Our skatepark writing

Writing to describe: the skatepark

Your task today is to write a description of a moment in time at our school skatepark.  Below are three photographs from yesterday.  You can use one of them as your inspiration for writing, OR write from your memories and notes from yesterday, OR write from what you see at the skatepark (much sunnier today) this morning.

We are aiming to write as if we are in the photograph or at the scene, and bring the scene to life for the reader.  We want to use a wide range of vocabulary to build up a strong sense of atmosphere, to vary our sentences and to use a range of punctuation.  

I have written a piece of descriptive writing for the last photo.  This is to give you some ideas on how you can create atmosphere or mood and develop detail on even a 'plain' photo.

Thanks to Jayden Johnson for the photos.

It's a greasy, grey and gritty kind of day.  The concrete seems like a map of all the projects of the past, both long ago and recent.  The painted lines of an old basketball court disappear under black sludge and the new skatepark.  Reflected in the water are the power lines above, running parallel to one basketball marking but not the other.  The cracks in the concrete signal some decay in a park less than a year old, and these cracks hold the damp, as if they are weaker and cannot shake off the West Coast rain like the stronger surrounding concrete.

I look at how the water has evaporated off the steepest curve of the skatepark and pooled at the base, at all the tools to try and deal with the endless, heavy tears of the West Coast sky.  The punctured metal grate collects water which runs down into the outlet pipe. Mother nature sobs and cries and rains water over the West Coast to make gorgeous rainforests and bleak concrete spaces.  At the skatepark on this bleak day, the runoff pipe is the shiniest object.  I love to watch the talented young skaters twist, flip and turn, but I'm not surprised that no one is out showing their moves this cold wet morning.

Writing to describe: the school skatepark

 Learning objective: to write to describe the skatepark and bring it alive for the reader, using the five senses, a wide range of sentence structures and a wide range of punctuation.

These are the sections we are going to nail today. 

Research: sharing our ideas and responding to feedback

Earlier this week I asked everyone to add their research writing to their blogs.  You should use the following labels: 2018, English, research.

Today we are continuing to read each other's blogs and write comments.  On them.  I will also continue to read blogs and write comments.  When you have added your post, put it in the sheet here.  When you comment on someone else's blog, put that person's name in the comments column.

This will take a while to do really well.  But once you have posted your blog, added the link to our google sheet, commented on two other people's blogs and revised your work in the comments section after you have thought about feedback from your peers and the teacher on your blog post, then you are free to play games.

Thanks for an awesome week in English!

Friday 7 September activities

I am in Nelson for a course on reading and writing resources today.  I will definitely be back on Monday, when we will start a new topic.

1. Silent reading (15-20 minutes)

2. Go to your research work and copy your wonderful paragraphs (intro, paragraphs about your two sources, conclusion).

3. Paste them into your blog.  You need to then "select all" and click the remove formatting button, like here:

 This will stop blogger from having your sentences running across the whole screen.  You will probably want to reformat your writing after this to make it show as 'proper' paragraphs.  

4. Publish your blog post and then email the link to the new blogpost to Ms Quick.

5. Once you have finished silent reading and posted your research, then you can play games.  There is a pack of cards in the teacher's desk drawer in room 13, and lots of games under the book case in the room behind Ms Quick's desk.  When you walk in the room, there is a series of shelves with DVDs on them to your right.  The games are underneath these shelves.

6. Please allow plenty of time to pack up and make sure no game parts are left lying around.

Have a great weekend!

Research wrap up

Today we are handing in our research.  We will be handing in:
1. Two sources, with the questions written at the top and the information relevant to our questions highlighted.
2. Bullet points showing the important information which answers our questions for each of our two sources.
3. A paragraph summary of the useful information in each of our sources.
4. An introduction showing what the topic is, and what you know about it already
5. A conclusion showing what you learnt, why your topic is important and what wider lessons we can learn from this research.