The Girl Who Saved the Ducklings

Learning intention

I am learning to analyse a text to identify an author’s style and to experiment with adopting some of the stylistic features.

Success criteria

I can:

• analyse a text to identify stylistic features
• compose an article
• include stylistic features from the text I analysed

Essential knowledge

View the video Style,ungroup from the English Textual Concepts.

Introduction

Discuss types of non-fiction texts students are familiar with. Examples include:

• Articles
• Reviews
• Recounts
• Reports
• Persuasive texts

Read Captain Ahab’s Weird Wide World: Watching Trees on pages 20 and 21 of this issue of Countdown or listen to the audio file if you have a digital subscription. Discuss the style of the article and identify key features. Sample responses include:

• It provides factual information
• The information is mostly objective with some opinion, for example, ‘not in your weirdest dreams’
• It is mostly written in the third person, with some sentences written in the second person, for example, ‘Have you heard of the Green Man?’
• It includes some technical vocabulary, such as ‘tree formations’
• Photographs are featured with the article
• No quoted speech is included

Emphasise that the style of the article is pretty common for informative texts, such as articles.

Teacher modelling – 15 minutes

Read the article, The Girl Who Saved the Ducklings, or listen to the audio file. Ensure students understand that this is a factual text. Use the think aloud strategy to emphasise that some of the stylistic features of this article differ from the previous article examined. Identify elements and note ideas on the board, for example:

• The style is quite similar to a narrative, for example, the setting is established in a similar way to the orientation in a narrative
• Details that express emotion are included such as the fact the woman who caught Mia’s attention was frowning
• Information is provided chronologically
• The author has created tension about whether the ducklings will be rescued
• Quoted speech is used
• Illustrations accompany the article 

Emphasise that while the style is similar in many ways to a narrative, it differs as the information included is factual. Inform students that the style also has similarities with recounts. Tell students that some informative text may adopt a style that has similarities to a narrative. Inform students that another name for this style is creative non-fiction.

Guided practice – 15 minutes

Inform students that they will be composing a non-fiction text that adopts some of the style elements shown by the author of The Girl Who Saved the Ducklings. Tell students that first you will complete an example together.

Discuss events that have happened at school, such as a particular fund-raising event or end of term performance. Discuss events that were memorable or interesting. This will differ depending on the school context. Inform students that it might be something personal that happened to individual students, or an event shared collectively by the class or school. Provide examples such a student’s apprehension about performing on stage at an event, or an impressive amount of money raised during a whole-school fund-raiser.  Discuss the following questions:

• What was the key event?
• What made it exciting?
• How did other people react?
• How did you/other people feel?
• What was the most memorable part of the event?

Refer to the list of stylistic features identified in the article. Compose the beginning of an example collaboratively and include stylistic elements identified. A sample response is:

He stood at the side of the stage and peered out. White light flooded his eyes, and he felt like he was about to vomit! Why had he ever thought he could pull off this dance, he wondered. A sudden thought came to him, like a bolt of lightning. If he left now, he could be home before the performance began. Then he could pretend to be unwell, with a virus maybe. His mum would never make him go if he was sick. He turned and sprinted down the steps.

“Henry, just the person I was looking for.” The booming voice of Mr Sankurk, the school principal rattled off the walls.

Too late! He was stuck here now.

Independent activity – 15 minutes

Place students in pairs and instruct them to complete the following:

• Identify an event you can write an article about
• Consider whose point of view to write this from (one of the students, one of the teachers or a narrator)
• Identify elements of the style from the article and consider which to include (tension, quoted speech, illustrations, a setting)
• Compose a brief article in the style of The Girl Who Saved the Ducklings

Allow time for students to compose their articles.

Differentiation

Students who require support with written expression can perform their article as an oral story. Video their responses to create a work sample.

Direct students who require some support with writing to use the following scaffold:

• The event is:
• What made it exciting/scary/memorable is:
• It made me feel:
• My favourite part was:
• The most memorable part is:

Instruct students who require extension to refer back to Captain Ahab’s Weird Wide World: Watching Trees on pages 20 and 21 of this issue of Countdown. Tell them to adapt the article, to make the style more similar to that used in The Girl Who Saved the Ducklings. Provide examples such as included quotes from people who have seen the trees (inform students that these can be fictitious) or describing someone’s experience of seeing the trees for the first time and including their reaction.

Assessment

Instruct students to analyse their articles and to use a coloured pencil to underline any examples in their work of the following:

• Details provided in a way that is similar stylistically to a narrative, for example as setting is established, similar to how a narrative might include an orientation
• Details that express emotion are included
• Information is provided chronologically
• There is tension in the article
• Quoted speech is used
• Illustrations have been included to accompany the article 

Once students have analysed their work, instruct them to record their responses to the following sentence stems in their workbooks:

• The stylistic elements I included are:
• The stylistic element I am most proud of is:
• Next time I will focus on including more: