Reading Skill

Reading Skill

“Narrative Text”

The Definition and Purpose of Narrative Text

Narrative text is a kind of text to retell the story that past tense. The purpose of the text is to entertain or to amuse the readers or listeners about the story.

Generic Structure of Narrative Text 

Orientation: it means to introduce the participants or the characters of the story with the time and place set.

Complication: it is such the crisis of the story. If there is not the crisis, the story is not a narrative text.
Resolution: it is the final series of the events which happen in the story. The resolution can be good or bad. The point is that it has been accomplished by the characters.

Linguistic Features of Narrative Text:
1. Use active verbs.
2. Use past tense.
3. Use conjunction.
4. The first person (I or We) or the third person (He, She, or They).
5. Use specific nouns.
6. Use adjective and adverbs


Example of Narative Text

 The Story of Tangkuban Perahu

Once, there was a kingdom in Priangan Land. Lived a happy family. They were a father in form of dog,his name is Tumang, a mother which was called is Dayang Sumbi, and a child which was called Sangkuriang.

One day, Dayang Sumbi asked her son to go hunting with his lovely dog, Tumang. After hunting all day, Sangkuriang began desperate and worried because he hunted no deer. Then he thought to shot his own dog. Then he took the dog liver and carried home. Soon Dayang Sumbi found out that it was not deer lever but Tumang's, his own dog. So, She was very angry and hit Sangkuriang's head. In that incident, Sangkuriang got wounded and scar then cast away from their home.

Years go bye, Sangkuriang had travel many places and finally arrived at a village. He met a beautiful woman and felt in love with her. When they were discussing their wedding plans, The woman looked at the wound in Sangkuriang's head. It matched to her son's wound who had left several years earlier. Soon she realized that she felt in love with her own son.
She couldn't marry him but how to say it. Then, she found the way. She needed a lake and a boat for celebrating their wedding day. Sangkuriang had to make them in one night. He built a lake. With a dawn just moment away and the boat was almost complete. Dayang Sumbi had to stop it. Then, she lit up the eastern horizon with flashes of light. It made the cock crowed for a new day.
Sangkuriang failed to marry her. She was very angry and kicked the boat. It felt over and became the mountain of Tangkuban Perahu Bandung.

TASK

Read the following text carefully and answer the questions!

Once upon a time in the middle of the forest, there lived a girl named Jane with her father, a poor woodcutter.

One day, the little girl’s father didn’t come home from the forest and Jane became more and more frightened that he had had an accident. She didn’t know that what to do because she was very afraid of the dark.

Finally, she plucked up all her courage and headed out to the clearing where she thought her father had been that day. After two long hours searching, she finally found him. His foot had been trapped under a long and he couldn’t lift it himself. Jane helped her father to free himself and they went home happily. Jane was very glad she had not been to frightened to go in search of her father.

• What is the suitable title for the text?
• When and where the accident happen?
• How many characters are there in the text?
• How did Jane solve her fear?
• Can you find any moral values in the text? Explain your answer!