TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING THROUGH GUIDING
QUESTIONS TECHNIQUE AT THE SECOND GRADE
OF SMA NEGERI 1 BELITANG
(A Script)
By
AGUSTINA DWI JAYANTI
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
i ABSTRACT
TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING THROUGH GUIDING QUESTIONS TECHNIQUE AT THE SECOND GRADE OF SMA NEGERI 1 BELITANG
By
Agustina Dwi Jayanti
Generally, writing is considered as the most complex skill to achieve because this skill has many crucial aspects such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanic. Therefore, senior high school students are commonly not able to write well. Based on that problem, this research was intended to find out whether or not Guiding Questions technique could be used to increase students’ narrative writing skill and to investigate which aspect of writing increased the most, and to knowstudents’ difficulties in writing.
This research was quantitative research which used One Group Pre-test Post test Design. The population was second grade students of SMA N 1 Belitang and class XI IPS2 consisting of 33 students was chosen randomly as the sample using lottery. The data were collected through pre-test and post test of writing which were analyzed using numerical statistic calculation and t-test.
TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING THROUGH GUIDING
QUESTIONS TECHNIQUE AT THE SECOND GRADE
OF SMA NEGERI 1 BELITANG
By
AGUSTINA DWI JAYANTI
A Script
Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for S-1 Degree
in
The Language and Arts Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
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CURRICULUM VITAE
The writer’s name is Agustina Dwi Jayanti. She was born on August 15th1993 in Tegal Sari, Belitang II, OKU Timur, South Sumatera. She is the second child of Suparman and Wagiyem. She started her study at Elementary School at SD Negeri 520 Tanjung Kemuning from 1998 to 2004 and then continued at SMP Negeri 1 Purwodadi and graduated in 2007. She pursued her study at SMA Negeri 1 Belitang, OKU Timur and graduated in 2010.
viii MOTTO
vii DEDICATION
This script is proudly dedicated to:
My beloved mother and father, Wagiyem and Suparman
My beloved sister and brother, Yuni Purwaningsih and Tri Adi Subangkit My dearest friends, Zakia Permata Sari, Titik Oktavia, and Esy Octa Utami
viii MOTTO
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Praise is merely rendered to Allah SWT for His blessing and mercy so that the writer is able to accomplish this script entitled “Teaching Narrative Writing
Through Guiding Questions Technique at the Second Grade of SMA Negeri 1 Belitang.” This script is submitted as a compulsory fulfillment of the requirements
for S1 degree of English Education Study Program at Teacher Training and Education Faculty, University of Lampung.
Gratitude and honor are addressed to all people and institutions that helped and supported the writer in completing this script. Here, the writer would like to acknowledge her sincere gratefullness and respect to Dr. Muhammad Sukirlan, M.A., as the writer’s first advisor, and Drs. Sudirman M.Pd., as the second
advisor, who gave assistance, guidance, encouragement, and scientific knowledge within the process of accomplishing the script. Her sincerity is due to Prof. Dr. Cucu Sutarsyah, M.A., as the examiner, who gave valuable contribution and suggestion for this script.
The writer also would like to say great thanks and honor to all English Lecturers who have educated and broadened the writer’s knowledge especially about English during studying in this university. Furthermore, the writer wishes to say thanks for Budi Kadaryanto, M.A., as the writer’s academic advisor, who has
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Appreciation is also conveyed to Prioyitno, S.Pd., M.M., as the headmaster of SMA Negeri 1 Belitang, OKU Timur, who had given the permission and opportunity to conduct the research in the school. To Didi Franzhardi, M.Pd., the writer would like to give her thanks for helping and guiding the writer during the research. Next, the writer would like to express her happiness to all her wonderful students, especially class XI IPS 2 of SMA Negeri 1 Belitang, OKU Timur, for their cooperation and participation in the research.
The deepest gratitude is due to her beloved mother, Wagiyem, and her beloved father, Suparman, for their love, care, motivation, and timeless prayers which were definitely the strongest supports for her to finish her study. Her great thank is also given to her only sister and brother, Yuni Purwaningsih and Tri Adi Subangkit, for their love, support, encouragement, and for being great siblings.
The writer also wishes to thank to whole mates in English Education 2010 for helping and inspiring the writer. For the feeling of togetherness and happines all these times, the writer would like to express lot of thanks especially to her dearest friends in English Department 2010, Zakia Permata Sari, Titik Oktavia, and Esy Octa Utami.
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Finally, the writer realizes that this script still has some weaknesses. Therefore, critics and suggestions are invited for its improvement. Hopefully, this script can give benefit to the readers or those who want to carry out further research.
Bandar Lampung, October 2015 The writer
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2.1.2. Aspects of Writing. ... 13
2.2. Narration ... 14
2.3. Paragraph ... 15
2.4. Teaching Writing ... 17
2.5. Guiding Questions Technique ... 18
2.6. Theoretical Assumption ... 21
2.7. Hypotheses ... 21
III. METHODS 3.1. Research Design... 23
3.2. Population and Sample of the Research... 24
3.3. Instruments... 24
3.4. Validity and Reliability... 25
3.4.1. Validity. ... 25
3.4.2. Inter Rater Reliability ... 26
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3.6. Procedure ... 29 3.7. Data Analysis ... 29 IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Result ... 31 4.1.1. The Increase of Students’ Scores in Narrative Writing... 31
4.1.2. The Increase of Students’Score in Each Aspect of Writing .... 38 4.1.3. Students’ Difficulties in Writing ... 39 4.2. Result of Hypothesis Testing ... 42 4.3.Discussion ... 43 V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1. Conclusions ... 52 5.2. Implications... 53 5.3. Suggestions ... 53 REFERENCES
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LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
Table4.1. Students’ average Score of writing for each aspect in pre test... 32
Table 4.2. Students’ average Score of writing for each aspect in post test... 35
Table 4.3. The gain obtained from pre test and post test ... 38
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendices Page
1. Research Schedule ... 57
2. Lesson Plan ... 58
3. ESL Composition Profile ... 67
4. Pre Test ... 70
5. Post Test ... 71
6. Questionnaire ... 72
7. Result of Pre Test ... 73
8. Result of Post Test ... 74
9. Inter Rater Reliability of Pre Test ... 75
10. Inter Rater Reliability of Post Test ... 77
11. Scores of Pre Test in each Aspect ... 79
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendices Page
1. Research Schedule ... 57
2. Lesson Plan ... 58
3. ESL Composition Profile ... 67
4. Pre Test ... 70
5. Post Test ... 71
6. Questionnaire ... 72
7. Result of Pre Test ... 73
8. Result of Post Test ... 74
9. Inter Rater Reliability of Pre Test ... 75
10. Inter Rater Reliability of Post Test ... 77
11. Scores of Pre Test in each Aspect ... 79
12. Scores of Post Test in each Aspect ... 81 13.Students’ Tasks
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LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
Table 4.1. Students’ average Score of writing for each aspect in pre test... 32
Table 4.2. Students’ average Score of writing for each aspect in post test... 35
Table 4.3. The gain obtained from pre test and post test ... 38
I. INTRODUCTION
In order to make comprehensive rationales in this research, this chapter presents background, questions, objectives, uses, scope, and definition of terms.
1.1. Background
English is one of many subjects taught at schools. The goal of teaching English is to make the students able to communicate in English both in spoken and written forms. To achieve the goal, students should learn four language skills i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Among those four skills, the teachers pay the least attention to writing.
It is known that speaking and writing are both considered as productive skills but the teacher seems to make priority on speaking rather than writing. This situation does not support the statement of Geyser (2007:1) who says that writing allows
students sufficient time to process information whereas speaking doesn’t. Writing
is also an avenue for those students who have limited confidence to speak in front of the class. Regarding the fact that the students have personal differences, the
teacher should teach both writing and speaking in balance so that the students’
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The learning process also seems to make priority on other skills and aspects of English such as speaking, listening, reading, vocabulary, and grammar. Although those skills and aspects are also important in learning English, the teacher tends to teach them separately from writing so that in learning process, writing gets the least attention. Therefore, students’ skills in writing are not developed maximally. Consequently, the students’ writing does not develop as expected.
By considering the goal of teaching English and the situation in the field, teacher should also teach writing because it is as important as other skills. The statement is supported by Harmer (1998:79) who states that by far the most important reason for teaching writing, of course, is that it is a basic language skill, just as important as speaking, listening, and reading. The students need to know some of
writing’s special convention (punctuation, paragraph construction etc) just as they
need to know how to pronounce spoken English appropriately.
According to Setiyadi (2007: 7.9), even though writing in the target language may involve the ability to shape the letters of the alphabet and the knowledge of the right combinations of letters, the real writing is the skill in expressing ideas through the written words of the target language, which is called composition. However, writing is a complex skill to be learned. In writing, students have to face many difficulties such as lack of grammar understanding, lack of vocabulary, confused about the content, mechanic, and organization. Those difficulties are related to the aspects of writing.
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different tense which also means different type of verb. In constructing a present sentence, for example the right sentence might be like this, “The children play
badminton in the yard” but there is a possibility that the students have to write it in past tense and they should change the sentence into “The children played
badminton in the yard.” This change might confuse the students since in Bahasa
there is no rule of tense.
Lack of vocabulary is also a common cause of students’ difficulty in writing. The
students sometimes do not know the right word which they need to complete their writing. This case is found in the research conducted by Jamil (2005) where the students were assigned to write a descriptive text about their dream house. One of the students wrote “guest room” instead of “living room”, “eat room” instead of
“dining room”, and “teras” instead of “balcony”. This finding can be considered
as students’ difficulty in terms of vocabulary.
One of the difficulties which is also commonly found is related to the content or ideas about what to write. Since one of the criteria of good paragraphs proposed by Smalley and Ruetten (1986) is about the unity, the students have to think about every idea that might help them to support the main topic. In fact, although they have been given a topic to be developed, it has been difficult for them to gather the ideas of what to write and also what to put and what not to put into the paper.
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The difficulties do not stop there, it also happens that when students have thought about what they want to write, they still do not know how to start it. Then, when they finally had written, it is often found that they can not link the ideas they have got into a coherent paragraph. In other words the students do not know what to write first and what to write last. They still have a problem with the organization of the ideas.
Therefore, after considering the fact in the field, the researcher used guiding questions technique to guide the students in their writing. According to Traver (1998:70), a guiding question is the fundamental query that directs the search for understanding. This technique provides a list of questions that can make the students think about the topic. This technique is expected to give guidance about what should be included in students’ writing.
By using guiding questions technique, the students were not confused of what to write first and next because they have guidance in its process. The researcher specified the type of writing in the form of narrative text because according to 2013 curriculum, students of senior high school, especially second graders, are expected to be able to present information in form of a narrative text. Another reason is that because some previous researches with the same technique were mostly implemented on recount text, so that the researcher was motivated to implement the technique on narrative writing.
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1.2. Questions
Based on the background above, the researcher formulated some research questions as follow:
1) Can guiding questions technique be used to increase senior high schoolstudents’ writing skill?
2) Which aspect of writing increased the most after learning writing through guiding questions technique?
3) What problems do the students face when they are learning writing using guiding questions technique in terms of aspects of writing?
1.3. Objectives
In line with the research questions, the objectives of this research were:
1) To find out if guiding questions technique can be used to increase senior high schoolstudents’ writing skill or not.
2) To find out which aspect of writing increased the most after learning writing through guiding questions technique.
3) To find out the problems the students face when they are learning writing using guiding questions technique in terms of aspects of writing.
1.4. Uses
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1) Theoretical Uses
The results can be used as information to confirm the previous theory about writing and reference for those who want to conduct the research of the same field.
2) Practical Uses
The finding of the research was useful as information for teachers as an alternative technique in teaching narrative writing and also information about the difficulties faced by them in narrative writing.
1.5. Scope
The researcher analyzedthe students’ performance in narrative paragraph writing and their problems after being taught by using guiding questions technique. The researcher focused on the aspects of writing i.e. content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. The technique implemented basic question words 5W+1H (what, why, where, who, when, and how) to help the students develop the topic into good paragraphs. The type of paragraph which was emphasized in this research was narrative paragraph. The research was conducted in SMA Negeri 1 Belitang. The subject was the second graders according to 2013 Curriculum.
1.6. Definition of Terms
In this research, definitions of key terms are provided to guide the readers in reading and get better understanding as follows.
Writing
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of ideas and information; a high degree of accuracy in choosing the right words, and also the right use of complex grammatical devices to focus and emphasize ideas.
Narration
Narration is any written English text in which the writer wants to amuse, entertain people, and to deal with actual or vicarious experience in different ways.
Guiding Questions Technique
Guiding Questions technique is an activity in which the students are given some questions related to the topic so that they can develop the topic to be a good paragraph based on their answers.
Increase
Increase is the different result of pre test and post test scores in which the difference means that the result of post test is higher than the result of pre test.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter provides explanation related to the theories used in this study, such as the theory of writing, narration, paragraph, including the criteria of good para-graph, and narrative writing.
2.1. Writing
Writing is considered as the most difficult skill to be mastered in English. Here, it will be provided some definitions of writing according to experts. Bryne (1979) in Özbek (1995), states that writing is transforming our thoughts into language. It means that when we want to write we think first and then put our thoughts in writ-ten form.
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choice of vocabulary and understand grammatical patterns and to be able to write sentence structures that is appropriate to the subject matter.
Moreover, writing can be somehow easier compared to speaking from learners’
point of view. It is proposed by Harmer (1998: 79) who states that writing can be a quiet reflective activity instead of the rush and bother of interpersonal face-to-face communication. It is because some students are fantastically quick at picking up language just by looking and listening. For many learners, the time to think things through, to produce language in a slower way, is invaluable. Writing is ap-propriate for such learners.
There are four basic modes of writing according to Geyser (2007:18) that are ex-plained as follow:
a. Persuasive Writing
The primary purpose of persuasive writing is to use language in order to influence others to do or believe what the writers want them to. This may be done by providing supporting evidence, appealing to the reader’semotions, using rhetori-cal techniques, repeating for emphasis, using alliteration and so on. Here is an ex-ample of persuasive paragraph:
Immigration
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us in the global marketplace and seek to recruit from a vast pool of unskilled and skilled global workers.
(Source: Learn American English Online) b. Narrative Writing
The primary purpose of narrative writing is to attempt to describe a personal expe-rience or happening in the form of a story. This is concerned with the plot, themes, setting, atmosphere and characters. To make it clear, an example of narrative text is given below:
Queen of Arabia and Three Sheiks
Maura, who liked to be thought of as the most beautiful and powerful queen of Arabia, had many suitors. One by one she discarded them, until her list was reduced to just three sheiks. The three sheiks were all equally young and handsome. They were also rich and strong. It was very hard to decide who would be the best of them.
One evening, Maura disguised herself and went to the camp of the three sheiks. As they were about to have dinner, Maura asked them for something to eat. The first gave her some left over food. The second
Sheik gave her some unappetizing camel’s tail. The third sheik, who was called Hakim, offered her some of the most tender and tasty meat. After dinner, the disguised queen left the sheik’s camp.
The following day, the queen invited the three sheiks to dinner at her palace. She ordered her servant to give each one exactly what they had given her the evening before. Hakim, who received a plate of delicious meat, refused to eat it if the other two sheiks could not share it with him.
This Sheik Hakim’s act finally convinced Queen Maura that he was the man for her. “Without question, Hakim is the most generous of you” she announced her choice to the sheiks. “So it is Hakim I will marry”.
(Source: Media Belajar Bahasa Inggris)
c. Descriptive Writing
effective-11
ly done by referring to the five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Here is an example of descriptive text:
My House
I live in a small house. It has five rooms: there are two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Indeed it is a small house; but I like living in here for wasting my spare time.
When the door is open, I can see the living room. It is so small with only three chairs and a table, nothing else. I prefer reading a novel in this room.
My bedroom is in the left side of the living room. In this room there is a night table next to the bed, a TV, a radio, and a computer. When being bored of reading, I usually play online games, chat with my friends via Facebook and so on.
I know it is a very small house; but it is the best place I have ever seen. (source: Englishindo.com)
d. Expository Writing
The primary purpose of expository writing is to give or provide information in the form of either an explanation or by giving directions. Below is an an example of expository paragraph:
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(source: Reader's DigestComplete Do-it-yourself Manualin Learn American English Online)
From the definition and explanation from the experts above, it can be concluded that writing is transforming ideas into a paper which requires a number of skills and conventions like organization of ideas and information, accuracy in choosing the right words, and the right use of complex grammatical devices.
2.1.1. Process of Writing
In writing, there are some processes involved. According to Reid (1994:30-78), the processes of writing are including pre-writing and drafting, peer feedback, and revision. The explanations are as follow:
1. Pre-Writing and Drafting
“Pre-“ means before; pre-writing means the work done by the writer before the
paragraph is actually written. Pre-writing strategies include the decisions made and the steps taken (whether written or not) before writing a draft of a paragraph. Three major decisions made before beginning:
a. Choose a subject that the writer knows about and are interested in
b. Choose an audience: elementary school children? A university professor? c. Decide on a purpose: what, exactly, do the writers want to communicate?
2. Peer feedback
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them with their peers. Students can ask for their suggestions to improve their par-agraph, and offer suggestions for them.
3. Revision
Successful writing requires many decisions and many steps. One important step is revision: re (again) + vise (look) = look again. Looking again at writing may re-sult in changes that will improve paragraph. Having friends, classmates, or teacher look atstudents’writing may result in good advice that will improve their writing. For these reasons, most experienced writers often write several drafts of a writing task before they are satisfied with their work.
Revision is an important part of learning to write well because it allows writers to a. discover new and better ways to present and support ideas
b. consider and reconsider the purpose and audience for the writing task c. identify strengths and weaknesses in the writing
d. solve problems (organizational, grammatical, mechanical) in the writing
2.1.2. Aspects of Writing
In writing there are some aspects or components to be considered. According to Jacobs et al. (1981) in Reid (1993:235-237), the components of writing are con-tent, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanic.
a. Content
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b. Organization
Organization is the internal structure of a piece of writing, the thread of central meaning, the pattern and sequence, so long as it fits the central idea. It refers to the arrangement of the sentences so that the paragraph can flow smoothly.
The language use refers to the use of grammatical and syntactic pattern on separating, combining, and grouping ideas in words, phrases, clauses, and sentences to bring out logical relationships in paragraph writing.
e. Mechanic
Mechanics refers to all the arbitrary “technical” stuff in writing: spelling,
capitalization, use of numerals and other symbols, etc.
2.2. Narration
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Bushel (2004) as cited in Evita (2011) explains about the definition of narrative paragraph that is a paragraph that describes an event or a series of events, feeling or experience whether real or fictitious in story form or in the order the details of the event happened. In other words, the logical arrangement of ideas or sentences in narrative paragraph writing is chronological based on time order.
Narration usually refers to the telling of a story, the term is used here to describe the relating to an experience. The experience may be in the past (past narration), or it may be a typical experience (what people usually do), or it may be going on now (present narration). Siahaan and Shinoda (2008:73) state that narration is any written English text in which the writer wants to amuse, entertain people, and to deal with actual or vicarious experience in different ways.
Derewianka (1990:40) explains that the term orientiation refers to the introduction part of a narrative where the writer set the background of the story. In the orientation, the writer introduces the characters of the story, gives information about the setting in terms of time and place and creates a particular atmosphere to make the readers interested in the story. Derewianka (1990:42) also states that the term complication refers to the problem that arises in the story and the term resolution refers to the way the problem or the complication is resolved.
2.3. Paragraph
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as a group of sentences and that the first sentence of this group is indented; that is, it begins a little bit more to the right of the margin than the rest of the sentences in this group but it is not enough to say that a paragraph is a group of sentences.
Furthermore, Smalley and Ruetten (1986) propose some criteria that a group of sentences can be called as a good paragraph. Those criteria are explained as fol-lows.
a. The Topic of a Paragraph
To begin with, a paragraph may be defined as a group of sentences that de-velops one main idea; in other words, a paragraph dede-velops a topic. A topic is basically the subject of the paragraph; it is what the paragraph is about. After all, for most practical purposes the paragraphs will range in length from about seven to fifteen sentences.
b. The Topic Sentence
The topic of the paragraph is usually introduced in a sentence; this sentence is called thetopic sentence. The topic sentence can do more than introduce the subject of the paragraph. A good topic sentence states an idea or an attitude about the topic as well. This idea or attitude about the topic is called the
con-trolling idea;it controls what the sentences in the paragraph will discuss. c. Support
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the information used to arrive at the view have been expressed in the topic sentence.
d. Unity
Each sentence in a paragraph should relate to the topic and develop the con-trolling idea. If a sentence does not relate to or develop that idea, it is irrele-vant and should be omitted.
e. Coherence
A coherent paragraph contains sentences that are logically arranged and flow smoothly. Logical arrangement refers to the order of the sentences and ideas. Smooth flow refers to how well one idea or sentence leads into another. It can be achieved through sentence combining and through the use of certain ex-pressions, called transitions, which provides the links between ideas. Some transitional expressions include for example, to begin with, in contrast, how-ever, also, and so on.
2.4. Teaching Writing
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Teaching, according to Amidon (1967), is defined as an interactive process, pri-marily involving class room talk which takes place between teacher and pupil and occurs during certain definable activity.
Based on the statements above, it can be inferred that teaching writing is an interactive process between teacher and pupil to be able to transform their ideas into a paper which requires a number of skills and conventions.
2.5. Guiding Questions Technique
According to Bramer and Sedley (1981:24) asking and then answering questions is a good method to discover details of experience. So, giving questions to the
students is expected to stimulate students’ thoughts and they can compose the
paragraph by answering the questions given to them. So that, the students can write well because they were guided by the questions and this activity is called guided writing. Geyser (2007:16) states that guided writing is an extremely useful way to prepare students for a writing task. Furthermore, Robinson (1967: 2) de-fines guided writing as writing in which one cannot make a serious error so long as he follows directions. The directions are given by giving some questions relat-ed to the topic.
Moreover, Traver (1998:70) stated that a guiding question is the fundamental que-ry that directs the search for understanding. Moreover, he also proposes some characteristics of guiding questions. Knowing their characteristics is an important step toward including them in disciplinary and interdisciplinary curriculums.
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b. Guiding questions are nonjudgmental, but answering them requires high-level cognitive work, such as the development of a rich description, model, evalua-tion, or judgment.
c. Good guiding questions contain emotive force and intellectual bite. d. Guiding questions are succinct.
Below are the examples of guiding questions along with the paragraph might be made of them.
1. Who were the characters? 2. When was the story begun? 3. Where did the story take place? 4. What were the events in the story?
-what happened first? -what happened next? -what happened last? 5. Why did it happen?
6. How did the character(s) feel after that experience? A Bear in Shenandoah National Park
It was nearly dark when my two brothers and I arrived at the Ranger Station in the Shenandoah National Park. As the ranger was issuing us our camping permit, he warned us to be careful of bears. After we had put on our hiking boots and adjusted our backpacks, we set off down the nearest trail with only a flaslight to guide us. While we were tramping through the forest, we heard many strange noises. As soon as we arrived at a small clearing, we began to set up camp. I held up my flashlight while my brothers were setting up the tent. I noticed that the light was getting dimmer and dimmer; apparently the batteries were going dead. Soon, I could hear my brothers snoring and I could see the faint shadows of the forest as the moon began to rise. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a strange scratching noise outside. I
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brothers up. My oldest brother grabbed the flashlight, but the batteries by then had gone dead. Suddenly we heard a loud grunt. Upon hearing this awful sound, we all scrambled out of the tent and took off running as fast as we could, screaming for help. Exhausted, we finally reached our car near the station, jumped in, and took off. We never did return for our gear. In fact, after the scary experience, I have never gone camping again, and I do not think I ever will.
(this narrative paragraph is taken from Refining Composition Skill by Smalley and Ruetten).
The explanation on which sentences answer which questions is explained as following. The question number one about who the characters were is answered in
the first sentence “It was nearly dark when my two brothers and I arrived at the
Ranger Station in the Shenandoah National Park.” This sentence also answers the
second question about when the story was begun and third question about where the story took place. The beginning of the story mostly talks about the setting of the story and the characters.
The third question asks about the events in the story. What the characters did first is answered in the next sentences “As the ranger was issuing us our camping permit, he warned us to be carefulof bears” until the sentence “Soon, I could hear my brothers snoring and I could see the faint shadows of the forest as the moon
began to rise.” This part of paragraphtalks about the opening of the story. It is to catch readers attention and arouse their interest about what will happen next.
The next part of paragraph answers the question about what happened next. The sentence “Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a strange scratching noise
outside” until “Suddenly we heard a loud grunt” are the climax of the story. It is
the main event where the readers know the outcome of the action.
What happened last is answered in the following sentences. “Upon hearing this
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could, screaming for help. Exhausted, we finally reached our car near the station,
jumped in, and took off. We never did return for our gear.”
The characters got that experience because after the ranger had warned them
about the bear, they still did camping instead. It is explained in the sentence “I
suddenly remembered the ranger’s warning about bears”. Actually the whole
paragraph indirectly leads the readers to the answer of the question why it happened to the characters.
The last part of paragraph tells the readers about how the characters felt after
experiencing the situation. It is written that “In fact, after the scary experience, I
have never gone camping again,and I do not think I ever will.”
2.6. Theoretical Assumption
Writing is considered as the most difficult skill in learning English. Therefore, a suitable technique is needed to make the students easier in learning this skill. One of the techniques that can be used to achieve the goal is guiding questions tech-nique. This technique is expected to help the students to generate their ideas by answering some questions and they would feel easier in writing. Therefore, it is assumed that guiding questions technique can be used to increase students’ writ-ing skill in narrative.
2.7. Hypotheses
The hypotheses proposed to be formulated in this research are as follows:
H0 : There is no significant increase of narrative writing achievement
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H1 : There is significant increase of narrative writing achievement of
III. RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter explains about the design of the research, population and sample, instruments, validity and reliability, data collecting technique, procedure, and data analysis.
3.1. Research Design
The purposes of this research were to find out whether guiding questions technique could be used to increase senior high school students’ ability in writing or not, and to be more specific to investigate which aspect of writing increased the most after learning writing using guiding questions technique in narrative paragraph writing. This research was also intended to find out the difficulties they faced in term of aspects of writing namely content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanic. The one group pretest post test design was used in conducting the research in order to answer research questions number 1 and 2. Meanwhile, to answer research questions number 3, a questionnaire was given to the students. The one group pre test post test design can be seen as follows:
T1 X T2 (Setiyadi, 2006:132)
T1 : pre-test
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A quantitative approach was used by using SPSS 16 to analyze the result of
students’pre test and post test and to know whether there was significant increase or not.
3.2. Population and Sample of the Research
The population of the research was all students of second grade of SMA Negeri 1 Belitang of 2014/2015 academic year who were still in their fourth semester. There were 9 classes of second grade and the number of students varied from 32-34 students. Then, one class that was XI IPS2 chosen randomly as the sample of the research using lottery. The students were given treatments for increasing their writing skill especially in narrative paragraph writing using guiding questions technique involving 5W+1H question words.
3.3. Instruments
There were two instruments used in this research namely questionnaire and writing tests.
1. Pre-test
A pre-test was given to the students to find out their current proficiency especially in narrative writing. The test was given before implementing guiding questions technique in the class. The test generally asked the students to write a narration with instructions such as the students should choose one of the topic given, use past tense, and develop the topic into certain number of words. To complete the test, the students were given 90 minutes.
2. Post-test
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to compose a narrative text with from one of the topics given and develop it into certain number of words. Same with the pre-test, the posttest should be done by the students in 90 minutes.
3. Questionnaire
Questionnaire is a set of questions given to a group of people in order to collect data about some topics. Here, it was used to find out the students’ difficulties in learning narrative writing especially after being taught using guiding questions technique. The questions were also related to students’ responses toward the technique after the treatments.
3.4. Validity and Reliability
In order to determine the validity and reliability, the researcher analyzed the data based on content validity and inter rater reliability.
3.4.1. Validity
Validity is the extent to which it measures what it is supposed to measure and nothing else (Heaton, 1988:159). To analyze the validity of the test, the researcher considered it from content validity.
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3.4.2. Inter Rater Reliability
Reliability refers to the consistency of the measure. A test is said to be reliable if its scores remain relatively stable from one administration to another (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:144). Therefore, inter-rater reliability was used to determine the reliability in this research. It refers to the concern that two same marks or grades are awarded if the same test papers are marked by two or more different examiners (Heaton, 1988:162).So, the raters scored students’ works from pretest and post test and then the reliability from each test could be determined. The researcher asked the English subject teacher as another rater toscore the students’ works. Another rater beside the researcher was Didi Franzhardi, M.Pd. who has been teaching English for 15 years and is currently a lecturer in STIT Misbahul Ulum Gumawang and STKIP Nurul Huda. The scoring also used same criteria using ESL Composition Profile by Jacobs et al. (see appendix 3). By using same standard in scoring, it was expected that more reliable result could be achieved.
To determine the reliability, the researcher used the formula of reliability (Harris, 1974:142) as follows.
= 1
.( )
R : Reliability
N : Number of Students
d : The different of rank correlation
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After calculating the reliability, the researcher used the standard of reliability (Arikunto, 1998:260) below to determine the criteria.
The criteria of reliability:
a. Reliability ranges from 0.00 to 0.19 = very low b. Reliability ranges from 0.20 to 0.39 = low c. Reliability ranges from 0.40 to 0.59 = medium d. Reliability ranges from 0.60 to 0.79 = high e. Reliability ranges from 0.80 to 1.00 = very high
The calculations to determine the reliability of pre test and post test can be seen in appendix 9 and 10. The result for pre test is 0.92 and for post test is 0.93 which are both considered very high.
3.5. Data Collecting Technique
To collect the data, the researcher used writing tests and questionnaire. The
writing tests were used for collecting data on students’ ability in narrative writing
to answer research questions number 1 and 2 while questionnaire was used for
collecting data on students’ difficulties in narrative writing to answer research questions number 3. The explanations are as follows:
1. Pre test
In order to know the students’ initial ability in writing before being given treatments, the students were given a writing test of composing narrative paragraph. Below are instructions for pre test along with the topics to be developed by the students (for complete form of pre test, see appendix 4)
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a. A frightening experience b. A happy experience
3. Use past tense for the verbs you use!
4. Make a narration that consists of 100-150 words! 2. Post test
After being given three times treatments, the students were asked to do a post test to find out the result of those treatments. The result of pre test and post test were compared to find out whether or not guiding questions technique could be used to
increase students’ narrative writing achievement and to investigate which aspect of writing performed best by them. Below are the instructions given for doing post test and the complete form of post test can be seen in appendix 5.
1. Write your name and your class 2. Choose one of the topics below
a. Spider in the Garden b. Made A Snowman c. Went to A Beach
3. Use past tense for the verbs you use!
4. Make a narration that consists of 100-150 words!
3. Questionnaire
The purpose of questionnaire was to find out students’ difficulties in narrative writing in term of aspect of writing as the third research question (see appendix 6). The result of questionnaire could also be used as additional and supporting
data for the findings in the research since it was related to students’ responses
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3.6. Procedure
The procedure of the research was conducted as follows:
1. Giving pre test to the students as the sample of the research.
2. Giving treatment. The sample of the research was taught about narrative writing using guiding questions technique. The treatment was done three times.
3. Observation. While doing the treatment, an observation was done by the researcher to find outstudents’ difficulties in writing generally.
4. Giving post test. After being given treatments about narrative writing using guiding questions technique, the students were given a writing test to find out whether their achievement increased or not and to find out which aspect of writing performed best by them.
5. Giving questionnaire about students’ difficulties and problem in narrative writing after being taught through guiding questions technique and their responses toward the technique.
6. Analyzing the data
After all the data were collected, they were analyzed to find out the answers of the research questions.
3.7. Data Analysis
After the data from students’ writingswere collected, they were analyzed with the analytic scoring namely ESL Composition Profile in Testing ESL Writing: A
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analytic scoring was used because it covered all aspects of writing and the score level as well so that the researcher can find the gain more easily by comparing the results of pre test and post test. Then it could be found out whether the use of guiding questions technique could increase students’ writing skill or not and which aspect increased the most compared to other aspects. The analytic scoring can be seen in appendix 3.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Based on the findings and its analysis, this chapter presents conclusions of the research and the suggestions as follows
5.1. Conclusion
In reference to the objectives of this research, it can be concluded that:
1. Guiding questions technique can be used to increase students’ achievement in narrative paragraph writing. It can be seen from the mean score of pre test and post test which increased from 57,27 to 70,89. The increase was also significant after being analyzed using Paired Samples t-test.
2. After being taught by using the technique, the aspect of writing with highest increase is language use. Students’ score of this aspect increased from 11,89 in pre test to 16,08 in post test. Meanwhile, the aspect with lowest increase is content. For this aspect, students’ average score increased from 18,03 to 21,36.
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master in writing. Furthermore, as additional finding, the result of questionnaire also showed that the easiest aspect in writing is mechanic. However, the result of questionnaire which showed that language use was the most difficult aspect is contradictory to the result of pre test and post test which showed that language use was the aspect that increased the most. This finding maybe caused by two things. The first maybe caused by the students who did not reveal their true difficulties in writing or because the questionnaire was not clear for them to understand and the second maybe caused by the researcher who gave more emphasize on language use in giving the treatments since that aspect was very poor based on the result of pre test.
5.2. Implication
From the findings of the research, it is fully hoped that they can be useful and apllied in practical uses such as,
1. As an alternative technique for teachers in teaching narrative writing. It is because the technique had helped the students as the sample of the research to improve their ability in writing especially in narrative writing. 2. As an information for those who want to conduct a research in the related
topic or field. The finding of this research can be useful for further researcher as an additional information.
5.3. Suggestion
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1. The teachers are recommended to implement guiding questions technique as one of the technique to teach narrative writing.
2. The teachers are recommended to apply the technique but the focus should be not only on language use but also other aspects of writing namely content, organization, vocabulary, and mechanic.
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