Mr and Mrs Lin never believed in fortune-teller after that. Sau Ling took them to live with him and
they were very happy and contented until the end of their lives.
4. The Grammatical Features of Narrative Text
Narrative texts usually include the following grammatical features:
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a. Nouns that identify the specific characters and places in the story. b. Adjectives that provide accurate descriptions of the characters and
settings. c. Verbs that show the actions that occur in the story.
d. Time words that connect events, telling when they occurred. In the following is the example of grammatical features of narrative text
related to the story above:
Figure 2.1 Grammatical Features of Narrative Text
No. Linguistic Features
Example
1. Specific Participant
Sau Ling 2.
General Participants •
Mr. Lin •
Mrs. Ling •
Fortune Teller 3.
Past Tense •
There lived a man called •
They had no children •
They were very unhappy •
Fortune-teller came to the house •
They gave Sau Ling 4.
Action Verb •
Returned •
Took •
Wrapped
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Anderson and Anderson, Text Types in English 3, … p. 3.
Coda
• Loved
• Came
5. Adverb of Time
• One day
• Several years later
• That night
6. Adverb of Place
• In the great city of Taipei
• The house
• An inn
• On the floor
7. Coordinate Conjunction
• And
• So
• But
8. Temporal Conjunction
• After
• Then
9. Saying Verb
• Asked
• Told
• Called
10. Linking Verb
Was 11.
Modality •
Will •
Shall
5. The Types of Narrative Text
There are some common types of narrative texts and those are usually some popular ones:
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a. Humour b. Romance
c. Crime d. Real-life fiction
e. Historical fiction
34
Anderson and Anderson, Text Types in English 2, … p. 18.
f. Mystery
g. Fantasy h. Science-fiction
i. Diary-novels
j. Adventure
D. Directed Reading-Thinking Activity DR-TA 1. The Understanding of Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity DR-TA was introduced by Russell Stauffer in 1969 to develop higher level thinking while reading. According to
Ruddell, DR-TA has received considerable attention as a recommended instructional strategy over the years. In further, it is such a sturdy instructional
approach and is adaptable for endless varieties of content areas and texts.
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This activity can be adapted for a variety of subjects and reading materials.
According to Bill Harp, “DRTA involves the readers in predicting, reading, and proving their predictions while the teacher is involved in asking what
the readers think, why they think so, and how they prove their answers.”
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It means that by using directed reading-thinking activity, it encourages active
involvement of the students to the reading text by being asked to make hypotheses or predictions about what are in the reading text and the reasons for their
hypotheses or predictions, then checking the accuracy about their hypotheses or predictions.
Using directed reading-thinking activity, “students are guided through the process of sampling text, making predictions based upon prior knowledge and
textual information, resampling text, and confirming or adjusting predictions in light of new information.”
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Students’ prior knowledge is necessary to construct
35
Martha Rapp Ruddell, Teaching Content Reading and Writing Fifth Edition, Hoboken: John Wiley Sons, Inc., 2008, p. 96.
36
Bill Harp, When the Principal Asks: How Are We Using What We Know about Literacy Processes in the Content Areas?, The Reading Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 9, May, 1989, p.
726.
37
Martha Rapp Haggard, Developing Critical Thinking with the Directed Reading- Thinking Activity, The Reading Teacher, Vol. 41 No. 6, Feb. 1988, p. 527.
predictions of what they will read. Making prediction before the reading activity stimulates them to use their background knowledge as their guidance in adjusting
their predictions to figure out the new information. It can be concluded that the key terms of DR-TA are predicting, reading,
and proving. Questions are asked and answered, and predictions are made and tested throughout the reading. Additionally, new questions and predictions are
formulated as the student progresses through the text. Moreover, in DR-TA, all students can be actively involved and everyone has the opportunity to express and
share their predictions, expectations or ideas to others about the text.
2. The Purposes of Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity strategy engages students in a step- by-step process that guides them through informational text. The students are able
to think even they should be stimulated to think.
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It means that the use of DR-TA strategy helps students develop their critical thinking and logical predictions based
on the information they read. Other purposes of using DR-TA are to elicit students’ prior knowledge of
the topic of the text, to encourage students to monitor their comprehension while they are reading, and to set a purpose for reading in which the students read to
confirm and revise predictions they are making.
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Furthermore, Farris, Fuhler and Walther quoted Beck’s statement who said that “points out that making predictions based upon clues in text helps students to
see how helpful text information can be when making inferences.”
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It means that the purpose of DR-TA is to help learners to comprehend the text and make
inferences thorough clues in the text. Here, teacher is able to give picture, chart or sentence’s clue in which helping the students to comprehend the text. So, students
would be able to make prediction about the story. Then after making prediction,
38
Robert Karlin, Teaching Elementary Reading Third Edition: Principles and Strategies, San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, p. 231.
39
Directed Reading - Thinking Activity, Retrieved on September 21, 2015 from http:www.nea.orgtoolsdirected-reading-thinking-activity.html
40
Farris, Fuhler and Walther, op.cit., p. 338.
