Describing Events, Phrasing in Reading, Thick and Thin Questions, Forming Adjectives and Planning Narratives

1. Organising an Event Description

Events happen in time, so a description usually follows the order of events. Begin with when and where it took place and who was present. Then describe what happened from beginning to end, focusing on the most interesting moments. End with how it finished and how you felt.

2. Language for Events

3. Model Talk: A School Speech Day

"Last Friday our school held its fiftieth speech and prize-giving day. By eight o'clock, the compound was decorated with flags and canopies. The band led the guests to their seats, and the Regional Minister arrived at nine. After the opening prayer, the headmistress gave her report. The highlight of the day was the cultural display, when our Adowa group danced to loud applause. Finally, the best learners received their prizes. When my name was called, my knees shook, but my mother's smile made me proud. It was a day I will never forget."

4. Keeping Listeners Interested

Do not list everything that happened. Choose details that matter. Use the past tense, include one or two feelings and vary your voice. Your listeners will remember a clear picture of one moment better than a long list of facts.

1. Punctuation Signals

2. Phrasing

Words belong together in meaningful groups. Read "the old man / with the walking stick / sat down / under the mango tree", not word by word and not all in one breath. Pauses in the wrong place can change the meaning. Compare "Let's eat, Grandma!" with "Let's eat Grandma!" The comma saves Grandma.

3. Practice Passage

"Stop!" shouted the conductor. The trotro jerked to a halt, and everyone fell forward. A goat, calm as a chief, stood in the middle of the road. "Whose animal is this?" the driver demanded. Nobody answered. The goat looked at him, chewed slowly and walked away; only then did the passengers start to laugh.

4. Practising Phrasing

5. Stress and Intonation

Besides pausing, good readers stress important words and let their voices rise and fall. In "I did not say he took the money", stressing a different word each time changes the meaning. Stress "I" and it means someone else said it; stress "money" and it means he took something else. Thinking about which word matters most gives your reading life.

1. Thin and Thick Questions

2. Reading Passage: The Young Inventor

When Kwesi was fourteen, he noticed that his mother spent hours fanning charcoal to cook. In the school workshop, he built a small stove with a fan powered by an old phone battery and a tiny solar panel. Teachers laughed when the first model burned his fingers. His classmates called him "Professor" to tease him.

Kwesi did not give up. After seven attempts, his stove boiled water in half the usual time. A local radio station reported his invention, and an engineer from Kumasi offered to help him improve the design. Today, Kwesi's mother cooks with it every day and no longer coughs from the smoke.

3. Sample Questions

4. Using Questions to Study

After reading any chapter, write two thin questions to test facts and two thick questions to test understanding. Answering thick questions helps you prepare for examinations, because many marks are given for explanation. Use evidence from the text, for example by quoting a phrase, then explain what it shows.

1. Adjectives Formed with Suffixes

2. Negative Prefixes

Prefixes make adjectives negative: un- (unhappy), in- (incorrect), im- (impossible), il- (illegal), ir- (irregular), dis- (dishonest). Check the dictionary, because you cannot choose any prefix. We say "impossible", not "unpossible".

3. Compound Adjectives

Two or more words can join to form one adjective, usually with a hyphen before a noun: a well-known singer, a hard-working farmer, a three-day festival, a ten-year-old girl, a kente-wearing chief. Note that a number + noun compound stays singular: "a ten-year-old girl", not "a ten-years-old girl".

4. Participial Adjectives

Adjectives ending in -ing describe the cause of a feeling, and those in -ed describe how someone feels. "The match was exciting, so we were excited." "The film was boring, so the children were bored." A common error is "I am boring" when you mean "I am bored".

5. Adjectives in Your Writing

When you learn a base word, learn its family: "beauty, beautiful, beautifully"; "danger, dangerous, dangerously"; "create, creative, creatively". Keeping word families in your vocabulary notebook helps you choose the right form in a sentence, for example "She sang beautifully" (adverb) and "She has a beautiful voice" (adjective).

1. Choosing a Topic

The best narratives come from experiences that mattered to you, not necessarily big events. A small moment, such as a kind word from a stranger or the first time you cooked alone, can make a powerful story. Ask: When did I feel really afraid, proud, ashamed or surprised? What did I learn?

2. Narrative Structure

3. Point of View and Tense

A personal narrative uses the first person ("I") and usually the past tense. Choose one point of focus, and keep events in order, or start in the middle of the action and go back. Decide what feeling you want the reader to have at the end.

4. Gathering Details

Before drafting, jot down details under the five senses and note what people said. Close your eyes and return to the moment. What could you hear? What was in your hand? These notes will make your narrative feel real. Details are the difference between "I was scared" and "My mouth went dry as the crowd closed around me".