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when he or she wants to express the ideas through writing, it is not too difficult
because he or she have the ideas.
I agree that reading is the main stream of a writing ability. A reading activity
can mean thinking. When we read a book or anything, as a matter of fact, we are
thinking. When we see the phenomena happened in our environment, the natural
scenery, or anything, and then we think, we use our mind to think. The product of
thinking process is the ideas expressing.
In this chapter the writers provide the materials and guidance how to practice
writing such as writing a short story, a narrative essay and so on. Anyone who
thinks that writing is valuable may try to write, try to start writing by now and from
whit and never give up.
G. Digging Ethnical Literature Grave
Indonesian country is well known with its cultures and arts. Many foreigners
come to Indonesia because they want to know and to see the beauty of Indonesian
cultures and arts. Unfortunately, as a matter of fact, not all Indonesian people care of
the cultures and arts. Nowadays many people have left behind their cultures.
In this chapter the writers analogize the ethnical literatures have been died
and buried. If we want to make our cultures especially literatures and arts to be
always exist in our life, we have to dig the grave. It is a fact that Indonesian
youngster do not know their ethnical literatures and arts. The youngster may know
western literatures better than the literatures of their own.
Actually there are some matters caused these problems. The first, there is a
less attention from government toward the literature, generally arts. The
governments do not seriously pay more attention in advancing the literature
especially ethnic literature and arts. The second, Educational systems in Indonesia
do not give the students much appreciation to the local arts and literatures. When I
was student at SMU, I got nothing about local arts especially literatures. I agree with
Alwasilah, that at least there are four mistaken in educating local arts and literatures
at school. They are 1) miss perception about arts that is art involves music and
dancing only; 2) the assumption that a language teacher is able to teach literature; 3)

meaning. In this statement the God tells that he is a God who is the most powerful
and the most perfect in everything, even in creating his creation. This condition is
different from a writer praises his or her own writing. I agree with Benjamin
Disraeli, he says that an author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as
a mother who talks about her own children.
That a teacher praises his or her students writing, I think it is in a different
context. In teaching, a teacher must appreciate the masterpiece or the product of
their students. In producing a writing text, the students have passed the long process
that is probably not easy for them. The long process done by students must be
appreciated by the teacher. It is what is called by the process assessment.
What is stressed by the writers as the essence of this chapter is that the
teachers should give feedback to their students. The students will be pleased if the
teacher gives feedback when they make mistakes. This feedback also can be a
motivation for the students to learn from their mistakes. Teacher’s feedback is very
important and needed by the students in the process of teaching and learning since
they can not decide whether what they have done is right or wrong.
I agree with the writers that a teacher must know the strategy how to give
a positive feedback to the students. Sometimes, as a matter of fact that the teachers
do not know how to correct and to give feedback to the students. The most
important of feedback is that it is understood by the students.
J. “Pokoknya EDAN” It’s Crazy..?
The first reading at a glance the title of this chapter, the question in my mind
is “who is crazy?” After continuing my reading I know that EDAN which means
crazy in Javanese language, in this case doesn’t mean crazy but an acronym from
Exposition, Description, Argumentation, and Narration.
In writing, a writer should write based on the readers‘contentment and the
purpose. There are four kinds of writing which have different ways, styles, and
purposes.
An exposition is a kind of writing that its main purpose is to clarify, to
explain, to educate or to evaluate a problem. The characteristic of an exposition is

understand we may make it in long paragraph, etc. To make the coherency among
paragraph, the writers suggest using the transitional words or phrases. These
transitional words or phrases are important especially when the writers want to
move from one topic to another topic. Halliday and Hasan (1976) recommend that
in changing part of sentences by cohesive devices, ellipsis; eliminating a part of a
sentence but the meaning of the sentence is understood; conjunction; the use of
transitional expression to relate sentences, and lexical cohesion; in which the use of
synonym and antonym and other vocabularies to catch the intended meaning
In my opinion this book is important for the students to read. As a matter of
fact, the most difficult in writing is how to develop the coherency among the
paragraph. Many students often can express their ideas, but they find difficulty in
developing the coherency among the paragraph. After reading this chapter we may
know how to develop a paragraph, the method in delivering information, how to
develop the coherency, etc.
L. Portfolio is My Chosen
In this chapter the writers suggest the teachers to consider the process of
learning in assessing or evaluating the students. The failure of last education was
that the teachers only see the product of students without considering the process of
what have been done by the students. In this case, the writers suggest the teachers
choose using portfolio as the solution in teaching.
Lyons (2001) defined the teaching portfolio as a set of accomplishments of
teaching, usually including samples of student work and accompanied by reflective
writing. While there may or may not be a set of specified entries for a teaching
portfolio, it usually is thought of as comprised of a range of evidence of teaching.
For example, there might be a statement of one’s teaching philosophy, a syllabus, a
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video of a class, sample assessments used to determine what students know and
understands, etc. He also explain the value of teaching portfolio: “ if competent
teaching is a complex, uncertain and often messy activity, it could not easily be
documented. Traditional ways of credentialing teachers by grades, courses

inspiration or ideas, research and experience. By these three components of
irex we
can keep our writing to have power and more vitalize.
N. All the Professors are the Same until One of Them Writes a Textbook
In this chapter, the writers see the less number of books published in
Indonesia when it is compared with other countries in the worlds. The balancing
between the number of people and the number of book published is far from ideal.
In this case, Malaysia, our nearest neighbor country is better then Indonesia. By
population of 220 millions, Indonesia can publish books only 2000 to 3000 titles per
year.
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The condition above is not quite comfortable for a big country like
Indonesia. As a student of pos graduate program I feel sad knowing this condition.
However, I don’t think that there are professors can not write. The different between
them may be in the productivity of writing. There are some professors more
productive in writing and others are less productive. This conditions maybe caused
by their involvements in the project of bureaucrat.
In my opinion, there are some problems that cause the less productivity of
professor to write. The first is that the low appreciation to the intellectuals in
Indonesia. One of my professors says that the functional subsidy for the
professionalism of a professor is not well appreciated. Hence many professors earn
money outside the campus. Some of them become consultants in departments or
factories and the others involve in many project of bureaucracy. The second, many
professors have many position in bureaucracy which makes them busy and having
very limited time to write.
Furthermore, writing or publishing books is not only the responsibility of
professors. All intellectuals have the responsibility to socialize and to document
their knowledge. All of us are the same, having the strength and the weakness until
we can give advantages to others.
I