Writing Creatively for Discovery

WRITING CREATIVELY FOR DISCOVERY

What ideas about Discovery are you going to convey in your creative? • You need to return to the rubric. Choose 2-3 ideas that you find the most interesting. Discovery can encompass the experience of discovering something for the first time or rediscovering something that has been lost, forgotten or concealed. Discoveries can be sudden and unexpected, or they can emerge from a process of deliberate and careful planning evoked by curiosity, necessity or wonder. Discoveries can be fresh and intensely meaningful in ways that may be emotional, creative, intellectual, physical and spiritual. They can also be confronting and provocative. They can lead us to new worlds and values, stimulate new ideas, and enable us to speculate about future possibilities. Discoveries and discovering can offer new understandings and renewed perceptions of ourselves and others.

You can then think about how these ideas relate to your character: • Will your character discover something for the first time or rediscover something that has been lost? • Will your character discover something that leads them to change their perception of themselves and others? • What new worlds or values or ideas will be discovered by your character? • How will your character deal with a confronting and provocative discovery?

Topics to explore . . . • Self-discovery; who am I? finding yourself; identity; religious epiphanies and enlightenment; rediscovering your personal/family history • New places and worlds/cultures; travel expeditions, explorations and adventures; immersion in new cultures; travel blogs and journals • Space exploration – past, present and future • Historical voyages of discovery and early explorations and quests • Archaeological digs and discoveries; what they tell us; rediscovering the past • Mysteries; lost and found worlds, places, objects, civilisations (eg Machu Picchu, the Titanic etc) • Technological, scientific and medical discoveries and research; impact on individuals, societies and the global world • Discovery of the truth; detectives; crime; forensics; missing persons and ‘cold cases’; unsolved crimes; investigative journalism • And?

Past Papers • 2014 – Among Others . . . is a collection of different pieces of writing about individuals finding their place in a community. Compose a piece of writing which would be suitable for inclusion in this collection • 2013 - Compose a piece of imaginative writing that explores a decision to embrace or reject a connection with others. Use ONE of the items as the central element of your writing. • 2012 – Select one image and use it as the central element in a piece of imaginative writing exploring the effects of time on an individual’s sense of belonging. • 2011 – Compose a creative piece that captures the significance of remembered places to the experience of Belonging. • 2010 – Select one of the quotations as the opening for a piece of imaginative writing that explores the challenges of belonging and not belonging • 2009 – Drawing on the ideas in one of the quotations, write an imaginative piece that celebrates the ways relationships contribute to a sense of belonging

The most common problems in student writing  Simplistic exploration of concept  Not starting with an engaging opening technique  Poor orientation of the reader  Lack of tension/conflict in writing  Nothing happens – no build up to a climax or a conflict  Lack of imagery where students tell rather than show  Lack of exploration of place and setting  Uses only chronological time frame to order ideas  Too many events in story  Story has too many characters  Story has too wide a time range  Tells the story of a character’s life – leaves nothing to the imagination

Effective Openings – 8 ways to start a short story effectively  Use direct speech  Start in the middle of something  Make your reader laugh  Talk to your reader: use first person narrative  Shock your reader  Create a tense atmosphere .  Create a very clear picture

Read the stories provided and consider why they are worthy of first place awards in the SMH Young Writer’s Competition. Make notes for each narrative using the dot points below as a guide:

• What are the central ideas about discovery in this narrative? Use the BOS rubric/language to inform your identification of the idea/ideas.

• What are some effective narrative devices used by the writer to communicate ideas and shape your response?

• You need to think about the idea of Discovery and come up with suggestions for stories – create a list of possible storylines in pairs.

• We will then share them so that we can build a bank of possible storylines.

Warming up!

• Write for 6o seconds about Discovery without stopping. Write exactly what comes into your head. You don’t need to use proper sentences or punctuation.

Write a paragraph without using the letter ‘e’

• Write a sentence in which the first word starts with ‘a’, the second with ‘b’ etc (eg: Anyone being cautious doesn’t enter foolishly . . .)