Microsoft Word - 7994 6101 Copyright © 2025 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo IDEAS Journal on Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 13, Number 2, December 2025 pp. 6101 - 6112 Digital Brainstorming with Mentimeter: Enlightening Students’ Paragraph Writing Nurul Puspita1 1 English Education Study Program, UIN Raden Intan Lampung, Lampung nurulpuspita@radenintan.ac.id Received: 2025-09-14 Accepted: 2025-11-04 DOI: 10.24256/ideas.v13i2.7994 Abstract Mentimeter is a digital brainstorming device to enlarge students’ skill in writing opinion paragraph. This research aims to explore the implementation of this device in students’ brainstorming sessions particularly in creating and establishing ideas through pre-writing stage. Therefore, this research also portrays the students’ engagement improvement that caused on their clarity and structure of the writing. Devoting a qualitative research design, data were gathered across observation and documentation from third-semester students of the English Education study program at Uin Raden Intan Lampung. The results expose that Mentimeter meaningfully improved students’ motivation and engagement during brainstorming sessions. Its collaborative and visual features stimulated students to promote ideas more easily and comprehensiveness, which in turn helped them form more focused and comprehensible paragraphs. Students’ writings established clearer topic sentences, well-developed supporting sentences, and enhanced logical flow, signifying that Mentimeter effectively helped idea generation and organization. Although the results are inspiring, the research declares its restrictions in terms of the opportunity of the classroom and its main focus on organization and content, which delays grammar, vocabulary, and stylistic less examined. In brief, the researcher concludes that incorporating digitals device such as Mentimeter in writing classes may efficiently promote students in incapacitating barriers in the pre-writing phase and recommend further research to expand its long-term impact and implementation among different writing genres. Keywords: Brainstorming, Digital Device, Mentimeter, Opinion Paragraph Introduction Paragraph writing is essential skill in educational settings as it fosters a student to increase a clear topic, manage unity and coherence, and connect ideas efficiently. In English writing course, paragraph writing is a study that is trained in Nurul Puspita Digital Brainstorming with Mentimeter: Enlightening Students’ Paragraph Writing 6102 mainly English writing college classes (Rohim, 2018). Grasping paragraph writing is essential for students; for example, it reveals their capability to establish opinions, manage detailed investigation, and convey effectively. Effective paragraphs assist as the structural chunks for essays, reports, and other academic compositions, empowering students to express their thoughts obviously and influentially (Tomczak, 2022). Furthermore, Bartram (2025) explains that academic paragraphs are typically among 200 and 300 words long and must be long enough to encompass all essential material, touching to a new paragraph only after initiating a new idea. It means that in the context of academics, learning paragraph writing is important for the students. They can learn how to arrange their ideas and covey them effectively. Nevertheless, previous research emphasizes determined challenges students face at the initial stages of writing. For instance, Budiana (2023) explains that many students challenge in brainstorming and arranging thoughts for writing contain restricted topic information and less exercise in the practical educational writing process. In addition, students also fight with gist initiation, topic selection, transitions, word choice, referencing, spelling errors, and grammatical inaccuracies (Balida & Alhabsi, 2024). Therefore, outlining and collecting opinions are the hardest stages in the essay writing process for EFL students(Bisriyah, 2022). Another discussions denote that although traditional brainstorming may be effective in creating a large number of thoughts, it frequently reduces short in creating high-quality thoughts matched to other techniques like nominal or electronic brainstorming. Aspects such as production blocking, social loafing, and evaluation apprehension may delay its effectiveness (Nemeth et al., 2004). In summary, students face the difficulties in generating a paragraph, such as elaborating, arranging, and exploring the ideas. They also have limited topic and still use traditional tool to generate a paragraph in academic contexts. To address these challenges, instructors have initiated discovering digital devices for the pre-writing stage. For instance, Subach (2024) expresses that digital technologies and tools occupy an increasingly significant part in our everyday lives, expanding efficiency and efficacy in numerous fields, and confirming a decent human life. Therefore, digital tools in product development have develop increasingly complex, user- friendly, and combined previous in the design process, converting the nature of how things are intended and moving modernization work (Marion & Fixson, 2020). Lately, digital tools have significantly altered education, proposing modern resolutions to improve student employment and result of learning. Among these tools is Mentimeter, an interactional media that permits teachers to generate live polls, quizzes, and brainstorming sessions in real-time. Mohin et al., (2022) adds that Mentimeter is a web-based Clicker, Audience Response System (ARS) or Student Response System (SRS) which permits students to response digital request spending a portable tool. IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 2, December 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 6103 It has the possibility to transmute the classroom setting into an extra cooperative, attractive and comprehensive one. Several researches have investigated the utilize of Mentimeter in writing instruction. As an illustration, Wong & Yunus (2020) mention that Mentimeter is an applicable device to increase students’ writing vocabulary, as exposed by important enhancement in pre- and post-test outcomes and positive feedback from students. This research focuses on examining the effectiveness of Mentimeter through online learning for students writing vocabulary. In addition, Mentimeter may be able to assist students in writing activities, especially descriptive text, by offering features to judge on, retrieving new knowledge, and performing writing descriptively based on images (Chotimah & Cahyani, 2023). At last, the use of Mentimeter expressively increase students' writing ability in virtual learning (Chotimah & Cahyani, 2022). These researchers still use Mentimeter to teach writing, but they use different research methods. Despite the increasing integration of technology in education, many students still expertise obstacles generating and organizing ideas for writing, managing to brief and fractured paragraphs. Traditional brainstorming techniques, though applicable, frequently lack the collaborative and cooperative components desired to fully involve students in the pre-writing process. Therefore, this gap focuses on the need for modern digital devices that promote inspiration and reorganize idea generation. This research aims to investigate the implementation of Mentimeter to brainstorm selected topics maximally for paragraph writing. Explicitly, it pursues to answer the following research question: How does the implementation of Mentimeter influence students’ writing of opinion paragraph? Method This research employs qualitative research. Qualitative research includes interviewing, focus groups, and observation to discover and comprehend participants' perceptions and involvements, with a smaller sample size and ongoing data collection until saturation (Denny & Weckesser, 2022). In this research, the researcher explored in depth about the implementation of Mentimeter that helps students in generating their ideas. One of the topics on generating ideas is about Lampung’s traditional art. It focused on expressing opinion about Lampung traditional dance and music. The most important point is the research was conducted after gaining permission from the study program and course lecturer. In addition, the students were notified about the purpose of the research, their contribution was intentional, and namelessness was preserved by using aliases when displaying data. The population of this research was 3rd-semester students of the English education study program at UIN Raden Intan Lampung who enrolls in paragraph writing class in two meetings. The researcher sorted the subject of the research by Nurul Puspita Digital Brainstorming with Mentimeter: Enlightening Students’ Paragraph Writing 6104 using purposive sampling. Purposive sampling is naturally behaved in qualitative studies and includes carefully choosing subjects based on study purpose, confirming single and fruitful information from each subject (Wu Suen et al. ,2014). It confirms that the sample is truthfully significant to the research aims, focusing on increasing in-depth perceptions rather than simplifying results to a larger population. There are nearly 23 students included in this research sample. Moreover, the researcher would like to portray in-depth regarding to students’ activities in generating ideas by using Mentimeter. Furthermore, the researcher planned the data collection. Observation and documentation are important data collection techniques in this research, proposing complementary understandings into implementing Mentimeter as generating ideas tool. Observation in qualitative research includes observing social interactions in practical settings and recording what people perform, rather than what they admit to do (Denny & Weckesser ,2022b). For instance, observing students through a Mentimeter brainstorming period can expose how they interrelate with the tool, generate ideas, and contribute in group activities. Instead, documentation emphases on assembling concrete materials such as brainstorming productions, writing drafts, or lesson plans. These artifacts offer tangible indication of the writing process, presenting how students advance and establish their ideas over time. In this research, the data of observations and documentation are analyzed using qualitative approaches to identify shapes, subject, and insights related to students' paragraph writing processes. Observational data, such as students’ activities in using Mentimeter and performances, are encrypted and classified to expose tendencies in engagement and idea generation. Documentation, including outputs/students’ brainstorming ideas from Mentimeter sessions and student writing samples, is analyzed to evaluate the growth of ideas and coherence in paragraphs. By combining these analyses, the research purposes to offer a complete thoughtful of how digital brainstorming with Mentimeter improves students' writing skills. Then, for validity and reliability, the researcher used data triangulation by contrasting observation results with the documentation to classify constant patterns. Results The Implementation of Mentimeter in Generating Ideas This part offers the research results and examines their implications. The implementation of the Mentimeter in assisting students’ writing results is described based on numerous data purposes, involving student brainstorming result, students writing, and engagement. IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 2, December 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 6105 Table 1. The Implementation of Mentimeter Steps Explanation Picture Access Mentimeter In this initial stage, the researcher accessed https://www.mentimeter.com/ auth/login and logged in to Mentimeter by using her private email address. Select Feature In the second stage, the researcher was in the homepage. There are several features in homepage. For instance, word cloud, poll, open ended, scales, and ranking. The researcher can start to do in the workspace. In this research, the researcher chose two features. *Word cloud and Poll chosen to gather students’ ideas. Poll Students In the third stage, the researcher started to ask or poll the students (target) by using questions. Then, the students can directly answer the polling or questions in the slides interactively. In this research, the researcher used poll and word cloud to share the questions. *Students responded to guiding questions via mobile devices. Nurul Puspita Digital Brainstorming with Mentimeter: Enlightening Students’ Paragraph Writing 6106 Download & use In last stage, the researcher and students can read the whole answer of the poll (brainstorming words). Therefore, the researcher could download the result of the polling or brainstorming. This result is used as an outline to write a writing paragraph. Thus, the students could start to write their first draft. *Results exported as outline for students’ draft. The students’ engagement In this research, the students are introduced by using Mentimeter in generating ideas. Students actively participated in the brainstorming session as a collaborative aid in generating and sharing ideas. The students are enthusiastic and motivated. Students eagerly typed their reactions into the platform when encouraged with a guiding question, then the results of live pool and word cloud instantly showed on the shared screen. It is supported by Student A ideas “I like grasping everyone’s ideas on the screen, it helps me to elaborate new points”. It means that student A gets valuable ideas to be generated in writing draft. Therefore, students who were more reserved or more talkative were encouraged to participate because anyone could do so anonymously without worrying about critique. Moreover, Students D said that “I am usually afraid to talk, but here I can type my ideas without anxiety”. In real time, students were contrasting, relating, and enhancing their ideas as a result of the visual presentation of varied responses, which stimulated additional analysis. Additionally, Mentimeter’s direct response conveyed about a dynamic environment that encouraged to think critically, work together with colleagues, and enlarge on one another’s ideas, crafting the brainstorming activities more cooperative, comprehensive, and expressive. In this session, 20 out of 23 students participated, generating a participation rate of 86,95%. The following is the students’ engagement photograph in using mentimeter. IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 2, December 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 6107 Figure 1. Students’ Engagement The students’ writing Students’ writing is one of documentation of this research. It showed the result of students’ opinion paragraph. The students started their drafting by looking at the result of brainstorming session in mentimeter. Generally, the students’ writing in opinion paragraph showed that the greatest students can communicate their ideas obviously and offer supporting details to validate their viewpoint. Most of students familiarized their ideas in the topic sentence and expanded with details, illustrations, or descriptions, indicating that they comprehended the essential arrangement of an opinion paragraph effectively. The writing process also discovered development in students’ capability to increase analytical thinking, for example they struggled to estimate topics from dissimilar perceptions, like ecofriendly, social, and particular advantages. Furthermore, there is no significant challenges faced by student in writing opinion paragraph. They have written the paragraph based on the correct formats and contents. Overall, students’ opinion paragraph indicated that students are increasing confidence in expressing and regularly developing their writing fluency. The following is the example of student’ opinion paragraph: Nurul Puspita Digital Brainstorming with Mentimeter: Enlightening Students’ Paragraph Writing 6108 Figure 2. Students’ Opinion Paragraph A detailed analysis of the sample by the students’ A (Figure2) demonstrate a clear viewpoint and comprehensive content, offering numerous details such as avoiding disappearance of traditional arts, teaching students about identity and history, and promoting obligation of local culture. The paragraph is opened by using identifiable topic sentence and continues logically, showing greater unity and coherence. Vocabulary is suitable to the to the topic and the conclusion efficiently paraphrases the main idea. Generally, this writing reproduces improvement in idea generation and organization coherent with the purposes of using Mentimeter in pre-writing phase. Discussion The results of this research demonstrate that the implementation of Mentimeter in the pre-writing phase meaningly increased students’ engagement and writing performance. The students’ engagement percentage was 86.95%, with 20 of the 23 students enthusiastically contributing in the Mentimeter brainstorming sessions. Both talkative and reserved students were stimulated to anonymously promote ideas through the device’s word clouds and live polls, which produced a more diverse and richer pool of material for their opinion paragraph. In addition, documentation of students’ writing revealed clearer topic sentences, more comprehensive supporting details, and improved logical flow. This aligns with Rehema (2024) that brainstorming sessions are able to persuade honest teamwork and collaboration in the classroom, guiding to significant idea production and idea construction. The collective features of Mentimeter stimulated peer communication and idea sharing, causing in more comprehensible and well- structured paragraphs. They are enthusiastic and motivated in using Mentimeter for generating ideas. Moreover, the analysis of student result discovered an IDEAS, Vol. 13, No. 2, December 2025 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 6109 enhancement in the clarity and depth of their writing. Paragraphs become more focused, with clear topic sentences and well-developed supporting details. It means that the use of Mentimeter assist students arrange their writing more efficiently. The tool also offered a visual illustration of ideas, which many students discovered valuable for organizing their ideas rationally. Conversely, after incorporating Mentimeter into the brainstorming session, students created more organized and focused paragraphs. The collaborative features of Mentimeter, like real-time polling and word clouds, simplified effective students and stimulated a cooperative swap of ideas, foremost to richer content development. After implementing involvement writing samples established enhanced clarity, logical flow, and creativity, suggesting that Mentimeter assisted students overwhelmed early obstacles in idea generation and organization. This evaluation emphasizes the efficiency of digital tools like Mentimeter in enlightening main characteristics of the writing process. This result reinforces the process writing approach, which emphasizes to lessens negative writing anxiety, expand language use, and advances students’ confidence in their writing abilities (Park, 2019). There are two essential points found in this research, students’ motivation and classroom atmosphere. It is because the platform provides nameless contribution, similar fewer confident students sensed assists to share opinions. This result reinforced a greater appreciation of cooperation, where students could construct on one another’s contribution without uncertainty. Students were more motivated to enthusiastically contributed in the writing process because of Mentimeter’s well-designed and aesthetically pleasing components, which also enhanced the brainstorming process. Therefore, students approached to view brainstorming constructively as a necessary stage in generating coherent opinion paragraph. According, Aleman-Saravia & Deroncele-Acosta (2021) the TPACK structure efficiently participates technology in teaching learning processes, with teachers playing an important part in determination making and stressing dynamic contribution in training. A number of obstacles occurred during implementation, despite the fact that the results clearly illustrate the advantages of using Mentimeter for brainstorming when arranging opinion paragraphs. Some student’s knowledgeable unsteady internet networks or required consistent devices, which regularly deferred their contribution and condensed the number of participations displayed on screen. Furthermore, although namelessness promoted greater participation, students were less dependable for the capacity of their answers, which regularly resulted in flimsy or monotonous ideas. Mentimeter’s visually tempting elements were useful for organizing ideas, but if they were used excessively, they proceed the risk of creating brainstorming more like a listing assignment rather than promoting further expansion or critical review. These obstacles reveal that, while Mentimeter can increase idea creation, lecturers should expect and handle probable Nurul Puspita Digital Brainstorming with Mentimeter: Enlightening Students’ Paragraph Writing 6110 disadvantages by offering clear directions, presenting procedural assistance, and guiding students to improve and select their ideas after brainstorming. In brief, the implementation of Mentimeter in brainstorming sessions focuses on the wider possible of digital devices in improving the writing process. It has been associated with traditional brainstorming that Mentimeter offered a more comprehensive and autonomous discussion of ideas, where even quitter students could underwrite easily. This encourages the theories of collaborative learning Herrera-Pavo (2021) as it can expand learning processes and offers knowledge structure, but involves cautious preparation, team dynamics, and students’ technology management. It performs that incorporating digital tools can importantly develop critical writing abilities involving coherence, creativity, and clarity, as evidenced by the deeper content advancement gotten in their concluding paragraph. Conclusion It can be inferred from the review of students’ opinion paragraphs gathered from classroom activities that employing Mentimeter as a brainstorming device enhanced students’ writing abilities. Purer topic sentences, clearer supporting sentences, and more reasonably formed idea generation and organization. Word clouds and live polls, two of Mentimeter’s combined features, stimulated dynamic engagement from all students, even those who were characteristically less motivated to speak up. This determines how digital technologies can advance the pre writing period, exclusively by helping with idea creation and arrangement. However, particular inadequacies are also emphasized by this research. Writing abilities amongst students increase in a little period of time and in a constrained classroom setting. Therefore, the research mainly concentrated on the structure and content of paragraphs, rather than systematically investigating other surfaces of writing involving grammar, vocabulary, and stylistic elements. The results should not be inferred to all learning conditions or writing abilities without additional research, even though the results indicate that Mentimeter can meaningfully enlarge students’ writing employment and production. In order to promote perfection, motivation, and collective expansion, lecturers are commended to utilize digital devices like Mentimeter into the writing process in the classroom, mainly during the pre-writing or brainstorming phase. Furthermore, it confirms that brainstorming sessions immediately help following writing process. Lecturers should also promote management on how to apply the ideas created to generate more refined revisions. Then, it is recommended that future research extend its focus on integrating greater and more varied student populations and by observing at Mentimeter’s long-term consequence on students’ writing development in categories other than opinion paragraphs. The impacts of digital brainstorming on other elements of writing quality, like vocabulary practice, rhetorical style, and linguistic accuracy, can also be the topic of future research. 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