Munculnya gunungan sampah di berbagai tempat di Bandung, tentulah sangat memalukan Bandung yang katanya dikenal sebagai Kota Kembang, sampai-sampai auatu waktu Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono mengeluarkan ancaman, apabila dalam waktu satu bulan Pemkot Bandung tidak bisa mengatasinya, masalah ini akan diambil alih oleh pemerintah pusat. Semua ini menunjukkan ada yang belum tepat dalam pengelolaan sampah selama ini.
Dalam hal pengelolaan sampah perkotaan, Indonesia hingga kini masih berorientasi pada mass waste-producing society, di mana pemerintah berperan sebagai aktor utama dalam kegiatan pembersihan sampah, sedangkan TPA dan insinerator dijadikan solusi untuk mengatasi limbahnya.
Hingga saat ini RUU tentang persampahan belum juga sampai di DPR untuk dibahas. Padahal, krisis sampah sudah sangat kasat mata, menyangkut masalah semua orang, dan tidak kalah penting dibandingkan dengan persoalan pornografi dan pornoaksi yang menimbulkan pro- kontra yang tajam dalam masyarakat. Salah satu kunci penting dari kebersihan dan kerapian publik di kota-kota di negara itu adalah karena kesadaran.
Percayakah anda bahwa Jepang telah berhasil membuat sebuah airport berkelas internasional di Kobe yang dibuat diatas lapisan sampah, lalu menerapkan pembuatan pupuk dari sampah di berbagai hotel di jepang?
Pengaruh pertumbuhan ekonomi membuat hidup masyarakat Jepang menjadi berkecukupan, yang menjadikan pola hidup produsi massal dan konsumtif, sehingga jumlah sampah yang dihasilkan membengkak. Atas dasar itu, dewasa ini dikembangkan daur ulang sampah menjadi barang bermanfaat bagi manusia menjadi orientasi, karena selain disamping dapat mengurangi konsumsi sumber daya alam juga meringankan beban lingkungan.
Titik awal kemudahan pengelolaan dan pengolahan sampah diawali dari bagaimana orang Jepang memisahkan sampah dan manajemen pengumpulannya di kota. Sedikitnya terdapat tujuh kategori sampah rumah tangga yang mesti dipisahkan sendiri-sendiri oleh warga kota sebelum diletakkan/dibuang ke tempat yang ditentukan pada hari yang dijadwalkan. Setiap 6 bulan, pemerintah daerah melakukan penyuluhan mengenai sampah. Tiap daerah memiliki aturan yang berbeda-beda, namun secara umum diberlakukan pemisahan sampah menurut jenisnya. Pemisahan itu ditandai dengan kantong plastik yang berwarna khusus untuk masing-masing jenis, dan harus dibeli di supermarket dengan begitu rinci dan dibuang menurut hari yang ditentukan. Meskipun begitu rumit dan mahal, semuanya sadar bahwa ini demi kebaikan bersama. Dari sini sebenarnya kita bisa belajar bahwa kedisiplinan juga bisa ditumbuhkan melalui sistem.
7 kelompok sampah yang di atur pemerintah Jepang, diantaranya:
a) Sampah yang dapat dibakar (Burnable Waste),
b) Sampah urug (Land-fill Waste),
c) Sampah plastik (Plastic Waste),
d) Sampah yang dapat dihancurkan/diremukkan
e) Sampah yang beresiko/berbahaya
f) Sampah yang dapat didaur ulang (Recyclable Waste)
g) Sampah besar (Bulky Waste).
Kedisiplinan dan kepatuhan orang Jepang dalam mengurus sampah menimbulkan kesan bahwa masyarakat Jepang mempunyai kesadaran tinggi dalam menangani sampah. Sebenarnya, kalau kita melakukan kilas balik Jepang pada tahun 1960-1970-an, keadaan kota-kota besar seperti Tokyo atau Osaka tidaklah terlalu jauh berbeda dengan kota-kota besar Indonesia sekarang ini. Di tempat-tempat umum dengan mudah ditemukan sampah berserakan, dan masalah polusi lingkungan menjadi isu sosial dan politik besar pada waktu itu.
Akan tetapi, kalau yang dijadikan tolok ukur adalah masyarakat Jepang sejak tahun 1990-an hingga sekarang ini, kesan disiplin dan patuh tidaklah terlalu meleset. Kebijakan dan perundang-undangan persampahan Jepang secara integrasi melibatkan pihak produsen, konsumen, serta pihak terkait lainnya, selain unsur pemerintah. Sebagaimana tercermin dalam perundang-undangan, pengelolaan sampah mereka didasarkan pada prinsip sharing burden di antara unsur-unsur masyarakat. Berdasarkan peraturan pemerintah, konsumen diwajibkan memilah dan membuang sampah sesuai dengan aturan serta membayar biaya pembuangan dan penghancuran (scrapping) barang-barang tertentu.
Produsen produk tertentu diwajibkan melakukan pengumpulan dan mendaur ulang. Para penjual barang-barang peralatan rumah tangga diwajibkan untuk mengumpulkan sampah barang-barang tertentu, sedangkan pemerintah berperan dalam mengumpulkan dan memproses sampah di tempat pembuangan akhir (TPA).
Melalui desain kelembagaan ini, sasaran yang ingin dicapai oleh Pemerintah Jepang adalah mengubah orientasi pengelolaan sampah dari masyarakat yang menghasilkan sampah secara massal (mass waste- producing society) menjadi masyarakat yang dapat melakukan siklus material secara menyeluruh (sound material-cycle society).
2.2 Penemuan Keranjang Takakura dan Manfaatnya
Menurut survey Indonesia Solid Waste Association, hanya 10% sampah warga Jakarta yang diolah menjadi kompos, padahal lebih dari setengah (55%) sampah tersebut adalah sampah organik. Jika saja, warga membuat kompos dari sampah organiknya, maka sampah Jakarta yang harus diangkut ke tempat pembuangan akhir (TPA) akan berkurang.
Dewasa ini pengelolaan sampah mandiri di Surabaya banyak menggunakan keranjang “sakti” Takakura. Keranjang sakti Takakura adalah suatu alat pengomposan sampah organik untuk skala rumah tangga. Yang menarik dari keranjang Takakura adalah bentuknya yang praktis, bersih dan tidak berbau, sehingga sangat aman digunakan di rumah. Keranjang ini disebut masyarakat sebagai keranjang sakti karena
kemampuannya mengolah sampah organik sangat baik.
Keranjang Takakura dirancang untuk mengolah sampah organik di rumah tangga. Sampah organik setelah dipisahkan dari sampah lainnya, diolah dengan memasukkan sampah organik tersebut ke dalam keranjang sakti Takakura. Bakteri yang terdapat dalam starter kit pada keranjang Takakura akan menguraikan sampah menjadi
kompos, tanpa menimbulkan bau dan tidak mengeluarkan cairan. Inilah keunggulan
pengomposan dengan keranjang Takakura. Keranjang Takakura juga mempunyai nilai estetika, karena terlihat rapi dan bersih. Jadi, keranjang Takakura ini bisa ditempatkan di dalam kamar, apartemen, atau di dalam rumah pas sekali untuk untuk para mahasiswa, bujangan, atau keluarga kecil.
Cara membuat keranjang takakura juga mudah. Bisa dibuat sendiri dengan memanfaatkan barang-barang yang tak terpakai di rumah. Yang dibutuhkan hanya keranjang plastik/ember/ gentong/tempayan/drum ukuran 50-100 L yang bertutup; dua buah bantal sekam sesuai ukuran wadah; pengaduk; kardus; dan kompos yang sudah jadi sebagai starter/biang.
Keranjang Takakura terdiri dari sebuah keranjang plastik yang berlubang, kardus, starter kompos, bantalan sekam, dan selembar kain. Lubang pada keranjang plastik bertujuan melancarkan sirkulasi udara di dalam keranjang, bantal sekam di bagian bawah keranjang berfungsi sebagai penampung air lindi dari sampah sehingga bisa menyerap bau. Bantal sekam juga berfungsi sebagai alat kontrol udara di tempat pengomposan agar bakteri berkembang dengan baik, sedangkan kain berfungsi untuk penghalang lalat atau nyamuk agar tidak masuk ke keranjang. Untuk proses yang maksimal, keranjang tidak boleh diletakkan di tempat yang terkena sinar matahari secara langsung.
Proses pengomposan ala keranjang Takakura merupakan proses pengomposan aeraob di mana udara dibutuhkan sebagai asupan penting dalam proses pertumbuhan mikroorganisme yang menguraikan sampah menjadi kompos. Media yang dibutuhkan dalam proses pengomposan yaitu dengan menggunakan keranjang berlubang, diisi dengan bahan-bahan yang dapat memberikan kenyamanan bagi mikroorganisme. Proses pengomposan metode ini dilakukan dengan cara memasukkan sampah organik – idealnya sampah organik tercacah – ke dalam keranjang setiap harinya dan kemudian dilakukan kontrol suhu dengan cara pengadukan dan penyiraman air.
Satu keranjang standar dengan starter kompos 8 kg dapat dipakai oleh keluarga dengan jumlah anggota keluarga sebanyak 7 orang. Sampah rumah tangga yang diolah di keranjang ini maksimal 1-1,5 kg per hari. Jenis sampah organik yang bisa diproses di keranjang ini contohnya sisa sayuran, sisa nasi, sisa ikan, ayam, kulit telur, dan sampah buah yang lunak. Sampah yang telah dipotong kecil dikubur ke dalam starter kompos, ditutupi bantalan sekam dan kain, lalu ditutup rapat. Proses pengomposan berlangsung sekitar 2-3 bulan. Setelah 3 bulan, 1/3 bagian dr keseluruhan diambil dan sudah dapat dijadikan pupuk kompos. Proses diulang kembali dari penguburan sampah.
Proses pengomposan terkadang tidak berjalan sempurna, ada kemungkinan kompos menjadi terlalu kering atau dalam keranjang terdapat banyak belatung. Untuk kompos yang kekeringan, campuran bisa ditambahkan air hingga kelembabannya dianggap pas, sedangkan apabila terdapat belatung, campuran harus ditambahkan sekam.
3. Ekosemen dari Sampah Sebagai Alternatif Menguntungkan Bagi Masyarakat dan Pemerintah
Istilah ekosemen berasal dari kata “ekologi” dan “semen”. Diawali penelitian di tahun 1992, para peneliti Jepang telah mempelajari kemungkinan memprosesan abu hasil pembakaran sampah dan endapan air kotor untuk dijadikan bahan pembuat semen. Dari hasil penelitian tersebut diketahui bahwa abu hasil pembakaran sampah mengandung unsur yg sama dengan bahan dasar semen pada umumnya. Pada tahun 1993, proyek itu dibiayai oleh Kementrian Perdagangan Internasional dan Industri Jepang. Tahun 2001, pabrik pertama di dunia yang mengubah sampah menjadi semen resmi beroperasi di Chiba. Pabrik tersebut mampu memproduksi ekosemen sebanyak 110,000 ton/tahunnya. Sampah yang diubah menjadi abu yang kemudian diolah menjadi semen mencapai 62,000 ton/tahun sedangkan endapan air kotor dan residu abu industri yang diolah mencapai 28,000 ton/tahun. Abu dan endapan air kotor mengandung senyawa-senyawa yang diperlukan dalam pembentukan semen konvensional, yaitu senyawa-senyawa oksida seperti CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, dan Fe2O3. Karena itu, abu insinerasi dapat difungsikan sebagai pengganti tanah liat yang digunakan pada pembuatan semen konvensional
Secara umum, prinsip produksi ekosemen pada dasarnya sama dengan prinsip pembuatan semen konvensional. Adapun perbedaannya terletak pada proses pembakaran dan pengolahan limbah.
1. Persiapan
Bahan baku (abu insenerasi, endapan air kotor rumah tangga, dan residu abu industri) diproses terlebih dahulu melalui pengeringan, penghancuran, dan pemisahan logam yang masih terkandung pada bahan baku.
2. Penghancuran
Setelah dikeringkan, bahan baku tersebut kemudian dihancurkan pada raw grinder atau drying mill bersamaan dengan batu kapur.
3. Pencampuran
Setelah dikeringkan dan dihancurkan, umpan dimasukkan ke dalam homogenizing tank bersamaan dengan fly ash (abu yang dihasilkan oleh pembangkit listrik tenaga batu bara) dan blast furnace slag (limbah yang dihasilkan industri besi). Penempatan dua homoginezing tank yang diilustrasikan dalam diagram dimaksudkan untuk mencampuran semua secara merata sehingga dapat menghasilkan komposisi yang diinginkan.
4. Pembakaran
Berbeda dengan produksi semen konvensional dimana bahan baku dibakar pada suhu 900oC, pada proses pembuatan ekosemen, bahan baku dimasukkan ke dalam rotary klin dan dibakar pada suhu diatas 1350oC. Dalam rotary kiln, dioksin dan senyawa berbahaya lainnya yang terkandung pada abu insenerasi akan terurai menjadi air dan gas klor sehingga aman bagi lingkungan. Gas yang keluar dari rotary klin kemudian didinginkan secara cepat hingga suhu 200oC untuk mencegah kembali terbentuknya dioksin. Pada proses ini, logam berat yang masih terkandung dipisahkan dan dikumpulkan ke dalam bag filter sebagai debu yang masih mengandung klor. Debu ini kemudian dialirkan ke heavy metal recovery process. Klor yang masih tersisa akan dihilangkan dan menghasilkan sebuah articial ore seperti tembaga dan timbal yang kemurniannya mencapai 35% atau lebih. Proses pembakaran akan menghasilkan clinker (intermediate stage pada industri semen) yang kemudian dikirim ke clinker tank.
5. Penghancuran produk
Campuran gypsum dan clinker dihancurkan dalam finish mill dan kemudian akan dihasilkan ekosemen.
Pengolahan sampah menjadi semen akan menambah metode alternatif pengolahan sampah yang lebih bernilai ekonomis dan biaya pengolahan sampah akan menjadi lebih murah. Sebagai contohnya, di Jepang, biaya pengolahan sampah konvensional sebelum keberadaan teknologi ekosemen ialah sebesar 40,000 yen/ton dan sekarang turun menjadi 39,000 yen/ton.
Selain itu, teknologi ekosemen sangat ramah lingkungan. Pada proses produksi ekosemen, sebagian CaO yang dibutuhkan dapat diperoleh dari abu insenerasi sehingga mengurangi penggunaan batu kapur (CaCO2) yang selama ini merupakan sumber emisi gas CO2 pada industri semen. Atas keberhasilan dalam mengurangi emisi CO2 ini, teknologi ekosemen mendapat penghargaan dari menteri lingkungan Jepang atas peranannya dalam mencegah pemanasan global.
2.5 Peluang di Indonesia
Indonesia merupakan sebuah negara yang belum bisa lepas dari masalah sampah. Mulai dari penolakan warga masyarakat sekitar TPA akibat kepulan asap dan bau yang ditimbulkan oleh pengolahan sampah dengan PLTS hingga kejadian yang tidak pernah dilupakan Tragedi Leuwigajah yang merenggut 24 nyawa tak bersalah.
Sudah banyak upaya yang dilakukan untuk mencari solusi penyelesaian masalah sampah Indonesia termasuk dengan cara mengubah sampah tersebut menjadi sumber energi (methane). Namun, akibat kurangnya prospek dari segi ekonomi, perkembangan proses konversi tersebut dapat dikatakan masih jalan di tempat. Dengan berhasilnya Jepang dalam mengolah sampah menjadi semen, muncul peluang yang besar untuk melakukan hal yang sama di Indonesia. Untuk masalah bahan baku, di Jakarta, sampah domestik yang dihasilkan mencapai lebih dari 6000 ton/hari. Dari segi proses, dapat dikatakan bahwa prinsip pembuatan ekosemen hampir sama dengan pembuatan semen biasa. Apabila Pemerintah dan pihak industri dapat bekerja sama dengan baik, masalah sampah akan teratasi dan pihak industri meningkatkan keuntungan dengan adanya pengurangan penggunaan limestone sebesar 26%.
Satu faktor utama yang menentukan keberhasilan proses pengolahan sampah ialah regulasi pemerintah, khususnya pemerintah kota/daerah, dalam mengelola sampah dengan baik. Salah satu cara yang dapat ditempuh ialah melalui penggalakkan kampanye pemisahan sampah antara sampah organik, sampah anorganik, sampah botol, dan sampah kaleng serta kemudian menjadikannya sebagai kebiasaan warga Indonesia secara luas. Dimulai dari hal sederhana tersebut, peluang pemanfaatan sampah menjadi semen atau produk yang lain dapat dilakukan pihak industri dengan lebih ekonomis.
Kamis, 24 Juni 2010
Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God- John Donne
1. The paradox in the first quatrain is the line 5 “Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new”. The paradox is to exemplify the speaker’s request. He asks God to do these violent actions to “make me new”. How can someone break and burn a person and at the same time make him new?. It seems he has failed in everything he tried because of his sins and wanted God to help him no matter it would be hard and painful. “Three-personed God refers to the Holy Trinity of Christian Religion (Father, Son and the Holy Spirit) and the speaker compared to the person praying.
2. In the second quatrain, the speaker compares himself to “the usurped town” who’s been conquered by another force. The usurper here is the devil or his sin. The speaker wants God to rescue “the town”, but his reason is too weak and has been deceived. His reason fails and even lies to him. It is the weakness. He speaks of the complexities of God and the things about God that can only be believed through faith
3. In the sestet here, the speaker is compared to “bride” because he uses the marriage imagery. God is compared to his love. He wants God to be with him, asking for holy salvation of God, but he is completely engaged to God’s enemy (devil or sin). He wants to come back to God and asks God to break those bonds. In line 12-13, there are lots of contradiction and double meanings. The speaker can't be free unless he is imprisoned and "enthralled" (for being held captive) by God. He can't be chaste unless he is "ravished" (a nicer word for "raped") by God. The speaker is asking for violent intervention from God to wipe him clean, make him new, and set him free in faith. Those interesting words also have another meaning - enthrall and ravish can also refer to powerful feelings of astonishment and joy. Donne's word choice is very deliberate. The speaker believes in a God that is powerful, strong, even violent when needed, but that still causes an enormous sense of wonder in His faithful. Donne mixes passionate mankind relationship with God and physical violence together.
by: Rini
2. In the second quatrain, the speaker compares himself to “the usurped town” who’s been conquered by another force. The usurper here is the devil or his sin. The speaker wants God to rescue “the town”, but his reason is too weak and has been deceived. His reason fails and even lies to him. It is the weakness. He speaks of the complexities of God and the things about God that can only be believed through faith
3. In the sestet here, the speaker is compared to “bride” because he uses the marriage imagery. God is compared to his love. He wants God to be with him, asking for holy salvation of God, but he is completely engaged to God’s enemy (devil or sin). He wants to come back to God and asks God to break those bonds. In line 12-13, there are lots of contradiction and double meanings. The speaker can't be free unless he is imprisoned and "enthralled" (for being held captive) by God. He can't be chaste unless he is "ravished" (a nicer word for "raped") by God. The speaker is asking for violent intervention from God to wipe him clean, make him new, and set him free in faith. Those interesting words also have another meaning - enthrall and ravish can also refer to powerful feelings of astonishment and joy. Donne's word choice is very deliberate. The speaker believes in a God that is powerful, strong, even violent when needed, but that still causes an enormous sense of wonder in His faithful. Donne mixes passionate mankind relationship with God and physical violence together.
by: Rini
Rabu, 23 Juni 2010
INTRODUCTION
Successful academic writing in each discipline is greatly valued as a measure of preparation for professional world after graduation. However, in the contrary, academic writing is also considered as the most challenging task for second language learners. It is because the problems one may face in academic writing in second language are more complicated than skills tasks of other skills (listening, reading, and speaking). In second language writing, the problems are but also caused by the lack of language knowledge. Language is the arch that carries meaning, without knowing how to build the arch nothing can be delivered.
One of the problems that are regarded as the most stressful problem in academic writing for both students and teachers is grammatical errors. Many types of grammatical errors abound in college student writing; therefore, it is a usual but crucial problem. Teachers effort many ways to help the underprepared students to eliminate the grammatical errors in their writing like by giving some correctness, editing, and comments. But, it seemed ineffective due to it would be an extremely time-consuming task. Then, teachers hope that students would read these comments and went back to learn from the correctness. However, the question is, was the time well spent? Was this really effective?
In this case, teachers feel obligated beginning from correcting every sentence-level they see to make an effective program to revitalize students’ capability in producing their paper. There is an answer towards such program. Much research has argued that remedial teaching is benevolent for helping students’ disabilities including becoming effective self-editors and reducing grammatical errors. This program have some and particular steps, methods, alternative actions, special strategies to revitalize students’ writing and help them to get higher achievement. Thus, in this position paper, the writer would like to introduce, analyze, and reflect on such issue, problems and debates in this topic. In other words, responding and examining the position of many authors and researches arguments are the objectives of the writer.
CONTENT
This section elaborates the literatures that are related to the topic of the study. The discussion focuses on several aspects such as Definitions of Grammatical Errors, Some Types of Common Students’ Grammatical Errors, An Overview of Academic Writing, An Overview of Remedial Teaching, and Some findings of the previous studies on Remedial Teaching in Academic Writing.
A. Definitions of Grammatical Errors
Corder (1967) states that making the clear differences between error and mistake is important in order to understand students’ inter-language and their learning process. So, teachers should analyze the errors and its roots to be rectified. The theory of Behaviorism believes that the first language competency will influence the learning process of second language one (psychology as transfer). By that, students are always affected by their first language which make the writing are filled with errors and poor.
According to Brown (2000), a “mistake” belongs to an action of errors which come from stress and doesn’t show in pattern, while “error” is a randomly pattern. Errors can’t be revitalized by mistakes can be by changing the environment of learning. He also argues that “the study of speech of learner is largely the study of errors of learner”. In short, error is regarded as a natural human behavior. Recently, it is also considered as a disease that requires a treatment to solve the failure of competence.
B. Some Types of Common Students’ Grammatical Errors
As James (1998) has pointed out, he identifies errors to Modality, Medium, and Level. Modality occurs when student’s behavior is productive or receptive. Medium shows written or spoken language which is produced by students while Level has three criteria:
1) Substantial errors: misspelling which indicates mechanical errors including punctuation errors.
2) Text errors.
3) Lexical errors that directly different to grammar and cannot be generalized into rules
According to a research of The Grammatical Morphemes Errors produced by the students of English Department, states that the most often error occurs is “addition”. Then “omission, misformation, misordering and blends”. In analyzing and classifying the types of errors, the author of the research used a theory of English Grammatical morphemes related to function words by Lesley Jeffries (2006) and Target Modification Taxonomy by Carl James (1998).
Bryan Clark has also written five grammatical errors that make students dumb to realize us some usual but chronic grammatical errors. In order to build an effective communication from the writing we made, the five mistakes that should be aware:
1. Your Vs you’re
2. It’s Vs Its
3. There Vs Their
4. Affect Vs Effect
5. The dangling participle
It might be exceptional writing because it will damage the writing’s structure and produce misunderstanding.
C. An Overview of Academic Writing
Academic writing is highly different to Senior High School one. However, a good competence in High School writing will be benevolent for students in college writing. (Writing for College).It is a written educational context, made of academic community, and also produced with academic ways. So, what are the ways that make our writing becomes academic? Having a great attention to the lecturer’s guidelines will position students about relevant study and observation required. Next, understanding the aim that the paper will be delivered to those reads or applies the study. It gives the readers a well-informed opinion about a subject.
As Naning Pranoto states in Academic writing Vs Creative Writing, academic writing is a writing activity to meet academic or study’s needs in educational institutions where the writer are studying. The forms of academic writing can be a paper (long essay), paper-works, minithesis to fulfill a partial requirement to bachelor degree, thesis (for getting a higher degree above bachelor one. All of them have the same methodology in the process of writing. The characteristics of academic writing are: a) it is a non-fiction based paper, b) made to academic purposes, c) supported by research and references, d) written in formal style, d) using many terminologies, whereas “Creative Writing” are: a) based on fiction or imagination, b) made for entertainment, c) it is optional whether supported by research and references or not, d) written in informal language.
In Brown (2001), it is said that writing is like swimming. He states that psycholinguistic Eric Lenneberg (1967) once noted in a discussion of “species specific” human behavior that human beings universally learn to walk and to talk, but that swimming and writing are culturally specific, learned behaviors. We learn to swim if there is a body of water available and usually if someone teaches us. As to write, we learn if we belong to a literate society, and usually if someone teaches us. Just like in swimming, there are also non-writers, poor-writers and excellent writers in writing. How good a person can write depends on how good he is in performing every step during the process of writing. Hedge (2000) stated that the process view of writing sees it as thinking, as discovery. Writing is the result of using strategies to manage the composing process, which leads to the development of text.
Writing involves a number of activities: setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selecting appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing it, then revising and editing it. For many second language writers, the process of writing is not easy. Not only they have to think about the content of their writing, they also have to consider the language aspect like vocabulary and proper grammar to use in their writing. The process of writing is not just lengthy it is also very complex job.
The article titled Argument for Implementing Remedial Teaching of Writing Ability to Freshmen of Senior High Schools, Vocational Schools and Five-Year Junior Colleges covers the aspects that beginning from the basic ideals, teaching objectives, principles for implementation to the steps. Firstly, the basic ideals tell the characteristics and importance of writing ability. Those are:
1. Writing ability is the principal idea to meet all the modern life requirements related to proficient and indicating a special extent national’s and education quality.
2. Writing ability is the main qualified tool to express every aspect of subject ideally.
3. Writing ability is the national language teaching in every education level as teacher’s duty.
4. Reading and Writing guidance will develop writing ability.
5. Students’ individual variety is teacher’s important attention.
6. Every education level has different characteristic of writing’s exams nature.
D. An Overview of Remedial Teaching
The significance of error analysis becomes highly useful due to teachers will get proper information from list of items for constructing remedial teaching. Remedial teaching itself is not a new issue in teaching-learning. It is designed based on the lower-marked students needs using alternative strategies so grammatical errors in students’ writing can be exploited and rectified.
It is a requirement to consider and meet the students’ need, abilities, and weaknesses as the basis of remedial teaching. Implementing remedial teaching also would be effective to solve the problem of students beginning from the root level.
Both students and teachers should aware of the crucial role of remedial teaching to reach a higher achievement. A great attention and hard efforts are demanded to encourage students in increasing their performance. Giving much more chances and practicing a lot are also very useful to help them to be the effective self-editors to errors they produce.
E. Some Findings of the Previous Studies on Remedial Teaching in Academic Writing
Moses (2001) in The Structural Drill in remedial Teaching proposes “the best solution” is to exploit the grammatical errors that often occur, find out alternative tasks, and drill the students in appropriate ways.
To resolve this problem, teachers should be focus on the students who will be given a remedial teaching these steps: 1) Asking the students to repeat the main and important materials by guiding and motivating them to practice a lot, 2) Providing and making other materials which easier also clearer to be understand by the students, 3) Providing more time to discuss and answer the students’ disabilities individually or in a group, 4) Asking the students to try alternative strategies in learning which make them feel comfort, 5) Using some other methods like discussing, doing tasks, models or working in a group. In the end of remedial program, it is aimed that students will get higher achievement in academic writing which are grammatically acceptable and accurate especially filled with minimum success, for example 75% or 80%.
Some steps of developing remedial teaching program which is adopted by M.Enteng titled Langkah Penyusunan Program Remedial suggests teachers to have these sequent planning:
a. Identifying students who will be given remedial program to have more definite data about student’s problem, their weaknesses, and also the factors. The students are required to repeat main materials with teacher’s guidelines and try to get another alternative activity. Basically, problem’s factors can be divided into 2 sides, internal factor like student’s difficulty in learning, and external factor such as negative attitude towards teachers or parents. Thus, each of them has own solution to be solved.
b. Making appropriate alternative action based on characteristic of student’s difficulty.
c. Evaluation of remedial teaching to measure how far remedial program improves student’s achievement and fulfills minimum success level on grammatical correctness. However, diagnosis, prognosis and next remedial teaching will be held if the target failed.
Then, the steps of remedial teaching are making some components:
• The objectives of remedial program.
• Decision of remedial main materials.
• Effective strategies by teachers. These can be tasks given, discussion, working in groups, etc.
• Time, place, and frequency of remedial teaching.
• Medium and tools which are used in the process of remedial teaching.
• Evaluation of remedial teaching success.
• Analysis towards the students’ achievement
.
CLOSING
English is regarded as the most popular foreign language even second language in many countries. In order to be a successful writers, hard efforts and special strategies are required both students and teachers. Due to the fact that academic writing is also considered as the most stressful task, and students’ paper are filled with grammatical errors teachers are obligated to help them rectifying the errors as effective as possible. Many researches have been conducted to find out the success of remedial teaching. As a result, remedial teaching has a high standard of success and proves that students’ grammatical errors can be revitalized. The treatments to grammatical errors made by students probably take many different forms. However, remedial teaching is the most effective and largely applied treatment to rectify the grammatical errors.
By: Rini
Successful academic writing in each discipline is greatly valued as a measure of preparation for professional world after graduation. However, in the contrary, academic writing is also considered as the most challenging task for second language learners. It is because the problems one may face in academic writing in second language are more complicated than skills tasks of other skills (listening, reading, and speaking). In second language writing, the problems are but also caused by the lack of language knowledge. Language is the arch that carries meaning, without knowing how to build the arch nothing can be delivered.
One of the problems that are regarded as the most stressful problem in academic writing for both students and teachers is grammatical errors. Many types of grammatical errors abound in college student writing; therefore, it is a usual but crucial problem. Teachers effort many ways to help the underprepared students to eliminate the grammatical errors in their writing like by giving some correctness, editing, and comments. But, it seemed ineffective due to it would be an extremely time-consuming task. Then, teachers hope that students would read these comments and went back to learn from the correctness. However, the question is, was the time well spent? Was this really effective?
In this case, teachers feel obligated beginning from correcting every sentence-level they see to make an effective program to revitalize students’ capability in producing their paper. There is an answer towards such program. Much research has argued that remedial teaching is benevolent for helping students’ disabilities including becoming effective self-editors and reducing grammatical errors. This program have some and particular steps, methods, alternative actions, special strategies to revitalize students’ writing and help them to get higher achievement. Thus, in this position paper, the writer would like to introduce, analyze, and reflect on such issue, problems and debates in this topic. In other words, responding and examining the position of many authors and researches arguments are the objectives of the writer.
CONTENT
This section elaborates the literatures that are related to the topic of the study. The discussion focuses on several aspects such as Definitions of Grammatical Errors, Some Types of Common Students’ Grammatical Errors, An Overview of Academic Writing, An Overview of Remedial Teaching, and Some findings of the previous studies on Remedial Teaching in Academic Writing.
A. Definitions of Grammatical Errors
Corder (1967) states that making the clear differences between error and mistake is important in order to understand students’ inter-language and their learning process. So, teachers should analyze the errors and its roots to be rectified. The theory of Behaviorism believes that the first language competency will influence the learning process of second language one (psychology as transfer). By that, students are always affected by their first language which make the writing are filled with errors and poor.
According to Brown (2000), a “mistake” belongs to an action of errors which come from stress and doesn’t show in pattern, while “error” is a randomly pattern. Errors can’t be revitalized by mistakes can be by changing the environment of learning. He also argues that “the study of speech of learner is largely the study of errors of learner”. In short, error is regarded as a natural human behavior. Recently, it is also considered as a disease that requires a treatment to solve the failure of competence.
B. Some Types of Common Students’ Grammatical Errors
As James (1998) has pointed out, he identifies errors to Modality, Medium, and Level. Modality occurs when student’s behavior is productive or receptive. Medium shows written or spoken language which is produced by students while Level has three criteria:
1) Substantial errors: misspelling which indicates mechanical errors including punctuation errors.
2) Text errors.
3) Lexical errors that directly different to grammar and cannot be generalized into rules
According to a research of The Grammatical Morphemes Errors produced by the students of English Department, states that the most often error occurs is “addition”. Then “omission, misformation, misordering and blends”. In analyzing and classifying the types of errors, the author of the research used a theory of English Grammatical morphemes related to function words by Lesley Jeffries (2006) and Target Modification Taxonomy by Carl James (1998).
Bryan Clark has also written five grammatical errors that make students dumb to realize us some usual but chronic grammatical errors. In order to build an effective communication from the writing we made, the five mistakes that should be aware:
1. Your Vs you’re
2. It’s Vs Its
3. There Vs Their
4. Affect Vs Effect
5. The dangling participle
It might be exceptional writing because it will damage the writing’s structure and produce misunderstanding.
C. An Overview of Academic Writing
Academic writing is highly different to Senior High School one. However, a good competence in High School writing will be benevolent for students in college writing. (Writing for College).It is a written educational context, made of academic community, and also produced with academic ways. So, what are the ways that make our writing becomes academic? Having a great attention to the lecturer’s guidelines will position students about relevant study and observation required. Next, understanding the aim that the paper will be delivered to those reads or applies the study. It gives the readers a well-informed opinion about a subject.
As Naning Pranoto states in Academic writing Vs Creative Writing, academic writing is a writing activity to meet academic or study’s needs in educational institutions where the writer are studying. The forms of academic writing can be a paper (long essay), paper-works, minithesis to fulfill a partial requirement to bachelor degree, thesis (for getting a higher degree above bachelor one. All of them have the same methodology in the process of writing. The characteristics of academic writing are: a) it is a non-fiction based paper, b) made to academic purposes, c) supported by research and references, d) written in formal style, d) using many terminologies, whereas “Creative Writing” are: a) based on fiction or imagination, b) made for entertainment, c) it is optional whether supported by research and references or not, d) written in informal language.
In Brown (2001), it is said that writing is like swimming. He states that psycholinguistic Eric Lenneberg (1967) once noted in a discussion of “species specific” human behavior that human beings universally learn to walk and to talk, but that swimming and writing are culturally specific, learned behaviors. We learn to swim if there is a body of water available and usually if someone teaches us. As to write, we learn if we belong to a literate society, and usually if someone teaches us. Just like in swimming, there are also non-writers, poor-writers and excellent writers in writing. How good a person can write depends on how good he is in performing every step during the process of writing. Hedge (2000) stated that the process view of writing sees it as thinking, as discovery. Writing is the result of using strategies to manage the composing process, which leads to the development of text.
Writing involves a number of activities: setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selecting appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing it, then revising and editing it. For many second language writers, the process of writing is not easy. Not only they have to think about the content of their writing, they also have to consider the language aspect like vocabulary and proper grammar to use in their writing. The process of writing is not just lengthy it is also very complex job.
The article titled Argument for Implementing Remedial Teaching of Writing Ability to Freshmen of Senior High Schools, Vocational Schools and Five-Year Junior Colleges covers the aspects that beginning from the basic ideals, teaching objectives, principles for implementation to the steps. Firstly, the basic ideals tell the characteristics and importance of writing ability. Those are:
1. Writing ability is the principal idea to meet all the modern life requirements related to proficient and indicating a special extent national’s and education quality.
2. Writing ability is the main qualified tool to express every aspect of subject ideally.
3. Writing ability is the national language teaching in every education level as teacher’s duty.
4. Reading and Writing guidance will develop writing ability.
5. Students’ individual variety is teacher’s important attention.
6. Every education level has different characteristic of writing’s exams nature.
D. An Overview of Remedial Teaching
The significance of error analysis becomes highly useful due to teachers will get proper information from list of items for constructing remedial teaching. Remedial teaching itself is not a new issue in teaching-learning. It is designed based on the lower-marked students needs using alternative strategies so grammatical errors in students’ writing can be exploited and rectified.
It is a requirement to consider and meet the students’ need, abilities, and weaknesses as the basis of remedial teaching. Implementing remedial teaching also would be effective to solve the problem of students beginning from the root level.
Both students and teachers should aware of the crucial role of remedial teaching to reach a higher achievement. A great attention and hard efforts are demanded to encourage students in increasing their performance. Giving much more chances and practicing a lot are also very useful to help them to be the effective self-editors to errors they produce.
E. Some Findings of the Previous Studies on Remedial Teaching in Academic Writing
Moses (2001) in The Structural Drill in remedial Teaching proposes “the best solution” is to exploit the grammatical errors that often occur, find out alternative tasks, and drill the students in appropriate ways.
To resolve this problem, teachers should be focus on the students who will be given a remedial teaching these steps: 1) Asking the students to repeat the main and important materials by guiding and motivating them to practice a lot, 2) Providing and making other materials which easier also clearer to be understand by the students, 3) Providing more time to discuss and answer the students’ disabilities individually or in a group, 4) Asking the students to try alternative strategies in learning which make them feel comfort, 5) Using some other methods like discussing, doing tasks, models or working in a group. In the end of remedial program, it is aimed that students will get higher achievement in academic writing which are grammatically acceptable and accurate especially filled with minimum success, for example 75% or 80%.
Some steps of developing remedial teaching program which is adopted by M.Enteng titled Langkah Penyusunan Program Remedial suggests teachers to have these sequent planning:
a. Identifying students who will be given remedial program to have more definite data about student’s problem, their weaknesses, and also the factors. The students are required to repeat main materials with teacher’s guidelines and try to get another alternative activity. Basically, problem’s factors can be divided into 2 sides, internal factor like student’s difficulty in learning, and external factor such as negative attitude towards teachers or parents. Thus, each of them has own solution to be solved.
b. Making appropriate alternative action based on characteristic of student’s difficulty.
c. Evaluation of remedial teaching to measure how far remedial program improves student’s achievement and fulfills minimum success level on grammatical correctness. However, diagnosis, prognosis and next remedial teaching will be held if the target failed.
Then, the steps of remedial teaching are making some components:
• The objectives of remedial program.
• Decision of remedial main materials.
• Effective strategies by teachers. These can be tasks given, discussion, working in groups, etc.
• Time, place, and frequency of remedial teaching.
• Medium and tools which are used in the process of remedial teaching.
• Evaluation of remedial teaching success.
• Analysis towards the students’ achievement
.
CLOSING
English is regarded as the most popular foreign language even second language in many countries. In order to be a successful writers, hard efforts and special strategies are required both students and teachers. Due to the fact that academic writing is also considered as the most stressful task, and students’ paper are filled with grammatical errors teachers are obligated to help them rectifying the errors as effective as possible. Many researches have been conducted to find out the success of remedial teaching. As a result, remedial teaching has a high standard of success and proves that students’ grammatical errors can be revitalized. The treatments to grammatical errors made by students probably take many different forms. However, remedial teaching is the most effective and largely applied treatment to rectify the grammatical errors.
By: Rini
WRITING IN PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS
Most of students are not practiced to write. Usually, when we were in elementary school learned to write, the main skill just how to organize letter by letter becomes a word which has a meaning. We seldom to practice writing application to share our ideas, feelings, story, etc. Most of us define writing is something boring and difficult. Many arguments appear that writing is not difficult at all. There is also an opinion that our ideas will flow and come out easily. Is it true?
The inspiration can be gained from everywhere, our environment or personal experiences. Often, it depends on the skills of writer to manage words impressively. The sensitivity of writers requires in paying attention to all around of them. The empathy is a keyword that not all of people can get inspiration. Professional writers get brilliant inspiration from finding process, thinking a topic deeply and involving imagination and full emotion.
Writing in Professional contexts is one of Skill Courses in English Education Department. Students get this course in second semester. It has 2 credits hours. This course consists of 1) English writing capability with good and acceptable grammatical structure and vocabularies in professional career contexts as an English teacher also developing main ideas become the coherent essay. 2) Understanding of writing in workplace contexts by practicing to write expository and persuasive to inform and petition. 3) Developing an accurate awareness of information and petition when produce a writing for student’s profession. Some of the activities are practical training of writing criticism, various kinds of texts (procedure, exposition, argumentative, explanation, narrative) and some works of literature like poetry and short stories. Students’ writing is discussed with peer editing and tutorial by Lecturer.
Professional writing has a connection with rhetorical general idea. Rhetoric itself intended to influence someone or the readers by using words impressively. In addition, someone who professional in writing should has a lot of knowledge and capability at writing.
If someone has no planning to be a good writer as her or his profession in the future, they should still prepare for the unpredictable writing for his career. Any professional careers will require some works of writing, so an experience in professional writing will be useful for student.
Professional writers are surely creditable in the work circumstances for their much ability such as creativity, well-communicated skills, mastering technology changes and other social skills. Professional writers are required to have exceptional focusing in precise writing skills to prepare them in workplace in any job.
Professional writing joins liberal and professional education with a firm principal of rhetoric. It gives career orientation and particularly planned to prepare students to get good profession. This course is designed to improve writing capability that requires in facing workplace. Writers have to both high writing skills and knowledge.
By: Rini
The inspiration can be gained from everywhere, our environment or personal experiences. Often, it depends on the skills of writer to manage words impressively. The sensitivity of writers requires in paying attention to all around of them. The empathy is a keyword that not all of people can get inspiration. Professional writers get brilliant inspiration from finding process, thinking a topic deeply and involving imagination and full emotion.
Writing in Professional contexts is one of Skill Courses in English Education Department. Students get this course in second semester. It has 2 credits hours. This course consists of 1) English writing capability with good and acceptable grammatical structure and vocabularies in professional career contexts as an English teacher also developing main ideas become the coherent essay. 2) Understanding of writing in workplace contexts by practicing to write expository and persuasive to inform and petition. 3) Developing an accurate awareness of information and petition when produce a writing for student’s profession. Some of the activities are practical training of writing criticism, various kinds of texts (procedure, exposition, argumentative, explanation, narrative) and some works of literature like poetry and short stories. Students’ writing is discussed with peer editing and tutorial by Lecturer.
Professional writing has a connection with rhetorical general idea. Rhetoric itself intended to influence someone or the readers by using words impressively. In addition, someone who professional in writing should has a lot of knowledge and capability at writing.
If someone has no planning to be a good writer as her or his profession in the future, they should still prepare for the unpredictable writing for his career. Any professional careers will require some works of writing, so an experience in professional writing will be useful for student.
Professional writers are surely creditable in the work circumstances for their much ability such as creativity, well-communicated skills, mastering technology changes and other social skills. Professional writers are required to have exceptional focusing in precise writing skills to prepare them in workplace in any job.
Professional writing joins liberal and professional education with a firm principal of rhetoric. It gives career orientation and particularly planned to prepare students to get good profession. This course is designed to improve writing capability that requires in facing workplace. Writers have to both high writing skills and knowledge.
By: Rini
Effectiveness of a Remedial Teaching on Grammatical Errors in Academic Writing
Grammatical errors swell in college student writing, and when student papers are full of errors, many teachers feel obligated to correct every sentence-level errors they see and make an effective remedial program to revitalize student’s capability in producing their papers.
This research is aimed to find out types of errors and gain more definitive model of students and their problems in producing academic writing, their flaws, and the factors of their grammatical error. The method of research will be began with identifying the problem, deciding the variables of research, collecting data with questionnaire, interview, observation, and collecting students’ writing as the samples.
The hypothesis of this research is remedial teaching is an appropriate and widely used treatment to rectify the grammatical errors in order students will get higher achievement in academic writing which are grammatically acceptable and accurate especially filled with a minimum success, for example 75% or 80%.
Key words: Grammatical errors, academic writing, remedial program, achievement.
By: Rini
This research is aimed to find out types of errors and gain more definitive model of students and their problems in producing academic writing, their flaws, and the factors of their grammatical error. The method of research will be began with identifying the problem, deciding the variables of research, collecting data with questionnaire, interview, observation, and collecting students’ writing as the samples.
The hypothesis of this research is remedial teaching is an appropriate and widely used treatment to rectify the grammatical errors in order students will get higher achievement in academic writing which are grammatically acceptable and accurate especially filled with a minimum success, for example 75% or 80%.
Key words: Grammatical errors, academic writing, remedial program, achievement.
By: Rini
THE COMPARISON BETWEEN WRITING for GENERAL COMMUNICATION and WRITING IN PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS
The skill of writing is very important for the students of Language and Literature. In addition, English is the most global spoken language or an international language in this time. To develop student’s writing skill, English Department has two basic courses with different characteristics but complete each other.
Writing for General contexts is one of skill courses which are aimed to give a good and acceptable English writing basic knowledge. Students of English department get this course in the first semester contains 2 credit hours. After considering the function, this course gives the students : a) Writing skill include general English grammar, some steps of writing begin from finding the idea until editing process, developing a topic becomes a coherent paragraph also practicing to write; b) Recognizing and writing many works of writing genres, especially exposition, narration, and description; c) Developing the positive attitude of writing by a freedom to write many topics which are familiar with student’s daily life such as a profile, biography, decrypting a place until sharing arguments with a peer editing and getting a feedback.
To get those aims above, learning activity applies expository approaches, collaborative writing in a group discussion, and individual participation. Upon the completion of this course, students are be able to 1) Have a basic skill to write in English that good and acceptable; 2) Understand many genres of writing, especially description, narration, exposition also make a short writing on that genre; 3) Have a confidence in starting to write in English for some general themes.
In other side, Writing in Professional contexts is one of Skill Courses in English Education Department. Students get this course in second semester. It has 2 credits hours. This course consists of 1) English writing capability with good and acceptable grammatical structure and vocabularies in professional career contexts as an English teacher also developing main ideas become the coherent essay. 2) Understanding of writing in workplace contexts by practicing to write expository and persuasive to inform and petition. 3) Developing an accurate awareness of information and petition when produce a writing for student’s profession. Some of the activities are practical training of writing criticism, various kinds of texts (procedure, exposition, argumentative, explanation, narrative) and some works of literature like poetry and short stories.
By: Rini
Writing for General contexts is one of skill courses which are aimed to give a good and acceptable English writing basic knowledge. Students of English department get this course in the first semester contains 2 credit hours. After considering the function, this course gives the students : a) Writing skill include general English grammar, some steps of writing begin from finding the idea until editing process, developing a topic becomes a coherent paragraph also practicing to write; b) Recognizing and writing many works of writing genres, especially exposition, narration, and description; c) Developing the positive attitude of writing by a freedom to write many topics which are familiar with student’s daily life such as a profile, biography, decrypting a place until sharing arguments with a peer editing and getting a feedback.
To get those aims above, learning activity applies expository approaches, collaborative writing in a group discussion, and individual participation. Upon the completion of this course, students are be able to 1) Have a basic skill to write in English that good and acceptable; 2) Understand many genres of writing, especially description, narration, exposition also make a short writing on that genre; 3) Have a confidence in starting to write in English for some general themes.
In other side, Writing in Professional contexts is one of Skill Courses in English Education Department. Students get this course in second semester. It has 2 credits hours. This course consists of 1) English writing capability with good and acceptable grammatical structure and vocabularies in professional career contexts as an English teacher also developing main ideas become the coherent essay. 2) Understanding of writing in workplace contexts by practicing to write expository and persuasive to inform and petition. 3) Developing an accurate awareness of information and petition when produce a writing for student’s profession. Some of the activities are practical training of writing criticism, various kinds of texts (procedure, exposition, argumentative, explanation, narrative) and some works of literature like poetry and short stories.
By: Rini
Song of The Barren Orang Tree
Song of the Barren Orange Tree
Wood cutter,
Cut my shadow from me
Free me from the torment
Of seeing myself without fruits
Why I was born among mirrors?
The day walks in circles around me
And the night copies me
In all its stars
I want to live without seeing
Myself,
And I will dream that ants
And thistle burrs are my
Leaves and bird
Wood cutter,
Cut my shadow from me
Free me from the torment
Of seeing myself without fruit.
The Analysis
One of literary works which takes note of the beauty is Poem. It is a written work as the result of author’s reflection of a situation or event which is examined, comprehend fully or experienced by her/him. In a poem, every word or sentence is selected carefully. Often, the game of sound decorates a poem. In addition, the composition of words makes the poem seems beautiful and enjoyable.
The ideas come from a situation made by an author into the dense and beautiful language. And then, the reader feels it as a written work containing the beauty and messages. A poem can be enjoyed by reader or listener. We can find the attractive points and the messages of a poem.
Every poem will bring an impression to the reader. That impression is a feeling of pleasant by the series of words that really touches heart deeply or seizing the moral values in the poem. The impression can be contrary, when the reader couldn’t find something beautiful or the messages. Both of them are valid to everyone due to someone’s interest.
The poem titled Song of the Barren Orange Tree by an unknown author is a kind of modern poem because it has no certain rules like particular form of rhyme. The theme is about sadness. It is shown by the feeling of the Orange Tree that it is a useless and barren tree. It cannot be a healthy and fertile tree, producing fruits like the other orange tree around it. It shows the curiosity why the tree has a poor condition and its wishes to be free from the sorrow. It gives up with all of the torment. The only decorations of the tree are ants and thistle burrs and it wishes that they are its leaves and birds. The tree just wants the woodcutter to cut its shadow so it can not see itself without any fruit.
Based on the sadness theme, we can see that this poem has flat and down tones. The moral values or messages from this poem are: Don’t be desperate with all of the flaws in our life. Every creature in this world is made with each unique and must be benefit for itself or its environment. We must believe that we are made with certain purposes so we have to find what we can do to make us useful for other people and environment.
By: Rini
Wood cutter,
Cut my shadow from me
Free me from the torment
Of seeing myself without fruits
Why I was born among mirrors?
The day walks in circles around me
And the night copies me
In all its stars
I want to live without seeing
Myself,
And I will dream that ants
And thistle burrs are my
Leaves and bird
Wood cutter,
Cut my shadow from me
Free me from the torment
Of seeing myself without fruit.
The Analysis
One of literary works which takes note of the beauty is Poem. It is a written work as the result of author’s reflection of a situation or event which is examined, comprehend fully or experienced by her/him. In a poem, every word or sentence is selected carefully. Often, the game of sound decorates a poem. In addition, the composition of words makes the poem seems beautiful and enjoyable.
The ideas come from a situation made by an author into the dense and beautiful language. And then, the reader feels it as a written work containing the beauty and messages. A poem can be enjoyed by reader or listener. We can find the attractive points and the messages of a poem.
Every poem will bring an impression to the reader. That impression is a feeling of pleasant by the series of words that really touches heart deeply or seizing the moral values in the poem. The impression can be contrary, when the reader couldn’t find something beautiful or the messages. Both of them are valid to everyone due to someone’s interest.
The poem titled Song of the Barren Orange Tree by an unknown author is a kind of modern poem because it has no certain rules like particular form of rhyme. The theme is about sadness. It is shown by the feeling of the Orange Tree that it is a useless and barren tree. It cannot be a healthy and fertile tree, producing fruits like the other orange tree around it. It shows the curiosity why the tree has a poor condition and its wishes to be free from the sorrow. It gives up with all of the torment. The only decorations of the tree are ants and thistle burrs and it wishes that they are its leaves and birds. The tree just wants the woodcutter to cut its shadow so it can not see itself without any fruit.
Based on the sadness theme, we can see that this poem has flat and down tones. The moral values or messages from this poem are: Don’t be desperate with all of the flaws in our life. Every creature in this world is made with each unique and must be benefit for itself or its environment. We must believe that we are made with certain purposes so we have to find what we can do to make us useful for other people and environment.
By: Rini
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