Frakenstories & The Writer's Practice

II: Skills Drills

Section II focuses on foundational writing skills such as observation, sense memory, recounting events, and examining evidence.

These experiences help students develop specific writing abilities while maintaining engagement through creative scenarios.

This experience develops close observation and inference skills—crucial abilities for both analytical and creative writing. Students practice:

  • Making detailed observations
  • Drawing reasonable conclusions from evidence
  • Understanding the difference between observation and inference
  • Recognising their own assumptions

It also introduces students to the idea of semiotics—that everything can be interpreted as a symbol of a larger meaning, and that interpretation may or may not be accurate.

Customise this prompt!

We strongly recommend you customise the prompt to suit your class. For example, use a screenshot of someone's phone home screen or some other personal space, such as a backpack, bookshelf, garage, or bedroom (and modify the prompt text accordingly).

This experience helps students develop vivid, sensory-rich writing by accessing personal memories. Key learning opportunities include:

  • Understanding the role of sensory details in effective writing
  • Developing a vocabulary for describing sensory experiences
  • Recognising how different senses contribute to memory and description
  • Learning to write with specificity and precision

The two versions offer different approaches:

  • V1 explores different emotions through sense memory
  • V2 explores a single memory through different sensory lenses

Both approaches help students build a toolkit for creating engaging, immersive writing.

This experience introduces narrative writing through personal or observed adventures. Students practise:

  • Structuring narratives effectively
  • Selecting relevant details
  • Building tension and interest
  • Understanding story arcs

The versions offer different approaches to narrative:

  • V1 emphasises personal experience and comparison
  • V2 introduces journalistic perspective and structured storytelling

This experience explores the relationship between memory and writing, helping students understand:

  • How memories are constructed and reconstructed
  • The role of detail in creating authenticity
  • The difference between experiencing and remembering
  • How to write about personal experiences effectively

Teaching tips

  • These skills drills work best when students understand they're practising specific techniques rather than creating polished pieces. Emphasise experimentation and play over perfection.
  • Keep track of particularly effective student examples—they can serve as models when similar techniques are needed in more complex writing tasks.
  • The skills developed here—careful observation, sensory detail, narrative structure, and memory work—form the foundation for more complex writing tasks in later sections. Help students make these connections explicit by referring back to these experiences when similar skills are needed in new contexts.
  • Use "Who Are They?" with subject-specific materials (analysing historical figures, literary characters).
  • Combine "Where Did You Go?" with content-area learning (describing historical events, scientific processes).
  • Adapt "You Did What?" for different genres (historical accounts, science lab reports) or incorporate current events in school (e.g. fairs or sports days).
  • Use these experiences as warm-ups for longer writing tasks that require similar skills
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