
Using an image stimulus from Robert Gonsalves, students explored sentence variations based on a writing exercise from the ETA publication Creative Horizons (2019) edited by Mel Dixon. Students worked in small groups to complete these activities:
Warm up
- scrutinise your image
- gather words and phrases – descriptive terms for each of the senses
- share with your group
- go deeper – ask questions: how has this happened? what happens next?
- what metaphors and sifts are suggested?
- go deeper still – can you identify thematic threads? conflict? is a narrative suggested?
- share these with your group
Revise sentence types
- simple: contains one verb
- compound: two or more complete sentences joined by a conjunction eg. for, and, but, or, yet, so
- complex: two or more complete sentences, one being dependent, joined by subordinating conjunctions (adverbs and relative pronouns) eg. after, before, while, when, although, because, though, unless, until
Example

- write a narrative using this sentence pattern from the words and ideas inspired by your image
- share with your group
Activity 1
- write your phone number at the top of a page: 0422 639 718
- separate the numbers – zeroes become 10, ones can be left as is or combined with the following number: 10. 4. 2. 2. 6. 3. 9. 7. 18.
- write sentences using the numbers in order – 10 words, then 4 words, then 2 words …
- create your own paragraphs from these sentences
- repeat using your group member’s phone numbers
- share and discuss
Activity 2 (will need prep time – cutting up numbers and sentence types which are then placed in envelopes or small bags)
- students take turns to pull out a number from the ‘paragraph’ bag, then pull out the required number of sentence types from the ‘sentence’ bag
- write a narrative in the given order of sentences
- repeat until your narrative is complete
- share with your group
Activity 3
