What are some of the most used topics? For secondary 2, the genre is always in descriptive and narrative writing with a hybrid.
Students are expected to write on a variety of descriptive/ narrative topics with hybrid topics comprising of reflective and personal recounts.
Below, we will explore some common topics which require the Secondary 2 student to write confidently and subjectively on several topics which are of personal interest.
Writing on all of these requires one to delve into personal experiences or imagining a personal experience that is relevant.
Secondary 2 Topic #1: What is the importance of honesty?
This topic is a narrative composition about an important value.
For this topic, the student needs to write a story that denotes how a situation evolved to reveal that the honest method was the only way to deal effectively with it.
It should show that to choose to be dishonest would lead to undesirable consequences and how the honest choice was the best as it was the most truthful.
Virtues, principles and the need to be truthful should be revealed as being important character accomplishments.
Secondary 2 Topic #2: Your first day in secondary school
This topic is a descriptive composition. The first day is all about observing important activities, encounters with people and learning within the education spectrum.
It should be informative, lively and above all, reflect one’s own engagement with others on different levels. There should also be observations made about learning some fundamental principles which will make an impact on oneself.
Secondary 2 Topic #3: A friend who helped you when you were in trouble
This topic is a narrative topic and it should have a well developed plot. A friend helping oneself is about providing a back story and tracing the path to a climax where something of great urgency developed.
Then, the gradual realisation of the great truth in finding that the friend was such an important and valuable person. All these should be reflected in the narrative story.
Secondary 2 Topic #4: How did a community event teach you important values
This topic is about a community event teaching one values. This is a hybrid topic where the community event is descriptive but the teaching of values is very subjective so it becomes reflective.
Describing a community event means to find a useful topic where the event can actually help one to realise these values. It can be a learning experience through active participation.
Eg. Learning how teamwork is very useful or realising that one’s neighbours can be very kind and helpful people.
Secondary 2 Topic #5: How an act of kindness affected you
This topic is a learning event. This is a narrative and reflective topic about an act of kindness shown by someone to you which made you realise something of great value.
It should reflect a truth and display how you matured and became more insightful. Compositions like these are some of the best ways to score really well if you choose to write on an original sounding story with a twist.
This will create that moment of realisation and sinking in of that truth.
Secondary 2 Topic #6: Write about a time when you experienced a difficult challenge
This topic is one of the most common topics. Practising this narrative composition topic really well will be of great use as it usually appears in examination papers even up till the ‘O’ levels.
The trick in this question is to choose that difficult challenge. It should not be too common or too easy to accomplish. Neither should it be too difficult or out of the bounds of the ordinary.
The challenge should reveal how it caused you moments of anguish when you had to work hard to overcome it.
Secondary 2 Topic #7: Write about losing something of value to yourself
This topic is a narrative topic and it should be all about that ‘thing’ of value. This should not be too simple and it most certainly should be a sentimental object.
How did losing it affect you so much that you could not bear to be without it? The topic says losing something of value to ‘yourself’. This means that it is personal.
Therefore, choosing a suitable item is very important.
Secondary 2 Topic #8: How did advice from a parent teach you something of value?
This topic is a reflective and narrative topic. It is about parental advice which was valuable.
A story should be written to show the flow from how it all began to the culmination of the climax where the realisation of that usefulness of that advice is seen.
The advice should reflect how useful it was to oneself and how that became such a help in the future. There should be gratitude and a sense of accomplishment by the end of this story.
Secondary 2 Topic #9: An unforgettable holiday
An unforgettable holiday is another very popular topic. It could be transposed with another unforgettable type of experience such as a birthday or trip.
Choosing that destination and ‘who’ goes along with oneself should be given careful thought.
A sketch of the outline of this narrative story should be done to avoid going out of point as is commonly done. It should not be too descriptive as the key word is ‘unforgettable’.
That means something of value happened which resonated with oneself. This means care should be taken to explore this.
Secondary 2 Topic #10: Write about some of the most important qualities you admire
This topic is also very common. Some of the qualities you admire are narrative and reflective. Why you admire it should be very subjective and therefore, narrative.
The reflective part is about the person or people who possess these values. Learning from them is a reflective experience and should prove to be a learning point.
It could be that one person or more but they should be in a ‘role model’ position or a place one could aspire to reach.
This concludes the subject of the most common secondary 2 compositions. These have surfaced time and again in tests, school exams and final exams.
Practising these will ensure that you have a firm control of the writing paper and your grades will be at the top range.