptive text.
This study was conducted by using descriptive qualitative design. The data were
collected by using students' writing and interview. The subjects of this study were
the students of tenth grade at SMAS Amir Hamzah Medan. The findings of this
study showed: (1) cognitive processes in the planning process, the
students’composed an outline descriptive text. The cognitive processes of tenthgrade
students in the translating process showed the students’ transformed their
ideas based on the generic structure of descriptive text referred to the outline that
they made in the planning process. However, it showed the cognitive processes of
the students' lack of comprehension in developed sentences in paragraphs. The
cognitive processes in the reviewing process of the students’ tried to find an error
in language use and mechanics aspects in their text and (2) the reasons for tenthgrade
students’ cognitive processes in writing were the students' habits of how
they usually think about organizing their writing by determining the title and the
subjects skills of composing an outline descriptive text, the different abilities to
think in constructing sentences into text structures of descriptive text, namely
identification, and description, and the students had the awareness to rethink their
results by reading and reflecting on the text they had written and they revised
errors in their text to ensure the results of writing descriptive text.