Speed Learning for Kids by Bill Handley

Author:Bill Handley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

How to write a story essay

Writing a story essay, such as ‘My Birthday Party’ or ‘My Holiday in Queensland’, has its own rules. They are:

1 Begin with an attention-getter.

2 Explain the events that led up to the opening paragraph.

3 Use plenty of dialogue.

4 Use adjectives (adjectives describe the nouns).

5 Use adverbs to describe the action (adverbs add more information to the adjectives and verbs).

6 Finish quickly and neatly.

1 Begin with an attention-getter

The story doesn’t have to begin at the beginning. Start the story with the most exciting event in your story to grab the reader’s attention and then describe the events that led up to it. Here are some attention-getting sentences that might work in a story essay:

‘My sister was sick across the table.’

‘The undertow swept me off my feet and took me out to sea.’

‘The undertow swept me off my feet and I was certain I was going to drown.’

2 Explain the events that led up to the opening paragraph

Your next sentence, to explain what you said in your first sentence, might be:

‘This was the first time my mother had let me invite my friends to my birthday party.’

‘We were on holidays on the Gold Coast and I wanted to swim at a surf beach.’

3 Use plenty of dialogue

Explain some action and feelings of participants through dialogue. That is much more compelling than just describing what happened without any speech. People find dialogue more interesting and easier to read. Dialogue also fires the imagination. You might say:

‘Let me see those.’

‘You don’t have to snatch them from me! I want you to see them.’

4 Use adjectives

Use adjectives (words that describe nouns or other adjectives) to bring your story to life and enable the reader to experience and see what you are writing. Use words like slow, quick, awkward, gaudy, sluggish, rough, smooth, shiny, slippery or furry to conjure a picture in the reader’s mind. For example: an old unpainted house.

Adjectives encourage and enable the reader to make a vivid mental picture of the events, and, as we know, strong visuals help us understand and remember what is happening.

5 Use adverbs to describe the action

Adverbs describe the verbs and adjectives. They tell how something was done. Some examples are stealthily, silently, deftly, noisily, awkwardly, happily, hungrily, angrily. This adds to the reader’s mental picture of what you have written.

6 Finish quickly and neatly

‘Next time I’ll know not to invite my sister — or at least put the cream cakes at the other end of the table.’

‘My father said, “No more swimming for you except between the flags. And only when one of us is with you.”

‘I agreed.’

Practise writing essays on your own to try out these methods. Try writing both kinds of essays just for your own enjoyment. You will find you get better with practice.

The rules for writing good essays are simple. Follow them and you will improve your results.

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