A vignette

AO: LANGUAGE FEATURES-Use a range of language features appropriately, showing an increasing understanding of their effects.
INDICATORS-uses a range of oral, written, and visual features to create meaning and effect and to sustain interest

Vignette (pronounced vin yet) is a brief description, account or episode. Flash fiction is fiction with as little as 300 words and up to say 1000 and may have a protagonist, conflict, obstacles and complication (a short, short story in other words)

We are going to record a moment in our own lives as an 'Vignette' or 'Flash Fiction'. We have already recorded 'a memory' and tried to show a short moment in time, bringing it alive for our reader. This time we are going to tap into our experiences, find importance in them and then bring them alive using specific detail (showing not telling again!)

Click here for the 'Bare Bones' of a story.

Now read Beans by Patrica Grace

What has the author done to make it an effective piece of writing?

1. How has she made it sound like a child talking?
2. How does she make it seem as if she is talking to you directly? (a sense of audience)
3. Which part stays with you? Why?
4. Do you get a picture of the character and the scene?
5. What do we know about the boy?
6. What tells us how he is feeling?
7. What senses does the writer include?

Compare the "I play hard" from the 'bare bones' to the paragraph about 'playing hard'. Why is it more effective? Which part do you think you could rewrite and make your own?

When did you 'play hard'?

What would your listing sentence look like?

Visualise? Zero Draft?

Examples

Here are our examples of a 'zero draft' or 'bare bones', brainstorm.

Marz's
Jayni-Rose's
Josh's

Cullen's
Kaedyn's

How will we know that we have been successful? What will our success criteria be?

Useful Links

S.O.L.O Rubric

Structure and Language

Blog Links 

Marz's Vingette-'2nd Game'

50 word story

AO: PURPOSES AND AUDIENCES.Show an increasing understanding of how to shape texts for different purposes and audiences.INDICATORS: constructs texts that show an awareness of purpose and audience through deliberate choice of content, language, and text form

This activity sounds simple, but it's not. To write a good 50 words story each word must be carefully considered. Because you only have fifty words,each word must 'pull its weight'. 

A good 50 word story will

• have sentences of different lengths (try starting with a very short one, followed by a much longer one)
• not repeat too many words
• have a 'twist' at the end.

 Kaedyn wrote this a couple of years ago...its still one of my favourite pieces of writing. Its a great example of all of the SC in his story 'The End"

Links

http://fiftywordstories.com/