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Activities
Activities
Take 15-20 minutes to write each of these scenarios in order to work on your ability to use setting and symbolism to engage the reader when you are writing imaginatively (or even discursively!) As you write, notice some key recurring ideas:
Take 15-20 minutes to write each of these scenarios in order to work on your ability to use setting and symbolism to engage the reader when you are writing imaginatively (or even discursively!) As you write, notice some key recurring ideas:
Writers suggest using symbolism and setting (similar to show not tell).
Writers use the senses (all the senses at one point or another) to develop setting.
1. The Room
1. The Room
Describe a bedroom from the point of view of:
Describe a bedroom from the point of view of:
• a parent whose child has left home for university
• a child whose parents have just split up, and
• a teenager who has just been grounded for a month and been sent to their room.
Use the room symbolically to reflect their mood and use the senses. Key advice here: make the description work for you. What would each character see differently and describe differently that would match the situation?
2. When and where are we?
2. When and where are we?
Write the first paragraph of a story that clearly introduces the time and context of the story without ever actually stating the place and time.
Write the first paragraph of a story that clearly introduces the time and context of the story without ever actually stating the place and time.
Share it with a partner and ask her to guess the time and place.
As an extra challenge – make it clear that something is either wrong with the scene or that something is about to happen.
As an extra challenge – utilise pathetic fallacy to build atmosphere and mood within the scene.
Key advice here: use symbolism and setting to suggest. Be subtle. Hint.
3. Do I fit?
3. Do I fit?
Write a setting where the character feels comfortable in the place. Then, write another setting where they don’t fit and feel out of place. How could you show/suggest that?
Write a setting where the character feels comfortable in the place. Then, write another setting where they don’t fit and feel out of place. How could you show/suggest that?
As an extra challenge – utilise pathetic fallacy to build atmosphere and mood within the scene.
4. Weather spot
4. Weather spot
Choose a weather event to introduce in the first line of a story – how does it set the mood of the story?
Choose a weather event to introduce in the first line of a story – how does it set the mood of the story?
Experiment with how you introduce it:
• start with an adjective
• start with a verb
• use an animal to describe the weather
• vary sentence length and type
• use sentence fragments
• switch the point of view to an inanimate object.
Now, choose one of these and continue the story. How does that first line influence what comes next? As an extra challenge – did you write the scene in prose? Change it to poetry, or a dramatic monologue. Key advice here: use the setting and the weather to set up the mood for a story.
5. It’s all Relative
5. It’s all Relative
Describe a familiar place, such as a classroom, a beach or a shopping centre, under two different sets of circumstances, such as:
Describe a familiar place, such as a classroom, a beach or a shopping centre, under two different sets of circumstances, such as:
• day and night
• summer and winter
• crowded and empty.
6. Happy Holidays?
6. Happy Holidays?
Write a description of a festive holiday scene. Use details that appeal to your reader’s five senses. Your reader should be able to visualize a picture of holiday foods, music, colours and so on, that are appropriate to the mood you are trying to create.
Write a description of a festive holiday scene. Use details that appeal to your reader’s five senses. Your reader should be able to visualize a picture of holiday foods, music, colours and so on, that are appropriate to the mood you are trying to create.
Next, try writing a description of a dreary or scary holiday scene. Be sure to use appropriate sensory details again. The smells, tastes, sounds, objects, for example, should be very different from those you picked for your "festive" description. Can you create a story that grows out of one or both of these descriptions?
7. My Place
7. My Place
Think of a natural setting that has affected you. The place may be one you visited on vacation once, one you visit frequently, or perhaps it is even your backyard. How does this place affect your thoughts, feelings, mood, and actions? Write an autobiographical piece describing how this setting interacts with your thoughts and/or the actions of your characters.
Think of a natural setting that has affected you. The place may be one you visited on vacation once, one you visit frequently, or perhaps it is even your backyard. How does this place affect your thoughts, feelings, mood, and actions? Write an autobiographical piece describing how this setting interacts with your thoughts and/or the actions of your characters.
Key advice here: get very specific. Use details. Not ‘a bird in the tree’, but ‘the black cockatoo scratching its tail feathers against the cone of the banksia seed’.
Look at the stimulus image and brainstorm up to 8 ideas on how you could use it to compose a text (imaginative, discursive or persuasive). Identify which two ideas you think are the most creative and/or conceptual while still being an idea you feel capable of composing.
Look at the stimulus image and brainstorm up to 8 ideas on how you could use it to compose a text (imaginative, discursive or persuasive). Identify which two ideas you think are the most creative and/or conceptual while still being an idea you feel capable of composing.
Part A
Part A
• Imaginative – character reflecting on the changing nature of communication and the disconnect they feel with their peers… ends with a metaphorical reflection on the desire to show the messy, uneven, brightly coloured but far from perfect side of life free from the expectation of projecting airbrushed and filtered perfection…
• Discursive – a reflection about the unexpected role of place in shaping and reshaping identity/values/desires during a time of limited freedom, the piece ends with the valuing of the spaces that initially seemed insignificant and potentially avoided because of how they are perceived or portrayed…
• Imaginative – two characters find their way back, return, to an apartment building where they used to live and are transformed into the mural on the wall… as punishment… or a sign of eternal something … maybe love…
• Discursive – a character contemplates the presence and absence of youth voice in writing and uses the comparison of classical art and street art as a motif…
• Imaginative – dystopian piece that ends with the image as a portal, open ending…
• Discursive – exploring the notion of choice in life and the way this choice can lead to two very different outcomes… the art as a reflection on this at the end, same wall, same tools but very different outcomes…what was different for each artist?
PART B
PART B
Explain how your study of the craft of writing has enabled you to create an engaging piece of writing. In your response, make detailed reference to your use of language in part (A).
Explain how your study of the craft of writing has enabled you to create an engaging piece of writing. In your response, make detailed reference to your use of language in part (A).
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