A REVIEW OF STRUCTURE, IMAGINATION, COHERENCE, AND LEARNING MOTIVATION IN WRITING FICTIONAL FABLE STORIES AMONG THIRD-GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

This study was motivated by the low writing proficiency among elementary school students, particularly in composing structured, imaginative, and coherent fable narratives. Writing is a fundamental literacy skill that should be nurtured from an early age. The aim of this research is to describe the fable writing skills of third-grade elementary students in terms of structure, imagination, and coherence, to examine their relationship with students’ motivation to write. The novelty of this study lies in the integration of linguistic and psycho-pedagogical analyses by linking the quality of students’ written work with their motivational profiles. This research employed an exploratory quantitative survey method, involving 50 students from one elementary school in Gugus II, Pulo Ampel District, as the sample. The research instruments consisted of a writing test and a writing motivation questionnaire. The results indicated that students’ writing ability was generally in the “emerging” category (mean score: 10.06 out of 18), while their writing motivation was in the “moderate” category (mean score: 43.82 out of 60). A weak but positive correlation was found between writing motivation and writing ability (r = 0.367; p < 0.05). These findings suggest the need for instructional models that simultaneously enhance students’ writing skills and motivation.