Abstract :
ABSTRACT
This research was descriptive qualitative research. The purposes of this research were 1) to identify and classify the difficulty in writing descriptive paragraphs viewed from the specific writing indicators as they were faced by the Junior High School students at Tejakula; 2) To identify and explain the sources of difficulty in writing descriptive paragraphs. The data were collected by writing task (descriptive person, animal, and procedure) and focused group interview. Writing task was proposed to identify the types of difficulty, and a focused group interview was proposed to find out the sources of the difficulty. Based on the research findings, students faced difficulty in their writing. The most difficulty faced in writing descriptive person and animal was difficulty in grammar. Meanwhile, in writing a descriptive procedure, the most difficulty faced by the students was mechanics. Furthermore, sources of difficulty found were absence of knowledge, poor prior knowledge, and poor memory.
Keywords: Writing, descriptive text, difficulty analysis, types of difficulty, and source of difficulty.