CREATIVE WRITING ASSESSMENT Creating a Character

Your Task: You will develop a descriptive piece of writing in which you focus on a character. It will be based on characters from the camp: A ‘real life’ person

The purpose….. The purpose of this piece of writing is to effectively convey your characters appearance, personality and attributes by “showing” rather than telling.

EXAMPLE Don’t say “his hair was brown” Say “his hair was the colour of a chestnut, flecked with shades of gold.”

How do I do this? The most successful writers make use of language techniques to make their writing interesting and effective.

Language Techniques Here are some common language techniques you should use in your writing to make it interesting and descriptive: Adjective (noun) Simile Metaphor Personification Onomatopoeia Find as many examples of these techniques in the passage: The Beach Draw up 2 columns in your 2B5 books and find examples of each of these techniques…

What NOT to do… Rambling-Avoid rambling by planning before you start your piece of writing. Spending too much time on the opening and not developing the ending Overwriting – using too many language techniques Distracting errors. Proofread carefully and ensure you spend time editing your draft. Mixed tenses – (past/present) For Example: Marie stands up and walked to the bus. She takes her bag from her shoulder and dropping it on the ground sighs heavily. Repetition of simple words and using too many conjunctions – For Example: and, but, then

Using Sentences Effectively Another way to ensure your writing is effective is to vary your use of sentence types Simple- Contains one is idea and makes sense on its own. Complex- Made up of two or more simple sentences joined by a conjunction.

Using Sentences Effectively Using a variety of sentence types makes writing much more interesting. Your choice of sentence can create tension, give detail or imply action.

Simple Sentence Simple sentences speed up the pace of a story and are generally used to create tension, imply action or get across an important point.

Complex Sentence Long or complex sentences often slow down the pace of a story. Complex sentences usually contain crucial detail or information.

EXAMPLE: Sharon screamed. She jumped from the plane and began plummeting to the ground below waiting nervously for her parachute to open. The earth drew closer with each passing second. Tick. Tick. Tick. Sharon began to get nervous. Whooosh. Suddenly the parachute exploded from its case. Relief washed over Sharon as she glided to the landing strip ahead.

EXERCISE Complete the exercises on your worksheet relating to you chosen character(s)