THE USE OF SHORT STORIES AS SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR TEACHING READING OF NARRATIVE TEXTS TO THE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 1 BOJONEGORO THESIS By : Dwiani Ratna Nafirita NIM : 06123111 English Department Faculty of Language and Art Education Institute of Teacher Training and Education IKIP PGRI BOJONEGORO
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THE USE OF SHORT STORIES AS SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR TEACHING
READING OF NARRATIVE TEXTS TO THE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 1 BOJONEGORO
THESIS
By :Dwiani Ratna Nafirita
NIM : 06123111
English Department Faculty of Language and Art Education Institute of Teacher Training and Education
IKIP PGRI BOJONEGORO 2009
CHAPTER IINTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
Language becomes one of special aspects of human being which cannot be
separated from our lives. It can be used to express our idea, feeling, and also our
desire. In other words, we can say that language is a mean of communication.
English is a tool of communication both in oral and written. Communication
means the understanding and giving information, opinion, feeling and developing
science, technology and culture. The communication ability is discourse ability, in
this case, the ability of understanding and producing spoken and written text, which
are used in four language skills, those are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
These four skills are used to respond and create spoken and written text in society
life. Therefore, English subject is pursued to develop those skills in order that
students are able to communicate in English in certain level of literacy.
In Indonesia, English is the main subject as a foreign language and it is taught as
a compulsory subject at the secondary school up to the university level. The
objective of teaching English as stated in 2006 English curriculum is that the
students are expected to develop their communication competence in spoken and
written English.
English has four language skills that should be mastered by the students
properly. They are speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Among the four
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language skills taught in Senior High School, reading comprehension always receive
the greatest emphasis..
The term narration suggests a communication process in which the narrative as a
message is transmitted by the addresser to addressee and the verbal nature of the
medium used to transmit the message. It is this that distinguishes narrative fiction
from narrative in other media, such as film, dance, or pantomime ( Rimmon-Kenan,
1989:2 ).
In this study, reading skill is chosen because this skill is needed for the Senior
High School students who will continue their study to university. Most of the
textbooks, journals, and literature in university are written in English, so Senior
High School students must have reading ability to get success by reading English
texts a lot, anything, anywhere, and anytime.
Reading is an important skill. Reading in Indonesia is still not a part of our
culture and life. People prefer watching the television all day long to reading books
even though we know the advantages of reading, for example; get a lot of
information, knowledge, vocabulary, and pleasure.
It happens all the time that the teacher’s ways of teaching reading are usually
monotonous. The teacher is not able to give the materials that make the students
interested in reading. The teacher usually uses textbooks without trying to look for
some supplementary reading materials in the classroom.
Teacher has an important role to enlarge the ability of his students reading
English text by using selected reading materials. There are several ways in teaching
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language that teacher can use in the class, for example teaching using songs, games,
pictures, story, picture story, and many more.
This study specified on the use short stories as supplementary reading materials
in the classroom for teaching reading narrative texts for the eleventh grade of Senior
High School students majoring in science.
Short story is different from other forms of literary works such as novel, drama,
or poetry. Edgar Allan Poe in Graham Little said that the characteristics of short
story are simpler and easier to be understood because it only create a single
impression and capable of being read at one sitting ( 1966:8 ).
No matter how simple and how easy the short story is, however, reading short
story is not an easy work. Sometimes readers are confused by what the authors try to
say through their works. Therefore, the readers must read it several times in order to
get the substances of the story. This refer to Barnet’s statement that being short does
not mean being slight. A short story should be long in depth and give us an
experience of meaning ( 1993:8 ).
Short story is a brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and
usually deals with only a few characters. The short story is usually concerned with a
single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes.
Those stories that the readers will ever read, write and tell to the readers are told
using the form and structure of what is called narrative. Narrative is not a natural
thing; instead it is a literary device used by a writer to help construct an entertaining,
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compelling and realistic seeming story – one that is also able to act very
persuasively to promote the storyteller’s views on some aspects of society or life.
One of the famous short story writers in literary world is Ernest Hemingway. His
famous reputation and his influence in fiction were so great that it is almost
impossible to imagine modern fiction without them. According to Callow and
Reilly, Hemingway’s work are considered as good and valuable works of literature
because of his philosophy and his techniques ( 1977:132 ).
That is why this study chose the eleventh grade Senior High School students
majoring in science because Hemingway short stories, such us; “Old Man at the
Bridge”, “Cat in the Rain”, and “The Killers” because they were easy to understand.
Selected literary reading materials for Senior High School students in English as
a second language have three interrelated and overlapping reasons. Those reasons
are pleasure, information of kind not available in an encyclopedia, and share our
cultural heritage ( Hook and Evans, 1982:126 ).
Then there is the pleasure of intellectual stimulation. The stimulation that comes
from new ideas and insights, thinking about insights, and forming one’s own
conclusions. The pleasure of intellectual stimulation is related to the second reason
for reading literature: it gives information of a kind not available in encyclopedias.
If we want facts, we go to references books. If we want insights different from those
afforded by facts, we go to literature.
All of the imaginative literature whether poetry, prose, or drama is primarily
concerned with human feelings and attitudes. Literature is one of the humanities and
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nearly all great literature tries to recreate human experiences that involve the reader
emotionally and intellectually ( Hooper and Pickering, 1990:15 ). Short stories can
be as a media to show our feelings, the social conditions surrounding us, our hopes
and our dreams.
Based on the reason above, the writer is interested in making a research about
short stories as supplementary materials for teaching reading. She observes the
using of short stories as supplementary materials for teaching reading in the eleventh
grade of SMA Negeri 1 Bojonegoro. She tries to describes the improvement of the
teachers’ and students’ activities, the learning management, the teachers’ and
students’ response towards the technique in each cycles. The reason why she
chooses this school is because this school has already applied this technique in his
reading class.
1.2 Statement of the Problems
Based in the background of the study, the following problems are formulated as
follows:
1. How is the implementation of short stories as supplementary materials for
teaching reading of narrative texts ?
2. Could short stories used in teaching reading of narrative texts influence the
student’s understanding of narrative texts ?
3. How are the students’ responses toward the use of short stories as
supplementary materials for teaching reading of narrative texts ?
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1.3 Objectives of the Study
Based on the problems state above, the objectives of this study are :
1. To describe how the implementation of short stories can be used as
supplementary materials for teaching reading of narrative texts.
2. To describe how could short stories in teaching reading of narrative
influence the student’s understand of narrative texts.
3. To describe the students’ responses toward the use of short stories as
supplementary materials for teaching reading of narrative texts.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The result of this study will be useful in teaching of English as second language
both for teachers and students. The teachers will be able to enrich their techniques of
teaching reading. Meanwhile the students will get pleasure and knowledge about short
stories. Finally, the finding of this study hopefully can give contribution to improve
teaching learning process in order to gain the objective of the teaching English.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the Study
Scope of this study is teaching English as a foreign language in teaching reading
narrative text using short stories. The limitation of the study is the students of the
eleventh grade Senior High School SMA Negeri 1 Bojonegoro majoring in science.
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1.6 Definition of Key Terms
1. The use : The way the short stories are implemented in reading activity.
2. Short stories : Brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and
that usually deals with only a few characters. The short story is usually
concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant
episodes or scenes.
3. Supplementary material : Material which is needed to widen experience,
enrich vocabularies, clarify concepts, satisfy individual interest, and
demands for information.
4. Narrative texts : a piece of text which tells a story and, in doing so, entertains
or informs the readers or listeners.
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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Reading
Until now, reading was considered by many to be the basic tool of language
learning. Reading is one of the most important skills in the learning of language beside
listening, speaking, and writing. So, it is important to improve the student’s reading
skill. Hence, a teacher should be selective in choosing appropriate materials of reading
to be taught to the students since they often encounter difficulties when they are reading
their compulsory texts.
2.2 The Nature of Reading
Reading is a language process which should be supported by the comprehension
of written language ( Heilman, et:1981 ). Looking at the explanation from Heilman, it is
apparently stated that studying reading will not only learn to read better but also more
than that. We have to know the content of the reading material itself. Therefore, those
are two essential things are interacting one into another.
According to Abbot ( 1973 :7-8 ), reading is a silent and individual activity,
while the reader and comprehending the text. It means that the students can improve the
reading skill by reading a lot, even though the teacher does not guide them during the
process of reading activity.
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Gillet ( 1981: 7 ) has an opinion about reading. He says, “reading is a constant
process of guessing and what one fines it.” It means reading is a continuous process of
guessing. Before doing that the readers have something in their mind that is usually
called background of knowledge. By using this background of knowledge, the readers
compare with the content of the text. Nunan ( 1989:33 ) supports this opinion that “good
readers are able to relate the text and their own background of knowledge efficiently.”
Here, the background of knowledge is important, because it makes the readers easy to
guess the content of the text.
2.3 The Importance of Reading
No one denies the importance of reading, since reading is very important in
someone’s life. he will be able to get the information about the world through reading.
Harris and Sipay ( 1980:10 ) note that reading ability increase in importance as the
society becomes more complex and industrialized. As technology advance, more
occupations require high level of education or specialized training which good reading
ability is vital.
Reading can also give him pleasure and joy. Reading has become the realization
of knowledge and education, and cue of intellects. Robinson ( 1977 :10 ) points out that
reading also remains the most accessible skill for satisfaction of the variety need; many
people through reading want advertisement, enjoying novel, choosing food items,
studying specifies subject or learning how to do something.
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2.4 Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a term used to identify those skills (decoding ability,
knowledge of the vocabulary presented, familiarity with the concepts, and cognitive
development) needed to understand and apply information contained within written
materials ( Olson and Diller, 1982: 40 ).
Here, the students will comprehend the reading if they have skills in decoding
ability of the materials given, knowledge of the vocabulary presented, familiarity with
the concepts, and cognitive development needed to understand and apply information
from the written material.
According to Harris ( 1972 ) some skis which connected to the reading
comprehension are :
a. Acquisition of rich, extensive, and accurate vocabulary.
b. Ability to grasp the meaning of units of increasing size, phase, sentence,
paragraph, whole section.
c. Ability to find answer to specific questions.
d. Ability to select and understand main ideas.
e. Ability to understand a sequence of events.
f. Ability to note and recall details.
g. Ability to grasp the organization of the author’s plan.
h. Ability to follow the direction accurately.
i. Ability to evaluate what one reads.
j. Ability to remember what one has read.
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Anderson and Urquhart ( 1984 ) say that most accounts of the reading
comprehension process emphasize on three components namely the text being read, the
background knowledge possessed by the reader, and contextual aspects ( surrounding
text and environment ) relevant to the interpretation of the text.
To support that definition, Eckstut ( 1992 ) attempts to make relationship between
reading comprehension and sort of thing which correspond to the skills that are required
for understanding the reading material. Those skills are :
1. Guessing meaning from the context
2. Understanding explicitly stated information.
3. Understanding implicitly stated information.
4. Understanding the fact from opinion.
5. Understanding main idea
6. Understanding the relations of pats of a text.
2.5 Teaching Activity Related to Reading Comprehension
Reading activity does not only involve interprete the alphabets symbols on the
page but also connect the reader to the concepts being communicated. Reading is not
only related with the words on the passage but also connect the reader to make
communication. The familiarity with a subject, culture, life experiences, personal
interpretation of words and phases affect student understanding.
The goal in teaching reading is that the students have competence in
comprehension. Comprehension is the ability to see relationships as comparison,
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contrasts, and time sequences, to read between the lines and to see the author’s tone
word or intonation in writing the material and to evaluate agreement or disagreement
intelligently with the writer. Just giving the students large quantities of reading
materials does not guarantee that they will improve their reading skills. To improve
their reading abilities, students must develop their comprehension skills.
2.6 Narrative Genre
Narrative genre is one of the text types that exist in English culture. Generally.
The purpose of narrative genre is to amuse, entertain, and deal with factual or
sensational experience in different ways ( Eltis, 1990: 30 ). This form of genre can both
imaginary and factual ( Derewianka, 1990 :40).
There are many different types of narratives including :
Humor,
Romance,
Crime,
Real-life fiction,
Historical fiction,
Mystery,
Fantasy,
Science fiction,
Diary-novels,
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Hemingway short stories for example: “ Old Man at the Bridge,” “Cat in the Rain,”
and “The Killers” are narrative texts form because each of short story can be identified
as the types of narrative texts and also combine the two types of narrative text more,
“The Killers” is crime short story, on the other hand “Cat in the Rain”is romance short
story.
The most important of this text is that it always focuses on the sequence of
actions or events ( Derewianka, 1990:40 ). The events are usually problematic and lead
into crisis or decisive moment of some kind. This makes narrative tend to be more
amusing and interesting to be read.
2.7 The Components of Narrative Genre
As the narrative genre deals with the reconstruction of events and experiences,
people have to consider the significant components which build a narrative genre. Those
are the schematic and language feature.
2.7.1 The Schematic Structure
Here, a narrative text has five significance schematic structures. Those are :
Orientation, tells the audience about who in the story is, when the
story is taking place and where the action is happening.
Complication that sets off chain of events that influences what will
happen in the story.
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Sequence of events, deals with how the characters in the story react
to the complication.
Resolution, the characters in the short story finally sort out the
complication.
Coda, that provides a comment or moral based on what has been
learned from the story (an optional step) ( Anderson, 1997:8).
2.7.2 Language Features
According to Agustien (1990:42), a language feature is the consequence
of the communicative purpose of a text, which involves several llinguistics
components. The language features usually found in a narrative are :
Specific characters.
Time words that connect to tell when they occur.
Verbs to show the actions that occur in the story.
Descriptive words to portray the characters and settings.
In this case, Derewianka (1990:42) describes narrative language features
into six components. Those are :
a. Focus on the specific of individual participants.
b. Mainly actions verb ( ran, lived, slept ) and mental processes ( said,
felt, or thought ).
c. Use temporal conjunction and temporal circumstances, such as: the
next morning, then, meanwhile, etc.
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d. Normally use past tense
e. Choose the descriptive language to enhance and develop the story by
creating images in the readers mind ( uses relational and mental
processes ).
f. The participants can be written in the first person ( I, we ) or third
person ( he, she and they ).
In summary, it is imperative to consider both schematic structure and
language features in constructing a narrative. Those components will
help to achieve the purpose of genre in communication events
( Derewianka,1990:18 ).
2.8 Short Story
Stories all those that the readers will ever read, write and tell to the other readers
are told by using the for and structure of what is called narrative. Narrative is not a
natural thing; it is instead a literary device used by a writer to help construct an
entertaining, compelling and realistic seeming story – one that is also able to act very
persuasively to promote the storyteller’s views on some aspects of society or life.
The form of a short story is more realistic than tale and of modern origin. The
writer usually presents the main events in the greater fullness. A short story is more than
just a sequence of happenings. A finely written short story has the riches story may
seem; the writer has written it so artfully that there is meaning in even seemingly casual
speeches and apparently trivial details. If we skim it hastily and skip the descriptive
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passages, we miss the significant parts. Some literary short stories are, unlike
commercial fiction in which the main interest is in physical action or conflict. Short
stories tell of an epiphany: some moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a
character’s life, is greatly altered. Other short stories tell of a character initiated into
experience or maturity: one such story of initiation is William Faulkner’s“Ban Burning”
( Kennedy, X.J, 2002:12 ).
In the longer forms of fiction, stories tend to contain certain core elements of
dramatic structure: exposition, complication, rising action, crisis, climax, resolution, and
moral. Exposition is the introduction of setting, situation and main characters.
Complication is the events of the story that introduces the conflict. Rising action which
lead to crisis is the decisive moment for the protagonist and their commitment to a
course of action. Climax is the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the
point of the story with the most action. Resolution is the point of the story when th
conflict is resolved. Moral is the value taken from the story.
Because of their short length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern.
For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical,
though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action. As
with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning-point.
However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may o may not
have a moral or practical lesson. Of course, as with any art form, the exact
characteristics of s short story will vary by author.
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The modern short stories differs from earlier narrative forms in emphasizing
lifes as most people know it. The short story that originated in the 19 th century as a brief
fictional prose narrative was designed to be read in a single setting. In short story all the
literary elements of plot, character, setting, and the author’s distinctive use of language
work together to create a single effect. Short stories usually describe the experiences of
one or two characters over the course of a series of related events ( Hirschberg, Stuart,
2004:20 ).
2.8.1 Teaching Short Story
Narrative and stories in education have been the focus of increasing attention in
recent years. The idea of teaching reading using narrative is fertile ground for adult
educators, who know intuitively the value of stories in teaching and learning. Narrative
is deeply appealing and richly satisfying to human soul, with an allure that transcends
cultures, centuries, ideologies, and academic disciplines. In connection with adult
education, narrative can be understood as an orientation that carries with it implications
for both method and content.
The Narrative Perspective
The beginning point for discussing of narrative and story in adult education is an
understanding of narrative as a broad orientation grounded in the premise that narrative
is a fundamental structure of human meaning making ( Bruner 1986,
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2002;Polkinghorne1988,1996 ). The events and actions of one’s life are understandable
and experienced as fitting into narrative episodes or stories.
Accordingly, identify formation and development can be understood in terms of
narrative structure and process. In this view, “the self is given content, is delineated and
embodied, primarily in narrative constructions or stories” ( Kerby 1991 :1 ). The
narrative metaphor as applied to adult development ( Cohler 1982; Herman
1997;Rossiter 1999 ) sees developmental change as experienced through the ongoing
construction and reconstruction of the life narrative. As Kenyon and Randall (1997:1)
comment, “To be a person is to have a story. More than that, it is to be a story”.
Given the centrality of narrative in the human experience, we can begin to
appreciate the power of stories in teaching and learning. We can also see that the
application of a narrative perspective to education involves much more than storytelling
in the classroom. Such an application necessarily leads to an experience-based,
constructivist pedagogy ( Hopkins 1994 :10). Therefore, the most effective way to teach
learners with educational messages is in through these narrative constructions. Learners
connect new knowledge with life experience and weave it into existing narratives of
meaning.
The narrative orientation brings to the form the interpretive dimension of
teaching and learning. Gudmundsdottir (1995) notes that pedagogical content can be
thought of as narrative text, and teaching as essentially the exercise of textual
interpretation. Educators not only tell stories about the subject. The story is the subject
knowledge itself. In doing so, they aim to maintain some interpretive space in which the
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learner can interact with the subject. To tell too much, to provide the answer to all
questions spoken and anticipated, is to render the active engagement of the learner
unnecessary. To tell too little is to leave the learner with insufficient guidance or
support in constructing her or his own meaning and relationship with the content
( Leitch,1986 ).
Stories and Learning
The use of stories is pervasive in adult education practice. Case studies, critical
incidents, role playing, and simulations are among the story-based techniques
mentioned frequently in the literature ( Taylor, Marienau, and Fiddler 2000 ).
Storytelling is perhaps particularly prominent in literacy, English as a second language,