The Island Project

The Island Project

Learning Objective: To become inspired and feel creative

Lesson 1

Becoming Inspired!

'As I pored upon my map of 'Treasure Island', the future characters of the book began to appear there visibly among imaginary woods... the next thing I knew, I had some papers before me and was writing out a list of chapters

.'

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’

(Alice in Wonderland)

The first part of the Island Project involves you thinking up and creating your own ‘Adventure Island’. You will need to draw a map of your island. Your island will have never been discovered before.You will need to make up your own information for the island and even imagine what it would be like to wake up and find your self there.

Creating your Adventure Island

To create a fact file about your island.

Learning Objective

What is the population of your island?Which ocean is the island in?How big is the island? (It must be very small to have remained undiscovered until now!)How did the island get its name?What is the main language and currency? (Remember that your island is undiscovered so you will have to make up what the language and currency is!)Describe the weather conditions/climate.Describe the animal and plant life that can be found in the territory.Any other facts/information:

Fact file

Invent a pictorial language using your island’s environment as inspiration.

  Today you shall start to write a narrative description of the island. Your aim is to paint a vivid picture in your reader’s mind using words only.    

Learning Objective

Becoming Inspired!

What can you see?Azure ocean and palm lined shoresWhat can you hear?The ferocious roar of the four headed dragonWhat can you smell?The balmy night skyWhat can you taste?Tangy water melonWhat can you touch?The warm and fuzzy texture of sand between my feet 

Use the picture to spark your imagination…

My Island Word Wall: Write a list (at least 15) of descriptive words about your island that you want to include in your story.Or If you are feeling super smart, write a word beginning with each letter of the alphabet and write a sentence for each word

Activity

Learning Objective: To create a vivid setting. Here you need to stretch your imagination to the absolute limit.Check out these places from literature….

Setting

The mermaids live in Mermaids' Lagoon and can often be found brushing their beautiful hair. This is also the location of Marooners' Rock. It is not very safe for mortals to come anywhere near here at night, for it is the most dangerous place in Neverland.The "Black Castle“ is an old abandoned castle, with stone dragons all over it. Neverpeak Mountain is the huge mountain that is right in the middle of Neverland. When a child is on top of Neverpeak Mountain, he or she can see over anyone and anything and can see beyond belief.The Maze of Regrets is a maze where all the mothers of the Lost Boys go to find their boys. This was thought to be a maze of witches.Pixie Hollow is where Tinker Bell and her tiny fairy friends live

In

Neverland

The Emerald City is the end of the yellow brick road, which starts in Munchkin Country. Everyone in the Emerald City is made to wear green-tinted glasses to protect their eyes from the "brightness and glory" of the city, but in effect makes everything appear green when it is, in fact, "no more green than any other city”. The Deadly Desert with life-destroying sands. Anyone who sets foot into the sand of any of these deserts turns into sand themselves. The Yellow brick road a road paved with yellow bricks.

In Oz

But Miss, it doesn’t exist…

How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none ... And no one has a right to say that no water babies exist till they have seen no water babies existing, which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water babies.

To work effectively to write a collaborative story.

Learning Objective:

From Miss Swann’s inspiration envelope, pick one place, one person and one object which sparks your imagination.Use three words to describe each.Present your ideas to the class.

Starter Activity:

You are going to work together as a group to write five stories, each using the place, person and object you previously selected. Each person in your groups needs a Collaborative storytelling worksheetStart with the opening - each person should write a paragraph to start a storyNow pass your worksheet round in a circle so that each person has their neighbour's storyRead what your neighbour has written and then write the next part of the storyKeep passing the worksheets around the group after each section, until all five are complete. Be as imaginative as you can!

Task

Alfred Hitchcock said

“A good story is life, with the dull parts taken out."

http://www.teachers.tv/videos/writing-an-adventure-story-desert-island Imagine you have just woken up on the beach of a mysterious island.Perhaps you fell from a passing boat and the sea washed you ashore.Complete the opening passage of a story describing what you see, hear, smell and feel. I loudly coughed myself awake; I could taste salt and sand in my mouth. I sat up and looked around me as I realised I was a long, long way from home…

Discovering your island

Design a flag for your island

Choose eight records, a book and a luxury to take with you to the mythical desert island.Listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/did

Desert Island Discs

Develop effective characters which bring your story to life and give them interesting names.Literature is flooded with characters with great names: Scarlet O’Hara, Miss Havisham, The one-eyed bagman.The names you choose should reveal something about your characters: who they are, where they come from or where they are going. What about: Argus Bellamy, Cap'n Logan Graybeard, Rancid Radley Smithe, Pear-Shaped Jack, Thiefin' Casey Scarr?

Learning Objective:

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.

Ignatius J Reilley

A gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with knobs.

Captain Cuttle

Who are these characters and where do they come from?

Guilliver’s

Travels

Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter

“

And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws."

Imagine that you meet only one friendly person on the island. (There might be other people but only this one person is friendly). The person has lived on the island away from civilization for many years and they don’t speak English but they help you by sharing food and showing you where to find water.Draw a picture of your friend and write a brief description underneath.

Task: Discovering a friend

A girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and discovers an amazing word of strange creatures like the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and a giant caterpillar.

Alice in Wonderland

Or take inspiration from real people…

a Scottish sailor who survived on a deserted island for four yearsHe spent four years and four months of isolation on the island.

Alexander Selkirk- The real Robinson Crusoe

Today you will make your characters speak. Dialogue brings characters to life and adds interest

Learning Objective:

babblemurmurmuttercommenttittle-tattleholleraddressteasingchitchatscream

Task- How many words for ‘speak’ can you think of?

chatter

mumble

stutter

remark

gossip

preach

lecture

banter

whisper

shout

"You're late again, Clarence!" Petunia looked at her watch. "How much time does it take to put on your shoes, anyway?“"Didn't anybody do the homework?" Miss Smith tapped her ruler menacingly on the desk. "There will be a test on this chapter tomorrow."

But don’t overdo ‘he said’ and ‘she said’…

Watch Bitesize - Better Writing Skills - 3b. Punctuation - Speech Marks

What are they talking about?

‘It’s not as good as the ordinary kind,’ he said, talking with his mouth full.

‘Because it was

worms

!’ cried Mrs Twit, clapping her hands and stamping her feet on the floor and rocking with horrible laughter.

‘What

can

have happened?’ Mrs Twit said, staring at her old walking stick.

‘You’ve got the

shrinks

!’ cried Mr Twit, pointing his finger at her like a pistol.

‘You won’t last long if you don’t,’ said Mr Twit, giving her another grizzly grin.

‘Very well my angel,’ said Mr Twit and with a ghoulish grin on his lips he knelt down at her feet.

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.""How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice."You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

You now have your setting and your characters. Now you are going to write an enthralling and entertaining plot.

Learning objective:

A good structure: beginning, middle and end;A ‘punchy’ start that ‘grabs’ the readers attention, such as speech, onomatopoeia or a piece of great description;

What makes a good story?

After some time on the island with your friend you both get into an adventure of some kind: perhaps you find treasure; or rescue animals from poachers; or get captured by man-eating cannibals and have to escape before you are made into soup. Remember to use detailed description.

Discovering adventure

What happens?Thoughts and Feelings?How do you survive?Dialogue?Cliff-hanger.

Describe the sceneThe first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it and rushes and water lilies grew at the deep end (Black Beauty by Anna Sewell).

Captivate your reader by painting a vivid picture for your readers

Granny Smith, an ordinary, little, old white-haired lady, resting on a seat in a public park, began to feel decidedly peculiar… Granny Smith was old and her eyesight and hearing were not as good as they used to be. Suddenly a beam of blue light shot out of nowhere, it seemed, and struck the little old lady.

Describe the character

The iron man came to the top of the cliff. How far had he walked? Nobody knew. Where had he come from? Nobody knew. How was he made? Nobody knew. Taller than a house, the Iron Man stood at the top of the cliff, on the very brink, in the darkness.

This story starts mysteriously with a simple sentence followed by questions

You can begin your story in different ways, depending upon the type of story you want to create.By beginning in the middle of the action.By describing the setting.By describing the main character.By starting mysteriously with questions

Recap

Extension Tasks

Draw some diagrams of the different wild life that live on your island.

Discovering the animals

To improve upon your knowledge of persuasive writing ; To use emotive words, directive language, rhetorical questions to write a holiday brochure for your island.

Learning objective:

This fabulous, luxury, friendly, family hotel has its own beachfront at the quieter end of the bay. It is only a tiny walk from the golden sands and a short hop from the colourful, unspoilt village. The wonderful views are what make this hotel such a glorious, relaxing place in which to stay. Some rooms have spacious balconies, and most of these enjoy stunning sea views. All the rooms are simply but tastefully furnished. Freda and Max, the owners, create a warm, friendly environment in which guests can relax in comfort

Underline

all

the adjectives used.

The second half of this project will require you to do some research on real life islands around the world. You will need access to atlases, maps, the internet and possibly the library. For each island you will need to find out some specific information and also sketch or draw maps and plans of the location.After the research you will need to organize the data or information you have collected either into charts or tables as directed.

The Research

Draw a map of Tristan Da Cunha and the other islands in its territory.

Tristan Da Cunha

Sketch the flag for Tristan

Da

Cunha

What is the population of Tristan Da Cunha?Which ocean is the island in?How big is the island?How did the island get its name?What is the main language and currency?Describe the weather conditions/climate.Describe the animal and plant life that can be found in the territory.Any other facts/information:

There are 13 known species of breeding seabirds on the island and two species of resident land birds. The seabirds include: northern rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes moseleyi), Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross (Thalassarche chlororhynchus), sooty albatross (Phoebetria fusca), …

Describe the animal and plant life that can be found in the territor

y.

Northern

rockhopper

penguin

(

Eudyptes

moseleyi

),

Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross

(

Thalassarche

chlororhynchus

)

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/OakIsland/story.html

Oak Island

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,     Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea. Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,     And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea. Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat, Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,     To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar? Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea--     Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar! Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,     The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

Pirate Story

by Robert Louis Stevenson