Writing from a stimulus
Students engage with a painting from the collection to write their own piece of descriptive writing based on the visual features of their chosen painting. They will then edit their own work, making changes that improve the aesthetics of their writing.
Student activities
Task no. 1
Writing a painting
Write your own description using artworks from the collection as stimulus.
Select one of the landscape paintings below from the State Library of New South Wales Collection and compose a description of the scene using the language devices explored in Activity 1.
You can also browse the paintings collection and choose your own painting to use as a stimulus.
Task no. 2
Becoming an editor
The original handwritten manuscript of ‘Seven Little Australians’ is part of the State Library’s collections and is listed on the UNESCO Australian Memories of the World register. On the page shown below, you can see the draft of the extract from Chapter 21.
Discuss the following: What do you notice about the draft? Look at the extract from the start of the page. What changes and additions were made? Did Ethel Turner get it right the first time?
Read over your own description and make changes and improvements to edit your own work, using Ethel Turner’s original manuscript as an example.
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