ENGLISH NARRATIVE WRITING PROCESS AND PROGRAM

CREATION

Writing Process
The shadows grew long in the town of Dry
Creek, as the afternoon sun crept sleepily
towards the horizon. There was never any sign
of life at this time of day, with humans and
animals alike withdrawing from the inescapable
Australian mid-summer heat. The few
monotonous town buildings sat straight-edged
and lifeless, unremarkable against the desolate
landscape.

Adverb: Sleepily
Noun group: the
inescapable Australian
mid-summer heat
Adjective: desolate
creates imagery

The usual Thursday stragglers were posted at

their stations in Lous bar. Alf at his booth,
reeking of whisky and dry, the Ramsey brothers
playing poker at the corner table, and Jimmy
the drover listening intently to the crackly
cricket broadcast on the transistor radio.

Cultural references set the

social context
Noun group: the crackly
cricket broadcast

What are our chances? Lou grunted, smirking

as he wiped a yellow-stained glass.

Dialogue through actions

constructs the
interpersonal relationship
between the characters

Jimmy responded with a scoff of derision,

knowing full well that they didnt have a chance
in hell against the Poms.
Writing style: Humour &
irony
Jimmy was never a talker, preferring to express
his partiality to Lou and his bar by drinking
himself under the table every night. This had
the additional benefit of relieving him of any
responsibility towards his illegitimate daughters
and their mothers. Despite his reputation as a
brilliant but lazy cricketer and a hard-working
womanizer, Lou never passed judgment on
Jimmy the drover, or any of his patrons for that
matter, with few exceptions.

Juxtaposing describing
adjectives: brilliant,
lazyhard-working

Verb: Changed from

walked to waltzed

It just so happened that one of those exceptions

waltzed into his bar that very afternoon.
William Philip Watson was the rich son of a Gold
Rush digger who dug up a gold nugget the size
of his fist, and subsequently took ownership of
half the land in the town. As the Watsons
wealth and social stature grew, they became
the tall poppies that the townspeople had no
time for. After Mr. and Mrs. Watson had passed
on, Little William, now thirty two, was left with a
huge fortune and little respect.
On this particular day, he was received in the
bar with his usual welcome of glares and
sarcastic comments mumbled under breaths.

Cultural
reference/metaphor: tall
poppies
Antonym: Huge fortune
little respect

Exclamation: Indicates
high emotion/hopefulness

Your finest tawny thanks Lou! said William, a

little too enthusiastically given his reception.

Without responding, Lou poured the drink into

his filthiest glass.

Synonym/Adjective:
Changed from dirtiest to
filthiest

How are we doing? William said to no one in

particular. His face darkened when he got no
response. You look like hell Jim. That whisky
clearly doesnt agree with you.
Jimmy the drover, at that point downing his
eighth whisky, abruptly spun around to face
William. Whadya say you good-for-nothing
moneyed galah?
Ease off Jim you sack of potatoes. Doubt your
daughters would appreciate that language,
retorted William.
Jimmy flung himself across the length of the bar
to come nose-to-nose with the unprepared
William. He could almost taste the whisky on
Jims haggard breath. Go on mate, hit me.

Writing style: Slang

dialogue makes the setting
more authentic

Noun group: The

unprepared William
Synonyms/Adjective:
changed from disgusting
to haggard

William spat. Id bet my life that everyone in

this bar wants you to knock my teeth out.
Not in here you scallywags! interjected Lou.
Go outside and settle this the old fashioned
way. Like we used to in the old days.
The two men glared at each other, each fighting
the urge to beat the living daylights out of the
other. It was Williams respect for Lou and the
bar that led him to break the stare and grab the
cricket bat in the corner. Come on then. If I
bowl you out, you sit your sorry ass down and
let me drink in peace. You hit a six and Ill never
show my face in here again. Jimmy snatched
the cricket bat and strutted out the door,
stumbling slightly at the threshold. William
followed, ball in hand.
The sun was unforgiving in its intensity,
somehow managing to become more
unbearable at dusk than it was at midday.
William squinted towards the sky, silently
cursing his temper for getting the best of him in
a town where he was already fervently disliked.
He looked back towards the bar to see Jimmy
stepping up to the makeshift crease.
William tightened his grip on the ball, mentally
mapping out his plan of attack. As he stood
ready to make his run, he hesitated. Jimmy
waited at the ready, drumming the ground with
his bat. With each drum, a billow of dust
spiraled from the earth upwards towards the
trees. Williams eyes followed the motion,
watching the dust glisten in the suns light and
disappear. Disappearjust like that.
With a jolt of realization, the ball dropped like a
weight from his hand. He turned on his heels
and walked away. From Jimmy the drover, from
Lou and his bar, from the unforgiving town. And
so he disappeared, leaving a puff of Dry Creek

Humour: Reminder of
Jimmys drunken state

Personification:
Unforgiving sun

Imagery: drumming

Repetition/Parallelism:
Disappear
Simile (imagery):
dropped like a weight
Symbolism: Motion of the
dust reflects Williams path
to happiness

dust in his wake.

Analysis
Setting
The physical setting of this narrative is established within the opening
lines of the story. We wanted to convey the image of a typical rural
Australian town through use of descriptive noun groups such as the
inescapable Australian mid-summer heat, and descriptive adjectives such
as monotonous, straight-edged, lifeless and unremarkable to describe
the town buildings. We described the landscape as desolate, as we
wanted the reader to gain a sense of the isolation of this town, which
would then be reflected within the protagonist. We experimented with
different names for the town, but felt that Dry Creek best captured the
Australian outback image we were going for. We made use of characters
names, language, occupations and backstories to establish that the story
is set in the nineteenth century. We also achieved this by referencing
historical events, such as the Gold Rush.

Characterisation
The story is written from a third person perspective, as we wanted to put
forward multiple characters points of view. William becomes the main
protagonist, however the omnipresent narrator gives insight into the
thoughts, feelings, behaviours and personalities of Lou the bartender and
Jimmy the drover. We gave our characters both positive and negative
human qualities, as we wanted our characters to be dynamic and
relatable. For example, Lou the bartender is established as non-judgmental
and accepting of peoples flaws, but then ignores William in his bar.
William is portrayed as someone who is misunderstood and to be

empathized with, but then becomes the aggressor in the conflict. Jimmy is
given the juxtaposition of being a womanizer but also a brilliant cricketer.
We initially planned for William to live up to his reputation as being
arrogant due to his wealth. However, we then decided that the conflicting
traits within each character make them more three dimensional, creating
further interest, as the reader must make a decision about who to
empathise with (McDonald 2013).

Plot Structure
Our narrative follows an orientation-complication-resolution structure
(Derewianka & Jones 2012), as we felt it aided in the development of our
characters and the setting in which they live. The orientation phase sets
the context for the complication to arise by giving character backgrounds
and anecdotes. These provide the reader with a deeper understanding of
why the characters behave and react in the way they do during the
complication. The event in the complication stage sets off a chain of
responses that lead to a change of setting from the bar to the street. We
decided that we wanted our narrative to have a definite resolution, and
experimented with different ways of achieving this before settling on an
insightful realization on the part of the protagonist. We experimented with
a coda at the end, but felt that it took away from the intensity of the
resolution.

Theme and Symbol

We wanted our story to have a significant theme, but found it difficult to
develop this within the space of a short story. We decided that rather than
having our protagonist gain a material victory of land or money through
winning the game, he would instead have a symbolic moral victory for
himself. Therefore the central themes or significant messages in this story
are first, not to make judgments about people based on assumptions or
hearsay, and second, that sometimes walking away is more important
than winning. The dust in the final scene of the narrative is the only
symbol that we felt we had the space to develop. As William watches the
dust rise up and disappear into the air, he sees this as a metaphor for
what he must do. By describing the motion of the dust in relative detail,
we allowed the reader to make predictions and inferences about what it
represents to the protagonist (McDonald 2013).

Style
We utilized a number of literary stylistic techniques in this narrative to
enhance the setting, characterization, plot and themes of the story. For
example, we used description through metaphors and similes to paint a
certain image in the readers mind. For example the ball dropped like a

weight from his hand is a simile that was intended to emphasise the
gravity and suddenness of Williams epiphany that he must leave the
town. We also personified the sun throughout the entire narrative, in
saying that it crept sleepily or was unforgiving. This was intended to
enhance the image of the typical Australian outback setting. We used
Australian slang in character dialogue, such as Whadya say, ease off,
go on mate and you scallywags, to maintain the integrity of the setting
in terms of where and when the story is set. We also attempted to use
some humour in the narrators voice, such as in the description of Jimmy
the drover as having a reputation as a brilliant but lazy cricketer and a
hard working womanizer.

Dialogue
We decided to take a less-is-more approach to dialogue, and included a
lot of description of body language and character reactions to enhance the
readers understanding of the relationships between the characters. For
example, Jimmys scoff of derision in response to Lous question, allows
the reader insight into Jimmys personality and creates the feeling of
comfortableness between Jimmy and Lou. Conversely, Lous silence
towards William, and the action of pouring Williams drink into the
filthiest glass, gives a stronger portrayal of his feelings towards William
than any dialogue could. In making Williams request for a drink an
exclamation, we wanted to emphasise his hopefulness for an amicable
exchange with the men in the bar, as we felt that this makes the reader
more sympathetic towards him when the other characters respond by
ignoring him.

Implications for Classroom Practice (for chosen year

levels)
Having a piece of artwork as the starting point for our narrative was
helpful in kick starting ideas, and is definitely something we would utilize
in future teaching. However, having five people working on the same
narrative proved counter-productive due to a clash of ideas, which was
limiting to the direction of the story. It therefore seems more prudent in a
classroom situation to let children share ideas in pairs, but write their
narratives separately. It was also helpful in the editing process to come
back to the narrative after a break. For students in a classroom context,
this implies that writing a narrative needs to be a process of initial ideas,
drafting, editing, reading and re-reading, rather than a one-off lesson. This
process has also highlighted the importance of using a thesaurus to vary
word selection. We often found that simply using a synonym of a word
reduced the feeling of repetitiveness, and students should be encouraged
to do this to create more interesting sentences and vary and expand their

vocabulary. It also became apparent that when writing about a place or

time that we were relatively unfamiliar with, it required some research
about the events, language use and typical occupations of the time. We
would encourage students in a classroom to do this (even through asking
simple questions), as it adds to the integrity and authenticity of the
setting).

Red School Creek English Program

PHASES
Teaching and Learning Cycle

(Derewianka & Jones 2015, p. 45)

Strategies

Purpose

Phase One Building Knowledge of the Field

Strategy One Picture Walk
- Images reflecting droughts.

- To incite interest and engagement.

Strategy Two Picture Walk Pair-Share

- Inquiry questions:
- Describe what you see.
- Why do you think this image was made?
- Who do you think is the target audience?

- To activate students prior knowledge.

Strategy Three Word Wall

- Words with similar onsets and rimes will be explicitly grouped together.

- To develop student whole-to-part phonic understanding (Hill 2013, p.

198).

Strategy Four Pair-Share-Create

- Focus activities:
- Write a caption for the image.
- Predict what will happen ten minutes after the scene in the image.

- Making meaningful connections to the text.

- To be used as a diagnostic tool to gauge textual knowledge and
understanding.

Strategy Five - Shared Reading

- Water Witcher, by Jan Ormerod.
- Inquiry questions (using Reciprocal Reading Strategies):
- What does this story remind you of?
- Whose point of view is this story from/whose is missing?
- What pictures did you have in your head during the book?
- What message do you think the author wants us to get?
- What would you tell another person about the text?

- To develop knowledge and understanding of text structure and

organization; build on the familiar; how the purpose of texts may vary
(ACARA 2015, ACELA1504); introduce new vocabulary (Hill 2013, p.
298); print conventions (Hill 2013, p. 83) and build listening
comprehension (Schickedanz & McGee 2010).

Phase Two Modeling the Genre

Strategy One Genre Comparison

- Comparisons are drawn between:
- Social purpose; field, tenor, mode; verbs/processes; noun
groups/participants; number of personal pronouns

- To compare language features of a narrative to a descriptive report

Strategy Two Analysing Plot Structure

- Story map skeletons are filled in as a class, and compared with
differing plot structures from other books

- To understand how orientation, complication and resolution can be

manipulated to suit the purpose and style of the story

Strategy Three Analysing Setting

- Using an excerpt from Water Witcher
- Inquiry questions:
- Where and when does the story take place?
- How do we know that?
- Which words, phrases, sentences give you clues about the setting?

- To determine how adjectives and noun groups are used to describe

the setting through imagery

Strategy Four Characterisation Role Playing

- Students take on the role of various characters in Water Witcher
describing their qualities and personality to the rest of the class
- The class asks the character what they think and feel about different
events in the story

- To understand that characters in a story must have qualities that

resemble people in real life in order to be believable and interesting

Phase Three Joint Construction

Strategy One Shared Reading
- Read the picture book, The Lost Girl by Ambelin Kwaymullina.
- Discuss narrative plot structure and whether the text follows a typical
convention.

Consolidate understanding of narrative sequencing (MacDonald

2013, pp. 73-75).

Strategy Two - Resolution Reconstruction

- Consider alternative narrative endings

- To recognize the different structures a narrative can follow.

Strategy Three - Finding Congruence

- Discuss how setting can be developed through language and
illustration (McDonald 2013, p. 160).

Understand the importance of illustrations and how they help

develop a setting and tell a story.

- Consider:
- How has the author used illustrations to create or enhance the
setting?
- Does the setting affect the events of the plot?
Strategy Four - Character Development Through Noun Groups
- Discuss understanding of protagonists, antagonist and focaliser
characters in narratives.
- Develop and change noun groups to improve characterization and
description.

- Acquire knowledge of functional language in relation to character

development (McDonald 2013, p. 97).

- To highlight that the perspective from which a story is told can

change the

Strategy Five Point of View

- Two students silently act out a scene while the other students watch
- The class jointly constructs brief narratives from each actors point of
view

Stage Four Independent Construction

Strategy One Group Text Analysis
- Groups to read and analyse, Drought by Tricia Oktober, focusing on
plot structure, setting or characterization.
Strategy Two Planning Presentation
- Students to become experts about their topic of analysis.
- Groups create a presentation illustrating narrative conventions,
through a modality of their choice.
- Groups report analysis to class in form of oral presentation at the
Narrative Expo (McDonald, 2013).
Strategy Three Conferencing
- Teacher conducts 5-10 minutes conference with groups.
Strategy Four Open Forum
- Each group to devise two open questions to ask the presenting group.

- Applying the knowledge obtained throughout the unit to show their

skills in being independent critical analysers of text

- Allows students to develop collaborative and cooperation skills,

communicating their learning through oral means.

- To determine individual understandings of the key concepts

presented by their group.
- Ensures active participation and retention of information.