THE ANALYSIS OF EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT AT SMP NEGERI 13 MEDAN

The objective of this study was to determine the students' ability in producing recount texts as well as the difficulties they faced. The descriptive qualitative
method was the approach taken in this study. Purposive sampling was used to choose 20 eighth-grade students from SMP Negeri 13 Medan for use as the sample participants in this study. Questionnaires and writing tests given to
students are two of the research's instruments. In order to analyze the data, the researcher found faults in the test essays written by the students and categorized them using the (Jacobs et al., 1981) assessment rubric. The scores were then entered into the (Cohen, 1994) writing score table. The results showed that, with an average score of 69,5 , students recount text writing abilities fell into the good
level category. However, the data's conclusion indicated that students had certain difficult when producing recount text essays. The results of the research showed that students were classified as fair to poor because they made the majority of mistakes in content (20,15%) and organization (13,45%). The reasons for these problems include students lack of not understanding about the topic and order of idea and sentences to deliver a wellwritten form paragraph. Therefore, in order to address these problems, teachers should give students more opportunities to practice writing and develop strategies, media, and learning methods which focus on content and organization will enhance their writing skills, especially when it
comes to writing recount texts. Students' proficiency in these areas still needs to be improved.