valuable part of any language course.
32
There are four roles of writing in learning languages, they are:
a. Narration
Narration is a form of discourse that presents in a related series. It tells of an action or group of action in such a way as to
give what is popularly recognized as story. Narration in the true sense is limited to events in time. Narrative in its essential meaning
is a sequence of events so arranged as to take the reader from a beginning to an end while giving a lively sense of actuality.
Narration therefore exhibits its method in the ordering of the parts of an action. It is directly concerned with the evoking of pictures it
puts its picture in a framework of time. From the psychological point of views, narration is probably the most elementary of the
forms of discourse, in as much as almost everyone is born with the same ability to tell a story.
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b. Description
Description’s primary use is to make the reader see the thing, or to perceive the special quality of them. It makes the reader
see in the sense of visualizing. It focuses upon the appearance of an object and exposition upon the nature of it. In description, the
reader sees vividly and concretely; perceives the object with a kind
32
Ibid . p. 4
33
Richard M. Weaver, Composition, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc, 1997, pp. 27-28
of fullness. Description leaves the reader with the image of the object.
Because it connection with image of the object, much descriptive writing is classified as creative. Description sometimes
is written to be presented alone; but very often they are also combined with other forms of discourse and are contributing parts
of larger whole.
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c. Exposition
Exposition is the form of writing that explains a subject. Its purpose is to make the reader understand. It is practiced whenever
it is necessary to tell what a thing is, how it functions, how its parts are related to each others, and how it is related to each others. It
has little purpose beyond clarifying such matters, because exposition is used to transmit knowledge by explanation, this is
perhaps the most widely used of all, the form of discourse.
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Maxine Hair Stone writes about the criteria of good expository writing that are common to pinpoint the features that
most readers want to find, they are: First, the writing is significant. It should tell them
something they want to know. It is significant if the reader enjoys it, learns something from it and fulfills some need by reading it.
34
Weaver, Richard M, op. cit. p. 27
35
Richard M. op. cit. p. 26
Second, the writing is clear. The reader does not need to reread it several times to know what it means.
Third, the writing is unified and well organized. The reader does not want the author leads them off in several directions so that
they get on sense of undersigning plan. Forth, the writing is economical. The author can convey the
message of the writing in compact paragraph and not in long – winded and wasting time paragraph which tells something out of
context. Fifth, the writing is adequately developed. The author can
support key points and can answer the question they have raised and by explaining and developing the assertion they made.
Sixth, the writing is grammatically acceptable.
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d. Argumentation
