The Grannie Annie Family Story Celebration – www.TheGrannieAnnie.org

Writing Your Grannie Annie Story

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You’ve interviewed a family storykeeper but aren’t sure how to begin writing your Grannie Annie story? That’s not surprising, because writing is complex. It involves many specific tasks — getting an idea, putting it into words, and organizing information, plus tending to sentence structure, usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling! One way to make the writing process easier is to break it into parts so that you can focus on each step individually. Here are some suggestions.

1. Plan your story

  • Read the first bullet point of The Grannie Annie Official Guidelines to be sure that the story you have in mind will be eligible for submission.
  • What is the main idea you want to get across? You might not state this idea in your story, but having it in your mind will help you frame your story and decide what information to include.
  • What background information do your readers need?
  • How will you capture your readers’ interest at the beginning of your story?
  • How will you end your story? What will you say to leave your readers with the final thought or feeling you want them to have?

2. Write your first draft quickly, not worrying about correct sentence structure, usage, capitalization, punctuation, or spelling.

3. Revise your story, getting feedback on the content from your classmates, family, teachers, and others. Find out which parts of your story work well and which parts are confusing or need more detail. Make the changes you want to make. Consider the suggestions in “Revising Your Grannie Annie Story.” Finally, check to be sure your story has between 275 and 500 words, a requirement for The Grannie Annie.

4. Edit your story for correct usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. You may want to read through your story several times, checking for just one kind of error at a time. Keep reading through your story until you have read it at least twice without making any changes. You also may want to ask for guidance from a teacher or other adult.

5. Share your finished story with your family, your classmates, others in your school and community, and The Grannie Annie! Celebrate the fact that you have saved this important piece of your family’s history!

 

Copyright © 2007, 2011 by Fran Hamilton and Connie McIntyre. You are welcome to make copies of this document.


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