Homework!

This week's homework task is to carry on writing a story from this beginning. Please DO COPY THIS BIT for the start of your story, and then carry on with it from there.

Use your imagination - it can be any kind of story you want, but we're looking for interesting storytelling (IDEAS), vivid descriptive language (WORD CHOICE) and correct use of spelling, punctuation, grammar etc (CONVENTIONS). It can also be just a first chapter of a longer story - doesn't have to be a whole story with a beginning, middle and end. The Learning Objective is more about the quality of the writing (word choice and conventions etc) than about the structure of the story.

I'm expecting at least one page of writing by Friday (if you use 12 point font and normal spacing.)

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"Are you sure this is the right place?" asked Steve. He looked out at the building and then down at the battered old map.

"GPS doesn't lie, buddy," Tony said. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, his expression impatient. "Embrace modern technology, my friend. Paper maps are so last century."

Steve frowned. "I remember it looking different," he said, looking up at the dark facade. He couldn't quite make out the stone gargoyles that glowered down from the roof, but it was possible that they were still up there, caked with powdery snow.

"Yeah, but how long ago was that?" said Tony, rolling his eyes.

Steve sighed. "A long time ago," he admitted.

"That's what I'm talking about. Lots of things have changed, sure - but this is the address you gave me."

Steve unfastened his seat belt and took a deep breath. A few moments later they had both stepped out of Tony's shiny new car and were standing on the snow-covered sidewalk, looking up at the building. The windows were dark, all but one high up on the seventh floor which glowed with a yellow light.

"You sure about this?" Tony said, watching Steve. "You look kind of nervous."

Steve stood up straighter and squared his shoulders. "I'm fine," he said, without looking back at Tony. "No point in waiting. Let's do this thing."

Homework

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!

As you know, this week we've started looking at the 6 (+1) Traits model of reading and writing. We're going to be using this model as a way of thinking about our own writing and about other people's writing, dividing writing into the six traits of
IDEAS, ORGANISATION, VOICE, WORD CHOICE, SENTENCE FLUENCY, CONVENTIONS
and the additional trait of
PRESENTATION.

For homework this week, I'd like you to think about CONVENTIONS. (I'm sure you remember, this means things like spelling, punctuation, grammar, usage, capitalization and paragraphs.)

Read the following piece of writing, and fix any errors you see with spelling, punctuation, grammar, capitalization, paragraphs etc. (It's up to you how you do this; if it were me, though, I'd copy and paste this into a Word document and then make the changes that way, rather than typing it all out again by hand.)

i dont now what made me wake up but i think it might have been a noise like a bang or something anyway one minute i was dreaming and the next minute i was lying there stairing up at the ceiling wondering what had happened then the next thing i knew my dad burst threw the door of my bedroom Dean Dean he yelled You have to Get Up Now There Is A Fire AND SO I JUMPED OUT OF BED I was panicing a bite because i could smell smoke and i new that IT WAS not Ajoke. My heart was beeting so lowd and i felt like mabey I was going to through up or something because i could tell that this was real. it wasn't exciting like on tv it was just scary and i felt very small and unsafe even thow i was at home in my room witch is where i normally feel safe and strong. i was really scared but the first thing i thought about was my baby brother Sammy. Sammy is real small and he cant do anything properly yet not even walk or talk or anything he mostly just lies there gurgling and looking cute and filling his nappy with stinks he is a bit annoying really because he's too little to do fun stuff and when he starts screaming i just want to scream right back at him. but all that didn't matter any more all that mattered was keeping him safe. I ran out into the corridor after dad and dad looked at me with his face all serious and he said Dean take your baby brother outside you have to keep him safe. I took Sammy in my arms and he was squirming around and making cross noises but i didn't care that he was heavy or that he smelled like he needed his nappy changing i felt so important and grown up right then because i knew that it was up to me to keep sam safe and dad was trusting me with this like I was a grownup. I was nearly eight but right then i felt like a grown man and i knew that i would never let anything hurt my little brother. i carried Sam outside it was dark and the night air was chilly but it was full of the smell of burning wood our home was burning. i stood there on the lawn in front of our house and I looked up at it and wondered where dad was. I hadn't seen Mom at all yet. I wondered if she was stuck somewhere maybe and Dad had to bust in and save her. It was lonely out there on the lawn and Sammy started to cry but I jogged him up and down in my arms real gently and sang him a lullaby. I didn't remember all the right words but it didn't seem to matter too much and he quieted down again as I sang to him.

Homework

This week's homework is due in on THURSDAY, the last day of term. As I told you on Friday, your job is to finish reading 'Two Weeks With The Queen' and write a summary of each chapter. (That means a different summary for each and every remaining chapter, AK!)

Over the holiday, remember you should still be reading books in English, and you also have the following homework task to last you over the Songkran holidays:

Write a story of between 1,000 and 2000 words on the theme of 'Transformation', or 'Change'. It is due to be handed in on the first day back at school after the holidays.

It can be any genre or mixture of genres (fantasy, horror, detective, thriller, sci-fi, comedy etc) but you need to make it as good as it can be. That means you shouldn't hand in your first draft - you should write the story, then go back and check it for mistakes and edit it to make it as good as possible. (Paragraph breaks, correct punctuation, speech marks, interesting connectives and adjectives, clear and memorable descriptive writing etc etc etc.)

You might write a true story about how you changed schools, or you might write a fictional story about a kid being bitten by a werewolf and the first time she transforms into a wolf, or you might write a story about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, or about a librarian becoming a pirate, or about an alien disguising themselves as a human, or somebody falling in love, or falling out of love, or about growing up, or about divorce, or about pretty much anything that tickles your fancy so long as it's some kind of change.

Think about who your audience is (are you writing for people your own age or for people younger than you? You choose); think about whether you have a good beginning, middle and end; think about whether your reader will be excited; think about whether your reader will care about the characters, and how you can MAKE them care. Think about whether your reader will feel like they can see, hear, smell, taste, touch and feel what the characters do.

If you're wondering how to push your writing from being good to being EXCELLENT, start thinking about mixing up the length of your sentences. Read this paragraph out loud and you'll get an idea of what I mean:

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

(by Gary Provost, “The Writer’s Writer”)