AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING A NARRATIVE TEXT IN A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

The objectives of this research were to investigate the students’ ability in writing a narrative text, and to find out the factors of students’ difficulties in writing a narrative text. The method of this research was a descriptive qualitative research. In collecting the data, the researcher used writing test (to know students’ ability in writing a narrative text) and close-ended questionnaires (to find out the factors of students’ difficulties in writing a narrative text). The population of this research
was the year nine students of IX A class at SMP Negeri 37 Medan. 20 students are enrolled in the class, consisting of 8 male and 12 female students. The result shows that 12 students who achieved a ‘poor’ level. There were many errors in their text writing, such as a lack of vocabulary that made their text difficult to understand, errors in spelling and punctuation, and also a failure to use the correct tense, namely past tense. Most of the students agreed that the factors contributing to their difficulties in writing a narrative text were: they lacked motivation, lacked vocabulary, using appropriate spelling had been very difficult for them, and their texts had been difficult to understand and were not well-structured, and were unwilling to share their work with other students because they did not receive appropriate feedback.