Developing Writing Skill Of The Seventh Grade Students Of SMP Negeri 13 Palu Through Picture Composition

The aims of this research is to find out whether or not the use of Picture Composition can develop the students’ skill to write descriptive text at the seventh grade of SMP Negeri 13 Palu. This research applied a quasi-experimental research design that involved experimental group and control group. The sample of this research were 36 students, which were divided into 18 students of class VII C as the experimental group and 18 students of class VII B as the control group. The sample was selected using purposive sampling technique. The data was collected by administering a writing test consisting of a pre-test and post-test. Then the treatment was only given to the experimental group. The result of the pre-test shows that the mean score of the experimental group is 46.5 while the mean score of the control group is 52.2. This demonstrated that the pre-test mean score of the experimental group were lower compared to the control group. After conducting the treatment, the result of the post-test shows that the mean score of the experimental group is 75.2 while the mean score of the control group is 58.5 It indicates that the experimental group has shown improvement in their writing skill compared to the control group. By applying 34 degree of freedom (df) and 0.05 level of significance, it can be seen that the tcounted (8.58) is higher than the ttable (2.032). It means that the research hypothesis is accepted. In conclusion, that the use of Picture Composition can develop the students’ writing skill to the seventh grade of SMP Negeri 13 Palu.