Describe this scene

This task is about writing a description using details from an image.

Describe the scene using details such as body language, facial expressions, clothing, and details from the rest of the image. You could also describe sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

Level:

Curriculum info:

English, Creating meaning, Writing

Key Competencies:

Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts

Keywords:

interpretation, description, structure and language, vocabulary

Description of task:

Students create a vignette with a focus on writing that is 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 vignettes using 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 of purpose and audience through careful choice of content, language, and text form.
by using 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 sequences ideas and information with increasing confidence, by using a variety of sentences 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 conjunctions 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, question 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.

For Year 4:

by using appropriate language and text form. Students at Year 4 should construct texts that show a growing awareness of purpose and audience through deliberate choice of content, language, and text form.
shows an increasing knowledge of how text conventions can be used appropriately and effectively. Achieves some coherence and wholeness when constructing texts and organises and sequences ideas and information for a particular purpose or effect.
by using vocabulary that clearly conveys ideas, experiences, or information, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, written language features such as similes and onomatopoeia. These language features should be used appropriately, showing a developing understanding of their effects.
by using an increasing vocabulary to communicate precise meaning and engage interest. Students may convey and sustain personal voice where appropriate.
students should use mainly simple and compound sentences, along with some complex sentences, that vary in their beginnings, structures, and lengths, for effect, and are mostly correct grammatically.
by using grammatical conventions, appropriately, effectively, and with increasing accuracy, including: capital letters, full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks (correctly) speech marks, commas for list, and apostrophes for contractions (correctly most of the time).
students should form and express ideas and information with increased clarity and show some selectivity in the process. Their ideas should show an increasing 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, and make and support inferences from texts with increasing independence.

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.

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 writing that "the boy is turning around in a field of long grass", you could write "the dry, overgrown grass is tickling his ankles, as he hesitates mid-stride".
Explain to students that we use different styles of writing for different purposes and that vignettes are a form of creative writing that focus 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.

Diagnostic and formative information:

Describe this scene - Year 3 exemplar
he was scared because of the fire in there school. As they ran into the woods he felt scard. He looked back but their was nothing to be seen but the dark gloomy forest.

Purpose and audience

Orientation and engagement
Text shows a growing awareness of purpose and audience through choice of content, language, and text form.
Text structure
Structure follows that of the task, and shows a growing understanding of the style of text appropriate to writing a vignette.
Register
The vocabulary is basic and is used primarily to "tell" rather than "show". The use of the word "scared" twice tells us how the character feels rather than showing the reader, as a vignette should.

Content
Ideas
Ideas are relevant to the task but need to be explored in a manner that is suitable for composing a vignette.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary is basic and is used to "tell" rather than "show". The text lacks descriptive words and use of literary techniques.

Organisation
Paragraphing
Task is to write 3-5 lines of text.

Conventions
Sentence structure
Uses compound and complex sentences correctly.
Word structure
Word endings correct, for example: scard (scared) and looked.
Connecting and tracking ideas in text
The conjunction As is used to link 2 ideas: Running into the woods and feeling scared. Each sentence contributes to the text as a whole, in sequencing ideas and information through the text.
Sentence punctuation
Sentences are mostly punctuated correctly. Capitalisation at the beginning of the first sentence is missing.
Punctuation within sentences
No punctuation within sentences.
Spelling
Most words spelt correctly, except scard (scared). Scared is spelt correctly earlier in the text. The words there and their are used incorrectly: the fire in there school, and but their was nothing to be seen.

Describe this scene - Year 4 exemplar
Turning his body as the grassed itched his legs. He skinted as he ran away from his school. As he passed the girls who were chating he suddenly felt scared.

Difficult to read words: grass (grass); skinted (sprinted); chating (chatting).

Purpose and audience

Orientation and engagement
Text shows a growing awareness of purpose and audience through deliberate choice of content, language, and text form.
Text structure
Structure follows that of the task, and shows a growing understanding of the style of text appropriate to writing a vignette.
Register
The vocabulary used is basic but appropriate to the topic and style of writing. Simple descriptive language is used, including use of the senses in the first sentence: Turning his body as the grassed itched his legs. The use of the word "scared" at the end of the vignette tells us how the character feels rather than showing the reader.

Content
Ideas
Ideas are focused to the task and clearly communicated.
Vocabulary
Descriptive vocabulary such as Turning his body as the grassed itched his legs, is used with growing confidence to create meaning and engage interest.

Organisation
Paragraphing
Task is to write 3-5 lines of text.

Conventions
Sentence structure
Simple and compound sentences are correct.
Word structure
Word endings correct, for example: itched, skinted, passed.
Connecting and tracking ideas in text
The conjunction As is used to link two ideas: passing the girls who were chatting and feeling scared. Each sentence contributes to building the "picture" in linking ideas through the text.
Sentence punctuation
Sentences are punctuated correctly.
Punctuation within sentences
No punctuation within sentences.
Spelling
Most words spelt correctly, except grassed (grass), skinted (sprinted) and chating (chatting).

Note that student responses are used to find out the trajectory needed for future success. Our trial data has enabled us to begin to identify performance at this year level and the student responses give us exemplars of performance. The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) and The Literacy Learning Progressions (2010) were closely consulted throughout this development process.

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