THE USE OF QUESTIONING THE AUTHOR (QtA) STRATEGY IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN READING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AT THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP ISLAM PLUS JANNATUL FIRDAUS PEKANBARU

Abstract: Students at SMP Islam Plus Jannatul Firdaus Pekanbaru had problems in
understanding the text when reading process, those were because: the students ought to
construct of generic structure of descriptive text namely identification and description.
The students ought to comprehend the contents of identification. The students ought to
comprehend the contents of description. Then, the researcher tested based-score of
reading descriptive text, the researcher found that the students’ mean score was just 68.
This research aimed to improve the students’ ability in reading descriptive text by using
Questioning the Author (QtA) Strategy. Thus, this research conducted Classroom
Action Research (CAR) consisting of one cycles. There were 15 students at Grade VII
of SMP Islam Plus Jannatul Firdaus Pekanbaru as the participants of the research. To
gain the data, the researcher used four instruments namely: test, observation, field note,
and interview. The result of the reading test in cycle 1 (78.33) was better than the basedscore. The factors influeced the changing of students’ ability in reading descriptive text
were the vocabulary mastery, the condition of the class, and absolutely the strategy used
by the teacher in teaching reading. In conclusion, Questioning the Author (QtA)
strategy can improve the students’ ability in reading descriptive text.
Keywords: Questioning the Author (QtA) Strategy, Reading, and Descriptive