1.      Picture Series

a.             Picture : features and function

Pictures are all around us everyday, in the street, at work, at home even in our leisure time. They are one of the most common media which are generally discussed and enjoyd by people everywhere. They are as one language to communicate that are expressed by the sign and symbol (Riyanto: 1982: 24 cited in supriyanto, 2010:4). Gerlach (1980:83) also states that they are two dimension visual representations of a person, a place, or things. In addition, Wright (1976:38) claims that they are not only representation of people, places, and objects, but also they are essential parts of overall knowledge.they can be used in many fields from social to science and many grades from kinderganten to college (Sudjana and Rivai 2009, cited in devi, 2010:21)

In teaching and learning process, the picture can be used as learning media. As the media, it provides many benefits and gives real impression to the students.it can be the media for comprehension of learning topics; besides it can stimulate speaking and writing activities.

Furthermore, in the writing activities the picture as a visual material that offers and stimulates framework for writing practice. It helps the students describe the framework of their ideas such as making a plan of what is going to write, how put their ideas and how to resent their ideas.

The picture is not only used as a visual material for the students’ composition but also it effectively stimulates students’ imaginative power. It helps the students stimulate their creative imaginatin to generate and develope new ideas. It also can inspire them to begin writing about their thoughts and feeling. The students can express them selves in writing when their imaginations are stimulated and as a result creative writing  increase (Tacheny: 2009). A student with a creative imagination will often find that he learns a new language and enjoyably through the use of pictures.

Gerlach and Elly (1980:277 in Supriyanto, 2010:5) claim that the use of picture in teaching learning process has the adventages and disadventages. The adventages of picture include : (1) picture is inexpensive and widely available, (2) picture can interpret abstract concepts, it can help to prevent and correct misconception, (3) picture can increase the depth of understanding to the concepts and more effective comparede to the theory, (4) picture can help the students develope their critical judgement and their interpretation about events in the picture.

On the other hand, the disadventages of the picture include: (1) picture can limit proper interpretation even misconception if it is lack of colour, (2) misunderstanding in reading the picture because every student has different imagination about the picture.

Observing the features and functions of pictures above, it is reasonable that many teachers highly recommend pictures for writing activities.

Picture series bellow may show clearly how to present series of picture, if book or magazine ilustrations are copied and they should be simplified.