Spooky Stories! A Descriptive Writing Unit for Years 5/6/7

Summary of Unit of Work:

This English unit aims to enhance student’s ability to write descriptively, choose appropriate language and create  imaginative texts. Students will question what makes a good description by exploring techniques that  hook readers and applying these to their own writing. Students will plan their own spooky description and  create their own theme park.

Australian Curriculum Links:

Year 6 English:

• ACELA1518 – Text structure and organisation: Understand how authors often innovate on text structures and play with language features to achieve particular aesthetic, humorous and persuasive purposes and effects.
• ACELT1618 – Creating literature: Create literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways.
• ACELY1714 – Creating texts: Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, choosing and experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and audience.
• Construct literary texts by planning and developing subject matter, using dialogue, description and evaluative language.

Year 7 English:

• ACELA1537 Expressing and developing ideas: Investigate vocabulary typical of extended and more academic texts and the role of abstract nouns, classification, description and generalisation in building specialised knowledge through.
• ACELT1621 Responding to literature: Compare the ways that language and images are used to create character, and to influence emotions and opinions in different types of texts.
• ACELY1725 Creating texts: Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas.
• Construct literary texts by planning and developing subject matter, using dialogue, description and evaluative language.

Key Understandings:

• Descriptive writing involves describing settings, characters and sensory elements in great detail to paint an image in the readers mind.
• Writers use a variety of techniques to engage and  hold reader interest such as similes and careful word  choice.
• The text type affects the language choices in a piece  of writing.

Essential Questions:

• How do effective writers hook and hold their readers?
• How can I make my writing more descriptive?
• How can I improve my writing through careful word choice?
• How effective are the descriptions in the class novel in painting an image in our mind as we read?

Key Knowledge:

• How to create an effective description that enables reader imagery.
• Good writers use a range of language features to create engaging and exciting texts.
• Authors reflect on purpose, text structure and audience when writing.

Key Skills:

• Explaining how language features and word choices are used to represent characters and events.
• Create own descriptive texts.
• Reflect upon descriptive techniques used in class novel.
• Select and use improved words using a thesaurus to enhance details in the story.

Download the unit outline below:

Descriptive Writing Unit – Spooky Stories for Years 5-7 (PDF)

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