Applying Cultural Project Based Learning to Develop Students’ Academic Writing

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado

Writing poses a demanding challenge for many college students due to multiple stages: prewriting, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. This article investigates how cultural project based learning can strengthen students’ academic writing abilities by using culture-related themes such as lifestyle, costume, and custom. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted in an Academic Writing course with 20 fourth-semester students, forming groups to produce essays and compile mini-journals.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

A. Introduction

Academic writing as a demanding skill

Challenges in organizing ideas and motivation

Culture as a suitable topic for academic writing

Project-based learning as a learner-centered approach

Project-based learning characteristics

Dinamika Ilmu P-ISSN: 1411-3031; E-ISSN: 2442-9651 2015, Vol. 15 No. 1 Applying Cultural Project Based Learning to Develop Students’ Academic Writing Lulus Irawati IKIP PGRIMadiun, East Java, Indonesia [lulusirawati@gmail.com](lulusirawati@gmail.com) Abstract Writing is considered to be the most demanding and difficult skill for many college students, since there are some steps to be followed such asprewriting, drafting, editing, revising and publishing. The interesting topic like culture including lifestyle, costume, and custom is necessary to be offered in Academic Writing class. Accordingly, this article aims to elaborate the application of a cultural project based learning to develop students’ ability in academic writing. This descriptive qualitative research was conducted in Academic Writing class consisting of 20 students of the fourth semester. The students were divided into some groups, each consisting of 4-5 people assigned to make a cultural project within 6 weeks, in the form of essay. Each member of the groups has to create his/ her own essay and then compile the essays to be a mini-journal. Therefore, each group has one mini-journal consisting of 4-5 essays. To check the content of mini-journal, the lecturer also asked the groups to present in front of the class to get some suggestions, feedback, or comments. Keywords: culture, project based learning, writing, essay writing. A. Introduction As one of the most popular foreign languages in Indonesia, English has successfully made people interested in learning it deeper from elementary school level to university level. Some university students try hard to practice using it inside or outside the classroom. Formally, their teacher teaches four English skills, such listening, speaking, reading and writing at school or course based on the national curriculum, whereas informally, the students focus only on one skill or two skills, such as listening and speaking. Accordingly, listening and speaking are easy to be learned, since the students can watch and listen to any TV programs in English to improve either their listening or speaking abilities. The next skill, reading can be automatically improved if they are consistent to read any passages in English. Thus, the students seem to set aside the rest of the skill; writing, because they need to equip themselves with some understanding on how to construct words into sentences, paragraphs and essays. For many university students, writing is considered to be the most demanding and difficult skill, since there are some steps to be followed such asprewriting, drafting, editing, revising and publishing (if it is possible) . It shows that writing is a process skill requiring the students to carefully follow the stages above in order to create good paragraphs or essays. The teacher commonly trains them to construct from a paragraph to an essay, for both paragraph and essay have similar organization. In College of Teacher Training and Education“PGRI” at Madiun, East Java (IKIP PGRI Madiun), writing courses are best served in series, from the first semester (Sentence Building ) to the fourth semester (Scientific/ Academic Writing) aiming to comprehensively raise their writing ability. In this respect, a preliminary study was conducted to know what problems the students in writing essays face. By analyzing the students’collection of essays done in the third semester, the researcher found that the students were still difficult in organizing ideas. The contents of writing were unfortunately shallow and less interesting. Further, their teacher also informed that they lacked motivation and seemed difficult to cultivate ideas based on the writing topics putting into an essay. Eventually, they were following the writing courses in series since they were in the first semester. They might only focus and concern on mechanics such as, punctuation, commas, and grammar. In line with the problems, an interesting and pop

FAQs

What writing process stages does the article describe?

The article lists prewriting, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing as the main stages that students must follow to write effectively.

Why is culture proposed in academic writing classes?

Culture is considered a relevant and engaging topic because it reflects everyday life and provides real, meaningful contexts that can stimulate students’ critical thinking.

How is the cultural project based learning activity implemented?

Students work in groups to create cultural projects in the form of essays over six weeks, then compile their essays into mini-journals for review through classroom presentations.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado