How to Write a Composition [With Samples and Templates]

It is very common for primary school pupils and secondary school students to be given the task of writing compositions in their English and Literacy classes. They may be required to write a composition about anything, including themselves, their school, father, best friend, and so on. On this post, I am going to help the pupils and students by delineating how to write a composition about any person, place, thing or event. I will also give sample compositions on different titles to foster better understanding.

Meaning of Composition Writing?

Composition writing simply means putting together words, sentences, and paragraphs to create a piece of written work, which may be an essay, an article or a story. It has to do with organizing your thoughts, ideas, and information in a structured and coherent manner to effectively pass your message across, describe someone or something, or tell a story.

General Guide on How to Write a Composition

I’m going to explore several composition topics in this article but in this section, I will give you the basic guide to writing compositions generally.

Here are the steps to follow to craft a good composition regardless of the topic you are given:

1. Understand the Topic

When you are given a composition to write on a particular topic, don’t get too excited or jump into writing too quickly. Take some time to think about the topic and understand it thoroughly. This counsel is valid even in examination conditions. The final outcome of composition writing does not depend on how quickly the writer is but on the extent to which they understand the topic.

2. Brainstorm Ideas

As you take time to consider the topic in a bid to understand it, jot down any ideas, thoughts, or points that come to your mind. Depending on the topic and the kind of composition, your ideas at this point may include the key points you want to cover, the examples you might be using, or the arguments you want to make.

3. Outline Your Composition

As you think about your topic and brainstorm ideas, try to write an outline of about three to four essential points on which you will build up your composition. Creating an outline serves to organize your thoughts. It can be as simple as listing a few main points, or creating a more detailed structure with headings and subheadings. Of course, this should be on a rough piece of paper.

4. Introduction

The introduction of a composition, and every other type of writing, is one of the most important parts of the work. So you must endeavor to start your composition with an introduction that is not just engaging but sets the tone for the rest of the piece.

You can introduce your composition with an interesting fact or statistic, a quote, a provocative question, or a relevant anecdote to grab the attention of the reader.

5. Body Paragraphs

Here is where you now really start writing, developing and enlarging your the main points in your outline. Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence and as much as possible, focus on one main idea or argument. After writing the topic sentence for a particular paragraph, provide supporting evidence or examples to back it up.

In developing the body paragraphs of your composition, ensure that you use clear language and that you transition smoothly between paragraphs.

If your composition is handwritten, ensure that your handwriting legible. That is, it should be capable of being read by the examiner or audience. In case you have something to cancel, cancel it neatly. Do not make your composition seem a bungled work of a careless scholar. Try to write sensibly and finish up in record time so that you may have the chance to read over your composition.

Conclusion

Here, you summarize your main points and also offer some final thoughts or suggestions related to the topic. Immediately concluding your composition, take some time to revise and edit it. As you revise, look out for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, ambiguous expressions and incoherent of ideas. Make necessary corrections and adjustments.

Emphasis on How to Start a Composition

When you begin your composition, think of it as opening a conversation with your readers. Start by grabbing their attention with something interesting or thought-provoking, like a surprising fact or a captivating question.

Once you have their attention, introduce your topic in a clear and concise manner, providing a bit of background information to set the stage. Then, state your main idea clearly i.e. the central point you will be discussing in your composition.

Finally, give your readers a sneak peek into what they can expect from the rest of your composition by outlining the main points you will be covering. This will help them to understand the structure of your piece and prepares them for the journey ahead.

Examples on How to Write Compositions

Composition Topic No. 1: How I spent my Christmas Holidays

Outlines:

• Preparations for the Christmas Holidays.
• Where I traveled for the Holidays.
• How I enjoyed the Christmas day.
• Preparation for the reopening of schools.

Composition About How I spent my Christmas Holidays

In the middle of November last year 2024, we had our examination fears and fever. Soon, we took the examination which was the duty of all schools to take before taking a break for the term. I felt the examination was the most important thing in the life of teachers and pupils. The School premises had to be kept tidy and which we did to the best of our ability.

On 8th December, we closed for Christmas holidays. I wrote to my brother who trades at Onitsha and told him that I would spend the holidays with him. He replied favorably and I made a hasty preparation and went. At Onitsha, I saw many magnificent buildings which have been put up since after the end of the last destructive civil-war. I saw old ones which had been renewed with all surprising speed.

As Christmas eve approached, my brother bought ready made trousers, shirts and shoes for me. I felt very happy and I thanked him for being so kind to me. The Christmas day came at last with its usual load of joy and extravagant merriment.

That day, the night preceding the 25th of December was crazy with carols and with traditional boys’ music. In fact, everywhere was too noisy; ardent Christians went to and fro to their different churches. Indeed, people stayed away for more than three hours thinking that they had spent only an hour. The afternoon featured masquerades and other unmasked native dancers parading all the roads. My being overjoyed was also a result of my passing my examination.

At last, schools reopened again calling us to crack our brains once more. I prepared and came back to school with more ambition to study very hard.

Composition Topic No. 2: My Life Ambition

Outlines:

• My love of self-employment.
• How I will prepare to achieve my life ambition after my school Career.
• Normal benefits which one derives from Trade.
• Conclusion advantages and disadvantages in trading.

Composition About My Life Ambition

The love of profession or a career is something natural but no one can tell what is exactly his destiny. The choice is therefore a hard one but I feel that where one’s interest inclines more often, might be one’s real destiny. As for me, no matter how educated I shall be, I must try to be a TRADER.

Although some people may have cause to criticize an educated man who leaves out Teaching and Clerical works and takes up Trade.

I like Trade, not only for the fact that traders get money more than government workers, but also for the fact that it is an independent life. No one is paying you and you only depend on your foresight, business cycles and knowledge. Since some items of trade are seasonal, you make proper forecast of the times to buy in large quantity and when to suspend buying— selling only old stocks, pending the booming season. In case I lack capital when I come out from School, I will have to borrow or work for about two years and use my savings as start-up capital.

Traders who have the milk of human kindness in their breast are more generous than the most kindly, teacher or worker.

As soon as you are familiar to your customer, he is ready to grant you credit facility without making unnecessary calculation.

But then, one should not be folded with the great advantages of Trade, for, there are many loses to be sustained either owing to miscalculation of business trends or by having dishonest servants. In the case of perishable products, the loses are far greater when demand is low.

In the final analysis, I must try to join my life ambition—which is Trade when I finish my school career.

I like trading because some modern traders are gentle and wise.

Composition Topic No. 3: New Yam Festival in My Village

Outlines:

• At what time of the year does it take place?
• What are the necessay preparations and how is it usually organised?
• Improvements in the conduct of the new yam festival.

Composition About New Yam Festival in My Village

The new yam festival in my town takes place yearly and in the month of November. During the time of the year, the dry season starts to show bright sun and moon shines. It normally falls on the twentieth of the month so that villagers have no need to be on the wait pending a sudden announcement.

Before the day of the festival, everybody even the poorest man and woman must have got fully prepared by buying cloths, assorted uniforms and shoes to be worn in the afternoon of the festive day.

The whole village roads and pathways receive proper attention so as to impress outsiders who must have been invited for the feast. Leaking houses are repaired and floors scrubbed very impressively. All animals ranging from goats, lamb and fowls are usually bought four days to the actual day for the feast. All invitees receive either invitation notes or oral words. The spirit of masquerading as a way of afternoon entertainment is revived many nights to the D-day.

At last came the day, people cook rice, meat, the new yam, maize foo foo and yam foo foo. The cooking starts at about five o’clock in the early morning. A gallon of wine costs three times its normal day costs but still, people happily buy and keep as cola with the normal Ibo cola for the guests.

At about twelve o’clock in the afternoon, guests start to go in great numbers until three o’clock when everybody would be eager to go to the romping ground to witness the masquerades of different villages.

At the romping place, people, both natives and strangers look with gaping eyes and mouth at the masquerades and their men and women followers perform some sort of acrobatic feats. After five o’clock, the whole people will retire to their homes with their happy guests while the masquerades bury themselves right inside the ground as a matter of ancient tradition.

The invitees will then be given the last cordial entertainment and eventually bid farewell. One feels the new yam festival should be made nobler by making it compulsory for all village youths to return home. However, to do this, the period should be shifted from November to December so that it will be certainly convenient for youths to return. It is a joyful festival which actually shows the ancient and truly undying culture of both my village and other towns throughout the Federation.

Composition Topic No. 4: An Educated Man is More Important than a Farmer

Outlines:

• The meaning of Education and Farming.
• The Advantages of each weighed.
• Disadvantages of each weighed.
• Balanced Conclusion.

An Educated Man is More Important than a Farmer

An educated person is a man or a woman who has gone through the four walls of a School. School here is not only the primary but also secondary and university levels respectively. To the people who are just making a good progress in the field of education, education seems the most important thing in life. He who is not educated can only do crude farming, carpentry and other aspects of human activity.

But then, we must not forget that before the coming of book education, our people were rich farmers who maintain their financial status no matter how small.

They were even teachers in all aspects though such knowledge and rural teachings carried them to no appreciable end.

However, to have book knowledge is one thing but to eat in order that we may live is quite a different thing. Nobody can read and understand under a cracking stomach. To be uneducated cannot make one die quickly except where one chooses to swallow poisonous impurities deliberately. What we generally want most in life is food which proves to us that a farmer is more important than an educated man. It is a well-known fact that an educated man usually depends on the farmer for what he will use his earned money to buy, eat and live.

Nevertheless, an educated person who takes up agriculture with the modern chemicals, will prove more important than a farmer who uses the old crude and unmechanized methods of farming. Here we will find that EDUCATION plays a very indispensable role in the life of every living soul. All the fields of human endeavors require educational knowledge including Farming. The farm produce of an educationist must never be favorable compared to that of a poor-illiterate farmer. Poultry is big farming.

In the final, we find that a farmer is more important than an educated man because he is original, he sustains the life of the educated one and a child will never say, in truth, that he is senior or more experienced than his father. Education by way of reading books is very junior to farming and can never claim superiority if we want to face the facts.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, writing a composition is not just about putting words on paper. It’s about expressing yourself, organizing your thoughts, and communicating effectively. If you follow the steps outlined in this article, you can become a more confident and skilled writer.

Remember that I said that every great composition must start with a strong foundation. Your introduction must be clear and captivating, your body paragraphs must be well-developed, and your conclusion must be concise.

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