Descriptosaurus: A Language Toolkit and Support for Creative Writing Ages 9 to 12

Now in its fully updated fourth edition, the best-selling Descriptosaurus; the first book for creative writing that is a thematic expansion of a dictionary and a thesaurus; continues to help improve students' creative writing, confidence and facility with sentence construction.

It provides young writers with a language toolkit with which to expand their descriptive vocabulary, experiment with language and sentence structure and build up narratives based around settings, characters and creatures. Its inspiring, original and proven approach encourages use of the correct grammatical structures, and helps children add colour to their writing through evaluation and experimentation.

This expanded edition has been tailored to the needs of children aged 9-12. It includes new vocabulary for non-fiction topics such as volcanoes, mountains and caves and an additional chapter to cover the popular primary topic of cold climates and polar exploration. Also new guidance is provided on how word clines can be used to expand vocabulary and explore shades of meaning and new tools provided to support the teaching of sentence construction using imitation, combining and expansion techniques.

Accompanied by Instructor and Student Resources containing all the games, planning sheets and vocabulary builders from the book, it is written for English teachers, literacy coordinators and postgraduate primary teaching students.

Table of Contents

Front Matter

• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• ntroduction
• How to use this book

PART 1 – SETTINGS

Landscapes

1. Woods, forests, jungles and rainforests
2. Mountains
3. Caves
4. Beaches, islands and deserts
5. Cold Climates
6. Ground and paths
7. Streams, rivers, lakes and waterfalls
8. Sea and waves

Settlements

9. Cities, towns and villages

10. Roads

11. Gardens

12. Buildings

13. Doors, halls, corridors and stairs

14. Rooms

Atmosphere

15. Dawn and dusk

16. Seasons

17. Rain, mist and fog

18. Wind, thunder and lightning

19. Smell and touch

20. Sound

PART 2 – CHARACTERS

Appearance

21. Age, height and shape

22. Face

23. Eyes

24. Mouth, teeth, nose and ears

25. Hands and fingers

26. Hair and facial hair

27. Clothes

28. Voice

Emotions & Personality

29. Excited, happy

30. Concentrating, determined

31. Sympathetic, caring

32. Relieved

33. Angry, irritated, aggressive, impatient

34. Cold, evil, arrogant, sly

35. Frightened, timid

36. Nervous, embarrassed, shy

37. Sad, miserable

38. Tired

39. Pain

PART 3 – CREATURES

40. Parts, size, shape, colour and covering

41. Head

42. Eyes

43. Arms and legs

44. Wings and tails

45. Smell and sound

46. Movement

47. Habitat

48. Abilities and actions

49. Weapons and destruction

PART 4 – GRAMMAR IN A CREATIVE CONTEXT

Section 1 Words

50. Word Classes Classification

51. Word Classes Summary Table

52. Word Clines (Shades of Meaning)

53. Adverbs

Section 2 Phrases and Clauses

54. Subject and predicate

55. Grammar tools

56. What each craft tool adds to a sentence

57. Poetry

58. Connecting sentences, paragraphs, scenes

Section 3 Sentence Construction

59. Sentence construction investigations

60. Sentence imitation

61. Sentence combining

62. Sentence combining Poetry

63. Summarising Non-fiction texts

64. Creating a sentence combining exercise

65. De-combining to correct errors and confused constructions

66. Sentence expansion

67. Modelled sentences

68. How to build an action scene

69. Sentence Combining: SCIR – The Wolf

Bibliography