Arun, is a 12 year old boy. After leaving his parents, he travels by
bus and arrives Ambala at about twelve noon. He sits on the platform
no.8 at Ambala station. His train is to leave hours later at midnight.
So he continues to watch the changing scene around. Soon he loses
interest in his surroundings. He feels lonely and bored.
Suddenly, Arun hears a soft voice from behind. It is a woman in white
saree. She looks pale and has dark kind eyes. She wears no jewels.
After a brief introduction, she invites Arun for some refreshment at the
station dining room. She takes his hand and leads him away. Arun does
not refuse the invitation as he feels it would be too impolite to reject
it. The woman seems to take a pleasure in watching him eat.
Arun comes back to platform No.8. Now he opens up and tells her about
his school, his friends, his likes and dislikes. The woman speaks very
little and listens to him intently. Arun's school fellow Satish, along
with his mother, appears on the platform.
Satish's mother asks Arun if the lady is his mother. Before Arun
utters a word, the woman comes to his rescue and says that she is his
mother. Satish's mother, says that there are many suspicious characters
hanging around. She behaves that one should be very careful of
strangers. The woman does not feel embarrassed. Satish's mother looks
sternly at Arun and advises him to be careful in absence of his mother,
and never talk to strangers. Arun irritates her by contradicting her,I like strangers.
Satish seems to agree with Arun as he grins at him. After some time,
the train steams in. Satish and Arun board it. Satish 's mother and the
stranger stand on the platform talking to the boys. The train starts,
Satish says, Good-bye, mother. They wave to each other. Not to be left behind, Arun also utters the farewell words, Good-bye, mother. He continues to gaze at the woman until she disappears in the crowd.
What would you do if you met a stranger at the train station??
In this video. I give you 5 easy steps for writing a summary.
1. Do a quick read of the passage, taking note of the story content as you do this. Understand what the story is about.
2.
Read the passage again, highlighting ONLY the main points in each
paragraph and the main characters. Minor details and explanations should
be left out of summary writing. It might be a good idea to highlight
the main characters in a different color from the main points of the
passage. Less confusing.
3. Take note of the what, when, where, and who of the passage.
4. Write out your summary based on these notes.
5. Check your summary, make changes as needed and if there is a word count, check you are within the word limit
If
there is a word count, then you must not go over that at all. It's best
if the word count for the summary is as close to as possible to the
maximum number of words given. This will mean your summary content is
accurate. Eg: Word count is 120 words. Your summary should not exceed
this or fall way short. Best is to have a summary of around 115 to 118
words.
Summary exercise courtesy of TKPS, based on The Witches by Roald Dahl
When? (When did this scene take place?) - On the first morning after the author's arrival.
Where? (Where did this take place?) - At the hotel
Who? (Who were the characters?) - The author, chambermaid, Mr Stringer and Grandma
What? (What happens in each paragraph of the passage?) :
Beginning - On the first day, the chambermaid saw one of my mice in my hotel room and shrieked loudly.
Middle - I was reported to Mr Stringer, the hotel manager. There was an unpleasant scene with Mr Stringer, Grandma and me.
End
- Mr Stringer would not allow mice in the hotel. Grandma said the hotel
was full of rats. Mr Stringer said there weren't any rats in the hotel
but Grandma said that she saw one that morning.
The full summary as written:
On
the first day, the chambermaid saw one of my mice in my hotel room and
shrieked loudly. I was reported to Mr Stringer, the hotel manager. There
was an unpleasant scene with Mr Stringer, Grandma and me. Mr Stringer
would not allow mice in the hotel. Grandma said the hotel was full of
rats anyway. Mr Stringer said that there no rats in the hotel but
Grandma said that she saw one that morning.
Word count: 77 words
Total number of words in the passage: 158
Practice and soon you will be writing a summary like a pro!
4 Easy steps to write an Imaginative Writing (A video) .
There are many different types of writing out there. For the purpose
of this video, we will look at creative writing and the simple steps to
take in writing a creative essay.
What is creative writing? It
is a broad statement that covers every form of narrative writing from
poetry to feature articles in newspapers to novels - the list is
endless.
Loosely put, it excludes anything academic and technical.
Let's look at how to write a creative essay:
First
step: Choose your subject. When choosing a subject, pick something you
and others may find interesting. It may not have to be a subject that
you know well, though that helps!
If the subject is something you find interesting, but do not know much about, research it!
That
will be Step 2: All good writers research the background to their
essay/story/novel, etc. If need be, talk to relevant authorities. Ask
questions and learn more about the topic.
Take some time and mull
over your topic. Look at it from different perspectives. Write down all
thoughts that occur to you on the subject, relevant or random, it does
not matter. You can sift through it later and decide on what you want to
use. You never know. You might end up with enough material for more
than one essay.
Onto the next step, Step 3, where you put down an
outline of how, what, when, where and who your essay is all about. This
will guide and keep you on the straight and narrow of the story without
taking you down a meandering path. Then its time to flesh out these
how, what, when, where and who questions as that will build the
foundation of the story.
Once you have the first 3 steps done,
you can proceed to Step 4, writing the story. Using the outline you have
set out, start with the introduction. In the introduction, the setting
for the creative essay is established. Here is where you establish the
place, time and scenery for the main subject of the essay.
Next
we come to the body of the essay. The plot of the essay is developed in
the body. It can be made up of just one paragraph, in the case of a
short story, or several paragraphs, when the story is longer. Each
paragraph is to showcase one main idea. The movement from one paragraph
to another has to be smooth and fluid without choppiness.
This is
where transitions come in useful. Briefly, transitions are words like
'yet', 'and', 'but' and so on. They allow the essay to flow seamlessly
from one idea to another. They are usually used in the middle of a
sentence. But, they can be used in the beginning to emphasis a point. I
just did that. I used 'but' in the beginning of a sentence when it is
usually used in the middle. This lays emphasis on the content of the
sentence following the 'but' and shows the continuity of the thought
process from the previous sentence. Just be careful not to over use
transitions in your essay.
Other transitions which we use all the time are words like 'however','also' and 'therefore'.
Finally, we come to the conclusion of the creative essay. The conclusion is where
the whole plot comes together and is tidied up ...or not. That depends
on you, the author, on how you want the essay to end. It can be neat and
tidy, with a 'happily ever after' like fairy-tale ending or in can be a
cliffhanger, where the ending is left shrouded in suspense. The ending
or conclusion of your essay is important, so don't rush it or end it
abruptly. It must leave a strong enough impact that the story remains in
the reader's mind after he finishes reading it.
Now that your
creative essay is done, check it thoroughly for spelling and grammatical
errors. Change whatever does not read or flow right. Think about the
effect the essay will have on the reader. Ask someone else to proofread
it for you. Very often we miss errors in our own writing that others
will pick up.
How do you keep in touch withn your friends and your family? Do you write letters, emails, speak on telephone, send cards, text using a mobile phone, or use a social networking site such as Facebook?
Sometimes we need to communicate a lot of information and a letter or email may be the easiest way to do this. We may write a letter to mark a special occasion or to communicate something that's difficult to say face-to-face; for example, a letter expressintg our sympathy when somebody has died, or a letter sending our congrats to a birth of a new born baby. These are personal letters. Personal letters may be short or long but they are usually chatty and informal.
Tenses is a verb-based method used to indicate the time, and sometimes the continuation or completeness, of an action or state in relation to the time of speaking.
