3.1 Produce an Extended Piece of Writing in a selected style

Travel Writing

The Task – what do we have to do?

• Student Instructions Sheet

• In this activity, you will write at least 600 words on a travel theme. You will present a unique place, event or activity that is significant to you, and that would appeal to travellers, and write about it as though for the travel section of a newspaper or magazine. To begin with, you will look at samples of travel journalism and examine the features and style appropriate to such a piece of writing.

• You will be assessed on your ability to:

• Develop and sustain ideas in an extended piece of writing• Craft controlled writing which creates effects appropriate to your

audience, purpose and the travel writing genre• Structure material in ways appropriate to audience, purpose and

text type• Use writing conventions accurately.

Know your enemy …

Before we begin thinking about what to write, let’s get to know a little about the conventions of the genre.

Start by going to The Listener Magazine.

Click on to some past issues, and find the travel section (It’s not in all issues so you might have to fish about a bit)

Read an article and complete the worksheet.

The do the say for any other piece of travel writing you can find.

What to do with your article …Task 1: Close ReadingChoose two to three travel articles and read them. Keep notes on the following:

Visual detailsTravel is a very visual experience. Write down a selection of phrases which show the

writer’s use of small detail to bring the experience to life for the reader. What poetic language techniques does the writer use? (consider simile, metaphor, alliteration etc). How does the writer use the different senses?

Being thereHow does the writer place him or herself in the context of the writing (ie personalise the

experience)? Does the writer include arrival and departure? Conversations? Impressions of other people?

Response versus the facts.Draw up two columns. In one column jot down phrases that include words of personal

response. In the other column write down the facts. What conclusions can you draw about the balance of fact and opinion in travel writing? Summarise the overall impression the writer gives of this place or experience.

Backwater blessingsby Bob Marriott

• The lush state of Kerala in southwestern India offers a nature-rich experience on water.

• Corkscrewing out of the mountains, the road is little more than a collection of potholes held together by a twisting, ragged ribbon of asphalt. Numerous hairpin bends overlook suicidal drops. Filling the road, a crazy accumulation of cars, trucks and overloaded buses compete with bright yellow tuk-tuks, ox-carts and small motorbikes, many with three and even four on board.

• We pass through roadside villages packed with pedestrians picking their way along unfinished sidewalks with naked children playing in dust or mud alongside emaciated dogs. Goats forage among piles of litter and rubbish. The clouds of exhaust smoke and the sound of grating gears, over-revving engines and continually blaring horns are ignored by all, including the docile huge-horned cattle wandering unmolested among the teeming throng.

Metaphor captures the insane shape of the terrain

Sensual imagery – captures

atmosphere

Lots of adjectives –

clear sense of place

Places himself, with

travelling companions, on the road

A recipe for success …

• Based on your reading of the articles, come up with a recipe for a successful piece of travel writing. What are the key ingredients??

• Take a generous dallop of a unique angle.

• Stir in some sensual imagery to build atmosphere …

Lesson Two: Getting Planning

• Goal: To explore more features of Travel Writing, and begin planning your own piece.

• Starter – what is style??? If someone asked you what was your style of writing, how would you respond?

Style = Patterns L.S.F.V. PInvent a mnemonic

Is the language noticeably formal / informal? How does this add to the voice?

What is the narrative viewpoint or voice? First or Third Person? How does this effect the reader’s response?

Can you find PATTERNS of language features? Does the writer use a lot of:

• figurative imagery, such as metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia • Sound Devices – alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeia etc?• Persuasive Features such as rhetorical questions, commands, direct address etc?• Sensual Imagery – appeals to sight, sound, smell, sensation etc?• Contrast – juxtaposition• Colloquialism, cliché, slang – features of informal language• Emotive language – particularly choice of adjective

Can you find PATTERNS in sentence construction?

• Types of sentences – commands, questions, rhetorical questions, exclamations?• Length of sentence – minor; short simple; long, complex; • Sentence construction - parallel construction; repetition;

Does the writer show a preference for particular types of punctuation – dashes, colons, brackets etc?

A glowing mini-break to blow away city cobwebs.

The bus from Auckland to Tauranga has a rest stop in Thames, and the ham-and-egg sandwiches at the attendant tearooms are pretty good. You take your breakfast where you can, and here it’s munched as the bus picks up more folk near the big bottle in Paeroa and continues through the Karangahake Gorge, where cellphone reception blessedly drops out.

Since airports have come over all totalitarian on us, it’s bus and train stations that are the really romantic spots for arrivals and departures. Romantic is, admittedly, an unlikely designation for the SkyCity bus terminal, however much they flash it up with clean toilets and what-not, but this morning’s departure was marked by a young man running alongside as we pulled out. You don’t see that at Auckland domestic. He wasn’t mine, but I waved, anyway.

My own welcoming party, waiting in the sunshine (the weather forecast was atrocious; seasoned Taurangans, they knew better), includes my four-month-old niece, possibly the best and most gifted child ever. Not everyone, of course, has someone perfectly adorable to visit in the Bay of Plenty, so the area’s residents had to come up with other attractions

Exploring Style.

What do you notice about the TONE of this piece.

How is it created?

Favourite sentence???

Task 2: Choosing a destination

• To choose what you want to write about yourself, create a mind map using some or all of the following possibilities:

• An experience linked to where you live you know well and believe visitors would enjoy, eg: If you lived in Dunedin, those experiences might include a harbour cruise, walk over the swampy summit, The Botanical Garden’s on a summer’s weekend, a morning at St Clair Beach; A tour of the Peninsula; and so on.

• A New Zealand experience you have had: eg the AJ Hackett Bungy, white water rafting, walking one of the tracks, hot air ballooning, tandem skydiving, surfing, snowboarding, a marae visit and hangi; what else can you think of?

• An overseas experience you have had: eg visiting the family overseas, etc; landmarks, people, food, occasions; what else can you think of?

Detailed Planning – Place:Point of View – was it a positive or negative experience – somewhere in between?

Most experiences have a bit of the yin or the yang in them..

What frame can you give it – consider the entry point and exit (or arrival and departure, beginning and ending)

Is too wide a scope a problem? Is it better to write a lot about a little – focussing on one experience in a destination for example, than a little about a lot – a brief overview of all that Queenstown has to offer

What are some of the factual details you can hang your response on? You will need to research facts to make your travel writing credible – place names, locations, details etc must be accurate.

Try to frame 5 questions to answer in the course of your research.

How can you personalise the writing to take it beyond the factual? How can you put yourself into the writing? Consider your own experiences.

How can you balance this by ensuring your writing has appeal to a wide audience?.

The trick is to balance your experience with the need of the reader – not to make it MY BIG TRIP TO SYDNEY, or A FACTUAL GUIDE TO ATTRACTIONS IN SYDNEY.

Detailed Planning – Place:Point of View – was it a positive or negative experience – somewhere in between?

What frame can you give it – consider the entry point and exit (or arrival and departure, beginning and ending)

What are some of the factual details you can hang your response on? You will need to research facts to make your travel writing credible – place names, locations, details etc must be accurate.

How can you personalise the writing to take it beyond the factual? How can you put yourself into the writing? Consider your own experiences.

How can you balance this by ensuring your writing has appeal to a wide audience?.

Travel Writing Lesson Three• To organise your writing in a logical and effective structure• To begin crafting effective writing.

• Starter: Structure and Organisation of an Exemplar

• Your planning – possible models …

• Comparing what has it and what doesn’t.

• First sentences – how to hook your reader …

• Your first sentence …

Excellence Exemplar Structure Analysis

Make a note about the main point of each paragraph

How does the writer introduce the destination? What effective techniques are used?

How is the contrast between the two settings given emphasis?

How well does the writer link each paragraph to the next?

How does the ending draw the contrast together?

• My Russian “mother” came running into the apartment, a large sheep, dyed green, draped over her arm. “What’s that?” I asked. “It’s a coat for you,” she said, “it’s cold today, real winter. Very strong wind, very strong wind.” I looked out the window – it looked the same as yesterday. I was sceptical about the sheep. Being a vegetarian in Siberia was enough of a struggle at mealtimes.

Drafting Time…

• Goal: TO craft writing carefully and deliberately to create a strong impression of the experiences a place has to offer

• Getting started on googledocs

• Looking at other starters

• Go!

• Post a paragraph to the forum!

• The village kindergarten is surrounded by barbed wire. About 10 pupils are enrolled this year. Their fresh, wet paintings hang like laundry on the fence beneath the barbs. The village is Namaqumaqua – pronounced Na-mangoo-mangooa – on Fiji’s Coral Coast. You might expect the barbed wire would have something to do with the military; of course, there has been a coup lately. But it doesn’t. It’s just that the children live by an idyllic lagoon. Their teacher explains: “The new entrants are very naughty. They always want to run away and swim in the sea, so we have the fence to keep them here.”

• I am squelching through an ocean of bat poo in a Malaysian cave. Wearing jandals. Whose stupid idea was this? Well, mine actually. I could have worn trousers and proper shoes, but, oh, it’s so hot here and the animals don’t seem to be that dangerous.

• Rows of little eyes peered back at us, around each corner, hundreds of gaunt little figures with shattered china for skin, their stern cookie-cutter faces staring into space.

• The Boy smiled at the concrete crowd. “Cool as!” and shot ahead again, disappearing through an arch covered in broken dinner plates, exploring at speed.

Welcome Back …

• Goal: To self-assess reflectively, analysing strengths and areas for development.

• Starter –– what are we doing … the dizzying heights of ‘Achieved’

What makes this impressively adequate?

•Exemplar C: Achievement

The town of Havelock North is an asset to Hawke's Bay. It is not overrun by fruit stalls. It is not completely surrounded by orchards. There's not a ‘no-go’ zone where you should always keep your car within reach. It's a friendly place. It's a family place. The hub of the town is the local New World, where the resident teenagers hang out and the town's adults mingle. Even a local with his electric mower doesn't disrupt the tranquillity of Havelock North. The perfect holiday destination.

When it comes to accommodation there is no better place where the spirit of Havelock is upheld than Arataki Holiday Park. Its competitive prices and smiling staff have greeted my family and me on numerous occasions, on frequent trips to the Hawke's Bay for a guaranteed sunburn. Whilst their Holiday Park may not offer five star cabins or high‑class facilities ‑ the shower curtains are evidence of that ‑ the feeling of community that comes from just staying there makes any visit worthwhile.

What makes this impressively adequate?

•It is not overrun by fruit stalls. It

is not completely surrounded by orchards. There's not a ‘no-go’ zone where you should always keep your car within reach. It's a friendly place. A family place. A place where the humble hub of the town is the local New World, where the resident teenagers hang out and the town's adults mingle. Even the mandatory local with his electric mower doesn't disrupt the tranquillity of Havelock North: the perfect place for a true, relaxing kiwi holiday.

The town of Havelock North is an asset to Hawke's Bay. It is not overrun by fruit stalls. It is not completely surrounded by orchards. There's not a ‘no-go’ zone where you should always keep your car within reach. It's a friendly place. It's a family place. The hub of the town is the local New World, where the resident teenagers hang out and the town's adults mingle. Even a local with his electric mower doesn't disrupt the tranquillity of Havelock North. The perfect holiday destination

Touching on Excellence• Goal: To measure the effectiveness of an exemplar and deliberately

adapt effective techniques to your own writing.

• Starter - Control and accuracy

• Discussion – the assessment criteria

• Reading – excellence at level 3

• Annotation – what you liked and why

• Innovation – applying it to your own writing

• Sharing and caring – and forum homework.

Starter: Exploring control and accuracy

Re-write each of these sentences to demonstrate control and accuracy. Only change what is absolutely necessary.

As the sun sparkled upon the cool, calm and clear waters of little cove beach, reflecting back like a sea of diamonds. 

Its cold, the sky is a greenish grey.

After a while we got to their source, the mineral rich, cloudy, deep blue Lake Pukaki.

I could only be in Dunedin, experiencing first hand a typical summers day.

Harsh darkness and confusion surrounds me as my plane halts to a stop.

Feed Forward ...

• Goal: To attain constructive criticism of your writing, and thus produce work of a higher quality ...

• Starter – Homework stock take ...

• Drafting time – conferences for homework contributors (and its not too late)

Self assessment time - Give yourself a grade (N.A.M.E) for each of the criteria

Give yourself some written feedback – at least 4 WWWs, at least 3 EBIs

Self Assessment

Give yourself a grade (N.A.M.E) for each of the criteria

Give yourself some written feedback – at least 4 WWWs, at least 3 EBIs

.

Travel WritingGoal: To write with balance of entertainment and information, in a controlled,

accurate style

First Draft Feedback…

WWW – good use of imagery. Good topic choice. Good voice used. Good paragraphing.

Next steps …

Remember your audience – write to INFORM as well as engage – tell them specific details – names and locations – prices etc, so they can make more use of the information here.

Sentence construction – especially run-on sentences or comma splices – grrrrrrr. You CAN’T join two complete sentences with a comma. Either use a full stop to join them with a connecting word – see the next slide.

Editing to ensure accuracy and control

• Goal: To critically evaluate your own, and others writing, to ensure you write in a controlled, accurate manner.

• Getting started – the strategy – reading aloud, pausing ONLY for the punctuation.

• Worksheet: LINK

From ‘Not Achieved’ Exemplar• Jumping in to the rental van was easy, realising the guys hand I just shook

was going to be driving, wasn't at all comforting. He was wearing scraggy clothes with mosquito lenses glasses. In 10 minutes of driving I could tell his licence was from a weetbix box, we drove for about 45 minutes to a little township which was close to the river they told us. I read a book with a few comments from people who had done this before, two said they nearly died. We got all the gear on; helmet, wetsuit, boat shoes and a lifejacket with its own little whistle. Soon enough we were back in the van racing through the forest along a gravel road with a trailer behind us. We had to take a left down an old track to go around a tree that had fallen down. We should have been in a 4WD with all those bumps and branches we came`across.

WHOLE CLASS - Read this aloud. PAUSE ONLY WHERE THE WRITER HAS USED PUNCTUATION.

Make the necessary connections

GROUP WORK – YOU WILL BE ALLOCATED ONE OTHER SAMPLE FROM THE SHEET = Do the same for IT.

And now your OWN work

Testing times – give your proofed work to your neighbour to read back to you.

Comma-splices or Run-On sentences

These happen when a comma is used instead of a full stop or connecting word

To splice is to join – you can’t join sentences with commas.

If the part either side of a comma is a complete sentence – it sounds whole (technically has a subject and a complete verb), then you CAN’T use a comma.

You can notice them when you read a passage aloud to yourself

Copy and correct1.Comma Splice: Dogs have large canine teeth,

mice have large molars.

2.Comma Splice : My grandmother lives in the country, her house is very big.

3.Comma Splice : It takes five apples to make an apple pie, it takes ten to make applesauce.

Answers1. Dogs have large canine teeth. Mice have large molars.• OR Dogs have large canine teeth and mice have large molars.• OR: Whereas dogs have large canine teeth, mice have large molars.

2. My grandmother lives in the country. Her house is very big. • OR My grandmother lives in the country and her house is very big. • OR As my grandmother lives in the country, her house is very big.

3. It takes five apples to make an apple pie. It takes ten to make applesauce.

• Or It takes five apples to make an apple pie but it takes ten to make applesauce.

• OR Whilst it takes five apples to make an apple pie, it takes ten to make applesauce.

Comma SplicesFind each Comma Splice in sentence in this

student’s work. Write down the corrected version. Correct the underlined spelling mistakes too.

So my thoughts took over and made me walk over and pick up this bag of joyfilled baloons and neatly compact it into my hand, as I thought about this I realised I was to cunning for his minor ways, so I placed it in my pocket, in case I needed to use that hand for some reason, I dont know what it was, maybe it was the rush of stealing, or maybe the thought I could get another for free, made me take another and slide it into my pocket of desire.

Comma Splice SentencesOne way of correcting this passage.

So my thoughts took over and made me walk over to pick up this bag of joy filled balloons. I neatly compacted it into my hand. As I thought about this, I realised I was too cunning for his minor ways, so I placed it in my pocket, in case I needed to use that hand for some reason. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the rush of stealing, or maybe the thought I could get another for free but something made me take another and slide it into my pocket of desire.

Comma Splice Sentences• Find each run in sentence in this student’s work.

Write down the corrected version. Correct the other punctuation mistakes too

• The conversation wasn’t that great, she said to me “please forgive me darling I need you, I can’t live without you I’m so sorry” I hung up the phone, it rang back I let the answering machine get it she left a message saying “if you change your mind darling call me on 053875567”.Best cursive

handwriting required!

Comma Splice Sentences•Find each run in sentence in this student’s work. Write

down the corrected version. Correct the other punctuation mistakes too

The conversation wasn’t that great. She said to me, “Please forgive me darling. I need you. I can’t live without you. I’m so sorry.”

I hung up the phone but it rang back so I let the answering machine get it. She left a message saying, “If you change your mind darling call me on 053875567.”

Best cursive handwriting required!

Editing Content – are my ideas up to it?

Read the following merit exemplar. Ask yourself the following questions:

How does your content compare?

Have you got the right voice for your audience?

Have you got the right balance of informativeness and entertainment?

How does the development of your ideas compare?

How does the angle you have chosen compare?

Does this seem an authentic piece of travel writing? Does yours?

Editing – checking for errors

• Goal: To edit carefully for errors, ensuring accuracy and control of final product.

• Getting warmed up – look at the following sentences. Find the common errors – there may be more than one.

• Print a draft of your story. Read each sentence aloud. Tick it if it is 100% error free. Highlight anything to check.

• YOU WILL HAND THIS IN ATTACHED TO YOUR FINAL DRAFT.

Use a colon

1) Before a list. I could only find three of the ingredients: sugar, flour and coconut.

2) Before a summary. To summarise: we found the camp, set up our tent and then the bears attacked.

3) Before a quote. As Jane Austen wrote: it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

4) Before a more specific explanation (Instead of ‘for example’ or ‘such as’)

There are only three kinds of people: the good, the bad and the ugly.