Deconstructing writing - character

Last week, I described how my Year 8 class struggled with their descriptions of a setting. The approach I used in my last blog was one that stemmed from Alan Peat’s work on teaching students to write effectively. I have just marked a third draft of their settings and they are much better.

The one problem, I think, students have with descriptions in writing is the use of plot detail. It is so hard for them to put the plot on hold, which is, to be honest, what most setting descriptions do. They put the pacing and plot on pause and let you admire the view. A moment of reflection. For my group, they wanted to go guns blazing into the violence of a horror / ghost story and I had to stop them somehow. It worked. It worked like a dream. I had students describing how the light moves in a room or how the temperature of a room changed in several places. It was much better writing and the good old plot was left waiting in the wings.

I think in the past of being too blasé about writing key aspects of fiction. I would bring out examples of Dickens, and, together we would analyse what the writer did. Then, I would waft another example before their noses, and finally I’d get them to write their own setting. The most prolific readers would have lovely nuanced pieces of writing and the rest would stumble over a creepy and eerie setting that was so creepy, eerie and scary that it needed those three words repeated with glee. Nothing makes a setting scary like the word scary repeated fifty times.    

 Last week, I got students to pick five things from a list and then write a sentence for each one. A pretty effortless task from my point of view, but the efforts were impressive. It was so good I then, like most teachers do, repeated the task with Year 10 and then considered when I could do it again with other year groups. This tight focus on five descriptive sentences allowed for a concentrated effort and much thought when usually students rush through things like a steam train.

This time around I am looking at character. The default setting for most students is the following:

• Describe the arrival of the character.
• Describe what the character looks like.

The above can, and often will, lack imagination. The most uninspiring adjectives are chosen to produce an effect that can only be matched by listening to the shipping forecast. They lack the subtlety to produce the concise description great writers use and they lack the vocabulary of other great writers to embellish a description. They often know subconsciously that it is rare in modern fiction to spend ages describing a character. Writers give a reduced description of a character and let the events and action flavour a description of a character. The only general rule in writing is that you make sure your characters are easily distinguishable from one another. But, when introducing a character there are not many rules to follow.   

So, carrying on with the settings last we, I am going to get students to select three of the following things. Then, they are going to turn them into a description of their character.

Describe the sound of their footsteps.

Describe their shoes.

Describe the way the character walks / sits / writes opens a door.

Describe the smell of the character.

Describe their voice. Focus on what makes their voice different to others.

Describe their reputation.

Describe an action. It must be something kind, cruel or odd they do.

Describe their perfume, aftershave or deodorant.

Describe their hands as they do something.

Describe the silhouette of the person.    

Describe how other characters feel about him /her.

Describe how the character treats people.

Describe the character’s relationship with their family.

Describe the character through their relationship with others in the room.

Describe the temperature of the character and how that links to them as a person.

Describe what makes the character sad or happy. Tom is happiest most when he eats chips, while watching his favourite film.

Describe how other characters treat this person.

Describe their hair. Be specific about colour, texture and the way it has been cut.

Describe the clothes the character is wearing, but focus on the colours or where the items were bought from.

Describe the colour they are wearing and why they wear that particular colour.

Describe the accessories they wear. It could be a watch or an earring.  

Describe how the clothes link to their hair in some way.

Describe how the character is an ugly version of someone famous.

Describe their personality.

Describe how the character looks at an object or a person. How do they look at it?

Describe their eyes. Include the colour, size of the pupil and the way they move.

Give the character’s name and they explain how the name is a good match for the character.

Describe what they are not like. He was not tall, not thin and not clever.

Describe what this person used to be like. They used to be fun, keen and friendly.  

Describe the character’s reaction to something.

Describe the one thing that makes this character contrast with all the others in the room / place.

Use a line of dialogue to show the character’s personality.

Describe how the character contrasts with the room they are in.

Describe the character’s attempts to hide in the room.

It just so happens that I am looking at heroes and villain in fiction with Year 7 later in the term. A nice little thing to do will be to have this list alongside a description of Scrooge and see if students can identify what approaches Dickens has used.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Deconstructing writing - settings

For me, one of the things that has changed the way I teach writing is the ‘deconstruction’ approach used by Alan Peat. I suppose it is quite a masculine thing, pulling things apart and putting back together. Right, let’s open the bonnet and see how things tick. My childhood was full of obsessive detail. I could tell you all the different manufacturers for monsters, locations for episodes and technical wizardry associated with each episode of Doctor Who. I would read endless articles about how an episode was made. I still do it to this day. I know how one of the sets used in Saturday’s episode was reused in another episode, but with the angle of the roof changed. Like a watchmaker, I like knowing how things tick. Pull it apart and see how each cog links and connects to another. I promise: I never did this to any of my pets.  

If you are unfamiliar with Alan Peat’s stuff, do have a look at it. The approach simply breaks down writing into a number of set structures. From the stuff I have seen, it includes sentences and frameworks. Writing is translated, for students, into concrete structures for them to use and adapt. It is very helpful in getting students to vary the content and style of writing. His approach follows the lift up the bonnet and take it apart approach. Boys, especially, in my experience find it useful as it involves learning knowledge and lists, yet developing skills at the same time.

With the new GCSEs being quite open-ended, I feel that there is some potential in this idea of deconstructing writing. At the moment, I foresee departments chucking endless extracts at students, hoping that there will be some understanding of how writers create a setting. Look at how the writer describes the setting here. How does it compare with the setting in this extract? By osmosis we expect students to pick up on the subtle differences. Here is where the problem lies: to understand how writers use settings, you need to have read lots of settings. Our most able students can do it, because they have read lots of books, but the rest struggle and will struggle, unless they read more. The more I teach the new GCSE, the more I feel that reading is the key to success. The exam is designed to make competent readers succeed. I don’t think it is easy to teach the exam. Look at the complex structure question, the effect question and the critical opinion question. These three aspects aren’t things you can teach. It is something that is learnt over time.

Worryingly, I have seen departments ramp up the reading material so student are to read difficult in lessons. But, all importantly, the amount of reading has probably decreased. Yes, give students harder texts, but also keep the class readers going. Wouldn’t it be good if there was a challenge to read as many books with a class as you can? Yes, I will teach the curriculum, but I will also, when there is some down time, look at reading several novels during the year. Not because I have to. But, because I need them to. I worry departments are getting rid of books, because they are not to be perceived to be ‘high-brow’ enough or they lack challenge.  The collective reading of a book is so important to English lessons and if we are not careful it will disappear and we will have death by extracts.

Sorry, I have digressed. Back to the deconstructing writing bit. This week, I am helping Year 8s write settings for a horror story and so far in the drafting things have not been so good. Their writing is clichéd written, and, like most students, the focus is on the plot and not on the setting. They will list endless items in a setting, but none of it hangs together. It is all a bit flat. Therefore, I have decided to deconstruct a setting for them. Look at the nuts and bolts of it.

We have already looked at structuring a setting and looked at these approaches:

• Left to right
• Right to left
• Up and down
• Down and up
• Start in the centre and zoom out
• Start with a panoramic view and zoom in
• Diagonally
• In layers
• Follow an object or thing
• The most noticeable items first
• Things that are closest first

What is in their setting is up to them, but I want them to think about how they present their setting. Therefore, I have created these aspects for them to play around with and experiment.

Describe a sound and then reveal what is causing the sound.

Describe something being normal and then spot something about it that isn’t normal.

Describe something that isn’t there and is just imagined by the narrator.

Describe the feeling of the place. Don’t describe anything, but just the feeling. It feels like a day … It feels like when a …  

Describe an object but make it sound like something else. Then, reveal what it is.

Describe the movement of an object or part of the object. Give a list of verbs describing the action.

Something is blocking your view of something. Describe the object blocking the view and describe the tiny glimpse of the other object you want to see.

Describe how an object’s appearance changes the closer you get to it.

Describe the lack of something in the room. There isn’t a --- or --- or ---

Describe the texture of an object before revealing it.

Describe a nice object and then an unpleasant object.

Describe a change in the room.

Describe the main source of light and how it touches things in the room.

Describe a moment of silence.

Describe an object and then comment on how it links / reflects the owner of the room.

Describe a change in temperature and the narrator’s exploration of the source of the change.

Describe the light and how it falls. Then describe it on an object.

Describe an object through colours. Then, reveal what it is.

Describe three objectives with the same phrase.

Describe an object as if it was a person.  

Describe how an object links, or not links, to another item next to it.

Describe how an object reminds the narrator of something that happened to them.

Describe how an object reminds the narrator of a similar object in their past.  

I am going to give students these on a sheet of paper and they are going to decide how they are going to describe the setting using these. They are going use these to plan and construct their setting. They might even come up with their own. There’s more than one way to skin a cat – honestly, I haven’t ‘deconstructed’ any of my pets.

Writers make a choice when writing and without the experience of reading many texts it is hard for students to comment on the choices without having an inclination of the other twenty possible. This way, hopefully, students will see the choices they make as writers and this, in time, will pay when they see what other writers have done.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Let's talk about lists, baby!

In the mad panic before the exam, teachers throw everything, metaphorically, at the students with a hope that one last thing will stick and be the golden nugget aiding their success. This year I threw a few things and one of those happened to be lists. In fact, I then thought I would throw lists at everything, and everyone, with some interesting effects.

Structurally, there can be three main places to list in a sentence: at the start; in the middle; and at the end.

1] Coffee, Twitter and music keep me sane.

2] I wonder how I ever coped without books, TV and the Internet as a child living in Wales.

3] Wales has a historic tradition of singing, playing rugby and cwtching.

Surprisingly, teaching students to write using lists is at times like going back to the beginning. The simple problem with a list is that it is generally used as a simple functional device: “I need to list these objects I placed in my bag.” However, students don’t actually see it as a tool which can be used to aid meaning.

A list at the start of a sentence can help to bamboozle a reader when you link odd combinations of words.  

Frogs, eggs and paperclips are just some of the things I can draw with skill.

A list at the end of a sentence can cause a sense of drama.

The door shoved open and there stood a man with eyes of pain, loathing and death.

 

Of course there are other effects, but that is up to the student to discover. However, a list in an unusual or particular place can cause a sense of expectation.

 On the cold, dark and lonely moor nestled a cold, dark lonely house where sat a woman in a window with cold, dark and lonely thoughts.

The flexibility of a list isn’t just limited to where you list in a sentence, but it is also what you list. Now, my shopping bag contains eggs, flour and milk. My annoyance, anger and humiliation was evident when a returned home to see that I had incorrectly, mistakenly and stupidly forgotten to buy wine – the important ingredient for all meals.

Listing different types of things can produce some interesting effects.

 

A list with emotions.

Fear, worry and disbelief were reflected in her eyes.

 A list of verbs.

The shadow in the distance blurred, shimmered and juddered.

 A list of adverbs.

I sat typing angrily, quickly and secretly at the computer.

A list of prepositions.

The car rushed through, over, across and under trees.

A list of pronouns.

The woman opened the letter wondering if it was from him, her or them.

 A list of words with the same prefix.

The inescapable, inevitable and indomitable secret haunted her as she walked in the room.

A list of words with the same suffix.  

The view created a hopeful, grateful and meaning feeling in the man.  

A list of similes.

The bird sat on the branch like a solider waiting for the signal, like a man frozen in time and like a statue.

A list of colours.

The trees yellow, sunburnt orange and vivid red leaves smothered the child’s view of the sun.

 A list of sounds.

The crunch of the glass echoed, repeated and boomed through the empty room.

 

I could go on and on. There are so many variables. Yet, we often neglect to teach students to experiment, steal and play with lists.  Students could also consider how many items they put in a list. Or they could consider the order that items go in lists.

 The beauty of lists is that they are not limited to just writing. Lists have a valuable benefit for analysis in English. They can highlight complexity and multiple meanings.

The article persuades, shocks and advises us of the dangers of smoking.

Looking at that one sentence, shows us that the student understands that the text has a number of purposes. If the student places those purposes in the order they occur in the text then student will be commenting on the structure of the text as well as the purpose of a text.  

 A list of the writer’s purpose / message.

Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ highlights how men view love, damage relationships easily and struggle to articulate and manage their feelings.

A list of the reader’s / audiences’ feelings.

The audience respects, idolises and fears Othello at the start of the play.   

 A list of words to describe the text/ character.  

Macbeth’s insecurity, naivety and inconsistency combine to fuel his downfall.

A list of techniques.  

The use of alliteration, words associated with pain and the word ‘danger’ combine to create a sense of fear as the poet expresses the reality of the soldier’s fate.

 

The humble, little and rarely used list has so much potential. Maybe, before we throw in a fancy term or a technique that only one Victorian poetess used on her deathbed when writing about the beauty of woodlice, we should consider the lovely, left out and little list.

Thanks for reading,

Xris