AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENT'S DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT IN THE TENTH GRADE OF SMA ISEN MULANG PALANGKA RAYA

The purpose of this study is to analyze the most frequent mistakes made by students in writing descriptive texts and the challenges faced by students in writing descriptive texts.
The design of this study was a qualitative descriptive method. Through purposive sampling technique, 8 students of tenth grade of SMA Isen Mulang Palangka Raya were selected as samples of this study. There are four instruments used in this research: written tests, observations, interviews, and documentation. To analyze the data, the researcher identified students' writing using an assessment rubric adapted from Brown (2007) and modified based on theory Gerot (1994), which emphasizes generic structure and linguistic features. The rubric evaluates five aspects: identification, description, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics, reflecting adjustments from Brown's original rubric (2007), which includes content, organization, grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary.
The findings showed that students made mistakes in linguistic features : vocabulary aspects 18%, grammar 57%, and mechanics 25%. However, in the generic structure descriptive text, the researcher did not find any errors in students' writing. The results of the analysis show that the largest number of errors are in grammar, totaling 60 errors. Students face challenges so that they experience some difficulties in writing descriptive texts. The challenges facing students in writing descriptive texts are in the aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. The reasons behind students' difficulties are lack of vocabulary, lack of grammar skills, and writing in a hurry.