writing was still far from what was expected. On the writing test, the students were asked to write a recount text based on the topic that was given by the
researcher. The score of student s’ writing test was bad. It means many students
have problems in writing ability. That was happened because of some factors. First, the students have difficulties in expressing their ideas in written form. On
the other word, they do not have many ideas to write. Second, the students have the lack of interest and low motivation in learning writing. So, it made writing
becomes a boring and hard activity for them. Third, the students have difficulty in develop their ideas in order to get unity and coherence sentence. Fourth, the
students have limited vocabulary mastery. It made the students wrote difficultly. Also, the lack of English grammar mastery. And the last, the students are still low
in understanding of mechanical writing. Because of these they got difficulties in writing and the result of their writing were still far from what were expected.
In this case, the researcher wants to conduct the research about recount text because it is the most common text used rather than others. Recount is a text
whic h consists of three aspects and it tells about people’s experience in the past.
Recount text gives the description of events of someone’s past experience for the reader, which is to give the information or to entertain. Based on the researcher’s
experience when teaching students, they would be enthusiastic when they were asked to tell about their experience or story, especially about amusing story.
Students remembered their story and wanted to share their story to other people. It seems that they wanted others to feel what they feel.
There are aspects which were scored in scoring the students recount text writing. They were content, text organization of recount, and usage. Considering
the importance of writing ability for students, it needs a media to help the students in creating ideas, writing correct and appropriate sentences. One of media that can
be used to help the students in writing recount text is by using picture. Pictures have an excellent device for providing both a purpose and content for writing. It
also provides students with information about object, actions, events, and a relationship. Pictures can stimulate and motivate students to express themselves.
In this case, the researcher has applied picture series. By using picture series, the
students will not find a difficulty to write and explore their ideas because what they will write is focused on the pictures. Picture series have a lot of fun and can
be adapted to a variety of writing types. Picture series also have pictures with full color. It makes the students are attracted to explore their ideas in writing recount
text. They have some imaginations when they saw pictures. The pictures inspire the students in expressing their ideas into paragraph. The students are expected to
be more interested in following English subject, especially in the aspects of writing and the students’ writing ability of recount text also increased because the
students have motivation to increase their potential in writing recount text after they have imagination about the pictures.
Based on the explanation and problems above, the writer was interested in finding out the factors from the observation above which made the students were
so far from what were expected in writing test. The factor is media to make a good paragraph in writing recount text. It is hoped that the media can improve the
students’ ability in writing, especially in recount text. Finally, the writer intended to conduct quasi-experimental study entitled,
“The Effect of Picture Series on Students’ Writing Ability of Recount Text A Quasi-experimental Study at the Eighth Grade of SMP Nusantara Plus Ciputat
in Academic Year 20162017 ”
B. The Identification of Problems
Based on the background of the study above, the problems that can be identified as follows:
1. Students have difficulty in expressing their ideas in written form.
2. Students have the lack of interest and low motivation in learning writing.
3. Students have difficulty in develop their ideas in order to get unity and
coherence sentence. 4.
Students have limited vocabulary mastery and the lack of grammar mastery.
5. Students are still low in understanding of mechanical writing.
6. Teacher does not use interesting media in teaching writing.
C. The Limitation of Problem
Based on the problems were identified above, the problem of the research was limited on the effect of picture
series on students’ writing ability of recount text. In addition, the writer focused on the students at the eighth grade of SMP
Nusantara Plus.
D. The Formulation of Problem
Based on the limitation of problem above, the problem of this study can be formulated as follows: Is there any effect of
picture series on students’ writing ability of recount text for the eighth grade students of SMP Nusantara Plus?
E. The Objective of the Study
Based on the formulation of the problem above, the objective of this study was to get the empirical evidence about the
effect of picture series on students’ writing ability of recount text.
F. The Significance of the Study
The result of this study was expected to be useful for: 1.
The teachers The teacher, especially the English teacher would get information and
description about the effect of pi cture series on the students’ writing
ability of recount text as a media to produce better writing. 2.
The students After the students were researched, they had motivation in writing recount
text using picture series as a media to writing; and write correct and appropriate sentences.
3. The writer
By conducting the study, the writer knew the effect of picture series on students’ writing ability of recount text.
7
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Writing
1. The Nature of Writing
Learning language means learning to communicate with each other, to interact with them, to talk to them, to understand them, to read what they have
written, to write to them. One way to create communication is through writing. Writing is one of four language skills in learning English, beside listening,
speaking, and reading. It is one of the important skills to be mastered, especially by the students in Junior High School. According to Zemach, writing is an
important element of daily life communication, especially in secondary school and university. However, writing is one difficult skill to be mastered for the first
language and the second language both. It challenges students to find ideas in their writing. Each student has different style to organize their academic writing
based on their culture.
1
Another expert, Hyland defined, ―Writing is a way of sharing personal meanings and writing courses emphasize the power of individual
to construct his or her own views on a topic‖.
2
In conclusion, writing is a medium for the writer to express his or her ideas in written form.
2. The Process of Writing
There are many ideas about writing process. According to Oshima and Hogue, they stated that there are four steps in writing process: pre-writing,
organizing, writing, and polishing: revising and editing.
3
Harmer mentioned that the stages of writing process included: planning, drafting, editing reflecting and
1
Dorothy E. Zemach and Carlos Islam, Writing in Paragraph, England: MacMillan, 2006, p. IV.
2
Ken Hyland, Second Language Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 9.
3
Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Introduction to Academic Writing, New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007, Third Edition, pp. 15
–18.
revising, and final draft.
4
Langan also explained the process of writing as follows:
5
a. Prewriting, as a starting point in writing activity to develop the topic that
will be discussed by the writer in hisher writing. There are five techniques in prewriting stage that can be applied by the writer such as free writing,
questioning, making a list, clustering and preparing a stratch outline. b.
Writing a first draft, the writer is just focused on what heshe wants to write about, keeps on the fluency of hisher writing and does not worry yet
about grammatical and writing mechanic. c.
Revising, the writer rewrite hisher paper based on what has already been written by himher. The goal is to make hisher writing be stronger.
d. Editing, as the last stage in writing process. The writer will identify and
correct hisher writing for mistakes and errors in grammatical and mechanic of writing that covering punctuation and spelling.
In summary, all the experts’ explanations above have similar ideas dealing
with the process of writing. In producing a writing product, there are some steps that should be done by writer as explained above. The writer will go through those
steps until heshe finished hisher final draft.
3. The Purpose of Writing
There are many experts who explain about the purpose of writing, among them Penny Ur, Halliday, and Ann Raimes. The
first, Penny Ur said that ―The purpose of writing, in principal, is the expression of ideas, the conveying of a
message to the reader; so the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the mos
t important aspect of the writing‖.
6
The second, according to Halliday in Nunan, the written language is used for: action for example, public signs, product
labels and instructions, recipes, maps, television and radio guides, bills, menus,
4
Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach Writing, United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited, 2004, pp. 4
–6.
5
John Langan, College Writing Skills with Readings, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005, Six Edition, pp. 23
–34.
6
Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 163.
