Simple 5W1H composition

Sample written by my P5 student [Topic - Describe what happened when you were late for a very important event.]:

Perspiration was trickling down the sides of my [WHO]face, every step causes a drop that was dangling at my chin to splatter on the tar road. It was the day of my PSLE examination [WHEN] & I was on my way to school [WHERE]. I was pushing myself to run as fast as my legs could take me as it was 10 minutes before my first paper was about to start. As I was running, I started to reflect. I knew it was entirely my fault that I'm late, but I could not help but hold resentment towards them. The two immature & spoilt children whom I have to call my siblings [WHO].

I woke up this morning thinking it was six in the morning. The room was dark, the air was fresh and most importantly, my trusty clock had it's shorter hand pointing at six and its longer hand in the opposite direction. A quick check with the living room clock and my heart skipped a beat. It was actually 8am! I scurried back into my room, fantically changing my clothes, suddenly noticing my two younger brothers giggling at the bedroom door.

"What are you laughing it? I'm late for a major exam that determines the rest of my life and the two of you are giggling! You must have something to do with this!" I yelled in frustration. I guess my tone was nasty as my youngest brother started crying.

"We played with your clock last night after you feel asleep and we thought it would be fun to make you late for school since you slept so early," my youngest brother mumbled feebly with his knees shaking. [WHAT/WHY]

So it was them. I should have gotten my parents to wake me up. I should have gotten my friends to ring me in the morning. I cannot help but smack myself in the head, ignoring the fact that I'll be killing some much-needed brain cells. It was my fault for not making back-up plans in case the clock fails, but why must they play with my clock of all days?

I made up my mind to grill my siblings on the barbeque or tie them up on a tree after my examinations. For now, I'll have to run harder. The school gate was in sight! I dashed past security, past the school office & up into the school hall. 300 pairs of eyes suddenly suddenly looked up at me, all sweaty & disheveled. I had arrived in the nick of time, the teachers were just about to start the examination. I quickly took my seat and focused on the paper in front of me.

After the paper, I went straight home & called my parents. I was too tired with deal with my brothers physically. I told them everything over the phone and took a nap. When I woke up, I could hear screaming and crying. "Piak!" came the sound of the cane. I ran out of my room to take a look. My parents were caning my brothers for their mischief. My heart ached as I saw the cane land on their bottoms.

I quickly ran over to shield my brothers. My brothers clung to me like koala bears on a tree. Their faces were smeared with tears & mucus, their hands riddled with cane marks. Although they did cause me to be late for my examination, I still loved them. I begged my parents to stop as I've already forgiven them. After drying their tears & comforting them, I told them about the dire consequences if I had been a little later. They apologised and promised never to be mischevious again. [HOW] I also made a silent resolution to ensure that I have back up plans whenever I have something important [CLOSING SENTENCE].

May not be the best compo, but she managed to use some techniques I practised with her in which I'm pleased as this is a student who used to fail composition.

Tips on writing a story for children

What are stories made of? 
There are many aspects of writing that children should be made aware of. In particular, there are four principal components that go into making a story:

1. Characters
These are the actors in the story. These actors are usually people, but can be creatures (think of the movie ‘Shark Tale’ by DreamWorks Animation), imaginary beings (think of brownies, trolls, fairies, unicorns), non-sentient living things (think of the whomping willow tree in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ by J. K. Rowling) or even non-living things (think of dancing kitchen cutlery or musical instruments in Walt Disney movies).

One of the things that makes an interesting and highly readable story is the description of characters. Which story would you prefer to read?:

'Once upon a time, there was a witch. She liked to eat children.'

or

'Once upon a time, there was a wicked witch with piercing eyes and a cruel mouth concealing a venomous tongue, who laughed crazily when munching on children. Her favourite dish was fried children with red chillies.'

Children should practise writing descriptions of characters extensively. A suitable exercise is for children to write a short paragraph for each character describing their best friend, worst enemy, favourite teacher, worst teacher (assuming ‘worst enemy’ and ‘worst teacher’ do not coincide), favourite pet etc.  

Some tips for making up characters are:

a. Choose a suitable name for the character
Younger children often enjoy imitating the Mr. Men way. In the Mr. Men and Little Misses books, the characters are named after the quality they represent: for example, Mr. Strong is strong, Mr. Brave is brave and Miss Sunshine is optimistic. The author of these books, Roger Hargreaves, extends this concept to the humans in his books by naming them after their occupations: Dr. Makeyouwell the physician, Mr. Stamp the postman and Mrs. Crumbs the baker.

Older children may want to be less blatant in naming characters to represent their quality. In the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling named the main sinister character ‘Lord Voldemort’. This sounds scarier than ‘John Smith’.  

A powerful technique is to give your characters nicknames. If you are reading a pirates’ story, which sounds better: ‘Cut-throat Johnny’ or ‘Johnny B. Good’? 

b. Special Features / Details
Children should try to make their characters interesting with a special feature such as a large purple mole on the end of their nose, shockingly-dyed green hair, unnaturally long and creepy fingers, scary and piercing eyes, a lob-sided walk (like Frankenstein’s monster) etc.

Characters can also be notable by the way they dress. How about a girl who wears yellow leggings with embroidered pictures of green unicorns along with skunk earrings?

c. Identifying Expression
Homer Simpson, from the television series The Simpsons, always says ‘D’oh!’ to express his frustration. Giving characters an identifying expression is a useful technique.

Related to this is having your characters converse in a suitable and identifying manner. For instance, a teenager and a granny might have the following dialogue:

Teenager: Get real, gran! That headgear’s so uncool...

Granny: I think the pink ribbons and purple motifs are rather fetching.

d. Personality-type
Children should try to get inside the mind of their characters. Are the characters nasty, friendly, bullying, helpful, serious, happy-go-lucky, lazy, studious, spiteful, kind?

e. Based on someone you know
A useful technique is for children to describe a character based on someone they know, such as a friend or a neighbour. In using this approach, children should not simply think of whether they like or dislike the person, but of the total picture including age, gender, ethnicity, background and social class.

2. Plot
A plot is the plan of events in a story. It provides the why’s for the things that happen in the story. Most plots will involve some sort of problem or dilemma the characters face, and will trace the process of change in which the characters eventually resolve, or indeed do not resolve, the conflict. The plot draws the reader into the characters’ lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.

There are four aspects of plot development:

a. Exposition
This is the information needed to understand a story, for example background information that a character is an orphan;

b. Complication
This is the catalyst that begins the major conflict, for example the character going for a blood test and discovering that his or her blood group could not have been passed down from present ‘parents’;

c. Climax
This is the turning point in the story that occurs when characters try to resolve the complication, for example searching for biological parents;

d. Resolution
This is the set of events that brings the story to a close, for example realising that the adoptive parents are truly devoted to the character.

The notion of plot involving a problem to be resolved is appealing to many children. Children intuitively appreciate that saintly characters who lead perfect lives are dull; it is much more exciting to have flawed characters dealing with the nitty-gritty of life. In teaching creative writing to children, the teacher/tutor/parent should help the children to identify real life problems that the children might very well face, such as bullying at school; sibling rivalry; difficulties in studying and homework; growing too tall, short, fat or thin; wearing braces; an uncaring teacher; death of a pet; moving to a new area etc.

3. Theme
A good story often does more than merely tell a story: it makes the reader think about the ideas that lie behind it. For instance, a story about a pupil being bullied at school might have as its theme an exploration of the reasons and circumstances behind why bullying occurs and how to overcome it. Older children especially should be encouraged to think not only of the plot of a story but also the theme.

4. Setting
This is when and where the story takes place, for example in a nineteenth-century French chateau or on a twenty-second century moonbase.

Frontier school off in first 4 days 2016

Frontier drop off and pick up 2016

Frontier school-off hours 2016

Stuff to bring in Jan 2016