Embedded Files
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to lesson five in the ‘Fact to fiction’ learning sequence. In this lesson, you will be reviewing your draft for your historical fiction piece and considering how you can edit and refine your writing.
This process of reviewing, editing and refining your writing is an important step because it is rare for any writer to produce a perfect first draft.
During this lesson sequence you will:
annotate your draft
edit your draft.
Student Booklet
Student Booklet
To open your student booklet in Microsoft Word(docx 73KB), select the icon. It will download automatically.
To open your student booklet in Google Docs, select the icon then select 'Use Template' to create a copy for yourself.
Activity 1 – Annotate your draft
Activity 1 – Annotate your draft
You are going to annotate your piece of writing to examine how and where you could improve.
If you have a printed copy of the booklet, you will need to use six different coloured pens, pencils or highlighters to complete this activity.
The colours we have used in the examples from ‘A Sailor’s Lament’ are:
a red pen
yellow, orange, pink and green highlighters
a black pen.
Part a – Elements of historical fiction
Part a – Elements of historical fiction
Task 1
Re-read your work and note down any observations you make about how the elements of historical fiction have been used in your piece.
To guide your observations, consider:
whether you have a clear protagonist? Does this character speak and behave in a way that ‘fits’ the time period?
is the reader given enough information to determine when and where your piece takes place?
which words or phrases communicate the perspective of war in your piece?
are the scenarios in your story plausible for the time period?
which sections of the text communicate the theme of the text? Briefly explain how they have done this.
where is the conflict in your text?
CCO Public Domain
Need support
Look back at the examples provided in Lesson 2 – Engaging with historical fiction of the previous sequence.
Look at a section of the ‘Seven elements of narrative in historical fiction’ table to refresh your memory.
Task 2
Use your yellow highlighter to identify where your draft includes historical information or facts.
Make a note explaining why it’s an effective link.
Identify where your writing could be strengthened through including more historical information.
Remember you can have statistics, proper nouns and the series of events of the battle.
Write a comment outlining what you could add.
An example of the historical facts used to inform the sample piece ‘A Sailor’s Lament’ has been included below.
Battle of the Nile: historical facts
Date: August 1798 and times, sunset and 9pm
Reference to loss of experienced sailors in the French revolution
Numbers: French deaths 5255 and 70 survivors
Setting, location: off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt
Setting, name of the ship: L’Orient
Key historical figures: names of leaders, Admiral Brueys, Captain Casabianca and reference to Casabianca’s son (boy on the burning deck)
Historical references: to the treasure aboard the ship from Knights of St John, Captain Hallowell presented Admiral Nelson with a coffin that was made from the mast of the L’Orient. Nelson kept it in his cabin and was buried in it when he died.
Historical references; the number and placement of the guns on the ship
Military history: reference to the painting of the ship and the belief that this allowed the fire to rage across the deck more quickly.
Part b – Language forms and features
Part b – Language forms and features
Complete the activity using the interactive below and your draft.
Part c – The text as a whole
Part c – The text as a whole
Look at your draft as a whole. Are there sections of your draft that have very little highlighting and not many notes? If there are, these sections may need further refining.
To make these refinements:
Determine which colours you used in part b are missing in sections of your response.
Review these sections and include a balance of some of the missing features by following the relevant steps in part b. that may be missing. These steps should guide you in improving your writing.
You may also wish to discuss your plans for improvement with a peer or your teacher if you have the opportunity.
Next Lesson
Next Lesson
You will use your annotations to write out a second, refined version of your piece of historical fiction. You will also reflect on your learning in this sequence.
Handing in your work
Handing in your work
Don't forget to hand in the work you completed today!
Your teacher will have told you to do one of the following:
Upload any digital documents you created and any photos you took of your written work to your Learning Management system (MS Teams, Google Classroom for example).
Email any digital documents you created and any photos you took of your written work to your teacher.
Make sure you keep any hand written work you did in your exercise book or folder as your teacher may need to see these when you are back in class.
Student reflection
Student reflection
Page updated
Report abuse