Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Story Of Ramses

After browsing through the suggested activities for Home Learning, I suggested for Ilham to "write a story set in Ancient Eqypt" as his first activity. It was the easiest one I could think of. What we needed was only a piece of paper and lots of brilliant ideas. It was easy !!! Or so I thought....


First, he made a list of what he thought ancient Egypt was like :

Pyramid, river nile, temple, pharoah, the boy king Tut, egyptian boat, mummies, dessert.... hmm... what else??? These things could be mentioned in the story.


Then, the story needed a plot. So what's the plot about?? Ilham didn't understand what a plot was. I had to rephrase that "what is the story about?" After thinking about it for a little while, he said it's about how a boy saved King Tut's life. Hmmm.....that sounded like a good story....


Let's see what transpired between us in the making of the "story"


"Once upon a time in the golden sand of Egypt, there lived a boy named Ramses", then he stopped.


Me : That's a nice beginning. Explain a little about Ramses. Who is he?


"Ramses was poor boy", he stopped.


Me : What did Ramses do?


"Every day, he helped his father in the field. When he finished, he would go to the river Nile to fish and to enjoy the view."


Me : That's nice, write a little bit more.


"Sometimes he would play around the pyramid"


Me : Go on...


Ilham : No, that's enough, you only need a little introduction.


Me : Ok, let's write the main story then, remember your plot.


"One day, Ramses saved King Tut's life"


Me : If you write that, your story will end in 3 lines. This is the interesting part, explain how Ramses saved King Tut's life. What happened on that day. What was Ramses doing.


"One day, Ramses was lying on the river bank. Suddenly he saw King Tut fell into the river. Then Ramses saved him"


Me : First, in your story do you want Ramses to know that it was the boy king? Second, make it more suspense. What happened when he fell.


So the sentence was rewritten....


"Suddenly he saw a boy fell into the river from a boat. There was a crocodile in the river. The crocodile came towards him. Ramses killed the crocodile. He saved the boy."


Me : That's good, but maybe you should explain a bit what did the boy do next when he fell, and how Ramses kill the crocodile. Remember, you want to make it suspense! And tell me first before you write, that way, you don't have to keep erasing.


"The boy tried to swim to the river bank, but then the crocodile came and grabbed his legs"


Me : Good, what did Ramses do then.


"Ramses took his spear and throw it at the crocodile, but it missed. Then Ramses jumped into the river. He took his knife and stabbed the crocodile until it died"


Me : Very good, then what happened?


"You saved my life" the boy said to Ramses,"come to the palace, I must reward you"


Ilham : I'm tired now, can we continue tomorrow?


That was the end of our writing on the first day. The following day, Ilham had another session of writing, with his father this time. It was easier the second day, he had more "ideas" of his own - the boy king and Ramses became friends, the Romans came, people died, Ramses defeated the Romans, they lived happily until King Tut died, Ramses became pharoah etc...


Conclusion : Writing is not easy :)

8 comments:

Cat-from-Sydney said...

Mother of Ilham,
There were no marauding Romans yet during King Tut's time. There were the Hittites (Turks) then. Romans came thousands of years later, during the times of the Ptolemies and the Cleopatras....hik hik hik....I'm a history buff too! purrrr....meow!

i amsterdam said...

Ha..ha..ha.. I'm no expert on history. But I admit something didn't sound right when he wrote about the romans & king Tut!! When i mentioned it, he said "It's my story, I will write whatever I like" He was fed up coz I kept asking him to amend the story the day before!!!

Will write the teacher's comment next time he..he..

TK said...

I am really bad at writing..huhu
You really taught him well..
Donno the history of King Tut also..but I am always interested in the history of Egypt and I would love to visit the museum in Egypt.

i amsterdam said...

Dear TK,

I didn't know much about King Tut- the boy king either. His tomb was found in 1920's by English archeopologist. There follows stories about the curse of king Tut etc.. perhaps Catinsydney knows more :)

But I intend to find out coz Ilham mentioned something the other day, he said "Moses was a brother to King Tut". I would like to check on that statement :)

I like Egypt too, but I got confused reading them, I lost track of the pharoahs' names - they were so similar!!!

Cheqna said...

I like watching documentaries of that period, king tut, mummies, etc etc..but of course its like "masuk telinga kanan keluar telinga kiri" sort of thing (may be that's why I could watch them over and over again!) ~ but I'm not like Cats there, history buff..hehe

that's cute (n true), its Ilham's story after all..he's creative!

looking forward to his teacher's comment.
:-)

i amsterdam said...

Cheqna,

I love watching documentaries too, the other day we watched how they moved the Abu Simple temple to its current place. It was amazing...

I try to encourage Ilham to write... but frankly speaking, writing is something that "either u have it or u don't", but I'm not giving up :)

Nana said...

Oh oh...I am hopeless in mengarang. Macamana nak ajar anak I nanti? hehehe. But you are good. You taught him well! Way to go mommy!

i amsterdam said...

Nana,

"You taught him well???" Hmmm... that's yet to be proven dear :D

Sekali I tunjuk...satu ayat dia buat. 2 kali I tunjuk... 2 ayat dia buat... he..he... At the end of it, I was more tired than him... But I understand, he is only 8 years, so still have time to practice...

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