Using portfolio as method of assessing students' writing skill

Assessment is an important component in teaching writing. Portfolio is one of alternatives in assessing the students' work. It is the collection of the students' work in order to measure and monitor the students'. work, especially in writing. This study tries to answer the research questions dealing with the implementation of portfolio assessment. The questions are: 1) How the teacher implements portfolio assessment in teaching writing; 2) The result of student's writing portfolio assessment; and 3) The students' responses about assessment using portfolio? This study was descriptive qualitative study. The researcher described the implementation and the result of portfolio assessment. In this case, the study was conducted in three meetings, which took the teacher of the eighth grade students in junior high school as the subject of the study. This study was conducted at Slv.1P Negeri 5 Surabaya. Data of the study was collected by observing the teacher's and the students' activity. The researcher used the observation field note to answer the first question. Meanwhile, the researcher used students' work to answer the second question. Last, the researcher used questionnaire to answer the third question. Based on the result of portfolio assessment, the researcher described students' progress in writing descriptive reflected in the implementation of portfolio assessment. It can be seen from the increasing score, the usage of right grammar and vocabulary. It can be concluded that the implementation of portfolio assessment as method of assessing students' writing is able to improve the quality and skills of students work. It's suggested that using portfolio assessment recommended in the teaching writing