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Using Authors to Create

Reading and examining a text and the way that the author writes.

Inspiration

Crafting your own writing in a similar fashion to an author.

Construction

Connecting your own writing to an author’s and being aware of similarity or inspiration.

Imitation

Using correct terminology while explaining how it works.

Reflection

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated” – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

Read the sentence above, craft your own line of description in the same way, describe which parts are similar, and reflect on how the sentence works.

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Extract #4

Read through the non-fiction extract as a class.

First Impressions

What is this text about?
What motif appears throughout the text?
How does this connect to the theme of the text?
Find one phrase/word choice with positive connotations and one phrase/word choice with negative connotations.

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Non-Fiction or ‘Discursive’ Writing

Features include:

Written from the writer’s personal perspective (first person point of view)
Focuses on a subject or topic that the writer wants to discuss
Use of anecdotes, facts, history, humour to entertain and educate the reader

Brainstorm the ways in which ‘Small Eye’ fits the description of ‘discursive writing’.

Small Eye

What is this Text?

Kate Veitch has written a personal essay called ‘Small Eye’. We call this kind of non-fiction text ‘discursive writing’.

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Examining the Text

How does the author control the way the reader feels about the text?

Adverbs, Ellipsis, Humour, Word Choice

The use of a quote at the start to make the theme clearer to the reader.

Epigraph

Repeating ideas or words to help tie the text together.

Repetition

The little stories told by the author to add detail to their ideas.

Anecdotes

Using facts, figures, logic to make the writing more convincing.

Logos

Use the Examining ‘Small Eye’ sheet to identify and explain examples of each of the techniques.

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Will you write about travel?

Or photography?

Or both?

Construct

& Imitate

Create your own piece of personal non-fiction writing.

Write 300-500 words
Use one of the images to the right as a prompt – what can you say about one (or both) of these things?
Use 2-3 of the techniques featured in the Examining ‘Small Eye’ sheet.

Your turn

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Reflection

Highlight and annotate parts of your text that might show:

Where you have taken inspiration from Extract #4
Where you have used techniques such as: similes, metaphors, motifs, anecdotes, allusions, alliteration, imagery, effective verbs, adverbs, etc.
Where you have described things.
Where you spoke really clearly about the main idea.

Examine Your Writing

Write a paragraph ‘reflecting’ on one aspect of your writing. You can do this by following this formula:

Introduce the example you are talking about.
Quote the example.
Identify the reason why it was highlighted during your annotating (HINT: They’re listed to the left)
Explain why / how you used this example.