DESCRIPTION …
Saturday, 19 March 2016
Snow, snow and snow
again.
• Consider descriptive words… go on!
• How many words do we have for the
pieces of paper in a cardboard folder
that you have in you bags?
• Book, books, textbooks, workbooks,
roughbooks, englishbooks,
recipebooks, dictionaries (books that
are full of words), hardbackbooks,
paperbacks…
A selection of 49 words for
snow
Quanlit
Snow in air
Aput
qannirsuq
Snow on
ground
Thick snow
in air
New fallen
snow
Snowy
crust
snowy
Apusiniq
snowdrift
Nitaalaq
Apirlaat
Pukak
Imalik
Putsinniq
Aputitaq
Mangiggal
Wet snow
falling
Wet snow
on top of
ice
Snow
patch
Hard snow
Now, what do you notice
about the translations?
• It is interesting how we often need
several words to do justice to the
descriptive power of the Eskimoes’
one.
• Consider your descriptive sentences…
how precise were you with your
description?
• Did you use varied vocabulary,
sentence length and language for
sensory effect?
• Did your neighbour?
What is striking
about this image?
What is striking
About the colours?
What ideas do we
get about the
Content of the film?
What is the single
Most striking thing
In the picture?
Review:
You are thousands of feet up one of the most
treacherous peaks in the world, Siula Grande in the
Peruvian Andes. The descent would be gruelling
enough even if your climbing partner hadn't broken
his leg, requiring you to winch him down yard by
yard with a rope 8mm thick. Progress is agonizingly
slow; your body is seizing up from dehydration, and
the wind is tearing your skin off.
Suddenly the rope goes taut and stays taut. Your friend
is hanging over the edge of an ice cliff, screaming at
you to stop lowering him, but all you can hear is the
howling blizzard. For all you know he's probably
dead. You daren't move in case his weight drags
you right off the mountain-face, and you remain
rooted to the spot for hours, until the realization
dawns that if you don't take action soon you are
going to die.
Would you cut the rope?
Response:
• How does the opening paragraph
draw in the reader? Discuss and
feedback.
• 5/8 minutes ( not that I’m
counting…)
Tension
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I lolled on the rope, scarcely able to hold my head up. An awful weariness
washed through me, and with it a fervent hope that this endless hanging
would soon be over. There was no need for the torture. I wanted with all my
heart for it to finish.
The rope jolted down a few inches. How long will you be, Simon? I thought.
How long before you join me? It would be soon. I could feel the rope tremble
again; wire-tight, it told me the truth as well as any phone call. So! It ends
here. Pity! I hope somebody finds us, and knows we climbed the West
Face. I don't want to disappear without trace. They'd never know we did it.
The wind swung me in a gentle circle. I looked at the crevasse beneath me,
waiting for me. It was big. Twenty feet wide at least. I guessed that I was
hanging fifty feet above it. It stretched along the base of the ice cliff. Below
me it was covered with a roof of snow, but to the right it opened out and a
dark space yawned there. Bottomless, I thought idly. No. They're never
bottomless. I wonder how deep I will go? To the bottom ... to the water at
the bottom? God! I hope not!
Another jerk. Above me the rope sawed through the cliff edge, dislodging
chunks of crusty ice. I stared at it stretching into the darkness above. Cold
had long since won its battle.
There was no feeling in my arms and legs. Everything slowed and softened.
Thoughts became idle questions, never answered. I accepted that I was to
die. There was no alternative. It caused me no dreadful fear. I was numb
with cold and felt no pain; so senselessly cold that I craved sleep and cared
nothing for the consequences. It would be a dreamless sleep. Reality had
become a nightmare, and sleep beckoned insistently; a black hole calling
me, pain-free, lost in time, like death.
The torch beam died. The cold had killed the batteries. I saw stars in a dark
gap above me. The storm was over. I was glad to see them again. They
seemed far away. And bright: you'd think them gemstones hanging there,
floating in air above. Some moved, little winking moves, on and off, on and
off, floating the brightest sparks of light down to me.
Then, what I had waited for pounced on me. The stars went out, and I fell.
Like something come alive, the rope lashed violently against my face and I
fell silently, endlessly into nothingness, as if dreaming of falling.
Tension…
• Look at the text on pg 107:void 2.3.doc
• Consider how the writer makes this
experience tense.
• use PEE in your answer
• ( The writer creates extra tension by
the use of questions, exclamations and
short sentence fragments: “The rope
jolted down a few inches. How long will
you be, Simon? I thought. How long
before you join me? It would be soon. “
The reader is engaged in the fear of
the narrator.)
TASK ,
• write PEE bullets to describe
three ways in which the writer
makes his writing tense.
• In 10 minutes we will swap papers
and add 1 extra point to the list.
We should get something
like
this:
• • A viewpoint that involves the reader (make them see as
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character sees, sharing partial discovery)
• A setting with atmosphere
• A particular situation, sharply depicted
• Appeals to one or more of the senses (maybe exaggerated)
• Similes or metaphors to create vivid sensations • Well chosen
and limited direct speech - if used
• Unexplained details/ hinted at worries or fears or expectations reader asks questions
• Varied sentence length and structure
• Short sentences or minor sentences used for effect • Repetition
of key phrases or words
• Time reminders - ticking clock, time checks, temporal
connectives
• Punctuation that acts to slow down or speed up the pace
• Powerful verbs or verbs that add to doubts and fears and
expectations ("seemed", "might have been...")
• Vivid noun phrases - don't overuse adjectives • Well chosen
adverbs
• Combinations and variety of technique build and vary the level
of tension which can reach a climax, be held at that point of
climax or quickly relaxed - the tension has been
structured/organised/shaped to create the fear or excitement
REMEMBER: Use vivid, telling details; and sentences that
maximise feelings or atmosphere.