Writing to describe

3. Sensations and reactions

Required Resources

• Slide 12-27
• Student Worksheet 2
• Audio: Challenges
• Video: HMS Endurance in Antartica
• Paper for 'slam writing'
• Thesaurus / dictionary
• Materials / props to simulate a polar environment

Delivery

• Review mark scheme for writing to describe, emphasising that the key to powerful descriptive writing is the author's ability to 'manipulate the readers' responses' and give 'a wide range of interesting details' in order to produce 'a powerful account of a real or imagined experience'.
• Use Slide 12 to explain some techniques for producing vivid text with interesting details.
• Acknowledge that a technique for effective descriptive writing is to emphasise the sensory reality of the character and their reactions to that reality. In this case, Polly is undergoing a period of intense physical challenges and the students will need to reflect the reality of this.
• Distribute Student Worksheet 2 which provides a grid for students to record their sensations. Then use the various stimuli and exercises to help students appreciate and describe Polly's physical and emotional reactions to her environment. Students should make notes on Student Worksheet 2 throughout these exercises.
• Exercises using Student Worksheet 2:
  • Play Audio: Challenges, to hear Polly describe her physical and emotional challenges and reactions.
  • Present Slides 14-27 to helps students to visualise Polly's experience.
  • Play Video, to help students visualise Antarctica. This shows HMS Endurance on exploration in Antarctica.
  • Pair exercises (select according to student abilities and class behaviour):
  • Partners give each other a piggy back or students hold a heavy object in both arms and hold them statically in the air.
  • Students maintain these positions until it becomes challenging. The students then describe the specific sensations to their partner who notes them on Student Worksheet 2.
  • Explain that you are interested in what it specifically must be like for Polly to carry all the weight and how it must make her feel, both physically and emotionally. Swap partners and repeat.
• Depending on class, this sensory stimulation can be expanded (e.g. cold items against flesh, moving around in multiple layers to simulate polar clothing, etc). This will lead to richer descriptions, but if not appropriate, this could always be done via imagination or role play exercises.
• Students should then 'slam write' how they could describe these sensations using the techniques identified previously. They should achieve at least five examples which emphasise the physical sensations and the reaction of the character to those sensations.
• If required, use Slide 13 to provide students with some adjectives.
• Students should select key phrases and pick examples they could use in their final pieces.

Differentiation

Lower Ability:

Mixed ability pairs.
Provide students with access to a dictionary or thesaurus.
Ensure they have their notes from earlier Episodes to assist.

Higher Ability:

Mixed ability pairs.