Seventh-Grade Students' Linguistic Difficulties in Writing Narrative Texts: A Descriptive Study in Differentiated Instruction

Abstract

This study was motivated by the persistent difficulties experienced by seventh-grade students in developing ideas into coherent, clear, and linguistically accurate narrative texts. It aims to describe the forms of students’ linguistic difficulties, identify the most dominant aspects, and explain the mapping of these difficulties as a basis for differentiated instruction. This descriptive qualitative study was conducted at SMPN 3 Natar, South Lampung, involving seventh-grade students in the second semester of the 2025/2026 academic year. Data sources included students’ narrative texts, classroom observations, interviews with teachers and students, and instructional documentation. The data were analyzed through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings show that students were able to generate story ideas by 73.33% and construct simple storylines by 66.67%; however, they still experienced linguistic difficulties. The most dominant difficulty was spelling at 70.00%, followed by punctuation at 66.67%, effective sentence construction and cohesion-coherence at 63.33% each, diction at 60.00%, and conjunction use at 56.67%. These findings indicate that narrative writing difficulties are related not only to idea development but also to students’ ability to process written language accurately and coherently. The mapping of these difficulties can guide teachers in designing differentiated content, learning support, and gradual editing exercises according to students’ needs.