ABSTRACT
The reasons for choosing the topic of this study are that formal English teaching is targeted in order for the students to be able to gain functional level; that the students are supposed to be able to produce texts both spoken and written form; that narrative is one of important genres for junior high school students; and that picture are the most interesting aid.
The problems of this study are how pictures can improve the students’ writing narrative texts and how effective is using pictures to improve students’ writing narrative texts.
The objectives of this study are to find out the students’ improvement in writing narrative texts through animal cartoon pictures and to find out the effectiveness of using animal cartoon pictures to improve students’ writing narrative texts.
The subject of the study is the third graders of the State Junior High School 2 at Demak. The study focuses on the students of IX F which consists of 16 males and 18 females. That class is the best English class.
There are two instruments which are used to collect the data. They are tests and questionnaire. Tests are used to assess the development achieved by the students in writing narrative texts. Questionnaire is used to find out information from the students about their condition or something that they know. There are some elements of scoring that are used for assessing students’ narrative writing, namely, fluency, grammar, vocabulary, content and spelling (Heaton, 1975: 109). These categories are the common scoring guidance of writing.
The averages of the students’ result of this study are 48.2 for pre-test, 61.3 for cycle 1, 75.2 for cycle 2 and 79.4 for post test. Based on the result, there is a significant of this study. So, pictures can improve the students’ writing narrative texts and using pictures is effective to improve students’ writing narrative texts.
The researcher offers some suggestions for the teacher and the students. The teacher should give more exercises about past tense and the students should have to write more about past tense sentences in the narrative text form so their writing ability will be improved well.
