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English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) 
Vol. 2, No. 1, 2019, pp. 13-21 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485  

  

A Content Analysis of the Reading Activities in “Bright 

2” an English Textbook for Junior High School Students 

 
1Sucipto Sucipto, 2Septian Dwi Cahyo  

1Central China Normal University  
2Universitas Ahmad Dahlan 

e-mail: sucipto@pbi.uad.ac.id. 

 
Abstract 

This study aimed to analyze the reading activities in “Bright 2”, an English textbook for grade 

VIII students of junior high school in Indonesia, by using Bloom’s revised taxonomy. A 

content analysis was conducted to achieve the research purpose. The findings show that the 

textbook has dominant reading activities especially on the cognitive process of “analyze” and 

“apply” aspects mounting to 27% and 21% respectively out of the total 145 reading activities. 

Meanwhile, the number of the higher and lower cognitive processes in this textbook is 

categorized balanced on the score of 49% of higher order thinking skills and 51% of the lower 

ones. There is a slight difference between the number of higher thinking skills and lower 

thinking skills since most reading activities found are on “analyze” aspect, which belong to 

the higher thinking skills while the second most frequent reading activities are found on 

“apply” aspect, which are lower thinking skills. However, “apply” and “analyze” aspects are 

placed at the 3rd and 4th in the taxonomy, which means that the textbook emphasizes the 

middle cognitive thinking process of Bloom’s revised taxonomy, which is formed by “apply” 

and “analyze” thinking process. 

Keywords: reading activities, EFL textbook, Bloom's revised taxonomy, content analysis 
 

 

How to Cite: Sucipto, S., & Cahyo, S. D. (2019). A content analysis of the reading activities 

in “Bright 2” an English textbook for junior high school students. English Language 

Teaching Educational Journal, 2(1), 13-21. 

  

 

INTRODUCTION 

The most commonly used teaching material is textbooks. As textbooks 

are  developed to implement the curriculum, they will provide structured learning 

objectives, learning activities, learning materials, and learning approaches as 

well so that they will improve students’ thinking structure or cognitive 

achievement. Textbook is very helpful for teachers in conducting the teaching 

and learning process (Wen-Cheng, Chien-Hung, & Chung-Chieh, 2011).  

Indonesia’s current curriculum, Kurikulum 2013 (K13), is intended to 

make Indonesian students be productive, creative, innovative, and effective by 

empowering and integrating attitudes, skills, and knowledge (Departement 

Pendidikan Nasional, 2003). The significant differences of K13 and the previous 

curriculum are: K13 is balancing both hard-skills and soft-skills in the curriculum 

level. Textbooks under this curriculum are developed based on activities for 

middle school, and integrated thematic based ones for the elementary school 

level. In addition, they use a scientific learning approach and employ summative 

and formative assessment (Gunawan and Daud, 2018). 



 

 

 

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The K13 demands the usage of an activities based textbook. The book 

design is intended to allow students to acquire knowledge as they know what, 

why, and how to solve the problems along the activities, thus the received 

information is meaningful for them (Departement Pendidikan Nasional, 2003). 

As English is a compulsory subject in Indonesia, the English textbook 

should also be developed based on the curriculum. The learning of English as a 

foreign language in Indonesia needs a specific context to be meaningful. It also 

needs an activity-based book which can help the process of acquiring English 

inherent with the current curriculum. The activities meant here are the ones which 

provide hands-on experience to students in their process of acquiring knowledge 

and information with direct experience. In addition to providing direct 

experience, the activities are also expected to form a cognitive mindset in the 

students, i.e. activities which provide guidelines in the cognitive development of 

the students. Due to these considerations, activities are central  aspects of a 

textbooks. Activities provided in textbooks are important aspects in developing 

students' thinking skills (Assaly & Igbaria, 2014). Therefore, textbook plays a 

vital role in achieving the curriculum goal, with textbook needed to contribute to 

develop the student’s creative thinking (Fatimah, 2018). 

Boraie (2013) argues that teaching in English classes should focus on 

fostering student thinking as well as language content, outcomes, and learning 

activities. This argument is implemented in K13 in which the learning activities 

are student-centered learning. Consequently,  the textbooks are developed 

applying activity-based not content-based. 

Bright 2 is one among numerous English textbooks which are based on 

curriculum 2013 in the market. It is published by Erlangga which is one of the 

trusted educational textbook publishers in Indonesia. Since it is widely used in 

English language teaching in junior high schools in Indonesia, it is essential to 

analyze the activities in Bright 2 textbook analyzing whether or not the activities 

can develop students’ higher thinking skills. 

As the development of curriculum 2013 is based on Bloom’s revised 

taxonomy, so that this study is aimed to analyze the activities in Bright 2 textbook 

using Bloom’s revised taxonomy.  

 

Reading Activities in Textbooks  

Nordquist (2015) defines reading as the process of extracting meaning 

from a written or printed text. Reading is also a skill of communication. Grabe 

and Stoller (2002) define reading as the ability to draw meaning from the printed 

page and interpret this information appropriately. It is a process of understanding 

the message which is influenced by one’s knowledge. Readers may be told that 

they have read if they are able to comprehend the passage about. Therefore they 

obtain such knowledge or information from it. 

Activities are very significant in controlling learners' thinking. They are 

also essential tools for examining students’ understanding of the learning 

material and assessing what levels of thinking students are using in the learning 

process (Assaly, I., & Igbaria, A. K., 2014). 



ELTEJ  ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ 

 

Sucipto, S., Cahyo, S. D. 

15 

The textbook is commonly used by the teacher in the classroom as 

supporting media in language teaching. Textbooks contain teaching material, 

activities to enhance students’ knowledge, and evaluation. Using a textbook for 

classroom teaching gives a clear view of the teaching objectives, since it is 

developed based on standardized curriculum by government. Textbooks provide 

structuralized teaching materials. Harmer (2001) stated in order to be a success 

in learning English students need to be motivated, be exposed to language, given 

a chance to use the target language as much as possible. English textbooks 

provide learning objectives, teaching materials, language focus, task, activities 

and evaluation which give students familiar with the target language. 

Textbook are wrritten to support the teaching and learning process. 

Cunningsworth (1995) stated textbooks or coursebooks are best seen as a 

resource of achieving objectives that have already been set in terms of learner 

needs. Teachers used materials in many different ways. According to Tomlinson 

(2012), a textbook designed for providing teaching materials of language 

learning course as much as possible so it will be the base of language teaching 

and learning process. Murray and Christison (2011) defined textbooks as all 

types of published materials to give students more opportunities to learn. 

Consequently, the textbook will be designed based on the current implemented 

curriculum in a country. 

Richards (2001) stated textbooks as a commercial textbook,workbook, 

cassettes, CD’s, and teachers’ guide perhaps are the commonest teaching 

material in language teaching. Further, Brown (2001) stated that teachers can 

find learning material clear and most common in a textbook. Thus, the textbook 

will effectively support the teacher and the language learning process since it is 

available in the market and has a lot of varieties. 

Research on EFL/ESL textbooks has been a concern for both 

researchers and teachers. The textbook is not only designed for one-time usage 

or to maintain the sustainability of it but the material should also be contextual 

along the time.  The analysis of the Indonesian textbook comparing K13 and 

previous curriculum (KTSP/ school based curriculum) shows that there are 

significant differences and development on the textbooks’ content (Hanifa, 

2018). Textbooks from the previous curriculum can be adapted for the current 

curriculum by revising the content with contemporary contexts and needs. For 

example, the KTSP textbooks had much more authentic materials while in K13 

have limited authentic materials (Hanifa, 2018). The evaluation and development 

should become a continuous process as well as education. The problem within 

the textbook is not always covering students’ needs, nor does it meet the 

instructor’s needs (Abdelrahman, 2014; Bouzid, 2017; Gulzar & Multan, 2017). 

Therefore teachers need to revisit the textbook to make it suitable for teaching in 

the classroom.  

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy  

Activities in the textbook may direct students to develop creative 

thinking. It is a part of the higher-order thinking skills as stated in Bloom’s 

cognitive taxonomy, which is widely known in education. It is a general 



 

 

 

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taxonomy that describes six levels for examining the fulfillment of the goals of 

learners' cognitive domains: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, 

synthesis, and evaluation. As a result, it has become a tool to deliver learning 

objectives and also analysis for research (Assaly & Igbaria, 2014). Furthermore, 

the taxonomy has been revised by Anderson, Krathwohl, et al., in 2001 

(Krathwohl, 2002). The earlier taxonomy covered a single dimension of 

knowledge and became the base for developing learning evaluations, tests, 

activities, and objectives. However, on the process, the given objectives or 

evaluation are often assessed at the higher level of the taxonomy only and missed 

the intended level. The revised version by Anderson, Krathwohl, et al. changed 

the object-based taxonomy into process-based. Therefore, the terms or names for 

knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation 

aspects are renamed into remember, understand, apply, analyze, create and 

evaluate respectively; from nouns into verbs. The change implicitly stated that 

cognitive was not a product but a process, therefore the new naming used verb. 

Furthermore, the revised taxonomy is also re-arranged the create taxonomy as 

the highest process switching it into “evaluate”. The taxonomy also revamped 

into two dimensions; cognitive process dimension and knowledge dimension. 

Table 1 shows the level of cognitive process dimension level on the bloom’s 

revised taxonomy. 

 

Table 1. Cognitive process dimension level on Bloom’s revised 

taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) 

Cognitive process dimension 

level 

Definition 

Remember Retrieve relevant knowledge from long-

term memory 

Understand Make meaning from instructional 

messages, including oral, written, and 

graphic communication long-term 

memory 

Apply  Do or employ a process in a certain 

situation 

  

Analyze Break materials into parts and determine 

how the parts relate 

Evaluate Make judgments based on criteria and 

standards 

Create Set elements together to form a coherent 

or functional whole; we organize elements 

into a new pattern or structure 

 

Throughout the years, there are a lot of  researches on the EFL textbooks 

which are based on the revised taxonomy. The analysis on textbook evaluation 

questions, testing question, reading comprehension questions, and language 



ELTEJ  ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ 

 

Sucipto, S., Cahyo, S. D. 

17 

activities are analyzed by using the taxonomy to represents the cognitive process 

within the subjects (Abdelrahman, 2014; Assaly & Igbaria, 2014; Ismail & 

Hanim, 2018; Putri & Komariah, 2018; Soleimani & Kheiri, 2016; Tarman & 

Kuran, 2015; Zareian, Davoudi, Heshmatifar, & Rahimi, 2015). 

There are many textbooks in the market that can be used for the teaching 

process, and teachers need to choose which textbook is most suitable to be used 

for the teaching process. However, most teachers are very dependent on the 

textbook. 

This research analyzed Bright 2; An English Course for Junior High 

School Students textbook which is one among numerous K13 based English 

textbooks  in the market. It aimed at analyzing to what extent the textbook 

encourages students to think under Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and 

was done by examining and assessing the total number of the reading activities 

in the intended textbook. As K13 demands the textbook to be based on activities 

to develop the students’ knowledge, therefore, to determine the cognitive process 

level of the activities  in Bright 2 textbook, the analysis of the study was 

conducted based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy (BRT).  

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

This research applied content analysis research type investigating the 

level of the cognitive domains of the reading activities in Bright 2 textbook. 

There were 19 chapters with 145 reading activities in the textbook. These data 

were listed, reviewed and classified based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. In 

addition, an English teacher was invited to conduct the data validation. 

Afterward, the classified data were calculated and compared to identify the 

dominant cognitive process in the activities. 

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

To achieve the objective of the research, the researcher collected and 

analyzed the content of the Bright 2 textbook using Bloom’s Revised Cognitive 

Taxonomy. There were 145 reading activities on the textbook collected from 19 

units. Table 2 describes the frequencies and percentages of each cognitive 

process.  

 

Table 2. Frequencies and percentages of cognitive process 

Cognitive 

process 

Quantity Percentages 

Remember 23 16 % 

Understand 20 14 % 

Apply 30 21 % 

Analyze 39 27 % 

Evaluate 6 4 % 

Create 27 18 % 

Total 145 100 % 



 

 

 

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Table 2 shows the analysis of the reading activities in the textbook based 

on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy classification. The table shows that the most 

dominant cognitive process was the “analyze” process by 27% (39 activities0 

and followed by the “apply” process reaching the percentage of 21% (30 

activities). This “analyze” category included the cognitive processes of 

“differentiating”, “organizing”, and “attributing”. Therefore, objectives 

classified as “analyze” involve learning activities determining the relevant or 

essential pieces of a message (differentiating), how the pieces of a word are 

configured (organizing), and the underlying purpose of the message (attributing) 

(Mayer, 2001). Meanwhile, the least cognitive process on reading activities was 

found at the “evaluate” process. “Evaluate” is one of the complex cognitive 

processes (Raths, James, 2002). Under “evaluate” category, it was found out that 

there were only 6 activities or 4 %. In other words, there were only a few 

activities in the textbook which require students to do evaluation exercises. 

As explained previously, the classification of Bloom’s cognitive process 

is divided into two groups, i.e. higher and lower cognitive process. The higher 

cognitive process includes “analyze”, “evaluate” and “create”, while 

“remember”, “understand” and “apply” are grouped into lower thinking processes 

(Soleimani & Kheiri, 2016). Using this classification, the data analysis shows 

that the number of the higher cognitive process level of reading activities in 

Bright 2 is less compared to the lower level thinking process. The higher 

cognitive process level is 49 % with 72 reading activities while the lower 

cognitive process level is 51 % with 73 reading activities. 

The distribution of the activities between higher and lower cognitive 

processes has almost the same number which represents the balance of both 

cognitive process levels. However, the most dominant cognitive process in the 

textbook is “analyze”’ and ‘”apply”’ with 27% and 21% consecutively which 

represents that the textbook’s intended goal is to develop students’ skills to use 

English concepts appropriately. This is in accordance with the objective that the 

textbook is designed for English foreign learners. 

Considering the results above, it suggested that Bright 2 should be able 

to encourage students to have a higher cognitive process because the higher 

cognitive process will lead the success to achieve the curriculum goal. It’s 

because Bright 2 is designed for the 8 graders of junior high school so the 

researchers think that the introduction to create reading activities is needed to 

develop students' cognitive dimension process into the higher process. Besides, 

the students' success can be identified by classifying and improving their level of 

cognitive development (Ismail & Hanim, 2018). Bloom’s Taxonomy has been 

broadly used as an essential topic for training thinking skills to stimulate higher 

order thinking in education such as analyzing and evaluating rather than other 

skills (Soo, Hasan, Jangga, & Mat, 2015).  

 

CONCLUSION 

The results show that Bright 2; An English Course for Junior High School 

Students textbook emphasizes the middle-lower cognitive process as the majority 



ELTEJ  ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ 

 

Sucipto, S., Cahyo, S. D. 

19 

of the activities are on “apply” and “analyze” cognitive process. However, most 

reading activities appear in “analyze” cognitive process, which belongs to higher 

cognitive process. The reading activities are at the lower thinking process as it 

has 51 % with 73 reading activities.  The higher thinking process has 49 % with 

72 reading activities. There is a slight difference between the number higher 

thinking process and lower thinking process, since most reading activities are on 

“analyze” which belongs to higher thinking process while the second most 

frequent reading activities are “apply”, which belongs to the lower thinking 

process. Meanwhile, “apply” and “analyze” is placed on the 3rd and 4th in the 

taxonomy. Thus, it could be concluded that the textbook emphasizes the middle 

cognitive thinking process of Bloom’s revised taxonomy, which is formed by 

“apply” and “analyze” thinking process. 

 

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