© boardworks ltd 2003 1 of 18 writing diaries this icon indicates that detailed teacher’s notes...

© Boardworks Ltd 20031 of 18

Writing Diaries

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What are diaries?

Diaries can take many different forms.

How many can you think of?

a personal diary listing appointmentsa personal diary where you reflect on your lifea log book of experimentsan expedition journal.

Diaries can be:

Did you think of any other forms?


Describing diaries

This presentation will look at personal diaries reflecting on life.

Can you think of any words to describe this sort of diary?


Describing diaries


The language of diaries can vary greatly: some diaries may be written in enormous detail; some may be just brief notes of events; the vocabulary may be kept fairly formal, or it may be written in slang, using abbreviations and contracted forms of words.

Q: Why does the language used in diaries vary so much?

A: A diary is a very personal document, so the language of diaries will have as many variations as there are people writing them.

This means that writing a diary gives you an opportunity to express your personality in the language you use.

The language of diaries


Fictional diaries

Some authors have found that diaries give them the chance to develop the “voice” of a character in fiction. For example, The Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend shows how the diary form can be used humorously.

Wednesday March 9th

I have decided not to take my ‘O’ levels. I am bound to fail them anyway so why waste all that neurosis in worrying? I’ll need all the neurosis I can get when I start writing for a living.

Friday March 11th

… Did a bit of shouting outside the Youth Club doors tonight.

Rick Lemon pretended not to hear us but I noticed that the vein in his temple was throbbing. Why don’t my parents notice that I am turning into a yob?

from The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole © Sue Townsend, 1984


You now need to think about the language and style which would be appropriate for a diary if you were writing it. You can, of course, use slang and contractions which would not be appropriate in a formal essay.

The following activity will help you to think about the language which you would use in different situations.

Think back to your most recent school trip. You are going to write two versions of this outing.

1. An account set as homework, for display in school.

2. Your diary entry for the day of the trip.

Activity

The language of diaries


Back in the seventeenth century a man called Samuel Pepys kept a diary which happens to cover the time when London was suffering an outbreak of plague. Pepys’ diary reveals things about the lives of ordinary people which official documents would never record.

Diaries as historical documents

August 16thIt was dark before I could get home; and so land at church-yard stairs, where to my great trouble I met a dead Corps, of the plague, in the narrow ally, just bringing down a little pair of stairs - but I thank God I was not much disturbed at it. However, I shall beware of being late abroad again.


Writing an account of your daily life may not sound very exciting, but in three hundred years time, a record of ordinary life in the twenty-first century could be fascinating to historians.

Who knows, in the future, it could be your diary which reveals what daily life was like in the twenty-first century!

Some of you may well keep a diary. Most people try to do so at some time; however, many diaries are abandoned after quite a short time.



A much more recent example of a diary which has given people an insight into a way of life is the Diary of Anne Frank. This diary, kept by a young Jewish girl, tells of her life in hiding during the Second World War.


Friday, 9 October 1942Dearest Kitty,Today I have nothing but dismal and depressing news to report. Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves … We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they’re being gassed. Perhaps that’s the quickest way to die…


If you have not read this book, try to do so – it should be in your library. When you have read it, analyse why it is so effective as an account of the war: many books have been written about the war, what makes this one different from the rest?

Anne’s diary gives a human face to the statistics of those who died in the Holocaust and makes us far more aware of the reality of life in those conditions than any third person description could ever do.



On the slides which follow, there are three scenarios taken from some of Shakespeare’s best known plays.

use these details and your own imagination to “get under the skin” of the character concerned and write his/her diary entry for the events described.

Use modern English and try to make the personality of the individual show in the content and language of each entry.

Writing diaries

We have seen that diaries can be a good way of learning about someone’s life. They can also be a useful way of exploring a character in a play or novel. By writing in the “voice” of a character, you can become much more familiar with the way in which they think.


Lysander: I have a widow aunt, a dowagerOf great revenue, and she hath no child:From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;And she respects me as her only son.There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,And to that place the sharp Athenian lawCannot pursue us. If thou lov’st me then,Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night,And in the wood, a league without the town,Where I did meet thee once with Helena,To do observance to a morn of May,There will I stay for thee.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, Scene 1


A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, Scene 1

Lysander and Hermia are in love. They wish to marry.

Hermia’s father, Egeus, has forbidden it.

Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius whom she hates.

Hermia has been told to obey her father or face death.

Hermia and Lysander plan to run away at night.

As Lysander, write your diary entry for the day you decided to run away with Hermia.


Viola: There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain;And though that nature with a beauteous wallDoth oft close in a pollution, yet of theeI will believe thou hast a mind that suitsWith this thy fair and outward character.I prithee – and I’ll pay thee bounteously, –Conceal me what I am, and be my aidFor such disguise as haply shall becomeThe form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke:Thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him:It may be worth thy pains; for I can singAnd speak to him in many sorts of musicThat will allow me very worth of his service.What else may hap to time I will commit;Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Twelfth Night Act 1, Scene 2


Twelfth Night Act 1, Scene 2

Viola has been shipwrecked in Illyria.

Her twin Sebastian who was with her has not been found: they fear he has drowned.

Viola decides to disguise herself as a man and offer her services as a courtier to the local duke, Orsino.

Write Viola’s diary for her first night in Illyria.


Brutus: That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;What you would work me to, I have some aim:How I have thought of this and of these times,I shall recount hereafter; for this present,I would not, so with love I might entreat you,Be any further mov’d. What you have saidI will consider; what you have to sayI will with patience hear and answer such high things.Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:Brutus had rather be a villagerThan to repute himself a son of RomeUnder these hard conditions as this timeIs like to lay upon us.

Julius Caesar


Julius Caesar

Caesar has won the civil war.

Brutus and Cassius meet at Caesar’s celebration of his victory.

Cassius thinks that Caesar is too powerful and intends to be a dictator.

Cassius tells Brutus that Caesar is no better than he is and he must stop Caesar.

Brutus seems to agree, at least in part, with Cassius.

Write Brutus’ diary for the day of Caesar’s celebration parade.

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