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The Myth of Malin Kundang
A long time ago, in a small village near the beach in West Sumatra, a woman and her son lived. They were Malin Kundang and her mother. Her mother was a single parent because Malin Kundang's father had passed away when he was a baby. Malin Kundang had to live hard with his mother.
Malin Kundang was a healthy, dilligent, and strong boy. He usually went to sea to catch fish. After getting fish he would bring it to his mother, or sold the caught fish in the town.
One day, when Malin Kundang was sailing, he saw a merchant's ship which was being raided by a small band of pirates. He helped the merchant. With his brave and power, Malin Kundang defeated the pirates. The merchant was so happy and thanked to him. In return the merchant asked Malin Kundang to sail with him. To get a better life, Malin Kundang agreed. He left his mother alone.
Many years later, Malin Kundang became wealthy. He had a huge ship and was helped by many ship crews loading trading goods. Perfectly he had a beautiful wife too. When he was sailing his trading journey, his ship landed on a beach near a small village. The villagers recognized him. The news ran fast in the town; “Malin Kundang has become rich and now he is here”.
An old woman ran to the beach to meet the new rich merchant. She was Malin Kundang’s mother. She wanted to hug him, released her sadness of being lonely after so long time. Unfortunately, when the mother came, Malin Kundang who was in front of his well dressed wife and his ship crews denied meeting that old lonely woman. For three times her mother begged Malin Kundang and for three times he yelled at her. At last Malin Kundang said to her "Enough, old woman! I have never had a mother like you, a dirty and ugly woman!" After that he ordered his crews to set sail. He would leave the old mother again but in that time she was full of both sadness and angriness.
Finally, enraged, she cursed Malin Kundang that he would turn into a stone if he didn't apologize. Malin Kundang just laughed and really set sail.
In the quiet sea, suddenly a thunderstorm came. His huge ship was wrecked and it was too late for Malin Kundang to apologize. He was thrown by the wave out of his ship. He fell on a small island. It was really too late for him to avoid his curse. Suddenly, he turned into a stone.
(Re-written from www.st.rim.or.jp)

Narrative Analysis on Generic Structure
Many believe that a story can teach a society certain moral value. Most stories are build in narrative. Because it is a narrative story, it must consists of complication. That complication, in fact, is the moral value which like to be taught.
Orientation; the first paragraph is set to be the story introduction. Reading the orientation, reader will know that the story is characterized with Malin Kundang and his mother. Wes Sumatra is set as the place.
Complication; this is the main element of narrative story. From the Malin Kundang myth, we know that there are more than one complication. Many stories are composed with multi complications. They are minor complication and major complication. When Malin Kundang and her mother did life hard, it can be the minor complication. this hard life in the first time was solved by his successful trading as new merchant. However this narrative sotry is more interesting when we see the major complication among the participants- Malin Kundang denied his mother after being successful merchant. In every story, complication must be ended; happy ending or sad one
Resolution; this is the end of the story, the sad ending one. Malin Kundang faces his curse of turning into a stone.

Have we wondered how we get chocolate from? Well this time we will enter the amazing world of chocolate so we can understand exactly we are eating.

Chocolate starts a tree called cacao tree. This tree grows in equatorial regions, especially in place such as South America, Africa, and Indonesia. The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pine apple. In side the fruits are the tree's seeds. They are also known as coco beans.

Next, the beans are fermented for about a week, dried in the sun. After that they are shipped to the chocolate maker. The chocolate maker starts by roasting the beans to bring out the flavour. Different beans from different places have different qualities and flavour. So they are often shorted and blended to produce a distinctive mix.

The next process is winnowing. The roasted beans are winnowed to remove the meat nib of the cacao bean from its shell. Then the nibs are blended. The blended nibs are ground to make it a liquid. The liquid is called chocolate liquor. It tastes bitter.

All seeds contain some amount of fat and cacao beans are not different. However, cacao beans are half fat, which is why the ground nibs from liquid. It is pure bitter chocolate.


Note on the generic structure of this explanation sample.

Every text genre has its special purpose or social function. However if we see the generic structure point, we will get the understanding which both the explanation and procedure text have similar purposes. Both explain how to make or form something. However the procedure text will explain how to form or make something completely by instruction way. That is why most of procedure text is composed in command sentences. In the other hand, explanation text will show a knowledge about how thing is formed.

The above example of explanation text has the following generic structure:

General statement; it is a statement which says about chocolate and how it is formed

Sequenced explanation; it is a series of explanation on how chocolate is formed before we eat. First, the chocolate is coming from the cacao tree. Then it is fermented and ship to the chocolate producer. The cacao bean then are roasted and winnowed.

Analytical exposition is one classified type as hortatory exposition in text genre. Both analytical exposition and hortatory exposition present arguments for supporting the issued thesis. What makes them different from one to each other is the last stage of the text, which the analytical exposition will end with a re-iteration. In the other hand, hortatory will close the essay with a recommendation. Analytical exposition will try to influence the reader by presenting some arguments to prove that the writer' idea is important. Furthermore, hortatory will try to persuade the reader how should or not do concerning the writer's idea. Now let's see the following example of analytical exposition!


Jakarta as a Bad Working Place for Expatriates

Jakarta is the second-worst place for expatriates to work in outside of the United States of America, Canada and Western Europe. It is according to a recent report published by Businessweek.

The Businessweek report ranked emerging markets that might be challenging to move into due to their level of pollution, disease, political violence and availability of good and services.

The report ranked Jakarta second, just below lagos in Nageria and above Riyadh Saudi Arabia, saying the threat of violence from extremest, in particular, was serious drawback to living in Jakarta. Bombings targeting foreign interests in Jakarta, such as the JW Marriot hotel bombing in 2003, have been repeated elsewhere in the city.

The report said despite problem common to many developing cities such as the risk of disease, poor sanitation, and excessive pollution, Indonesia can be an enticing location.

In response, the Jakarta administration took the report positively, saying it could spur the administration to improve its performance.

(Simplified from www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/04/15/)


Recount is very similar to narrative. Recount explores the series of events which happened to participant/s. These events are the main element in composing recount text. However it just focuses on the events themselves. It does not include the conflict inside.

The events will be told in chronological order based on time and place. If we get recount text with complete generic structure, it will be constructed by structuring orientation, events and re-orientation. The absence of complication/problem/conflict in the generic structure is actually differentiating from narrative. Arranging these series of event in beautiful and attractive way is the power of writer in composing recount text. Below is piece of passage which can be read as recount text.


My Rush Time as a Journalist

I usually woke up at eight o'clock a.m. and went to the Press Center to check the daily schedule of briefings and press conferences. It was usually held by the United Nation officials or disaster mitigation team.

It was challenging to visit different refugee camps to find soft stories, human interest stories. After that I went back to the Press Center to cover the press conferences of the day.

It was heart breaking when I saw these survivors fight for food and secondhand clothing. Unfortunately as they said, the food and clothing were limited and inadequate. Emerging to glaring, fool noon, it was time to go back to Press Center to write stories and race against time. I was always fearing that the internet would come crushing down.

After everything was done, only then I remembered to eat. Most times, I only ate once a day because I always had to rush and again it was difficult to find food. I had to travel quite far. I needed to spend a 30 to 45 minutes by car just to find fresh food.

Narrative is the most famous type of any text. Various purposes are communicated in a narrative type. However the way it is constructed is describing certain event, character or phenomenon in detail. Narrative prefer showing to telling and that the power of narrative. Reader will feel as he show by him self what happen in the text. Actually narrative can be fiction such as short story or novel and non-fiction like memoirs.

According to Madison smart Bell, the narrative design, or what we call form or structure, is of first and final importance to any work of fiction. In that structure, we will find elements of story; characterization, point of view, theme and plot. Plot is the way of the story constructed.

When we read a text, we can call it narrative as we see the following generic structure inside the text:

Orientation; the introduction of what is inside the text. What text is talk in general. Who involves in the text. When and where it happen.

Complication; what happens with the participants. It explores the conflict among the participants. Complication is the main element of narrative. Without complication, the text is not narrative. The conflict can be shown as natural, social or psychological conflict.

Resolution; this is the phase where the participants solve the problem aroused by the conflict. It is not matter whether the participants succeed or fail. The point is the conflict becomes ended.

Now let's read the following example of narrative text !


Story of Rabbit and Bear

Once upon a time, there lived as neighbours, a bear and a rabbit. The rabbit is a good shot. In contrary, the bear is always clumsy ad could not use the arrow to good advantage.

One day, the bear called over the rabbit and asked the rabbit to take his bow and arrows and came with bear to the other side of the hill. The rabbit was fearing to arouse the bear's anger so he could not refuse it. He consented and went with the bear and shot enough buffalo to satisfy the hungry family. Indeed he shot and killed so many that there was lots of meat left after the bear and his family had loaded themselves and packed all they could carry home.

The bear was very gluttonous and did not want the rabbit to get any of the meat. Th e rabbit could not even taste the blood from the butchering as the bear would throw earth on the blood and dry it up. The poor rabbit would have to go home hungry after his hard day's work.

The bear was the father of five children. The youngest child was very kind to the rabbit. He was very hearty eater. The mother bear always gave him an extra large piece of meat but the youngest child did not eat it. He would take it outside with him and pretended to play ball with the meat. He kicked toward the rabbit's house and when he got close to the door he would give the meat with such a great kick. The meat would fly into the rabbit's house. In this way, the poor rabbit would get his meal unknown to the papa bear.

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