Writing a story part 2

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 2

Nathan	Guus	Daan	Angelica	Brechtje	Emma
		Amber	Kim	Florien	Fleur
Lian	Teddy	Chloë	Anne- Quirien	Nino	Fender
Fadi	Kasper	Iris	Isolde		Hakan

Teacher

2C seating chart

This week

Tuesday	Happy New Year!
Friday	Writing a story (continued)

 announcement 1

 announcement 2

Houses 

• A crime has been committed
• But the questions remain: who, what, why, how
• You tell us 
• Contact your house-members and brainstorm with them 
• Bring props next Monday 
•  

Previously

• We started talking about writing part 2
•  Lay-out of a story 

Writing - Part 2 of your exam

Part 2 has three tasks to choose from which may include:

• a letter or email
• an article
• a report
• a review
• a story

app.engxam.com

Always make a STORY OUTLINE: a helpful way to do this is by underlining the most important aspects of the question. 

Now - Using your worksheet, underline the things you must consider

when you write your story. 

Students should underline

We are looking for stories in our new English-language magazine for young people. 

Your story must begin with this sentence:

Tom got off the train and as the train left, he realized he was holding the wrong suitcase.

Your story must include:

• an address

• a surprise

Answer all points in the text:

• First sentence has to be: Tom got off the train and as the train left, he realized he was holding the wrong suitcase.. 
  
• Story must contain an address
• Story must contain a suprise

Your story is being written for a magazine for young people so the tone should be informal and friendly.

Layout: Use three paragraphs

Title

Who, what, where, when

Story

Ending

Always, always make a plan.....

Leave a blank line between each of your paragraphs

Keep to the word count of 140-190 words

Tips:

• Use the past tense.
• Be creative - Use your imagination
• Be descriptive - make good use of adjectives and adverbs......

He walked into the forest carrying the suitcase

He walked slowly into the cold, dark forest and realised that the old, leather suitcase was remarkably heavy

Use direct speech

"Oh no!'', he screamed.  

"Don't move", he whispered

delicious

disastrous

exhausted

heartbroken

marvellous

sad

bad

nice

good

tired

Adverbs/Adverbial phrases of place and time go at the beginning or the end of a sentence. 

I ran over a cat yesterday

Last year I saved three dogs from a bear.

Adverbs of manner usually go after the verb

The tortoise moved slowly down the beach 

She stroked the tiger carefully

How to write a better story for FCE

1. Read all the information in the question carefully, underlining key word and begin asking questions (who,where,  what, etc)
2. Create a plan by answering your questions and using key words as bullet points > beginning- development-ending write one main idea for each
3. Estimate the word count for each part (this will take practice) You can divide 180 by 3 so your average paragraph length is 60 words. 
4. Write and adjust check you don't go much over 60 words per paragraph.
5. Check for sense and flow once you have finished your draft, read it and of course check you have included the correct things. 

You probably won't have time to write a draft: 

You may find that, even more than in other tasks, that you have to cross out not just words but whole sentences. This is not necessarily a problem, as long as it is readable – if it becomes difficult to follow, re-write the paragraph (corrector is not permitted, nor pencil – just dark blue or black pen).

If you find that you struggle for time, consider writing directly on the answer sheet as the examiners will not look at the rough paper at all and you will lose many marks if you leave a whole writing question unanswered.

What are Cambridge looking for?

The Cambridge First for Schools Trainer give a checklist to follow after you have finished writing your story. It asks you if you have:

used a range of past tenses?

used descriptive adjectives and adverbs?

used a range to time words and expressions?

divided your story into paragraphs?

written 140-190 words?

Remember,

you have 1 hour 20 minutes, so I recommend spending a max of 35 minutes on each task, which gives you 5 minutes to (re-)check through both tasks at the end. Some people think that the essay is more important and  allow more time for that. Everyone is different but because it is obligatory, the essay is usually where you get most practice, so it shouldn’t be necessary. As far as checking is concerned, this five minutes is really important to go back to the essay question, as it has been proven that if you leave a task and come back to it, you are more likely to find mistakes. So DON'T be tempted to use this time to transcribe your story (or other task) to the answer sheet.