IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS OF GRADE VIII STUDENTS THROUGH PICTURE SERIES

Rona Erlina Wati

Abstract


The aim of this action research is to improve the writing skills of Grade VIII students through picture series in writing narrative texts.

The study was conducted in two cycles from April 22nd 2017 until May 23rd 2017. Each of the cycles consisted of four stages which were planning, action, observation, and reflection. The first cycle was conducted in three meetings and the second cycle was conducted in two meetings. The subjects of this study were the VIII grade students in one of the public schools in the middle-southern area of Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta. The data of this study were in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were collected from the observations and interviews. The quantitative data were gained from individual tests. The researcher used several instruments in the process of data collection including the interview guideline, the writing rubric, the field note, the observation checklist, the pre-test, and the post test.

The results of this study showed that picture series and supporting actions were able to improve students’ writing skills in composing a narrative text. Those helped the students to develop the ideas and choose the vocabulary easily for their writing. The students also could compose sentences in the past tense and make their paragraphs well organized. Moreover, they motivated the students to be more active during the lesson. The significant improvement could also be seen on the results of the quantitative data analysis in the SPSS using a t-test and the average scores of the pre-test, the post-test Cycle 1, and post-test Cycle 2. The mean score of the pre-test was 44.02, the Cycle 1 was 56.44, and the Cycle 2 was 68.62.

 

Keywords: writing skill, action research, picture series.

 


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