Enhancing Students Writing Performance Through POW+TREE Strategy

This research aims to find out whether or not the use of POW+TREE technique is enhance the students’ writing argumentative paragraphs. This research apply preexperimental research. The population of this research is the sixth semesters of English Education Language Study Program of Universitas Cokroaminoto Palopo in academic year 2016/2017. There are 6 classes in the sixth semester of Universitas Cokroaminoto Palopo and the researcher use simple random sampling to take the sample and the total sample is 20 students. Based on the data that shows as the pretest mean score is 35.90 and the mean score of posttest is 58.50. So the result of this research shows that the used of POW+TREE technique in teaching writing argumentative paragraph is able to enhance the students’ ability in writing argumentative paragraphs.


Introduction
Writing involves some language components (spelling, grammar, and vocabulary). Writing is one activity that the students do in almost of their assignment. Through writing assignment, they can express their ideas, tell stories and give information. It is started from pre writing up to editing and it involves some kinds of writing skills or abilities. There are various ways to organize the sentences in a piece of writing. One of them is argumentative paragraphs. Argumentative paragraphs is a paragraphs telling reason, example, and strong evidence and assure. With existence of a this argument paragraphs hence its virgin us assure and influence reader with strong and logical reasons utilize to prove the truth of an opinion of aim based of fact and data.
In fact, students' mastery of English writing is still lack. The students are also difficult to understand and organized English writing. It is the same problem with the students when they try to write they do not know how to write and organize the writing. According Zemach (2006:1). There are many factors that make students writing skill is low. It could be caused by internal factors and external factors. Motivation, interest, and intelligence are the examples of internal factors. Study in school, take course etc., are the examples of external factors. The students often think that English is difficult to learn. They do not understand how to written English very well and how to say the first and arrange the words. In addition, they are afraid of making a mistake in writing English. They always think about structure when they are going to write.
There are many ways to encourage student's interest in writing. One of them is POW+TREE Technique. POW+TREE Technique is one example of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) Method. Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) Method is an instructional approach designed to help students learn, use, and adopt the strategies used by Vol. 1, No. 1, November 2018ISSN 2654 skilled writers. It is an approach that adds the element of self-regulation to strategy instruction for writing. It encourages students to monitor, evaluate, and revise their writing, which in turn reinforces self-regulation skills and independent learning. POW+TREE is one example of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach researched by Karen Harris and Steve Graham. Students are taught how to use self-regulation procedures, self-monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement to manage the writing process. POW+TREE is one SRSD strategy. POW stands for: Pick an idea, organize notes, write and say more. POW is something you should do every time you write it gives you POWer. TREE is used for opinion essays. It stands for: Topic sentence, reasons 3 or more, explain reasons, say more about each reason, ending-wrap it up tight.

POW+TREE Technique
POW+TREE is one example of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach researched by Karen Harris and Steve Graham. Students are taught how to use self-regulation procedures, self-monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement to manage the writing process. POW+TREE is one SRSD strategy. POW stands for pick an idea, organize notes, write and say Moore. POW is something you should do every time you write-it gives you POWer. TREE is used for opinion essays. It stands for topic sentence, reasons-3 or more, explain reasons, say more about each reason, ending-wrap it up tight The Strengths of POW+TREE Technique 1) Easily implemented with no cost or set up 2) Used across content areas 3) Used with any writing program 4) Materials readily available 5) Designed for students with LD and severe learning difficulties. 6) Could be used with older students on an individual basis, with more grade appropriate graphics 7) Adapt stages and components as appropriate for students who need more scaffolding and support 8) Can be used with whole class, small groups &/or 1-on-1 Relevance for Use with Students 1) All students can use and benefit from SRSD strategy 2) Many SWD need more scaffolding and practice in order to write persuasive/opinion essays.
3) Students develop goal-setting, self-monitoring, self-instruction and self-regulation skills 4) Writing arguments to support claims using valid reasons and relevant evidence is part of the Common Core Standards beginning in Kindergarten. This strategy teaches students to give at least 3 reasons with supporting evidence. It also teaches students to organize their writing. 5) Students develop a more positive attitude about themselves and writing.

Explicit Instruction POW+TREE (Opinion Essay)
For explanation, modeling, posting, and student use, as applicable. When implementing this strategy, remember to teach the strategy following the 6 attributes of explicit instruction with corrective feedback embedded in all phases of supporting the instruction

Set the Stage
Teacher and students work together to build background knowledge and pre-skills needed to learn the strategy. Discuss what makes a good opinion essay, including the elements found in an opinion essay

Discuss It
Teacher and students discuss the strategy. Teacher provides rationale, explains each step and shares the mnemonics used. Introduce the TREE graphic organizer. The parts of the tree represent the parts of the essay: the topic sentence is like the trunk because all other parts are connected to it. The reasons are the roots because they make the tree strong. The conclusion is the earth because it holds it all together. Introduce the rocket graph which is divided into 5 parts. This will be used to identify which parts of TREE are being used every time students write an essay. Students fill in one section on the rocket for each of the five elements that are evident in the essay.

Model It
Teacher models the self-regulated use of the strategy collaboratively with students. Teacher uses think-aloud as she plans and writes the essay. Students participate by helping teacher plan, making notes on graphic organizer and writing draft. Teacher uses a variety of self-instructions throughout the writing process. Students record self-statements they would use while planning and writing their own essay. Finally, students evaluate the collaborative essay and graph the number of parts on the rocket, to make sure all 5 parts are there (topic sentence, 3 reasons, and conclusion)

Support It (Large Group)
Students have been practicing memorizing the mnemonic and what it stands for from stage 1. Students need to be able to use mnemonic independently without the graphic organizer. Teacher supports strategy use. Research indicates this is the step where students make the biggest jump in performance, but supporting the strategy is still necessary. Students work together with teacher to write an opinion essay. The mnemonic chart and selfstatements are kept out while they work. Essays are evaluated for the five parts and graphs

Support It (Small Group and/or Partnering)
Teacher gradually reduces the amount of support. For each essay written, students evaluate the essay and graph the parts. Students help each other as well as receive h from the teacher. They share their essays and provide feedback to each other. Use of the mnemonic chart, self-statements and graphic organizer are faded during this stage

Support It (Independent Practice)
Students transition to independent practice, writing essays without support from teacher or peers. Teacher provides feedback as needed. Graphing continues for one or two essays, and then students can decide whether or not to continue using the graph. Ideas for transferring this strategy are discussed. Vol. 1, No. 1, November 2018ISSN 2654

Method
The research design is pre-experimental design, where is applying pretest, treatment, and posttest to take the data. The objectives of this research is to find out whether using POW+TREE Strategy enhance the students' ability to write argumentative paragraphs This research takes simple random sampling technique to take the sample and the total of sample is 20 students. The instrument of the research is writing test that is writing argumentative paragraphs. The researcher use SPSS version 20 find the mean score, standard deviation, and test of significance.

Result & Discussion
Collecting the data, the researcher give writing test. The test is held for twice, pretest and posttest. Pretest given before treatment and posttest given after treatment. The findings consisted on the students' score, mean score, and standard deviation and finding out the significance different between the pretest and posttest.  Table 1 shows that from 20 students, there are 8 (40%) students get poor score and 12 (60%) students get very poor score. No one student get excellent, very good, good, average, and fair. Based on the data from students' score who have added by five components in writing, the researcher found that most of the students have low ability in writing or very poor classify.  Table 2 shows that from 20 students, there are 3 (15%) students get very average score, 13 (65%) students get fair score and 4 (20%) students get poor score. No one student get excellent, very good, good and very poor classification. Based on the data from students' score who have added by five components in writing. The researcher found that the students got improvement in writing ability after giving treatment through POW+TREE Technique.

The Rate Percentage of the Students' Capability Based on Content, Organization, Grammar, Vocabulary, and Mechanic in Posttest.
Mean score in pretest was 35.90 with standard deviation 4.02 and the mean score in posttest was 58.50 with standard deviation 4.44. It shows that the mean score of posttest was higher than pretest. Based on the result of data analysis at the finding above, the researcher found that the T-test was 0.00 and α is 0.05, therefore T-test < α (0.00 < 0.05). It proved that the hypothesis (H 0 ) is rejected and hypothesis (H 1 ) is accepted. It means that using POW+TREE technique is effective in enhancing the students' writing argumentative paragraphs. All aspects of the students' activities in percentage reached all criteria effectively. The students could follow the steps of POW+TREE technique to construct their knowledge before they started their writing. It helped the students to produce and organize ideas easily, therefore POW+TREE strategy was an effective strategy because it could minimize the students' difficulties which they faced in writing. In other hand, most of the students gave good responses toward the implementation of POW+TREE strategy. The students felt enthusiastic in learning process. They were also more interested and motivated in writing activities. The use of POW+TREE technique can minimize the students' difficulties in writing, which is writing argumentative paragraphs and can help the teacher in teaching writing.
The result of the t-test, the researcher found that there was a significant difference between the result of pretest and posttest. It could be concluded that the null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected while the alternative hypothesis (H 1 ) was accepted. In other word, teaching argumentative paragraph used POW+TREE technique is effective in enhancing the students' writing ability in writing argumentative paragraphs at second semester of Universitas Cokroaminoto Palopo.

Conclusion
The researcher conclude that the used of POW+TREE technique in teaching writing argumentative paragraph able to enhance the students' ability in writing argumentative paragraphs. It could be proved by the students' result of the mean score in the pretest is 35.90 and the mean score of students in the post test was 58.50. The result in posttest is greater than pretest after giving treatment to the students, and based on the result of data analysis or the finding in chapter IV, the researcher find that the T-test is 0,00 and the α is 0.05, therefore T-test < α (.000 < 0.05). It is proved that the hypothesis (H 0 ) is rejected and hypothesis (H 1 ) is accepted. It means that using POW+TREE technique is effective in stimulating the students' writing argumentative paragraphs.