Describe this person

Describe this person

Pencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about writing a description using details from an image.

Describe the character in the image using details such as their clothing, colours, body language, and details from the rest of the image. 

You could also describe sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

Question 2Change answer

a)  Brainstorm your ideas below.

Question 2Change answer

b)  Use your brainstorm to help you write a draft of your description (3 sentences).

Question 2Change answer

c)  Now write your description (3 sentences). 
Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pen and paper or online (with NO auto marking).
  • Explain to students what a description (vignette) is and discuss the elements that make for good writing. Make clear the difference between "showing" and "telling". 
  • Make sure all students can see the image.
  • Tell the students, as well as writing it on the board, that they CANNOT use "The Gorilla", "The girl", "The boy", "The woman", etc. This will help students to be more descriptive in their writing, as it encourages them to "show" rather than "tell".
  • Explain the difference between showing and telling and why you want them to focus on showing in this exercise (explained under the Working with Students tab). 
  • Read the instructions to the students (you may reread them to students who need it) and make sure they understand.
  • Give students 25-40 minutes to draft and construct their vignettes.

 

Copyright: 
Source: Image from 'Voices in the Park' by Anthony Browne, published by Doubleday. Used by Permission of the Random House Group Ltd.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Creating meaning, Writing
Key Competencies: 
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
interpretation, description, character, structure and language, vocabulary
Description of task: 
Students create a character vignette with a focus on writing pieces that are brief, descriptive, and set in one point in time. They should not be concerned with plot. As the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity, students need to show a controlled and elegant skill in writing, and to use figurative language to 'show' rather than 'tell'.
Curriculum Links: 

We assess character vignettes using the Writing Assessment Guide for the English ARB, as well as the statements below, which are an amalgamation of the New Zealand Curriculum, and The Literacy Learning Progressions.

For year 3:

  • by using appropriate language and text form, students at year 3 should construct texts that show a growing awareness or purpose and audience through careful choice of content, language, and text form.
  • studens should use simple written language features, such as alliteration, and an increasing vocabulary to make meaning and engage interest. These language features should be used appropriately, showing a developing understanding of their effects.
  • students should organise and sequence ideas and information with increasing confidence, by using a variey of sentence structures, beginnings, and lengths, to create a basic text structure.
  • students should use mainly simple and compound sentences that vary in their beginnings and lengths and in the simple conjuctions used. They should also construct sentences in which the tenses are mostly consistent, and attempt to construct complex sentences.
  • students should be using basic spelling patterns and grammar, such as: capital letters, full stops, questions marks, and exclamation marks correctly.
  • students should form and express ideas and information with increased clarity and show some selectivity in the process. Their ideas should suggest an awareness of a range of interpretations.
As the image is a text: students should use their personal knowledge, experiences and interpretation skills to confidently make meaning from texts. They should recognise that there may be more than one reading available within a text. They should also make and support inferences from texts with increasing independence.

For e-asTTle exemplars of student descriptive writing, go to http://e-asttle.tki.org.nz/Teacher-resources/Marking-resources-for-e-asTTle-writing#Specific .

Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Writing meaningful text: encoding, sets 3-4
Writing meaningful text: vocabulary knowledge, sets 2-3
within the Writing Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 

NOTE: There is no single correct interpretation of a text, which includes images. They can be interpreted at different levels and in different ways. However, students need to make logical connections between the text and their interpretation of its meaning. Student learning is presented and discussed under the Connecting to the Curriculum and the Working with Students tabs.

Teaching and learning: 

Vignette Resources for the English ARB

These resources ask students from Years 3 to 8 to write a description (a vignette), using the provided image (either a photograph or fictional illustration) to focus on writing a short and descriptive piece of creative writing, that shows controlled skill and use of literary techniques. Students should "show" not "tell" by using figurative language to "paint a picture" for the reader.

A vignette can be as long as a short chapter in a book, or a short story. But for the purpose of creative writing exercises, vignettes can be as short as a single paragraph and describe one point in time (which is what these resources focus students on doing). Students should not be concerned with plot. As the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity, students need to show a controlled and elegant skill in writing.

NOTE: Although we are trying to encourage the students to write prose, a vignette can also be written as a poem, and this is an acceptable form to use for the assessment.
 
Purpose
As explained above the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity in writing a vignette. This makes them an excellent writing tool to use with students. In writing a vignette students must consider how every idea, word, sentence, and literary technique is used for effect and to convey meaning to their appropriate audience. These skills are all essential for use in writing of any length. Vignettes allow students to develop these skills that can be applied to longer forms of writing. They can be much more effective than having students write pages of text, or stories with chronological narrative structures, because they must be carefully crafted to show elegance and skill in writing.

Important Features

As the vignette should be a descritpion of one point in time, students should use literary techniques such as metaphors, similes, personification, alliteration, repetition, rhyme, and sensory details, to build an image for the reader. This should be done by using some of the basic visual descriptors from the image, such as: facial features, expressions, clothing, body posture, movement, and the relation of the character to other elements within the image. Students should use what's in the image to "show not tell". This will help them to paint a picture in the reader's mind. 

Using Visual Descriptors and Figurative Language to "Show not Tell"

To describe an image, students should use descriptors from the image and figurative language to "show not tell". So instead of saying "she is angry" you could describe how "the flowers jumped off her scarf as she burst with rage", how "steam poured out of her head as her hat popped skyward". They could describe her "glaring eyes" as representing exasperation, and describe her red hat as symbolic of her "blowing her top like a volcano".In the image, the Earth is symbolised by the roundness of the grass, with the dogs running 'around' carefree on a beautiful sunny day. Contrasted with the woman and her explosive emotions, this represents her world going upside-down.Explain to students that we use different styles of writing for different purposes and that vignettes are a form of creative writing and the focus is on "showing" not "telling". Explain the difference between "showing" and "telling". "Telling" is using literal language, stating information, like you would do in describing a missing person: He is 10 years old, has brown hair, green eyes, a blue shirt etc. "Showing" is using figurative language to create an experience for the reader.

Next steps: 

 

 

 

Recommended Viewing (for teachers)
The film "Babel" (2006) directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and wrtiiten by Guillermo Arriaga, connects the lives of various characters in Japan, Mexico, Morocco, and the United Sates through vignettes.
 
Recommended Reading (for teachers)
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" (1967) by Gabriel Garcia Marques is full of great character vignettes.John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) has a famous (two page) vignette in chapter three of a turtle crossing the road. This is one of several vignettes between chapters that comment symbolically on the main action."Rapture" by Anton Chekhov (1888) is a humorous vignette of Russian life in Chekhov's time."Germans at Meat" from "In a German Pension" (1911) by Katherine Mansfield, is a composition of satirical vignettes.