International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE Story Mapping in Teaching Writing Narrative Text Yuliana yulianaabi84@gmail.com STKIP Muhammadiyah Pagaralam Abstract The title of this research was Teaching Writing by Using Story Mapping Technique. The main objective was to improve the students’ writing achievement. Quasi-Experimental design was used in this research which population was the eleventh grader of SMA Muhammadiyah Pagaralam with the total number 254 students and the sample were 64 students which consisted of two classes taken by purposive sampling technique. The data were collected by using written test. The data were analyzed by using independent sample and paired sample t-test. The result showed that the students who were taught by using story mapping technique gained better improvement with the value of t-obtained was higher than critical t-table, in which 3,73>2,38 with the significant value 0,01 value in their writing achievement. It means that the alternative hypotheses (Ha) was accepted and the Null Hypotheses (Ho) was rejected. In short, the using of story mapping technique could improve students writing achievement. Keywords: Story Mapping Technique, Writing Achievement. Introduction According to Sidekli (2013:289) writing provides communication with people who are far away in terms of time and distance, presents incredible opportunities for acquiring, presenting and transferring information. Through writing, the student can express their idea, opinions, knowledge, experiences, and willingness. Writing is not only leads the students to be more competitive when they want to have a good position for job but also helps them to think critically. In short, it is thus of central importance to students in academic and second language programs throughout the world. Langan (2001:178) mentions that writing skill is important for two reasons. First, writing is a basic need for English learners to support their academic success. A good writing skill will help learners to do their written assignment. Second, writing is a practical need to support their future career. Having good writing skill is one of job requirements. More professions require ability to write especially in the use of email and message. It can be inferred that writing is an important skill that can support students’ academic success and future career. Therefore, this skill should be learned and mastered well by the students. Considering the importance of writing achievement in language learning discussed, the Education Ministry of Indonesia includes writing as the important skills in curriculum 2006. In Senior High School Syllabus, there are twelve genres of the text that are learned by students: procedure, descriptive, recount, report, news item, discussion, exposition, and narrative text. Refer to the Senior High School Syllabus particularly for eleventh grade; students must be able to understand narrative text. Based on the writer interviewed to the English teacher at SMA Muhammadiyah Pagaralam, she found the students’ writing is not comprehensible, because the content of the composition is not relevant to the topic, the ideas are not clearly stated, and sentences are not well organized. The second problem was that there are many errors in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling when the students tell their experience in the form of writing. Therefore, the writer assumes that those problems will continuously arise if there is no innovation made. The writer tried to find out and apply innovative ways, like techniques, strategies and media that can be used to help the students in improving their writing achievement especially in narrative text. In this research the writer tried to apply the appropriate technique. If the teacher applies good and appropriate technique, it will make the students enthusiastic and have great motivation in learning process. To overcome the problem above, the teacher should offer students a technique to help them in producing written texts, step by step in producing a piece of writing. The effective technique to improving writing achievement is story mapping. Ibnian (2010:182) noted story mapping technique could be used to enhance students’ interpretative abilities by enabling them to visualize story characters, events and setting. Story mapping is a visual graphic map in which is provided the elements of story such as setting, characters, problems, and resolution which are presented to help the writers associate the whole content of the story, so that they can easily manage their ideas as they write and read the story. Burke et al (2004:106) said story maps provide a visual spatial display for key information in narrative text. In writing of narrative text, story mapping can create not only writers’ creativity, but also help the writers develop their thoughts appropriate with the theme provided in writing of an imaginative story or telling their experience to the readers. Writer also believes that using story mapping is a suitable technique that can attract the students to focus on writing narrative text. Therefore, the writer interested to find out whether or not any significance difference of the tenth grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah Pagaralam in writing achievement who were taught by using story mapping and those were not. Method The method used in this research was an experimental research. It means that the writer investigated and analyzed the data, which obtain after giving the treatment to the subject. Then, Quasi-experimental used, According to Fraenkel & Wallen (2009, p. 275), “Quasi-experimental designs do not include the use of random assignment. This research used control class Pre Test-Post tests design. In this case, the population of the research was the eleventh grader of SMA Muhammadiyah Pagaralamin academic 2016/2017. The population was 254 students; they were divided into eight classes. From the population the researcher took purposive sampling technique. Purposive sampling technique is a type of non-probability sampling where the researcher consciously selects particular elements or subject for addition in a pertinent to the study. The researcher took two classes from eight classes; they were X.1 and X.3 as sample. In doing this study, the researcher taught at SMA Muhammadiyah Pagaralam. Before doing the experiment the researcher gave a pre-test to the sample students. The samples were divided into two groups, as the experimental group and control group. Both of experimental and control group had different teaching procedure. In the experimental group, they got a treatment of the implementation of using story mapping technique in their writing activity, while for the control group the treatment of story mapping technique was not given. Teaching Procedure Teaching Procedure for Experimental Class a. Pre-Activities 1. The researcher gave a stimulus that related to the material or standard competence and reviewed the previous material in the last meeting. 2. The researcher gave a motivation about the importance of learning English, especially writing. b. Whilst-Activities 1. Researcher explained the four stages of writing; planning, composing, revising, and editing. Tell the students that they are going to focus on planning and that you are going to share another strategy with them to help them plan their writing. 2. Researcher introduced the story mapping as a graphic organizer for planning to write. 3. Researcher demonstrated the strategy by partially completing a story mapping in the picture for your own story. 4. Researcher asked students to complete a story mapping for their folk tale. Students may work in groups to share ideas and help each other. When students are finished, have pairs exchange their story maps and check that they are complete. 5. Researcher asked students to begin write their stories. Remain them to use story mapping to guide them as they write. 6. Researcher asked the students to review their stories. c. Post- Activities 1. The researcher asked the students to review about the material that had been given. 2. The researcher gave some suggestion and motivation about how important to practice writing by using story mapping technique. 3. The researcher closed the class and appreciates students’ work which has been done Teaching Procedure for Control Class a. Pre- Activities 1. The researchers gave a stimulus that relates to the material or standard competence and review the previous material in the last meeting. 2. The researcher gave a motivation about the importance of learning English, especially writing. b. Whilst-Activities 1. The researcher made some important point that relates to the material being taught. 2. The researcher guided the students to write and know the meaning of the key words. c. Post-Activities 1. The researcher asked the students to do a review about the material that has been given. 2. The researcher closed the class and appreciates students’ work which has been done. Result and Discussion The data in this research were analyzed by using Paired Sample t-test and Independent Sample t-test. Paired sample t-test is used to find out whether or not there is significant difference in writing achievement of narrative text of the students in the experimental and control groups before and after treatment. In the other side, Independent sample t-test is used to know whether or not there is significant difference in writing achievement of narrative text between students’ post-test in the experimental and control group. The data of this study were analyzed by using SPSS 22. Result of Descriptive Statistics Based on the result of the test, it was known that in pre-test experimental class the lowest score was 47, the highest score was 61, the mean 55,76 and the standard deviation was 3,473. Meanwhile, in the post-test, the lowest score was 55 and the highest score was 82, the mean was 70,94 and the standard deviation was 7,228. Furthermore, the result of the test in control class showed that in pre-test found the lowest score was 46, the highest score was 61, the mean 55,44 and the standard deviation was 3,831. Meanwhile, for the post-test, the lowest score was 51 and the highest score was 76, the mean was 65,03 and the standard deviation was 5,744. Table 1 Frequency, Mean and Standard Deviation of students’ writing ability in post test Variable Level of achievement Experimental class Control class Mean SD Frequency of Percentage Mean SD Frequency of Percentage Writing Failed - - - - - - Poor 55,00 0,00 1 (3%) 51,00 0,00 2 (6%) Enough 61,57 3,30 7 (21%) 62,13 2,44 16 (47%) Good 73,76 4,41 25 (73%) 69,69 2,38 16 (47%) Very Good 82,00 0,00 1 (3%) - - - Total 272,33 7,71 34 (100%) 182,8 4,82 34 (100%) The result showed there was significant difference in students’ writing ability in experimental and control class. In experimental class there were 1 student (3%) categorized very good with the mean score 82,00, there were 25 students (73%) categorized good with the mean score 73,76, there were 7 students (21%) categorized enough with the mean score 61,57 and there were 1 student (3%) categorized enough with the mean score 55,00. Based on the categories presented, it showed that the students’ writing achievement by using story mapping technique in the experimental class mostly in good category. On the other hand, in the control class, the result of post test showed that there were 16 students (47%) categorized good with the mean 62,13, there were 16 students (47%) categorized enough with the mean 69,69, and there were 2 students (6%) categorized enough with the mean 51,00. Based on the categories presented in table 8 it concluded that the students’ writing achievement of control class mostly in enough and good category. It can be conclude that the score of experimental and control class in writing was improved. The experimental class who were taught by using story mapping technique had better differences in writing that control class who were not. The Result of Statistical Analysis Two statistical analyses were used in this study: Paired sample t-test and Independent sample t-test. Paired sample t-test was used to find out whether or not there was significant difference in writing achievement of the students in the experimental and control class before and after treatment. Independent sample t-test was used to know whether or not there was any significant difference in writing achievement between the students post-test in experimental and control group. The Result of Paired Sample T-test of Writing Achievement in Experimental Class To find out whether there was significant difference in students’ writing achievement before and after treatment, the result of pre-test and pos-test were compared. In term of writing aspects, the value of content was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 3,64, followed by organization was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 4,11, vocabulary was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 3,63, language use was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 3,11 and mechanics was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 0,48, as presented in table 2. Table 2 The Result of Paired Sample T-test of Writing Achievement in Experimental Class Variable Mean pre-test Mean post-test Mean differences t-obtained sig.(2-tailed) Writing Achievement (total) 55,94 70,94 15,00 16,84 ,000 Content 15,00 18,65 3,64 13,67 ,000 Organization 12,31 16,43 4,11 14,22 ,000 Vocabulary 12,60 16,24 3,63 14,22 ,000 Language Use 13,41 16,53 3,11 9,97 ,000 Mechanics 2,62 3,10 0,48 7,46 ,000 The Result of Paired Sample T-test of Writing Achievement in Control Class To find out whether there was significant difference in students’ writing achievement before and after treatment, the result of pre-test and pos-test were compared. In term of writing aspects, the value of content was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 4,25 followed by organization was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 2,30, vocabulary was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 1,83, language use was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences1,80 and mechanics was at the significant level 0,000 with mean differences 0,38, as presented in table 3. Table 3 The Result of Paired Sample T-test of Writing Achievement in Control Class Variable Mean pre-test Mean post-test Mean differences t-obtained sig. (2-tailed) Writing achievement (total) 54,44 65,03 10,58 10,84 ,000 Content 14,12 18,37 4,25 11,41 ,000 Organization 12,34 14,65 2,30 6,93 ,000 Vocabulary 12,44 14,28 1,83 5,83 ,000 Language Use 12,81 14,62 1,80 5,53 ,000 Mechanics 2,74 3,12 0,38 4,38 ,000 The Result of Independent Sample T-test of Writing Achievement To find out whether or not there was a significant difference in writing before and after treatment between experimental and control class, the researcher compared the result of post test in both of classes by using independent sample t-test. Table 4 The Result of Independent Sample T-test Variable Post-test   T-obtained  T-table Df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Exp Mean Cont Writing Achievement 70,94 65,03 3,73  2,38 66 0,000 Based on the calculation in table 4, the value of t​-obtained was 3,73, at the significant value p >0,01 in 2-tailed testing with df=66, the critical value of the t-table was 2,38. Since the t-obtained > t-table (3,73>2,38) and p value of t-obtained was higher than the critical value of t-table. The null hypothesis (HO) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (HA) was accepted. From the calculation, it was found out that there was a significant difference between the students in experimental class who were taught by using story mapping and those who were not. It proved that the using of story mapping technique could improve students writing achievement. Conclusion Based on the result of data analysis, that was described in the previous chapter. It could be concluded that use story mapping technique in teaching writing was significance improvement, that proven by analyzing the student’ post-test value of the experimental group and the control group by using independent sample t-test. In which showed that the value of t​-obtained was 3,73, at the significant value p>0,01 in 2-tailed testing with df=66, the critical value of the t-table was 2,38. Since the t-obtained > t-table (3,73>2,38) and p value of t-obtained was higher than the critical value of t-table. The null hyphothesis (HO) was rejected and the alternative hyphothesis (HA) was accepted. From the calculation, it was found out that there was a significant difference between the students in experimental class who were taught by using story mapping and those who were not. It means the using of story mapping technique could improve students writing achievement. The using of story mapping in teaching writing is effective technique to improve students writing achievement especially in narrative text. The story mapping is a visual graphic map in which is provided the elements of story such as setting, characters, problems, and resolution which are presented to help the writers associate the whole content of the story, so that they can easily manage their ideas as they write the story. Story mapping is useful to be used by students as an outline of students’ writing. 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