Personal Writing at GCSE
Personal writing is a little bit like Marmite: students either love it or they hate it. For some, it is easy as there is little to learn in addvance, they have either an interesting life or a great sense of creativity, and they are confident in their writing skills. However, others find the imaginative element difficult, some find the topics hard to relate to, and some simply don’t know how to go about the task. I hope this article helps to build confidence and skills for students who are preparing for their CCEA Unit 4 exam, or any students who are doing personal or imaginative writing.
I will outline a detailed structure first of all, and then write an example of a piece of personal writing which is based on the CCEA GCSE English Language Unit 4 exam paper from summer 2023: Write a personal essay for the examiner describing the best weekend you have had, explaining why it was memorable.
1. Read the question carefully
The question contains some crucial information that you need to be clear on before you start to plan or write:
- The purpose of the task. In this case, it is to describe and explain.
- The audience or reader of your task. In this case, the audience is your examiner. Sometimes, it is a speech for your class or an article for your school community.
- The form of writing you are being asked to write in. In this case it is a personal essay, but sometimes it is a speech or an article for your school magazine.
- The topic of your task. In this case, it is the best weekend you have ever had.
2. Create a plan
Planning your response should be done in the first few minutes of the task and is a really important part of successful candidates’ work. Here’s some advice:
- DO write down keywords or ideas that spring to mind to select a main focus for the response. It’s especially food to write an idea for each paragraph so that you stay on track.
- DO choose the ending before you begin, so you can plan how to get to the end within the time allowed.
- DO write down any important feelings, vocabulary or imagery (e.g. a great metaphor) so that you won’t forget it.
- DO refer back to your plan during the writing time, otherwise you may go off track.
- DO NOT write out a full draft or write in full sentences or paragraphs in your plan. You simply do not have time to draft and redraft.
3. Give your task a title
Consider the impact of a good title on your examiner. A title shows that this piece is polished and complete, well planned and well organised, rather than feeling panicked or last-minute. You could consider the following ideas to help you:
- Use a headline style which focuses on keywords and gets straight to the point. Headlines also often make use of language devices such as alliteration, puns or metaphors. Using these devices in a title is sure to impress.
- Keep it relevant. Headlines and titles should tease or even give away the topic of the article that follows. Don’t be too mysterious or obscure: your reader wants to know what you are going to talk about.
- Don’t rewrite the question! No matter how stuck you are, avoid simply using the task as your title. This does not show any skill except copying out (and there are no marks for copying out). Remember that you don’t have to write the title first. You can leave a space and come back to it later … just don’t forget!
4. Write an introduction
The introduction can feel like the hardest part of a personal essay, as you stare at a blank page, but with a few tips, the introduction can be straight-forward.
- Despite the form (essay), this task should NOT be boring. In fact, imagine this an one side of a conversation. Pretend you are speaking to a close friend. Keep to standard English (i.e. no slang) but keep it informal in tone and lively.
- Ask questions, include language devices and ensure your writing shows off, right from the opening lines.
- Tease your reader with some, but not all, of the information they need.
- Paint a picture: describe in vivid detail the place your story takes place.
- Don’t be afraid to embellish the details. Remember, its your story, so you can pick the weather, the events and the feelings involved. None of this is going to be fact-checked. However … the best personal writing is drawn from real experiences. They just feel more believable.
5. Go back to the start to retell the story
Once you have captured the reader’s attention in your introduction, you now want to set the whole story in context and develop the main body of your response. This most likely means going back to retell the whole event from the start. Insider these tips:
- Use paragraphs to organise your story. Remember to take a new paragraph for a new time, place, topic or speaker.
- Sequence your story chronologically in the middle section if you are recounting a story.
- Use first person narration: remember this is personal writing i.e. it is YOUR story. The reader should get to know YOU by reading it.
- Invite the reader to join you. Try phrases like these:
- Let me take you back to September of 2022.
- You know how this story begins as you have been there yourself. Remember the moment you stepped off the school bus and into Year 11! Yeah, shuddering is the right response! It’s a year you never forget.
- Come back in time with me to the first morning of last school year.
- Let me take you on a journey into the not-so-distant past.
- Use as many language techniques as you possibly can to describe. Prove that your writing is lively, unique, carefully crafted and highly engaging for the reader. Consider the quality and range of your language devices e.g. you are better to use five different devices once each, than the same device five times.
6. Conclude by reflecting, explaining or evaluating
Once you have told your story, it is important not to simply stop abruptly. Many personal writing stories are about a day or person or place, and they stop with the main event e.g. scoring the winning goal, opening the letter to get results, making the big choice once and for all, etc.
But remember that the story you are recounting may have finished, but your personal writing task isn’t over yet. You need to conclude and the best way to do this is to move back to the present moment and reflect on the events you have just described. Try these phrases:
- Looking back now, I can see that …
- It is only now, two years later, that I can appreciate just how important that moment was.
- Having come through (the event described), I have learned the importance of …
- Having relived these memories by writing them down, I have realised that …
- If I could go back in time and tell ten-year-old me one thing, it would be …
- I wouldn’t be me now if I hadn’t experienced that weekend then. I have grown as a result of …
- I know that in years to come, I will look back on the events of that weekend and feel …
Ok, let’s give this a go. The summer 2023 CCEA GCSE Unit 4 Task 1 question was this:
Write a personal essay for the examiner describing the best weekend you have had, explaining why it was memorable.
