A lot of P6 students were caught off-guard yesterday when this appeared as their SA1 composition topic.

Topic: An unexpected friendship
Pictures: Old lady/bus stop/dog

1. Don’t fret when you see an unfamiliar topic. Unlike in P3 and P4 where they choose pictures that correlate and topics that are straight forward e.g. A rainy day, in P6, some schools like to have topics that require more maturity and in-depth analysis. Be prepared for that.

2. How to tackle this topic? Focus on the key words:
a) Unexpected
b) Friendship

– you need to show why it was unexpected, meaning no one would have guessed. Thus, your story must show the contrast.

Showing the contrast is very important as it helps your reader identify the crux in your story. E.g. if you want to show how the protagonist is brave, I would have a second character who is a coward. This will highlight the protagonist’s courage.

– In this particular instance, you need to show why it was impossible for the friendship to have existed in the first place. Provide the context.

– The friendship obviously must take place later. It should not be abrupt. You need to lead up to that slowly and also provide a logical reason as to why they became friends. What was the catalyst? Without this, the story would not make sense. It must be at least one-two paragraphs long.

3. As you are required to use only one picture, there is no need to use all. Most students would choose to use the old lady and the dog. To differentiate yourself from others, you could just use the bus stop and develop two unique characters that are distinctive from your peers.

However, having said that, as many students may have gone out of point for this story, using the most common pictures is fine. Key is to not go out of point.

Note for my P6 students:
– you are welcome to try this as a bonus question
– I will provide a sample story for this topic this week, so don’t miss the class!

#composition #PSLE #SA1 #examinations