Significance of the Study

Readers should determine what their purpose for reading. 6 According to Nunan, some purposes in reading are: - To get information for certain purpose or because curious about a topic. - To know the newest news what is happening or has happened. - For refreshing, pleasure and excitement. 7 By knowing the purpose of reading, it helps the readers comprehend the text because every genre text in English has their own purposes. Thus, the readers need to know their reading purposes before they read. One genre text that Junior High School students learn is narrative text. Narrating or narrative is one of the most commonly text to read, compared with other English text. Because narrative text has been and continues to be a popular genre, there is a belief that students usually „pick up’ narrative text as their text to read and write „naturally’. 8 Chatman and Attebery defined the narrative text is a kind of story either fictive or real which contains a series of events which are presented chronologically. 9 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. Similar with Chatman and Attebery, Kane defined narrative text as a meaningful sequence of events told in words. The important thing in narrative text is how the events are ordered, not merely random. The sequence of events or usually known as chronology of the story always involves an arrangement of time. A straightforward movement from the first event to the last event is the simplest chronology. However, chronology is sometimes might be complicated by presenting the events in another order: for example, a story may 6 Cris Tovani, I Read It, but I Don’t Get It, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers Portland, 2000, p. 24. 7 David Nunan, Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom,UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 34. 8 Peter Knapp and Megan Watkins, Genre, Text, Grammar: Technologies for Teaching and Assessing Writing, Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005, p. 220. 9 Chatman, S., and B. Attebery, Reading Narrative Fiction, New York: McMillan, 1993, p. 8. open with the final episode and then flash back to all that preceded it. 10 The various of chronology which build the plot become more interesting are a special feature of narrative text which make the readers are interested in to read. Anderson and Anderson defined that a narrative is a text that tells a story to entertain the audience. Narrative can be presented as written or spoken texts. Written narrative often takes form of novels. The story is said to be told in the first person. If a person outside the story is the narrator, then the story is being told in the third person. 11 Similar with Anderson and Anderson, Wardiman et al., said that the purpose of narrative is to amuse, entertain and to deal with an actual or vicarious experience in different ways. Narrative deals with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind, which in turn finds a resolution. 12 Also, Clouse stated that the purpose of narrative is to entertain the reader because of its good story makes the readers forget about themselves in a while. However, Clouse also said that narrative can do more than entertain the readers. It can also express the feelings presented in the story, inform the readers about a topic, and sometimes persuade the readers to do something talked in the story. 13 Meanwhile, Knapp stated that narrative text cannot be said only has one purpose which is entertaining the readers. Although in fact it is true that narrative can be a medium for entertainment, narrative also has a powerful social role to be a medium for changing social opinions and attitudes. Narratives which presents in drama show the happening social issues and present their complexities and different perspectives in ways that are not possible in news reports and current affairs programs. 14 10 Thomas S. Kane, The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing, New York, Oxford University Press, Inc, 2000, p. 366. 11 Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English 3, South Yarra: Macmillan, 1998, p. 3. 12 Artono Wardiman, Masduki B. Jahur, dan M. Sukirman Djusma, English in Focus 2 : for Grade VIII Junior High School SMPMTs, Jakarta: Pusat Perbukuan, Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2008, p.98. 13 Barbara Fine Clouse, Patterns for a Purpose, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2003, p. 160. 14 Peter Knapp and Megan Watkins, op. cit., pp. 220 —221.