Writing extended descriptions is a core skill for geography students. There are a range of opportunities for students to write longer pieces of work throughout the Frozen Oceans Geography 11-14 Unit.
- Lesson 1: diary entry on first arriving in the Arctic
- Lesson 2: blog post about the Arctic Ocean and sea ice
- Lesson 5: argue how the Arctic should be governed
- Lesson 7: article on the importance of the oceans
- Lesson 7: job application to join a polar expedition
This Subject Update focuses on developing skills for writing geographical descriptions based on the blog post about the Arctic Ocean and sea ice in Lesson 2.
Techniques for developing literacy skills
The lesson uses five main techniques to develop literacy skills:
- Writing for a purpose: the blog post activity has an explicit purpose of explaining a remote environment to a youth audience.
- Writing for an external audience: students are motivated by writing for audiences other than their teacher.
- Providing a range of source material: a range of photos, video and written materials, alongside useful websites are available to suit students of all abilities.
- Scaffolding extended writing: the extended writing exercise is broken down into four sections and a writing frame is provided.
- Modelling extended writing: each section is then modelled on a separate slide.