Welcome to Writing About Real Events!
Have you ever wanted to tell someone about your favorite birthday party, a fun school trip, or the time you saw a giant fire engine? These are all real events! In this chapter, we will learn how to take things that actually happened and turn them into amazing pieces of writing. Don't worry if you find writing tricky—we are going to break it down into small, easy steps.
What is a Real Event?
A real event is something that truly happened. It isn't a made-up story about dragons or space aliens (that would be fiction). When we write about real events, we are being reporters of our own lives!
Examples of real events:
- A trip to the seaside.
- Helping to cook dinner.
- What happened during your school assembly.
- A visit from a grandparent.
Quick Tip: If you want to write about a story you made up in your head, check out the chapter on Narratives about real and fictional experiences!
Step 1: Planning with the "5 Ws"
Before you start writing, it helps to have a plan. To remember everything about your real event, try to answer these five "W" questions:
- Who was there? (e.g., My teacher, my friends, or my dog.)
- What happened? (e.g., We saw a big, shiny tractor.)
- Where did it happen? (e.g., At the farm.)
- When did it happen? (e.g., On Tuesday morning.)
- Why did it happen? (e.g., Because it was our school trip.)
Step 2: Putting Things in Order (Sequencing)
When we tell a story about something real, we need to put the events in the right sequence (the order they happened). If you tell the end of the story first, your reader might get confused!
To help your reader, use time words to join your sentences together:
- First, we put on our coats.
- Next, we got on the bus.
- Then, we arrived at the zoo.
- Finally, we came back to school.
Key Takeaway: Always tell your story from the beginning to the middle, then the end!
Step 3: Using the Right Tense
Because real events usually happened in the past, we need to use the past tense. This means we change our verbs (doing words) to show they have already finished.
Example: Instead of saying "I go to the park," we say "I went to the park."
Common past tense words to use:
- Was/Were (e.g., It was sunny.)
- Played (e.g., We played football.)
- Saw (e.g., I saw a bird.)
- Had (e.g., We had lunch.)
Did you know? Some words like "jumped" or "walked" just need an -ed at the end to move into the past tense!
Step 4: Adding Detail with Conjunctions
To make your writing more interesting, you can join short sentences together using conjunctions. This helps your story flow better.
Words to join ideas:
- And: I ate an apple and I drank some water.
- But: It was cold but it was sunny.
- Because: We went inside because it started to rain.
- When: I was happy when I won the race.
Step 5: Using Special Names
When you write about real events, you will often use the names of people, places, or days of the week. In English, these always need a Capital Letter!
Look at these examples:
- People: Mrs Smith, Sam, Gran.
- Places: London, Park Primary School, Africa.
- Days: Monday, Friday, Sunday.
- The word "I": Whenever you write about yourself, the letter I must be a capital!
Check Your Work!
Once you have finished writing about your real event, it is time to be a detective and check your work. Ask yourself:
- Does every sentence start with a Capital Letter?
- Does every sentence end with a Full Stop?
- If I asked a question, did I use a Question Mark?
- Did I stay in the past tense?
- Read it out loud: Does it make sense?
Quick Review:
1. Plan using the 5 Ws.
2. Sequence your writing in the right order.
3. Use the past tense for things that already happened.
4. Use capital letters for names and the start of sentences.
You are now ready to write about your own amazing real-life adventures!