Developing English Writing Materials in the Form of Comic Strips for Grade VIII Students

Abstract

This research aimed to develop appropriate comic strip materials for learning writing skills. This is a research and development (R & D) study. The subjects of this research were 32 students of Grade VIII of SMPN 3 Kalasan. The research procedure was adapted from the model of Jolly and Bolitho (1998) consisting of identification and exploration of needs for materials, contextual and pedagogical realization of materials, physical production, expert judgment, and writing final draft. The needs analysis data were collected by using questionnaires and an interview. Then, the results of questionnaires were calculated through percentage. Thus, the highest percentage was considered as the needs of students. Meanwhile, the results of expert judgment were analyzed in the form of descriptive statistics. Three units of materials were developed in this research.  Each unit consists of introduction, main lesson and reinforcement. These materials used comic strips as an input text. According to the results of the expert judgment, the materials were very good based on a mean score of 3.7.