Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension of Hortatory Exposition Texts by Using Graphic Organizer at Grade XI A-2 of Madrasah Aliyah Darul Hikmah Pekanbaru

The researcher found that students at grade XI A-2 of Madrasah Aliyah Darul Hikmah Pekanbaru had problems in comprehending hortatory exposition texts. The students were difficult to understand contents and generic structure of the texts. They did not know how to read and had limited vocabulary. Besides, teacher’s strategy in teaching reading made the students felt bored and not interested in reading. To solve those problems and improve the students’ reading comprehension, the researcher conducted a classroom action research through the use of Graphic Organizer. The purposes of this research were to identify to what extent Graphic Organizer can improve students’ reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts and the factors that influence the changes of students’ reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts at grade XI A-2 of Madrasah Aliyah Darul Hikmah Pekanbaru. This classroom action research consisted of two cycles and four meetings of each cycle; three meetings for teaching reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts by using Graphic Organizer and another meeting for reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts test. In collecting the data, the researcher used reading comprehension of hortatory exposition tests, observation checklists, field notes and interview. The findings in this research were the use of Graphic Organizer improved students’ reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts score and the factors that influenced the increasing of the students’ score were students’ activeness, the variety techniques, and appropriate reading material in applying Graphic Organizer. The improvement was confirmed by the increasing of students’ average score from cycle 1 to cycle II. The average score of students in cycle 1 was 66 and in cycle II was 77. In conclusion, the use of Graphic Organizer had positive impact in improving students’ reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts at grade XI A-2 of Madrasah Aliyah Darul Hikmah Pekanbaru. The implementation of graphic organizer can better improve students’ reading comprehension of hortatory exposition texts. It improved students’ score and students’ interest in reading. The result of this research can be taken as one of sources for improving students’ reading comprehension skill. Other teachers can use this strategy in teaching reading. They can also use other types of Graphic Organizer in teaching other language skills not only reading.