Feather, Wood and Dog: a story by a young student

Picture from http://www.childgraphics.com/html/posters/schooldays/teachread.htm

Here is a writing completed by one of my students, MW. Currently, she is a Primary 3 student at Cedar Primary School. From a quiet and shy Mandarin-speaking girl who barely spoke in class to a highly-motivated learner of English, MW has come a long way. Therefore, I am pleased to share her writing here.

I gave her the similar Creative Writing topic done by the older students. Given her younger age, I guided her to use more specific nouns (with the help of Internet resources) and phrasal verbs to embellish her otherwise simple story plot. She has demonstrated a strong control of verb tense, sequencing, punctuation and paragraph structure.

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One day, Mr Lim walked past a pet shop. He decided to buy a parrot and a dog.

Whenever Mr Lim came back from work, the thing he would do was to feed the parrot and a dog. The parrot was a Cacatua Galerita. It had white feathers and a movable yellow head crest. It look majestic. Mr Lim called it Choco. The dog was a brown Alsatian puppy. Mr Lim called it Pipi. He loved them very much. Sometimes he taught the dog and the parrot some tricks.

One day when Mr Lim was at work, a slimy poisonous white snake came into the house, intending to eat the parrot. The parrot screeched in panic and the dog heard. The dog surged to the living room. it saw the snake hiss at the parrot. The parrot could not fly away because its foot was chained to a pole. the dod barked loudly. The snake was distracted. The dog quickly ran forward, bit on the pole and dragged it to a cupboard. It managed to open the beautifully carved cupboard and rolled the pole with the mortified parrot into the cupboard. By now, the parrot had shed some feathers on the floor. The snake charged at the dog. The dog managed to hit it with its heavy paws. The snake was knocked out, unconscious.

At that moment, Mr Lim came back and did not see the parrot. He thought that the dog had eaten the parrot! Then he heard the parrot calling and he opened the cupboard and saw the parrot inside. he also saw the dog was hurt and quickly took the dog to the vet.

When Mr Lim reached the clinic, he waited for his turn. After twenty minutes, Mr Lim brought the injured dog to the veterinarian and told him that Pipi had been bitten by a snake.

The veterinarian diagnosed the dog and deduced that Pipi was not in any danger as the bite was not lethal. Mr Lim heaved a sigh of relief.

Mr Lim brought Pipi home and took care of it.

Mr Lim took a few days leave from work to take good care of Pipi. After a few weeks, Pipi had fully recovered. Mr Lim was happy.