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Diary of a Wimpy Kid · Garden Heights
Part 1
for Diary of a Wimpy Kid · Part 1 · September
8 Parts40 min
What Happens in Part 1
Meet Greg Heffley, brand-new middle schooler — writing in a journal his mom bought, and very anxious that nobody call it a diary. He plans to be rich and famous one day, so this book, he explains, will save him from answering dumb questions later. Middle school, in Greg’s expert opinion, is the dumbest idea ever invented: kids of every shape and size crammed together, with popularity decided by an invisible ranking Greg is nowhere near the top of. He explains the school’s most feared legend, the Cheese Touch: a moldy slice of cheese has sat on the blacktop for ages, and whoever touches it — or gets tagged by someone who did — carries the Cheese Touch until they pass it on. We meet Greg’s best friend Rowley, a cheerful kid who still says ‘play’ instead of ‘hang out,’ and Greg’s big brother Rodrick, whose heavy-metal CD gets Greg in trouble: Greg sneaks it, plays it too loud, and loses his video game privileges. September ends with Greg’s run for class treasurer — a shortcut to popularity — until the vice principal bans his nasty posters about his opponent, the opponent hands out lollipops, and Greg’s campaign melts on election day.
What We Will Learn
Section
What you will practice
Vocabulary
Words of the hallway: journal, popularity, reputation, campaign, privilege…
Literary Elements
Diary format, the unreliable narrator, and hyperbole
Cross-Curricular
Why kids rank each other, and how a school election really works
Diary Summary
Month
What happens
Sept.
New school, old worries — Greg starts a journal (NOT a diary), explains the popularity ladder and the dreaded Cheese Touch, coaches Rowley on cool words, loses video games over Rodrick’s CD, and loses the treasurer election to a bag of lollipops.
Part 1
Vocabulary
Study 10 key words from the September diary entries, then answer each question.
🧠Knowledge Bank · Why Every Group Builds a Ladder
Social Science · The Pecking OrderLong before Greg ever ranks himself somewhere in the middle, scientists noticed that almost every group of animals sorts itself into a ‘pecking order’ — a top-to-bottom list of who outranks whom. Chickens literally peck the birds below them; humans do something quieter but similar. In a crowded middle school, students sense an invisible ladder of status, and most spend enormous energy guessing which rung they stand on. Psychologists call this social comparison: we measure ourselves not by a fixed rule but against the people around us. That is why Greg cares so much about a number he cannot even see. The ladder is not printed anywhere, yet everyone acts as though it were real, because believing in it shapes who eats with whom, who speaks first, and who stays silent. A group can be ruled just as firmly by an imaginary order as by any written law.
journaln.Sept.
A book for writing down what happens each day
“Greg insists the book his mom bought is a journal, nothing else.”
popularityn.Sept.
How much other people like or admire someone
“In middle school, popularity seems to decide everything.”
rankv.Sept.
To place people or things in order, best to worst
“Greg can rank every kid in school without even thinking.”
reputationn.Sept.
The opinion people generally hold about someone
“One wrong move can ruin a reputation for the whole year.”
privilegen.Sept.
A special right you can earn — or lose
“Playing video games is a privilege, as Greg learns the hard way.”
campaignn.Sept.
An organized effort to win something, like an election
“Greg’s campaign for treasurer started with big plans.”
candidaten.Sept.
A person trying to be chosen for a position
“Each candidate hung posters in the main hallway.”
embarrassingadj.Sept.
Making you feel foolish in front of others
“Being seen with the wrong lunch table can be embarrassing.”
matureadj.Sept.
Acting grown-up and sensible
“Greg believes he is more mature than everyone around him.”
legendn.Sept.
A famous story passed from kid to kid
“The moldy cheese on the blacktop is a school legend.”
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
1A book where you write down what happens each day is a ___.Sept.
2Your ‘reputation’ is the opinion people generally hold about you.Sept.
3To place people in order from best to worst is to ___ them.Sept.
4A ‘privilege’ is a punishment that can never be taken away.Sept.
5Fill in each blank with the correct word.Sept.
Word choices:campaignlegendmaturerank- some words will not be used
The moldy cheese became a school that every kid knew.
Greg’s for treasurer ended on election day.
6A person trying to be chosen for a position is a ___.Sept.
7Something ‘embarrassing’ makes you feel proud in front of others.Sept.
8Acting grown-up and sensible is being ___.Sept.
9Fill in the blanks with the correct words.Sept.
Word choices:privilegepopularityjournalcandidate- some words will not be used
In middle school, seems to decide where everyone sits.
Losing a hurts more than any lecture, Greg finds.
10How much other people like or admire someone is their ___.Sept.
Part 2
Comprehension
Show you understood what happens in September.
🧠Knowledge Bank · Seeing a Year Through One Boy’s Eyes
Reading Skill · Point of ViewEvery word of this book reaches you through a single narrow window: Greg’s own journal. That is first-person point of view, where one character says ‘I’ and reports only what he notices, thinks, and chooses to tell. The power of it is closeness — you sit right inside Greg’s head as September unfolds. The danger of it is bias: you never hear how his mother, his teacher, or Rowley would describe the same afternoon. A careful reader learns to hold two questions at once: what happened, and how might Greg be tilting it? When he calls a classmate a moron or brags about a clever plan, weigh whether the facts truly support him. Reading a first-person story well means listening closely to the narrator while quietly checking his math, because the truest picture often hides in the gap between what Greg reports and what he accidentally reveals.
1Why is Greg writing in a journal at all?Sept.
2What future use does Greg imagine for his journal?Sept.
3According to Greg, whoever touches the moldy cheese carries the Cheese Touch until passing it on.Sept.
4What embarrassing habit of Rowley’s does Greg try to fix?Sept.
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of September’s events. Number 1 = what happens first.Sept.
Greg sneaks Rodrick’s CD and plays it too loud.
The lollipop candidate wins the treasurer election.
Greg starts writing in the journal his mom bought.
The vice principal bans Greg’s posters about his opponent.
Greg explains the Cheese Touch and the popularity ladder.
6Greg gets in trouble for playing Rodrick’s heavy-metal CD too loudly.Sept.
9Greg plays video games at Rowley’s house using game cases that hide which games they really are.Sept.
10What do the journal, the Rowley coaching, and the treasurer run all show about Greg?Sept.
Part 3
Literary Elements
Understanding HOW and WHY Jeff Kinney tells the story across September.
🧠Knowledge Bank · A Story Drawn as Well as Written
Author’s Craft · The Illustrated DiaryJeff Kinney invented a form that looks like a real kid’s notebook: dated entries in a wobbly hand, with small cartoons crowding the margins. This is the illustrated diary, and the pictures are not decoration — they carry the joke. Often Greg writes one calm sentence while the drawing beside it shows the loud, embarrassing truth, so words and image work as a team, each finishing what the other starts. The dated entries also let time skip freely; a single line can leap over a dull week, then a cartoon can freeze one humiliating second forever. Because a diary is written for no one but its keeper, the form gives Greg an excuse to be blunt, boastful, and unguarded in a way a normal narrator rarely dares. When you read, let your eye bounce between the sentence and the sketch, because half of Kinney’s comedy lives in the drawings.
Diary format
A story told as dated, first-person entries — we live inside the narrator’s head, one day at a time.
Unreliable narrator
A storyteller whose version of events can’t be fully trusted — readers must notice what Greg leaves out or spins.
Hyperbole
Comic exaggeration — describing ordinary school life as if it were epic, deadly, or world-famous.
1Because the book is written as Greg’s journal, readers get ___.Sept.
2Fill in the blank with the correct literary term.Sept.
Word choices:hyperboleunreliableflashbackrhyme- some words will not be used
A narrator whose version of events can’t be fully trusted is an narrator.
Calling one moldy slice of cheese a deadly curse is .
3Greg insisting the book is a ‘journal,’ never a ‘diary,’ shows readers that he ___.Sept.
4The gap between what Greg says and what readers can see is where much of the book’s comedy lives.Sept.
5Describing middle school as the dumbest idea ever invented is an example of ___.Sept.
6The Cheese Touch legend works in the story mainly as ___.Sept.
7In diary format, events are told as dated, first-person entries.Sept.
8Fill in the blank with the correct literary term.Sept.
Word choices:diaryclimaxmoralsetting- some words will not be used
Dated first-person entries make this the format.
9Kinney opens the book with Greg’s plans for future fame mainly to ___.Sept.
10September ends with Greg losing an election to free lollipops. This ending mainly shows ___.Sept.
Part 4
Think Deeper
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
🧠Knowledge Bank · The Number That Isn’t Worth Chasing
Think Deeper · Popularity vs. CharacterGreg opens his year with a single burning goal: to climb the popularity rankings and, someday, be famous. It is worth pausing on that wish, because it quietly sets the terms for everything he does next. Chasing popularity means measuring your worth by other people’s opinions, which shift like weather; building character means deciding who you want to be no matter who is watching. The two often pull in opposite directions. To rise on the ladder, Greg is already willing to use Rowley, dodge blame, and bend the truth — small choices that cost him a little honesty each time. Notice that the book never scolds him directly; instead it lets you watch the price add up. As you read, keep asking a fair question the story keeps asking too: is a higher spot on an invisible ladder really worth trading away the trust of a real friend?
Think back over the month. A boy writes in a book he refuses to call a diary, explaining that one day, when he is famous, this will save him a lot of talking. He can tell you exactly where every kid stands on the school’s invisible ladder — and exactly which moldy slice of cheese on the blacktop could knock a kid off it forever. He coaches his cheerful best friend to stop saying ‘play.’ He runs for treasurer to move up a few rungs. And at the end of the month, the scoreboard reads: privileges lost, posters banned, election gone to a kid with a bag of lollipops.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1Claim: “Greg cares more about status than about the things he is actually doing.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence
2What Greg says about himself, or What Greg’s actions show? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two
◄ What Greg says about himselfWhat Greg’s actions show ►
3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect
Greg sneaks Rodrick’s CD and plays it too loud→
Greg plans posters attacking his opponent→
The opponent hands out lollipops to voters→
Kids fear catching the Cheese Touch→
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
Kinney has Greg correct anyone who calls the book a ‘diary’ because , which shows that .
Part 5
Standardized Test
Reading passage · Why Humans Keep Diaries · SAT & TOEFL-style practice
🎯 You already have the skills from the sections above — this is just a fun way to meet real SAT & TOEFL-style questions. Read the passage (the highlighted words are tested below), then answer the questions below. Tap an answer to select it, then tap it again to confirm — you can change your choice until you confirm.
Long before blogs and video channels, people recorded their days in small private books. Sailors kept logbooks of winds and storms; in the 1660s, a Londoner named Samuel Pepys filled thousands of pages with the plague, a great fire, and what he ate for dinner. Because he wrote honestly, historians can now walk through his city as if the streets were still standing. A diary, it turns out, is a time machine that works in both directions: it carries the writer forward through a confusing week, and carries readers back to a vanished world. That is why researchers who study writing call a diary a chronicle — a record of events in the order they happened.
But modern scientists have found a second use. When people reflect on the day in writing — thinking slowly about what happened and why — they often feel calmer and understand their own choices better. The page becomes a private place to be completely honest. Curiously, many diary writers still imagine an audience: a future self, a future fan, a stranger in a hundred years. Writing for that imagined reader can make a writer braver on the page than in the hallway — which may be the real reason a certain middle schooler agreed to keep one.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas
2In the passage, chronicle most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
3The passage calls a diary ‘a time machine that works in both directions’ because it ___.TOEFL · Rhetorical Purpose
4Why can historians ‘walk through’ Pepys’s London today?TOEFL · Factual Information
5In the passage, reflect most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
6According to paragraph 2, writing about the day often helps people ___.SAT · Detail
7In the passage, an audience is ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary
8The passage says an imagined reader can make a diary writer ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
9The final sentence about ‘a certain middle schooler’ mainly serves to ___.SAT · Text Structure & Purpose
10Which September detail does this passage BEST help explain?SAT · Text Connections
Part 6 · Optional
Creative Writing
A bonus challenge to practice your English. Take your time and have fun with it.
About This Section
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 1 “A Letter to Future-Famous Me”
Greg keeps his journal as proof for when he is rich and famous. Now it is your turn: write a journal entry addressed to your future famous self. Tell future-you about one real thing that happened this week, one thing you are worried about, and one thing you hope will be different by the time you are famous. Write 6–10 sentences — and be more honest on the page than you would be in the hallway.
You can start with: “Dear future me, before you got famous, this is what a Tuesday looked like...”
0 / 40 words minimum
🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 1 Complete!
You finished September of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Here are your auto-graded results:
-
points out of 100
Your Writing
Your writing was checked automatically for length, spelling, grammar, and whether you included the key parts of the scene. Scroll back to Part 5 anytime to read your feedback and improve your work.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Jeff Kinney. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Jeff Kinney’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.
