TEKS NARATIF

      Tujuan utama teks naratif pada umumnya adalah mendidik dengan cara yang menyenangkan. Pelajaran tentang hidup dan kehidupan disampaikan oleh penutur atau penulis naratif dengan cara yang cenderung sederhana dan disesuaikan dengan dunia anak yang penuh imajinasi. Karena itulah teks naratif memiliki daya tarik yang tinggi bagi anak-anak, sehingga dapat dikatakan bahwa jenis teks ini berperan penting pada tahap-tahap awal pengembangan kemampuan literasi.

      Tujuan dari unit ini adalah agar siswa kelas 9 SMP mengetahui lebih jauh tentang teks naratif, agar minat mereka terhadap jenis teks ini meningkat. Dampak yang diharapkan timbul dari ini tidak lain adalah untuk peningkatan kemampuan literasi mereka dalam bahasa Inggris. Pemahaman mendalam tentang teks naratif tercermin dalam kemampuan siswa mengidentifikasi unsur-unsur berikut ini:

1. struktur jenerik atau skematik
2. ciri-ciri leksikogramar yang menonjol
3. Fungsi sosial

Struktur Jenerik Test Naratif
Pada umumnya teks naratif dikembangkan dalam beberapa tahap, yakni:
1. Orientasi
Pada tahap ini penulis memperkenalkan tokoh-tokohnya: namanya, tempat tinggalnya, waktu hidupnya, keadaannya, keinginannya, dsb. Dengan kata lain, konteks terjadinya cerita perlu dikenalkan kepada pembaca atau pendengar pada awal cerita, karena tanpa pemahaman konteks ini akan sulit bagi pembaca untuk memahami terjadinya hal-hal yang terjadi pada tahap-tahap berikutnya. Orientasi bisa pendek ataupun panjang tergantung panjang pendeknya cerita.
2. Komplikasi
Komplikasi mengacu pada kejadian atau peristiwa yang tidak diharapkan terjadi terjadi pada tokoh cerita. Komplikasi ini nanti akan dapat diselesaikan oleh salah satu tokoh lainnya. Dalam satu cerita, dapat terjadi hanya satu komplikasi dan solusi, tetapi seringkali lebih dari satu kali. Dalam cerita petualangan, tokohnya biasanya mengalami komplikasi bertubi-tubi, namun tetap saja akhirnya dapat diselesaikan.
3. Resolusi
Tahap ini adalah tahap penyelesaian dari komplikasi yang telah muncul sebelumnya. Cerita yang biasanya memberikan penyelesaian masalah atau krisis secara logis dan menarik pembaca. Penyelesaian dari suatu masalah adalah kembalinya ke keadaan normal yang kurang lebih sama dengan keadaan semula.
4. Evaluation
Dalam beberapa narasi, terutama yang agak kompleks, terdapat bagian Evaluasi. Di bagian ini pembaca diajak untuk memikirkan tentang makna atau nilai dari suatu kejadian atau peristiwa. Dengan teknik ini penulis tidak perlu lagi menguraikan kejadian secara panjang lebar, tetapi cukup memberikan komentar tentang apa yang telah terjadi atau akan terjadi berikutnya. Hal ini dapat dilakukan melalui penuturan salah satu tokohnya.
5. Reorientasi atau Coda
Tidak semua naratif diakhiri dengan tahap ini, yakni tahap untuk menyimpulkan isi cerita. Tahap ini lebih sering digunakan pada naratif yang disampaikan secara lisan daripada yang tertulis. Dengan kata lain, bagian ini bersifat opsional.
Untuk lebih memahami penjelasan ini, marilah kita analisis cerita berjudul The Golden Tree dibawah ini. Untuk itu, bacalah dulu cerita tersebut dengan seksama.

ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He traveled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess.

One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it. It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.

"Well, we'll soon find that out," thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept. "Oh, very badly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!" Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.

Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that. So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.

Anda lihat bahwa pembagian cerita tersebut ke dalam beberapa paragraph ternyata tindak sembarangan, tetapi dilakukan secara sengaja berdasarkan makna dan fungsi setiap bagian. Jika diperhatikan lebih cermat lagi, isi setiap setiap paragraph juga masih dapat dipecah-pecah ke dalam beberapa bagian makna.
Perhatikan analisis struktur jenerik dari cerita tersebut di bawah ini.

Struktur jenerik	The Princess and the Pea
ORIENTASI	ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess.
KOMPLIKASI	He traveled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess.
RESOLUSI	One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it. It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.
KOMPLIKASI	"Well, we'll soon find that out," thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses. On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept. "Oh, very badly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!"
RESOLUSI	Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds. Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.
RE-ORIENTASI	So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.