We’ve been working on writing descriptively this half term and this week’s main aim was to get our readers feeling tense. Here are three great pieces of writing.
Lewis
I was having a calm, relaxing flight until a baby started to cry – classic. The scream engulfed my ears in noise. I didn’t think much of it for five minutes or so… Suddenly, my food started to shake vigorously – very vigorously. Then, the air-con slowed down and the seatbelt sign began to flicker. Then, uncharacteristically, the air stewards looked rather nervous. I started to panic as we had hit some turbulence. Were my eyes deceiving me? The TV stuttered and then went blank – my heart sank. Anxiously, I waited until large bang reverberated around the cabin. It was a suitcase falling out of the overhead lockers… I could feel the tension around me. The air masks dropped over my head as wisps of smoke filled the fuselage. The plane leaned to the right. We were going down.
Humairah
…
As I started to eat, the air-com – loud and noisy – began to slow down every minute until it finally turned off. I, and most people, thought it broke and ignored it. The lights began to flicker same as the seatbelt sign. Getting quicker every minute, the food and trays – loud and shaking – were moving side to side. The shake of the seats reverberated through my body. I still stayed calm. I decided to look through my window and I saw tiny cracks in the wings. Just then, my TV screen began to get fuzzy – probably a glitch – and then turn off completely. That happened to everybody else’s. Some people began to panic – but not me. Then, when I tried to relax and keep calm, the hum of the engine began to get louder and louder as if it were a swarm of bees collecting pollen from flowers in a meadow.
…
Grace
Beginning to doze off in the cool breeze of the air-con, I noticed the breeze slowed. This didn’t concern me. Until… it stopped. I tried everything: pressing the buttons, opening and closing the air-con flaps and trying to tell and air steward or stewardess. They wouldn’t listen. No matter how hard I tried, it didn’t work. So relaxing!
A short minute later, I heard a baby’s shriek from several seats behind me. It was reverberating around my head. I tried getting the thickest cushion I had. Reaching down to get my pillow, I noticed the food on my steel-grey tray was shaking. The crying had now suddenly stopped. I looked around the plane – new and comfortable – and noticed the window cover was shaking. I looked to see if anything else was shaking, It was – everything was shaking.
At home, have a look at this writing together. You could discuss:
- what they’ve done well
- what we were writing about
- how you feel as a reader
- what your child’s writing was like