Annotated model answer

Directed writing journal: an annotated model response

A strong answer with margin notes that show what earns the marks. Every passage and answer here is our own.

Book a Trial ClassOne‑hour paid trial · Same‑day reply · from RM70/hr

Written by the IGCSE English Malaysia teaching teamUpdated 15 October 2026

The exam-style question

This is a directed writing: journal question, in the style of the First Language English papers. Read it as you would in the exam, then compare your plan with the model.

Using the situation below, write a reflective journal entry recording your thoughts on your last day at your childhood home. Write in a personal, reflective register. This is our own practice prompt.

Our original passageapprox. 155 words

Notes: Moving Day

Situation for your journal entry. Today is your family's last day in the house where you grew up; tomorrow you move to another town for a parent's new job. Details you may use or change: the removal boxes are stacked in the hall; your bedroom is bare and echoey without its posters; the pencil marks on the door frame that recorded your height over the years will be painted over by the new family; you found an old toy at the back of a cupboard while packing; the garden where you learned to ride a bike looks smaller now; you feel a mixture of sadness and nervous excitement about the new school.

A journal is private and reflective: it records not just what happened but how you feel and what you make of it. Write in the first person, exploring your thoughts rather than telling a dramatic story.

Our annotated model response

Model response: Directed writing: journal

A journal entry is private and reflective. It is written in the first person and records feeling and thought, not just events, in a personal register.

The boxes are all stacked in the hall now, labelled in Mum's handwriting, and the house sounds different, hollow, as if it has already half-forgotten us.¹ I keep going into my room and there is nothing to go in for; the walls are just pale squares where my posters used to be, like the ghosts of things I liked.² I found the height marks on the door frame this morning. Someone will paint over them tomorrow, and it seems strange that all that growing up can be covered in one coat of white.³ I thought I would only be sad. I am, a bit. But there is something else too, a nervous flutter about the new school that I don't quite have a word for.⁴ Maybe a home is not really the rooms, then, but the marks you leave and the ones you take with you. I am taking more than I thought. Goodnight, house.⁵

Reading a model answer helps. In a paid one-hour trial, a teacher helps your child write one like it on Directed writing journal.

Book a Trial Class

Common errors we see

Listing events like a diary of actions instead of reflecting
No personal register or genuine exploration of feeling
Telling a dramatic story rather than recording thought
Stating a feeling flatly ('I was sad') without exploring it
An impersonal tone unsuited to a private journal

How this maps to the mark scheme

Examiners mark against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards.

For directed writing: journal, the objectives in play are listed below. The wording is summarised for Cambridge IGCSE First Language English (0500) on our qualification page.

Understand explicit meanings.
Understand implicit meanings and attitudes.
Articulate experience and express what is thought, felt and imagined.
Use register and style appropriate to purpose and audience.
Make accurate use of spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Draw on the passage for the situation, then write in a believable personal voice. Feeling, register and accuracy are what the writing marks reward.

Other boards word their objectives differently, but the same skills earn the marks. Your board's official syllabus gives the exact weighting.

Where to go next

Learn the method in our guide to directed writing: journal, then try the directed writing: journal practice tasks. You can browse every annotated model response or see how we teach this in our First Language English tuition.

When you have written your own answer, take it to a paid one-hour trial lesson and the teacher who would continue will mark it with you.

Next, visit our original practice tasks to try the same method on a fresh task. Our First Language English tuition page explains how lessons run. When you are ready, the paid one-hour trial is the first step.

Try this question with a teacher

Book a Trial Class

One‑hour paid trial · Same‑day reply · from RM70/hr