This thesis aims to describe 1) whether and to what extent the use photo storyto enhance the students develop ideas in writing descriptive text; 2) Describe the strengths and weaknesses/difficulties of the use photo story to enhance the students develop ideas in writing descriptive text.
The method of the research is classroom action research. This action research is conducted collaboratively with one of English teachers in SMPN 5 Yogyakarta, in 7.5 class. This action research was carried out in two cycles which consisted of planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. The qualitative data were collected using field notes, diary, questionnaire and documentation. Then, the qualitative data were analyzed through data reduction, data display, and conclusion and verification. The quantitative data were collected from test. The test consisted of pre-test and post test. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics to compare the result of the pre-test and post test.
From all of the findings, it can be concluded that Photostory can improve the students‘skill in developing ideas. It can be seen from the students‘ score improvement; from 64,66 (pre-test) to 75,31 (post-test cycle 1), and 90,03 (post-test cycle 2).The problems of usingphoto story in the classroom are: 1) students open the website other than what was required; 2) the class become noisy; 3) the same picturesused in theclass. Beside the score improvement, applying photo story also improve in the following: 1) the class atmosphere; 2) the students‘ motivation; and 3) the elaboration in some other developing ideas indicators. In using Photostory to improve the students‘ skill in developing ideas, the teacher should let the students to find their own articles and photostory subject with some proper regulation to make the result in line with the teaching and learning goal.
Key words:action research, developing ideas, photostory, writing