COMPOSITION WRITING

Composition writing has to do with putting down your ideas, opinions or

thoughts in writing. This is done in an organised way so that your reader is able
to understand it.

Reasons for writing compositions

1. We write compositions for different reasons.

2. To inform

3. To persuade

4. To call readers attention to something

5. To express feelings

6. To entertain

7. To give pleasure

There are four types of composition/essay writing. They are:

a. Narrative: A narrative essay is a kind of writing where you talk about

what happened to you or what you witnessed. It is like telling a story. A
narrative essay also talks about a main idea or a lesson learned. You may
consider the following in writing a narrative essay.

Identify the experience that you want to write about. For example, your
experience could be on My First Day in School

Think about why the experience is important to you.

Spend sometime to remember what happened and write them down.

b. Descriptive: this is a kind of essay where you explain the physical

appearance of somebody, something, or a place. One reason for writing a
descriptive essay is so that your reader can identify what you have described
once he or she sees it. For example, imagine that you want to write a descriptive
essay about your father. This means you have chosen to write about your
father's physical appearance and the way he interacts with people.

In a descriptive essay, you use a lot of adjectives. So you may describe how
your father looks, and does things that makes you love him.

When writing a descriptive essay, the best way to create a good and clear
experience for your reader is to focus on the five senses.

sight

sound

smell

touch

taste

You can consider the following point when writing a descriptive essay:

i. What or who do you want to describe?

ii. Why do you want to describe the person or thing?

iii. What qualities do you want to focus on?

iv. What sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures are important for your
description?

v. What can you include to ensure that your readers gain the same thought as
you?

c. Argumentative: this is the kind of essay where you have to make your
reader to believe you and support your idea or point of view. focusing on this
purpose, will help you to write a good argument.

The following are important steps to consider when writing an argumentative

essay:

i. Identify your main idea or point of view. Your purpose will be to make
your reader to accept this idea or point of view.

ii. Identify your reader. To write a good argument, try to understand your
readers mind. For example, would your readers like about your opinion? Or
would your readers be angry at your point of view?

iii. Considering your readers, identify the strongest supporting points for your
argument.

iv. Identify the most important opposing view. Explaining and strongly
disagreeing with the opposing view will make your reader to believe you more
and give you support.

d. Expository: this is the kind of essay where you explain something with
correct information that you have, and not what you think about it.

The function of the expository essay is to explain, or inform your readers with
knowledge. By explaining a topic to the reader, you are demonstrating your own
knowledge.

When writing an expository essay, we use words such as first, after, next, then
and last usually shows that one idea follows the other in an orderly manner. We
also use the second-person pronoun you.

Example of types of expository essays include:

i. Essays that described how to do something (cooking your best food,

making a mouse trap, etc.)

ii. Essays that explain experiments, scientific discoveries etc.

iii. Essays that describe a process(how the engine boat works).

iv. Essays that explain/describe a historical event.

Parts of a composition

All types of composition have three parts. These include the:

1. Introduction

2. Body

3. Conclusion

The introduction: Every composition needs a good introduction. The

introduction is like a door that opens and lets people into a beautiful house. Your
introduction needs to be interesting to the reader, so that he/she is able to read
your composition to the end and enjoy it. Writing a composition on a topic like
My Favourite Food, the introduction could look like this:

My mother cooks all our food at home. The foods are so delicious that I always
look forward to meal times. I enjoy all the food mother cooks but my favourite
food is jollof rice cooked with palm oil and dried fish. I call it palm oil jollof
rice.

The body: the body of your essay is where you express feelings, thoughts and
opinions on a given subject/topic. The body of the composition is made up of
paragraphs. Paragraphs help you to organise your composition into meaningful
parts. A paragraph always expresses one idea at a time. In a long composition,
each paragraph should have at least 4 sentences. A paragraph of a composition
on our topic could look like this:

We always eat my jollof rice every Tuesday evening. I always cant wait to get
home after school on Tuesdays. This is because I love to help and watch as
mother cooks my favourite food. I help her to slice the onions and remove
bones from the fish.

The conclusion: this is the final part of your composition. Just as the
introduction of your composition creates a good impression on your reader,
your conclusion should make the final impression on your reader. It is also your
last chance to convince the reader. Here, you simply summarise what you have
said in your composition. A good conclusion should be straight and to-the-point.
A conclusion on our composition topic could look like this: The palm oil that
mother uses to cook the jollof rice gives it the orange colour and mother says it
is very nutritious. The fish also gives the food a very special taste. Palm oil
jollof rice with dried fish is my favourite food because it is delicious and gives
me carbohydrate which makes me strong. It also gives other nutrients like
vitamin A, vitamin D, and protein which keep me healthy.

Copyright 2008 Intel Corporation About skoool About Sponsors Privacy and Security