<![CDATA[This study was motivated by the low response text writing skills of seventh grade students at SMP Negeri 36 Medan. This condition was indicated by the fact that many students still had difficulties in expressing opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in written form using proper and correct Indonesian. One effort to overcome this problem is the implementation of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model, as this model helps students relate the learning material to their real-life experiences. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the Contextual Teaching and Learning model on the response text writing skills of seventh grade students at SMP Negeri 36 Medan. This study employed an experimental method using a Posttest-Only Control Group Design. The population of this study consisted of all seventh grade students of SMP Negeri 36 Medan in the 2025/2026 academic year. The sample was selected through random sampling and consisted of two classes, namely class VII-1 as the experimental class and class VII-2 as the control class. The experimental class was taught using the Contextual Teaching and Learning model, while the control class was taught using the Direct Instruction model. The research instrument was a response text writing test. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26 through normality testing, homogeneity testing, and hypothesis testing using the Independent Samples t-Test. The results showed that the mean posttest score of the experimental class was 77.84, while the mean posttest score of the control class was 67.94. The hypothesis testing result showed that the significance value was 0.001, which was lower than 0.05; therefore, the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. It can be concluded that the Contextual Teaching and Learning model had a significant effect on the response text writing skills of seventh grade students at SMP Negeri 36 Medan.]]>
