Discussing National Issues, Summary Skills, Hyphens in Use, Describing Settings and Flashback

1. Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended question: A question that cannot be answered with yes or no.

Open-ended questions invite thinking and explanation. They usually begin with how, why, what if or in what ways. Use them when you want to learn someone's views, and to move a discussion on from simple agreement or disagreement.

2. National and Global Issues

3. Language for Discussing Issues

Avoid exaggeration such as "Everyone knows" or "All politicians are thieves". Be careful about facts, and name your sources. On sensitive matters, such as politics, religion or ethnicity, speak with care. Attack ideas, not people or groups.

4. Getting Informed

To discuss an issue well, you need to know about it. Read newspapers and reliable websites, and listen to the news. Note down facts, including dates and names. Look at more than one point of view. On galamsey, for instance, listen to the views of chiefs, miners, farmers and government. Being informed makes you a stronger speaker, and a better citizen. The issues that you discuss today are those that your generation will have to solve.

1. Reading Critically

2. Reading Passage: Should We Pay for Plastic Bags?

Every day, Ghanaians use millions of thin plastic bags. Most are used for just a few minutes, and then they are thrown away, where they remain for hundreds of years. They choke gutters, kill animals and fill our beaches. Some countries, including Rwanda and Kenya, have banned them altogether, and their streets are visibly cleaner.

Critics argue that a ban would hurt the thousands of Ghanaians who work in the sachet and plastics business. They have a point. However, jobs need not vanish. Factories could make paper bags, and new jobs could arise in recycling. A small charge for each bag would encourage shoppers to reuse them, and it would raise money for clean-up. The real question is not whether we can afford to act, but whether we can afford not to.

3. Analysing the Passage

The writer's aim is to persuade. The tone is firm, but the writer accepts that critics "have a point", which makes the argument seem fair. The final sentence is memorable because it turns the problem around.

4. Summary

A model summary: Plastic bags are used briefly but cause lasting pollution, and some countries have banned them. The writer accepts that jobs may be at risk, but suggests paper bags, recycling and a small charge as solutions.

This summary keeps the claim and the key reasons, and adds no personal opinion. It also uses the writer's balance of argument and answer. In a critical analysis, you would go further, and comment on how well the writer has made the case. Keep these two tasks separate. A summary reports, and an analysis judges.

1. Reviewing the Rules

2. Hyphens and Meaning

In examples like these, a hyphen is needed for clarity. Although modern English uses fewer hyphens than in the past, they still matter wherever a reader might be confused. Good writers think about their reader.

3. Hyphens in Dates, Numbers and Phrases

Use hyphens in fractions used as adjectives ("a two-thirds majority"), and in compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine. A larger number takes a hyphen only in its last part, as in "one hundred and twenty-two". In a range of numbers, an en dash or the word "to" is used: 1957–1966, or "from 1957 to 1966". Some phrases take hyphens only as adjectives: "a state-of-the-art computer", but "the computer is state of the art".

4. Proofreading

Check for hyphens as part of your proofreading. Look at groups of words before nouns, and ask whether they work as a single idea. Do not add hyphens after "-ly" words, or between ordinary adjectives such as "a big, red bus". Use a dictionary if you are unsure. Punctuation may look like a small thing, but careful punctuation tells an examiner that you are a careful thinker.

1. What Is Setting?

Setting: The time and place in which a story happens.

Setting includes the place, the time of day, the season and the period in history. A scene set in a Harmattan morning in Bolgatanga feels very different from one in the rain in Takoradi. Choose details that serve your story. You do not need to describe everything. Pick out a few striking features, and let the reader's imagination do the rest.

2. Organising a Description

3. Creating Mood

4. Model Description

The Harmattan had settled over Navrongo like a dusty blanket. The sun, pale as a groundnut, rose without warmth. Along the empty road, thorn trees stood bare, and the only sound was the slow creak of a donkey cart. Abu pulled his smock closer and walked on, his lips cracked, his breath small in the dry air.

Notice the simile "like a dusty blanket", and the local comparison "pale as a groundnut". The word "empty" and the "slow creak" create a lonely mood. Sensory details of touch, such as "cracked" lips, help the reader to feel the setting. Short and long sentences are balanced.

5. Using Setting Well

Setting can reflect a character's feelings. A storm may match anger, while a sunrise may suggest hope. This is called pathetic fallacy. Setting can also create conflict: a flood may trap a family, or a remote village may have no doctor. Good writers make setting work hard. In your composition, avoid beginning with "One day" or "Once upon a time". Instead, drop the reader into a place: "Rain hammered the zinc roof all night."

1. Chronological and Non-Chronological Order

Chronological order: Events told in the order in which they happened.

Many stories are told in chronological order. Others jump in time, in order to keep the reader interested. A writer may begin with a dramatic moment, then go back to explain what led to it. A play may reveal past events through a character's speech, or through a scene set in the past. Understanding the order of events helps you to follow the plot and see why the writer told it that way.

2. Techniques of Time

3. Comparing Two Texts

Comparing texts shows how sequence affects meaning. In a story, a narrator can jump between events with ease. In a play, time changes are shown by scene breaks, lighting or dialogue. Both forms use suspense to make the audience want to know what happens next.

4. Building Suspense

Suspense is a feeling of anxious waiting. Writers build it by delaying information, using short sentences and adding warning signs. Foreshadowing makes us worry: "If only he had listened to his mother." Cliffhangers end a chapter or scene at an exciting moment. Ananse stories keep listeners guessing about how the trickster will escape.

In your own stories, try one of these techniques, but keep it clear. Use tense changes and time phrases such as "Years before," so that your reader does not get lost.