Genre Quality Analysis of Junior High School Students’ Recount Texts across Different Writing Ability Levels

Abstract

This study analyzed the quality of students’ recount texts in terms of social function, generic structure (orientation, events, reorientation), and lexica-grammatical features (material process, specific participants, temporal sequence, past tense, and circumstances of time and place) across different levels of writing ability. It implemented a qualitative descriptive study. The data were derived from a writing recount test from 30 eighth-grade students at a junior high school in Semarang. The findings demonstrated that writing ability affected the quality of students’ recount texts. All students, regardless of ability, achieved the social function of recounting text to retell past events. They were generally able to develop orientation, specific participants, material process, and circumstances of time and places well, especially among low-level students, even though higher-level students still showed greater ability. Moreover, the quality of some aspects also improved across different writing ability levels, including events, reorientation, past tense, and temporal sequence. However, tense shifts and inconsistent use of temporal sequence still occurred even among high-level students. For the implication, the teacher need to focus creating events in a well-developed, reflective reorientation, as well as lexicogrammatical features that are remained challenges, such as past tense and temporal sequence.