A STUDY OF THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ NARRATIVE WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT SMAN 2 JEMBER

Abstract

Writing is an activity that we do everyday and everytime. Writing is a need that can not be separated from our life. We write letters or a journal, take a note, list or shopping list, create a story in our blog, or even compose an article. Writing is not only about how we can produce words, phrases, and sentences. It also needs an artistic side in arranging and developing the content; hence readers understand what we want to inform to them. In Indonesia, writing in English is taught along with the other skills, namely listening, reading and speaking. Based on the preliminary study that was conducted on August 15th , 2014 at SMAN 2 Jember, it was known that the teacher had never held any specific writing test to measure the students’ writing achievement, especially narrative writing. This research dealt with the students’ narrative writing achievement at SMAN 2 Jember. The objective of this research was to describe the tenth grade students’ narrative writing achievement at SMAN 2 Jember. The researcher conducted a descriptive research in which the data were obtained from the students’ narrative writing scores. The students’ narrative writing scores consisted of separate scores of the five aspects of writing, i.e.: grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and organization. Proportional random sampling was used in this research and the total number of the research respondents was 39 students of the tenth grade students of SMAN 2 Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year. The respondents were taken from each class consisting of 33 up to 36 students by choosing 10% - 15% of the population of each class by using lottery. The respondents chosen represented the research population, consisting of 352 students of the tenth grade of SMAN 2 Jember. The data resources were also taken from the English teacher of the tenth grade students and the documentation that consisted of the list of the tenth grade students’ names in 2014/2015 academic year. The supporting data were collected through interview and documentation. Meanwhile, the primary data were collected by giving writing test. Based on the data analysis, it was found that there were 2 students (5,12%) who were categorized as excellent, 15 students (38,46%) who were categorized very good, 11 students (28,21%) who were categorized good, 11 students (28,21%) who were categorized as average, and no student (0%) who were categorized fair, poor, or very poor. It could be concluded that the tenth grade students’ narrative writing achievement at SMAN 2 Jember was good since the students achieved the scores above the average category. Furthermore, the researcher also investigated the students’ narrative writing achievement on five aspects of writing. It was found that the greatest acheivement was in the category of content and the least achievement was in the aspect of mechanics. It means that the students did not have any problems in developing their ideas about the story since most of the students’ achievement were categorized as excellent in the aspect of content. On the other hand, it was found that the students got had some difficulties in the aspect of mechanics. It is supported by the data which said plenty of the students achieved scores below the good category, i.e. there were 5 students who were categorized as average, 3 students who were categorized as fair, 6 students who were categorized as poor, and 8 students who were categorized as very poor. It means that the aspect mechanics needs more attention than the other aspects since most of the students had problems in this aspect.