Teachers' Difficulties in Teaching Simple Composition Writing in Elementary School: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

Abstract

Teaching simple composition writing requires teachers to coordinate planning, modeling, idea generation, language support, differentiation, time management, and assessment. Previous studies have commonly emphasized student writing outcomes or the effectiveness of particular media and strategies, while fewer studies examine the teacher's difficulties across the complete writing process in a natural elementary classroom. This qualitative descriptive study investigated the forms of difficulty experienced by a Grade IV teacher, the internal and external factors contributing to those difficulties, and the efforts used to address them at SDN Jatisari II, Bekasi City. The main informant was one classroom teacher selected purposively. Data were obtained through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and documentation, and were analyzed through data reduction, display, and conclusion verification. The teacher experienced difficulties designing process-oriented worksheets, supporting idea generation and elaboration, expanding vocabulary and sentence construction, managing mixed abilities and attention, completing writing within approximately thirty minutes, and providing detailed assessment. The findings show that teacher difficulty is an interaction between pedagogical demands and available classroom support. Improvement requires staged writing tasks, explicit modeling, differentiated scaffolding, distributed writing time, focused feedback, revision opportunities, and school-level literacy resources.