Narrative Text
Have you heard about The Three Little Pigs story? Could you tell me? What kind of text is it?
We will discuss about it. Before it, I wanna show you the video of The Three Little Pigs story.
Your duty is identify the characteristics, structure, and language features of The Three Little Pigs video.
Let’s watch the video!
What do you think about the video? Is it a great video, right?
Yeeah, The Three Little Pigs is narrative text story.
Definition
Narrative text is a story to amuse or entertain that tells about someone or something. Narrative text which story deals with problematic events and you should write the solution of the problems itself. You have to write narrative text accordance with the sequence event.
Generic Structure
§ Orientation
You have to introduce the characters or participant and informing the plot of the story, that consist of place, time, etc.
§ Complication
You should describe the rising crisis events of the story.
§ Resolution
You have to show the way of actor or participant solved the problems.
§ Reorientation
You might write the message from the story and you could write the moral values of the story at the end of paragraph. It is optional, you can put reorientation on your story or not.
Language Features
A narrative text has these features:
§ Simple past tense
You have to use simple past tense because narrative text tells about the event which already happened.
§ Direct speech dialogues
You should use direct speech to show the conversation in that story.
§ Adverb and adverbial
You should use adverb and adverbial phrases to locate the particular incidents or events.
§ The events are in chronological order
You have to write narrative text with sequence of event, in order to make the story chronological.
Example of Narrative Text
Title | Lake Toba |
Orientation | Once upon a time, there was a man who was living in north Sumatra. He lived in a simple hut in a farming field. They did some gardening and fishing for his daily life. |
Complication | One day, while the man was do fishing, he caught a big golden fish in his trap. It was the biggest catch which he ever had in his life. Surprisingly, this fish turned into a beautiful princess. He felt in love with her and proposed her to be his wife. She said; "Yes, but you have to promise not to tell anyone about the secret that I was once a fish, otherwise there will be a huge disaster". The man made the deal and they got married, lived happily and had a daughter. Few years later, this daughter would help bringing lunch to her father out in the fields. One day, his daughter was so hungry and she ate his father’s lunch. Unfortunately, he found out and got furious, and shouted; “You damned daughter of a fish”. The daughter ran home and asked her mother. The mother started crying, felt sad that her husband had broken his promise. |
Resolution | Then she told her daughter to run up the hills because a huge disaster was about to come. When her daughter left, she prayed. Soon there was a big earthquake followed by non-stop pouring rain. The whole area got flooded and became Toba Lake. She turned into a fish again and the man became the island of Samosir. |
Resources
James, Peter. (2006). Real English for Senior High School Grade XI. Jakarta: Esis.
