Analyzing HOTS Questions of Reading Essay Task in Senior High School English Textbook

Abstract

Reading comprehension task is well-known as a complex task among other skill tasks since its completion needs to master vocabulary as English component; while vocabulary is the most important component to master in learning any languages to be proficient at the whole skills. Furthermore, English textbook especially senior high school must consist of qualified English reading tasks in order to boost students’ english skills by being trained with reading and vocabulary mastery at once. Those facts drove the researcher to do a qualitative research in term of analysis since the researcher just focuses on the English essay reading tasks of senior high school English textbook. This purpose of study is covererd by one research question to fiugure out; “how are Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) questions of essay reading exercises distributed in English SMK/ MAK textbook for X, XI, and XII grades?”. To cover up this question, the researcher selected senior high school English textbook for X, XI, and XII grades by BUMI AKSARA utilizing K13 program to find out how high percentage HOTS questions are distributed within the textbook since HOTS questions could upgrade students’ critical thinking. Analysis steps were sequentially completed started from textbook observation, question selection, data reduction, and finally analyzing the HOTS data collected. From the data analysis, there obtained 9% with 6 HOTS reading essay questions (C4:2, C5:4) in English textbook of X grade, 6% with 7 HOTS reading essay questions (C4:5, C5:2) in English textbook of XI grade, and 10% with 12 HOTS reading essay questions (C5:12) in English textbook of XII grade. This finding shows that LOTS reading essay questions are well-distributed more than HOTS. From those findings can be concluded that, HOTS reading essay questions are distributed less than LOTS. These factual results recommend all English teachers to be selective in utilizing English textbook due to improving students’ critical thoughts. Also, the researcher suggests the further researcher to investigate HOTS effects on students’ achievement.