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.
| 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 |
| 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. |
ⓘ 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.
- 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.
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.
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. He set down his own meanness and cowardice too, the sort of thing that could have wrecked his reputation had anyone read it in his lifetime. 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.
But modern scientists have found a second use. When people write slowly about the day, asking what happened and why, they often feel calmer and reach a more mature understanding of their own choices. 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.
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.
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:
The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.
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.