Narrative Writing P5 / P6

The issue of composition writing has been highlighted again at the start of the year with my students. Teaching the children to write beautiful compositions is a somewhat complex task. The balance between memorizing and using phrases and words and nurturing creativity is essential in helping a student to not only write well but enjoy the process of writing. The purpose of narrative writing is to entertain the reader (the teacher/ examiner). Describing people, places and events is to tell the reader in detail what is occurring in a certain scenario. Students should focus on describing the scenery, emotions and actions of the characters in the story. Students should use a lot of adjectives and adverbs.

Planning a story can take a student less than 5 minutes when practiced regularly but it can make the difference in writing an average piece of work or a good piece of work.

Most students begin their writing without any planning and this can result in a story that is disorganized and unclear with the characters developed poorly. I have come to realize that when we discuss a story in class, students become more involved and write better as they want their characters to develop into what they have imagined. I’ll focus on the different ways to plan a story in my next blog.

Be sure to have the following when planning a story :

1st paragraph

This introduces the plot of the story. Students can use the following ways.
(a) flashback (b) type of day (c) dialogue.

Body: Sequence of Events

Students should use descriptions to the fullest while keeping a realistic timeline. For example, having someone die in a road accident, arrive at a hospital, get checked by the doctor and then resurrect from the dead upon hearing his mother’s voice again is NOT a realistic timeline (yes, this was written by one of my students).

Conclusion

There must be closure in the story. Ending with a moral or an idiom (coda) is also good at this point.