AN ANALYSIS OF THE STUDENTS ’ ABILITY IN WRITING EXPOSITION ESSAY BY CONTRAST DEVELOPMENT AT 11th YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAN 3 SUNGAI PENUH

Writing is very important skill for students in learning English. It is because writing is one of four major skills that have to be mastered. Writing is as a communicative skill plays an important role for the students to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings. It is also as an indicator in determining whether the students have a good academic achievement or not. This research was aimed to describe students ’ ability in writing an exposition essay by contrast development based on criterions in evaluating essay writing. The data of this research was collected by giving the students a writing test. The researcher analyzed the data using analytical method by scoring five elements of exposition essay by contrast development (organization, content, grammar, mechanic, and vocabulary). Based on the data analysis, the researcher concluded that the students ’ ability in writing exposition essay by contrast development was poor. It was indicated by 74,07 % of the students got poor score (20 students)