Andrew and Alex

My father often told me that some early grade students had difficulties to start writing journals. Today I am going to share with you some basic techniques I learned from my father and teachers.

When I started writing in my 10, my father taught me four basic steps: brainstorming, outline, draft and review.

Brainstorming: Rough ideas of what happened or what features and things that will be covered in your story, for example: people, location, and features.

Outline: An outline is about writing down what you have in your brainstorming, but written more structurally and in order of how things happened.

Draft: Then, you start your rough draft. Start with an introduction explaining what your journal is about. This paragraph must hold your reader’s attention, especially the first sentence because the reader might not be interested in your story if your first lines are not attractive enough to the readers. Then, write your main body. This will be based on what you wrote in your outline, but with more detail of your topic. Finally, write an ending for your story. The ending will be based on your introduction and must relate to what you said there. This is your first draft.

Review: Now, you should read through the story four or five times and fix any grammar or spelling errors you made. After that, you should review your journal with your teacher, parent, or even your friends. They can always find more errors in your story that you didn’t realize about because they think differently than you do. They can also give you some good ideas of your topic that they know and remember about. My dad sometimes helps me on this and at school, my friends exchange stories and we edit each other’s work.

Outline Sample: French Class Field Trip

1. The restaurant was located downtown and I didn’t get in the Finch subway.
2. We went to St. Lawrence market and had free time buying things.
3. The restaurant Le Papillon was wonderful and everything was delicious.
4. We went to the distillery and there was a candy shop with long tubes of sugar.
5. Mr. H. walked us past our houses and allowed us to go home at school.

Tips:

1. Oral and Written English
2. Numbers Writing (1 ~5)
3. Research online about your topic for ideas.