reading specific types of material whenever new material is assigned. As a teacher, teacher should recognize his students many ways in reading technique,
such as bottom up approaches and top down approaches. Tom Hudson stated that
,” bottom up approaches is a reader construct meaning from letters, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences by processing the
text into phonemic units that represent lexical meaning, and then builds meaning in a linear manner. This approach assumes that the reading task can be understood
by examining it as a series of stages that proceed in a fixed order, from sensory input to comprehension and appropiate response”.
20
Based on definition above, when a reader learns to read , a reader make the simplest units that make up a word first, learning names, sound, and shapes. After
that, he blend letters together becomes more complete units. Words grow into phrases, and eventually simple sentence is read. In this model, learning is regarded
as a one way process, from the text to the reader, and progress is made one skill at a time.
On the other hand, top down approaches assumed that; a reader approaches a text with conceptualizations above the textual level already in
operation and then works down to the text itself. Consequently, the reader make continually changing hyphotheses about the incoming information. This reader
applies background knowledge, both formal and content, to the text in order to create meaning that is personally and contextually sensible.
21
In this way, reading become an active process which the reader brings to bear not only knowledge of language, but also internal concepts of how language
is processed, past experiental background, and general conceptual background.efficient reading is not the result of close perception and identification
of all textual features.
20
Tom Hudson, Teaching Second Language Reading,New York: Oxford University Press, 2007,p.33
21
Ibid,p.33
The last problem is lack of appropiate teacher guidance. Normally, students should learn to approach reading assignment, students must know what
they are looking and why, such as class demonstrations, or experiments.
B. Narrative Text
1. The Understanding of Narrative Text
One of genres that junior high school students learn is narrative text. Gerald Prince state that “A narrative recounts a certain number of situation and
events occuring in certain world”.
22
Another statement from Chatman, S and B. Attebery state that” the narrative text is a kind of story either fictive or real which
contain a series of events in which how the story is told and how the context is presented as aspects of the story constructions”.
23
Thus, special features of narrative text could be found in its sequence of events to attract the readers in
order to build their curiosity throughout the story. In addition, based on Longman dictionary,
” narrative means a description of events in a story”.
24
According to Gerald Prince, “ Narrative presents situations and activities
which we can group into sets having certain names because we know how such situations and activities combine to yield larger ones. Many narratives contain
various elements which may function symbolically ”.
25
Indeed, narrative text requires a content background for understanding. Pamela J. Farris state
, “reading a narrative text in a historical period or related to the scientific finding usually necessitates having some related knowledge in that
specific area”.
26
Consequently, readers need to develop background knowledge for literary elements in order to make connections. Students who are reading
narrative text need to become familiar with the previously reviewed literary elements of character, setting, problem and solution, theme, and writing style.
22
Gerald Prince, Op.Cit, p.61
23
Chatman,S. And B. Attebery, Reading Narrative Fiction.New York: McMilan,1993,p.15
24
Longman, Dictionary of Contemporary English,London: Pearson,2004,p.1092
25
Gerald Prince, Op.Cit, p.110
26
Pamela J. Farris, Teaching Reading: A Balance d Approach For Today’s Classroom,...p.496.
Mark Anderso n state “There are numerous types of narrative. They are
fairy stories, mysteries, science fiction, horrors, romances, fables, myths, legends, ballads, etc”.
27
Those can be classified into imaginary and factual, or even combination of both.
Besides of various of narrative texts, narrative text classified into four
basic elements. Those are following:
a. Characters
What we usually call a character ia a topic or logical participant common to set of propositions predicating of it at least some characteristics generally
associated with human being: the logical participant may be endowed with certain human physical attributes, for instance, and think, speak, will, laugh, etc.
Characters will be defined mainly by their actions, or by their words, or by their feelings, and so on.
28
There are two characters takes place within a story. They are main characters and secondary characters. Characters is the single most important
element in the narrative text. It describes physical of the character such as age, weight, height, even personality traits including the strenght and weaknesses. This
who plays action in kinds of different situations or reacts the problems in the story. The author can also depict character into dialogue. It tells a reader what the
character says or thinks. b.
Settings The setting addresses the location where and the period when of the
story whether the story tells a reader among realistic, historical fiction or fantasy. At times, the authors gives details in any imagination to tell where and when the
story takes place.
27
Mark Anderson, Text Types in English 2, South Yarra:MacMillan,2003,p.18.
28
Gerald Prince, Op.Cit, p.71-72
According to Gerald prince, “setting is equivalent to a set of propositions referring to the same backgroundedspatio-temporal complex. Setting are not
essential to narrative although they play a very important role in many a novel or story”.
29
c. Plot
The plot includes a series of episodes or events written by the author to hold the reader’s attention and to build excitement as the story progresses. The
plot contains an initiating event, starting the main character of the series of events toward problem solving. The excitement builds the climax or tension; the high
point in the story where the problem is solved. d.
Conclusion At the end of a story, the writers ends up the story through figuring out all
the important things happened in the story led to a “conclusion”. This is the most exciting point in the whole story and tells how the events work out for the
characters.
2. The Purposes of Narrative Text
