The Underlying Reasons for Giving Journal Assignments in Academic Reading Class

Abstract

This study attempts to find out and reveal the underlying reasons for giving journal assignments in academic reading class. This study was conducted in the Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana C hristian University, Salatiga. It used qualitative analysis method and the subjects of the study were seven lecturers who ever taught Academic Reading Course in the Faculty of Language and Literature. The data for the study were collected from interviewing, recording the interview and transcribing the recording. The analysis of the data shows that there were six main reasons for giving journal assignments in Academic Reading Class that stated by the lecturers whoever taught in Academic Reading Class. The first main reason is to develop the students‘ critical thinking skills. The second reason is to check the students‘ critical opinion or critical response. The third is to see the way the students work with the skills such as: synthesizing and summarizing. The fourth is to check the students‘ comprehension or understanding about the content of the articles. The fifth is to make the students prepared (read) before class, and the last, is to express feeling and to communicate with the text. Actually, there were three additional underlying reasons for giving journal assignments in Academic Reading Class that stated by the lecturers but in order to make my study more focus, I limited the number of reasons, and I would like not to discuss them in this research study.