Descriptive Writing
Learning Area:
English
Relevant Content Descriptions:
Year 3: AC9E3LA03 AC9E3LA09 AC9E3LE01 AC9E3LE02 AC9E3LE04 AC9E3LE05 AC9E3LY06
Year 4: AC9E4LE02 AC9E4LE04 AC9E4LE05 AC9E4LY06
Learning Outcome:
Use descriptive and figurative language to describe plants and animals observed during on-country learning.
Learning Areas:
English, Art, Noongar Language
Prompt Text:
Bronwyn Bancroft (2010) Why I Love Australia.
Noongar Vocabulary:
Kwoba: Good
Kwobardak: Beautiful
Koortaboodja: Heartland
Katijiny: Knowing
Mookiny: Like (to)
Ngalla Maya: Our place
Learning Sequence:
1. Introduce and discuss the concept of Koortaboodja: heartland or place of the heart. Why is it important that we love and care for country?
2. As a class, create a brainstorm or list of beautiful or interesting places, plants, or animals you noticed on country.
3. Choose one or two of these things and work together to come up with adjectives or descriptions. Prompt students to generate similes (eg. the lines of the leaf looked like rivers running over the country, the tree’s bark was shiny like damp skin).
4. Discuss what makes a good description, for example, you may note that they should be specific, use interesting language or comparisons, and that they should help a reader form a picture in their mind.
5. Have students choose 3-5 of their favourite things from the list to describe (differentiate based on student ability), and to write a sentence or short description for each.
6. Optional extension activities:
• Add illustrations or photographs and create small picture books with the descriptive text
• Create a display e.g. ‘Kwobardak Boodja’ (Beautiful Country) or ‘Ngalla Maya’ (Our place) or a mural in the school.
For EAL/D Students
Descriptive Writing
a) Explore adjectives. Group them according to lexis. Look at lexical chains e.g. nice, pretty, beautiful, stunning – which word is the ‘strongest’?
b) Display lexical chains on the wall for future use in descriptive writing.
c) Module 5 TESMC provides ideas for this Teaching in English in multilingual classrooms – Lexis Education.
Mother Earth
a) introduce the idea of metaphor. Identify metaphors within the poem. Practice creating own metaphors. Help can be found in this text Teaching English Language Learners in Mainstream Classes (petaa.edu.au)
Explore verbs
What are verbs?
They are ‘processes’ (in functional grammar), and ‘doing’ or ‘action’ words (in traditional grammar). For example:
• Action (walking, talking), • Sensing (thinking, feeling),
• Saying (yelling, whispering),
• Relating (being, having),
• Helping, or auxiliary verbs (changing tense etc.)
Why do they change sometimes? They tell us WHEN (tense – past, present, future)
What is important about them?
Every Independent or main CLAUSE (unit of meaning) in English must have a verb.
Science uses verbs a lot, especially to begin the sentence.
When you write a procedure or instructions you must start with a verb.
When you write an observation, you use verbs (sometimes in the passive voice).
You state what you are observing (the noun) and then what it is doing (verb)
e.g Invertebrates feed on other invertebrates. Insects have six legs. An ecosystem represents a bush environment.