All About English Creative Writing

[starlight1968sg]

sunflower2005:

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pqt2Do0


This story is wrote by my K1 girl, can anyone help check on her gammar ?
Thank in advance.

* as mummy English very poor.

I think your dd did well. I don't remember my dd could write sentences during her k1.

[The Alternative Story]

sunflower2005:

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pqt2Do0


This story is wrote by my K1 girl, can anyone help check on her gammar ?
Thank in advance.

* as mummy English very poor.

Hi sunflower2005,

Like what Starlight said, your daughter can write well for K1, her
thought flow is logical and she can write in mainly in
complete sentences.

The part to work on is her tenses. She uses the present tense
instead of the past tense. Some of her sentence structure is
also grammatically wrong.

Eg:

1) 'All he do is never give up' should be

'All he did was not to give up'

2) 'Finally, he get home' should be

'Finally, he got home

There are a few parts where her sentences are incomplete.

Eg:

1) 'To find a way home' should be

'He had to find a way home'.

A sentence should not start with 'to'.

You can get your daughter to recognize what the past tense
forms of verbs are and when she writes to take note of that aspect.

Let her know also that sentences should not start with 'but',
'and', 'so', 'to' etc.

TAS

[The Alternative Story]

Leanne:

Hi TAS,


For creative writing, may I ask how to rectify the problem in creative writing when they have the problem in Tell and never show in their writing?

thanks.

cheers
Leanne

Hi Leanne,

(a) For this problem, everytime they write about a scene (eg: beach,
the weather, the park etc), you can ask your child to imagine in
her or his mind the sights, the sounds, the smells of the place.

Eg:

(Tell)

I went to the beach. It was sandy and nice.

(Show: using 5 senses-smells, sight, sounds, touch etc)

I ran to the sandy beach. I could feel the crumbly white sand
under my toes. \"Yipee!\" I shouted in glee as I ran about
freely in the sand. My sister joined me and our laughter
joined the shouts and laughter of the other children. The
waves beckoned to my sister and me. We ran eagerly to dip our
feet into the cool frothy waves that lapped at a
continuous beat at out feet.

- You can get your daughter to imagine when she goes to the beach,
what she will hear, see and feel. There will be people laughing,
shouting. There is the feel of the sand under her feet.
You can also talk about the sea lapping at your feet, the smell
of the salt water in the air etc.

(b) When your child writes about feelings, you can also get him or her to imagine and see in their mind how the person would feel and look.

Eg:

(Tell)

- I was frightened.

(Show)

- Trembling, I stepped into the room. What would I find?
With my heart hammering at my ribcage, I walked
further in. My hands were cold and clammy as I
groped about in the darkened room trying to find
my ball which had bounced in earlier.

You can let your child know that when you are afraid, your hands
get clammy, your heart pounds etc. She must also know the
vocabulary needed to describe the feelings. If she does not
have that vocabulary, she can read more books and pick
out the way the author 'shows' a scene and feeling and write
it down into a notebook and slowly her vocabulary will build up
from there.

TAS

[BigDad]

The Alternative Story:

Hi BigDad,

It is possible if the child is very fast for her age, the child can
recognize when personification is used and perhaps come up
with simple personification structures. However, even if he or
she cannot do so, they can be taught how to 'show' a scene
rather than 'tell' it.

(pri 2 standard):

Telling a scene:

- I am angry

- The park was very crowded.

Showing a scene:

- I clenched my fist and stamped my feet hard on the floor.

- Shouts filled the air as children ran about in the park.

You can help your child to see that showing a scene involves
using your 5 senses to describe the scene rather than just
'telling' a person what the scene is about.

It makes the reader able to picture what you are writing and hence
it is more engaging for the reader.

TAS

Hi TAS,

Thanks, your explanation really helps..but what if the personification
is used wrongly, how to identify it?

Also, can you help me to look at this and see what is wrong:

- She is as happy as a lark and she played happily with
her toys. (the teacher said description was good but could be
better:?

TIA!

[jeestan]

Hi TAS,


Will you be having holiday programs this september to teach
these creative writing techniques?

I was wondering about instances where ‘chases after’ kind of
instances, you mentioned don’t have to put after because chase already means run after…do you have more examples on this? Tk u

[vonneee86]

Hi TAS,


Can you help to explain more about your way of teaching vocab,sorry,
i missed your earlier threads.

[littlewoman]

Hi TAS,


I heard about the parents workshop which you will be having. Just want to ask, what will the workshop cover ? Will writing techniques such as personfication be covered?

Also, can I have the details of it, if you have?

Thanks!

[sunflower2005]

starlight1968sg


Thank you

The Alternative Story
Thank your very much for your reply.
That will help me a lot. at least now i know where to focus on her English.

[mujin]

Hi TAS,


We are confused about the differences between past tense and past continuous tense when used in composition. Could you advise us if there is any rule that we can adhere, so that we can distinguish the differences and its applications.

Thank you.

[The Alternative Story]

[quote]Hi TAS,


Thanks, your explanation really helps..but what if the personification
is used wrongly, how to identify it?[/quote]Hi BigDad,

There are times where children use personification wrongly or rather
awkwardly.

Eg:

The wind wrapped itself around me. (right)

The wind hugged me as I walked to school. (wrong)

There is no rules to govern personification in that sense.
It is not like grammar, with rules that are more or less fixed.

In order to know how to use personification well, the child must
be a reader or at least have teachers or parents who can guide
them in doing so.

What you can do is to show your child examples of personification
in storybooks and encourage your child to use them in writing.
After a while, your child would be able to get a better sense of
how to use it. We do have these phrases that have been
extracted from the storybooks we sell, however, you can also
look for good phrases from the storybooks on your own and guide
your child from there.
[quote]Also, can you help me to look at this and see what is wrong:

- She is as happy as a lark and she played happily with
her toys. (the teacher said description was good but could be
better:? [/quote]Your child has tried to use similes (happy as a luck) and also
adverbs (happily) to give the writing more detail which is good.

Problem (1)

However, similes like 'happy as a lark' while good, are a bit
cliched. If your child is still in lower primary, it is quite
acceptable but if your child is older, then it is advisable to
get him or her to use similes that are more 'naturalistic'.

Eg:

- The silence was like a wall, thick and guarded.

- The anger in him rose up. It seemed to be a
huge tidal wave of emotion, crushing and suffocating him.

Problem (2)

Your child mentioned 'as happy as a lark' and 'she played happily'.

'Happy' was used twice. Usually in writing, we try to vary the
adjectives and adverbs.

You can say:

She was filled with excitement as she saw the new toy in the box.
Laughing happily, she began to play with it

TAS