\ CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the background of the study, problem formulation, problem limitation, objectives of the study, benefits of the study and definition of
terms.
A. Background of the Study
Writing is important to master. Writing can be a means of improving students’ English, especially their reading skill, vocabulary, and grammar.
Hughey, Worthmuth, Hartfiel and Jacobs 1983: 6 state that Writing is also a means of reinforcing other language skills. … For ESL
students particularly, whose individual needs and goals are highly variable, writing is an efficient tool to facilitate and reinforce other
language skills. Reading, vocabulary, and grammar skills are employed in the act of writing.
It is clear that writing is an important skill for students to master as through writing the students will improve their reading skill, vocabulary, and grammar.
There are many types of texts to write, one of which is narrative text. Vital concludes “that the genre of narrative should be an important stage in the process
of teaching second languages” http:www.tau.ac.il2007. Furthermore, Barthes’ famous assertion in 1966, as cited by Mcquillan 2000: 2, states:
The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genre. … Moreover, under this almost infinite
diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; … and there nowhere is nor has been a group of people
without narrative. … it narrative simply there, like life itself.
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\ Barthes’ assertion makes it clear that a narrative genre is everywhere and
important and that everybody tells narration, reads narration, listens to narration and writes narration. Thus, writing a narrative genre is important.
Furthermore, there is an interesting fact that, according to the latest curriculum named KTSP Curriculum at the School Level, the narrative genre is
taught in class X, XI, and XII of senior high school SMU in every semester. It is clear that narrative genre is important for high school students. It will be also
good for the students to know their difficulties in their beginning semester to improve their narrative texts in the next semesters. This leads to the importance of
the tenth grade students’ mastering a narrative genre. To master a narrative genre, the tenth grade students should be able to
apply the textual features of a narrative genre. The Curriculum at the School Level states that the writing teaching material gradation appears in using vocabulary,
grammar, and rhetorical steps generic structure to produce certain form of text. It means that to develop a good narrative text, the students should apply the right
rhetorical steps or generic structure and linguistic features that comprise vocabulary and grammar. In this study, these generic structure and linguistic
features are termed as textual features. Thus, the tenth grade student’s textual features of the narrative text became the focus of this study.
While doing her teaching practice in SMA GAMA Yogyakarta, the writer found that developing a narrative text was a difficult activity for the tenth grade
students. The writer was interested whether the other tenth grade students in other school had difficulties in developing a narrative text. Talking to some of the tenth
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\ grade English teachers of SMU N 2 Klaten, the writer found that the students often
had difficulties in writing, including writing a narrative text. Moreover, SMU N 2 Klaten was accessible to the writer. Therefore, the writer conducted a study on the
tenth grade students’ textual features of narrative texts in SMU N 2 Klaten.
B. Problem Formulation
