IMPROVING STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING SKILLS IN HORTATORY EXPOSITION TEXT THROUGH PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to improve the students’ critical thinking and writing skills in writing hortatory exposition text by implementing problem-based learning towards senior high school students of SMA N Kesatrian 2 Semarang for grade XI IPS 2 in the academic year of 2022/2023. Classroom Action Research (CAR) was used as a research design in this study. The data was collected using observation, questionnaire, test, and documentation. This study was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consists of planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. Based on the result of the study, there is an improvement in students’ writing skills. The average score of the students’ writing skills before the implementation of problem-based learning was 77.5. At the end of the cycle I, it shows an improvement of the average score of students’ writing skills to 80.9. The students’ writing score also shows a significant increase to the average of 86.1 at the end of cycle II. The improvement was also found in students’ critical thinking ability. During the pre-cycle, the students’ critical thinking score was at an average of 70. At cycle I, it shows an increase up to an average of 71.3 and gets a higher increase at the end of cycle II up to an average of 73.1. In conclusion, there is an improvement in students’ critical thinking and writing skills by applying problem-based learning in writing hortatory exposition text.