USING COMIC STRIPS TO IMPROVE THE ABILITY OF STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 2 MALANG IN WRITING RECOUNT

ABSTRACTPurwanitasari, Lili. 2010. Using Comic Strips to Improve the Ability of Students ofSMP Negeri 2 Malang in Writing Recount Text. Thesis, EnglishDepartment, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor:Anik N.Wulyani, S.Pd, M.Pd.Key words: comic strips, recount text, writing abilityWriting may be considered as the most difficult and complicated skillamong the four language skills. Nevertheless, it is should be mastered by JuniorHigh School (JHS) students. According to the questionnaires given to the studentsin the preliminary study, it was found that the major problems they faced werehow to develop ideas, how to choose appropriate words, and how to writesentence grammatically and to write spelling correctly. The teacher also nevergave model of how to write recount because writing activities in class weredominated by arranging jumble sentences and jumble words. To solve theproblems, comic strips was introduced to be applied in teaching writing. Themedia was chosen because it was easy to apply. Based on previous studies, it wasfound that the media that using picture such as comic strips was effective to helpstudents to develop and organize ideas in writing composition. The objective ofthis study was to improve students’ ability in writing recount, which was focusedon the improvement of the content, language use and spelling.This study used collaborative classroom action research. The researchertogether with the help of classroom English teacher designed the lesson plans andset the criteria of success. The classroom English teacher acted as the observerduring the teaching and learning process while the researcher taught in the class.The research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of two meetingswhich covered: planning an action, implementing the action, observing the action,and reflecting on the observation. The subjects were 38 students of VIII-E in SMPNegeri 2 Malang in 2009/ 2010 academic year. The instruments used to collect thedata were interview guides, questionnaires, observation checklist, field notes, andstudents’ final product.The researcher introduced comic strips during the implementation of theaction. It was followed by modeling how to make outlines from comic stripsbefore starting writing, how to write the draft, how to revise the draft, and how towrite the final product. In addition, the students are also asked to produce arecount composition through the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revisingand final version.The result of the research showed that comic strips successfully improvedthe students’ ability in writing recount text especially in terms of content,language use, and spelling. The scores of the students’ writing products improvesignificantly from preliminary study to Cycle I and from Cycle I to Cycle II oncontent, language use, and spelling. The students’ mean scores on contentimproved from 2.4 in preliminary study to 2.7 in Cycle I and it could reach 3.3 inCycle II. In addition, the students’ mean scores on language use improved from2.2 in preliminary study to 2.7 in Cycle I and 3.3 in Cycle II. On spelling, theClick to buy NOW!PDF-XCHANGEwww.docu-track.comClick to buy NOW!PDF-XCHANGEwww.docu-track.comvistudents’ mean scores also improved from 2.4 in preliminary study to 2.7 in CycleI and 3.1 in Cycle II.Based on the result of this study, it is suggested that the English teachers touse comic strips in teaching recount writing and other kinds of text types. For thestudents, it is suggested that they write outline before writing using comic stripsespecially in generating and developing ideas in writing recount composition.Moreover, further researchers are suggested to conduct research using comicstrips for different text types and on different grades and levels of education to seewhether this media was effective to solve the problems of writing or not .Click to buy NOW