In short, the standard competence in SMAMA should covers four element of language skills, they are reading, writing, speaking and listening. The standard
competence is used as the basic teaching and learning process.
2.5 General Concept of Writing
Writing is one of the four language skills, which has its own characteristic. In writing we use symbols to express our ideas and feelings.
According to Lado 1964:43, “to write is to put down the graphic symbols
that represent a language one understand, so that others can read these graphic symbols if they know the language and the graphic representation.
” Meyers 2005:2 says that
“writing is speaking to others on paper or on computer screen.
” It means that writing is a way to produce language which people do naturally when they are speaking. Meyers states:
Writing is speaking to others on paper or on computer screen. Writing is partly a talent, but it is mostly a skill, and like any skill, it improves with
practice. Writing is also an action-a process of discovering and organizing the ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaping and revising them.
Meyers, 2005:2
Boardman 2002:11 states that “writing is a continuous process of
thinking and organizing, rethinking, and reorganizing. ” Writing is a powerful tool
to organize overwhelming events and make them manageable. Writing is really a form of thinking using the written word.
From the definitions above, it can be concluded that writing is a way to produce language that comes from our thought trough the paper or other media.
By using writing, we can share our idea, feeling or anything that exist in our mind.
2.6 Genre
The scope of genre is broad, not only literary but also factual. Genre can be in form of written or spoken.
The definition of genre, which is suggested by Swales, focuses on different type of discourse. Swales 1996:33 refers
“genre as a distinctive category of discourse of any type, spoken or written, with or without literary appreciations.
Genre can be read such as novel, poem, or can be heard such as music, speech. ”
Gerot and Wignell 1994:17 explain that “genre is texts types that can be
defined as a culturally specific text type which results from using language both in written and spoken to help accomplish something.
” In a genre approach to writing, students study certain texts in the genre. They are going to write before
they embark on their own writing. Butt 1996:17 states that
“when a set of texts share the same purpose, they will often share the same obligatory and optional structural elements and so they
belong to the same genre. ”
Based on Wikipedia, the word genre comes from Latin language genus and Greek language genos, means a loose set of criteria for category of composition. Genre is
used to categorize literature, speech, art work and utterance. From the statement, it is obvious that genre can not be separated from any form of composition.
Genre has certain structure based on its purpose. In School-Based Curriculum KTSP, it is stated that
“genres are text types which each of them usually has communicative purpose, generic structure, and significant lexicogrammatical
features. ” There are many kinds of genre, such as narrative, descriptive, report,
procedure, recount, news item, and review. From the statement above, it can be concluded that genre is various texts which is
determined by its communicative purpose.
2.7 Narrative
