Describing an aurora
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Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about using adjectives to create a poem.
This clip shows an aurora in the night sky off the coast of Wellington.
Follow the steps below.
They will help you write a poem about this aurora.
Task administration:
This resource is one of three similar resources that require students to think about the order in which they write a series of adjectives. All have a shared task at the end, where a partner is asked to comment on the writing and meaning-making.
In this resource and in the resource, A school of fish, students create meaning within poetry. In the third resource, Creating an advertisement, students create meaning within an advertisement. While the primary focus of this resource is on the ordering of adjectives, other areas to work on in written language have emerged as part of the trial of this resource, for example, the structural and language features of poetic writing, and punctuation.
Level:
4
Curriculum info:
Key Competencies:
Keywords:
Description of task:
Students use a video clip as the stimulus for completing a poem. Scaffolds are provided for this process.
Curriculum Links:
This resource can be used to help to identify students’ ability to create texts to meet the writing demands of the New Zealand Curriculum.
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Writing:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
- generate content that is relevant to the task
- demonstrate knowledge of how language works
as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Writing at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with within the Writing Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.Answers/responses:
| Ordering of adjectives | No “correct” order |
| Sustained and correct use of punctuation between adjectives |
very difficult
|
| Other areas of written language that emerged were: | |
| Use of structural features appropriate to poetic context | very difficult |
| Use of language features appropriate to poetic context | very difficult |
Results based on a trial sample of 60 Year 7 and 8 students.
Teaching and learning:
This resource was trialled by 60 Year 7 and 8 students. Please note that in the student responses given below, their work has not been corrected. The first task gives students the first line of a poem, as a response to a video clip. They are asked to order two given adjectives and to reflect on the line of poetry and its meaning-making. In the next task, the second line of the poem is given. Students select the order of three given adjectives from drop-down menus. About half the students chose the order ‘mysterious, colourful, and silky’, which reads well and follows common rules for ordering adjectives, i.e., ordering by opinion, colour, and material.
Ordering of adjectives
Students decided the final order of their adjectives, according to what sounded best.
Use of punctuation
While there is no "correct" order for the two adjectives, about a quarter of the students made meaning appropriately by adding a comma between the adjectives and at the end of the line. For example: In this haunting, expansive night sky, However, more than half of the students did not use punctuation appropriately to make meaning. For example this response is not a complete sentence: In the expansive, haunting night sky. Across the tasks, no student sustained the correct use of punctuation.
Use of structural features appropriate to context
Few trial students sustained the common practice of starting a new line for each line of their poem. In some instances, a new line was implied in the phrasing. For example:
in this expansive haunting the night sky, the mysterious, colourful and silky aurora, captivates me.
In completing their poem, many students used new sentences, implying a new line. For example:
In this expansive, haunting night sky, the mysterious , colourful and silky aurora captivises me. I stare up at the amazing sight and Marvell, the colours purple, pink, blue and yellow flash in front of me. The aurora is a wonderful moment to witness.
In the next example, the student does not use commas between the adjectives but does sustain the use of common poetic structural features (for example, beginning each new line with a capital letter) appropriately up until the last phrase, The student’s last phrase is a summary of the total experience and therefore would be better as a sentence and a line on its own. In this expansive haunting night sky,The mysterious colourful silky aurora, captives me.The colours where mind blowing and bright.Colours reflecting off the water, what a experience.
Use of language features appropriate to context
As we noticed in the trial of the similar resource, A school of fish, when trial students were asked to complete their poem, most wrote in prose, using narrative language features rather than the more condensed language typical of poetic writing. For example: the mysterious silky aurora Is a colourful masterpeice that is like beautiful art in the sky. A few students did use the more condensed language typical of poetic writing, even though their punctuation use compromised the meaning-making of their work. For example: The silky mysterious colourful aurora, captivates me I take in the darkness. silver stars fly past me like cars on a highway.
The shared task
In the shared task at the end of the resource, few partners commented on the ordering of adjectives, the meaning-making part of the task. Some partners suggested structural and/or language feature improvements: Make it longer and have spaces after the comers [commas]Use joining words between colourful and silky put andI like how she used the phrase 'mind blowing'. change one of the 'colours' to 'lights'
Such feedback can provide teachers with ideas for their next steps with students.
Next steps:
Use of punctuation
In a list of adjectives describing the same noun, commas are used to separate the adjectives that are coordinating (adjectives that have equal weight in describing the noun). You can tell if two adjectives are coordinating by: 1 - swapping them around.
Does the sentence still make sense?2 - putting ‘and’ between them.
Does the sentence still make sense? If the answer is ‘yes’, the adjectives are coordinating and need a comma between them.
Test this out with the sentence ‘The velvety night sky was awash with colour.’
1 – Swap the adjectives around: ‘The night velvety sky was awash with colour.’ Does this sound right? No – so no comma is needed between ‘velvety’ and ‘night’.
2 – Put ‘and’ between the adjectives: ‘The velvety and night sky was awash with colour.’ Does this sound right? No – so no comma is needed.
Test it out again with another sentence: ‘The dancing flickering lights streaked across the sky.’
1 – Swap the adjectives around: ‘The flickering dancing lights streaked across the sky.’ Does this sound right? Yes – so a comma is needed between ‘dancing’ and ‘flickering’.
2 – Put ‘and’ between the adjectives: ‘The dancing and flickering lights streaked across the sky.’ Does this sound right? Yes – so a comma is needed.
Aurora video clip (youtube)