PERSONAL WRITING - English Form 2 Functional Writing Notes

• Personal Journals
  • Contents of a Personal Journal
  • Sample Personal Journal
• Shopping Lists
  • Contents of a Shopping List
  • Sample Shopping List

Personal Journals

• A personal journal is a record of individual’s impression of a given event, occurrence or a person.
• Record what strikes you the most.
• What you record could have happened to you or to others.

Contents of a Personal Journal

1. Date
2. Day
3. At times, the calendar
4. Entry

Sample Personal Journal

Shopping Lists

• A shopper needs to write a list of all the items to be purchased.
• Written before a shopping trip to a shop, grocery, or supermarket.
• Writing a shopping list will help cut down on money wastage and time for thinking on what to buy while at the shopping center.

Contents of a Shopping List

• A shopping list contains the following:
  1. Title. ​A title must have what the shopping is intended for and the words “shopping list”.
  2. Budgeted amount. ​Write how much you have at hand to do shopping. Don’t use more than what you have. Budget carefully. You can’t also remain with a certain amount. If you are left with too much from what you were to use, it will also mean you don’t know how to budget.
  3. Item category.​ Items are normally put under different categories. It is a good idea to group related items together for ease in shopping. Items are categorized as; 
     • Snacks e.g. cake, chips, etc.
     • Toiletries e.g. soap, toothpaste, tissue papers, etc.
     • Foodstuff
     • Drinks/beverages
     • Electronics
     • Clothing
     • And others
  4. Item.​ Write items under the right category.
  5. Description.​ Write the type of item you want. Prices might also be different. If for example you want to buy juice, write the type you want, for instance, savanna, pineapple. Their prices vary.
  6. Quantity.​ Say how many or how much you need to buy. If a liquid use mililitres, litres etc. if solid, grams, kilograms, will do.
  7. Price​. The amount to be spent on each item is written in this column.
  8. Total​. Write the amount in total to spend. Never spend more than budgeted for.

More creative individuals add to their shopping lists:

• Expected balance/change
• Where shopping to be done. For example: ​shopping to be done at Uchumi Supermarket.
• Who to do shopping, among other things.

Sample Shopping List

Exercise

You are form two class prefect. Your class is throwing the end of the year class party. Before this happens, there is contribution by all the class members. If the total amount raised is sh. 9 000 which you are supposed to budget for, prepare the shopping list of the item you would buy.