Stage 3 Writing

This Term Stage 3 has been learning to analyse the features of texts. They have focused on the work of Jackie French. Her picture books ‘Fire’, ‘Flood’ and ‘Drought’, illustrated by Bruce Whatley are full of literary devices and gave students lots of food for thought.   

Students pulled apart examples of work so they could identify the structure and vocabulary they needed to use in their own writing. They worked over the term to set specific goals that targeted areas they wanted to focus on to improve their writing. Students supported each other by giving critical feedback after each big write. Below are some examples of our work.

Fires,Floods and Droughts are all natural disasters and they are all in a book series written by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce Whatley. These books all tell a story about either a flood,fire or drought. Their unique illustrations paired with the sophisticated rhyming verses deliver heartfelt messages to the reader.

The first book in the series is "fire" which tells the tale of a country being scorched by the flames and the use of rustic and dull colors paired with the picturesque view of the land. This book in particular had countless examples of human connection, one such example was on page twelve where it showed a group of three firefighters fighting on the frontlines against the fiery blaze made it so much more emotionally beautiful.

 Moving to the other side of the scale in the book "Flood" followed a dog that was experiencing a flood desperately trying to find its family,we finally receive closure on the last page which shows the watery eyes of the dog being hugged by a small child. There were droves of examples of human connection such as on page five which shows a group of people barely illuminated by the lights by people's torches sailing through the street on a boat looking for survivors in the water. Even on the pages where it looks like you can't see any examples of human connection there will be many hidden in them. Like on page fifteen you can see the family whose house got decimated by the floods. It may not look like much but if you look to the bottom right of the page you can see the dog in almost every scene.

In the book "drought" it shows less human connection in the story but is rich in personification one of the best examples is on page ten which demonstrates the effect that the drought has had on the dirt forming cracks and fissures in the ground the overarching text reads "So hot the baked rocks could cry,no cloud flours the blue-soaked sky" this illuminates that the drought doesn't just have an effect on the humans that live there but the environment too.

Bruce Whately had many interesting illustration techniques that carried over to all of the books rather than just one of them. The most interesting technique was the spots and droops of paint on every page immersed the reader into feeling like they were almost there but it wasn't just reused garbage on every book such as how fire had spots of ash on the book which made it more believable,"flood" had darker more dripeir paint spots paired with the dark and miserable colors made it more immersive to the reader. And finally "drought" had more bright and dry colors which made it more plausible that it was a drought and the book was a point of view from someone experiencing a drought.

Bruce Whately and Jackie French made a great book series overall and I would recommend it to any new reader. They perfectly encapsulate the feeling of being in a drought,fire or flood it demonstrated the aspect of human connection perfectly ultimately delivering a heartfelt book series.

 By Sam Pope

My analysis of the three books fire,flood,drought

The three books fire,drought and flood by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley are based on real life events in Australia. Jackie French and Bruce Whatley use high modality words, strong literary devices and engaging illustrations to demonstrate feelings and experiences of the character.

Personification is a non living thing turned into a human characteristic. the authors (  Jackie French and Bruce Whatley) regularly use literary devices to make a powerful and engaging text and to engage the reader.In the text 'fire' a strong,powerful example of is leaves like paper, burning,bleeding trees turned torches, flaming, feeding, fires, the beast that ate it all, fire now a red wall. This bit of the text demonstrates a variety of literary devices e.g. metaphor,simile, personification and alliteration. It makes the reader think of how bright the fire looked by saying it looked like a torch. It also shows how red the fire was because it looked like it was bleeding because of the sap coming out. Another perfect example in the book 'flood' is the rain turned savage.This makes the reader think it was so heavy that it looked savage. The word savage means violent, extreme,vicious and how it could hurt someone so the flood could hurt someone or the environment. This is another amazing literary device. In the book 'drought' there is also a high level of personification shown , an example is its ceaseless dry  hands grabbed and glared. As a reader this makes me think the drought grabbed the environment and won't let go and there is no rain insight.These are all extraordinary examples of literary devices in the book 'Flood', 'Fire' and 'Drought' by French and whatley.

Illustration is the pictures in the book drawn by Bruce Whatley. He  did an extraordinary job of the drawings in 'Flood', 'Fire' and 'Drought' books. In the text fire he has used colours of reds and oranges to make the fire look angry and made a really bright spot to match the personification of a torch. He also made the ash evaporate in the air where there was a fire. As a reader this makes you feel empathy and anxious for farmers and people that had their house burnt down. This page had really meaningful illustrations. Another example is the hay being delivered to drought areas and framers in need. There are bright white ( headlights) to represent  the line of trucks. There are dark dull colours being shown to demonstrate sad,miserable times because dull colors aren't happy.  In the book 'Flood' Whatley has used dribbles down all the pages except the second last page where it is very bright and happy that the flood is over but on all the other pages have dull sad colours and dribbles (representing tears of sadness). Bruce Whatley in every page in every book it is meaningful.

In 'flood' it shows human connection by people volunteering to save and searching people by  putting them in boats and searching for lost bodies in the water and taking them to evacuation centers. In the book 'Fire'  the human connection was that the firefighters and volunteers were  working so hard they couldn't reach the area .  This shows how busy they were trying to keep houses,  properties, farms and ect.

By Olivia Cooke

Big Write Week Ten - Analyzing 'Flood, Fire, Drought"

' Flood, Fire and Drought' are three books that we have been studying in class for the past 3 weeks. When a reader is reading these books they will recognize that the stories are  all based on real life fires, floods and droughts. In the story ' Flood' the real life base is the Brisbane Floods. On one page in the book there is the flooded brisbane river. that points out the real life event. In 'Fire' the base of the story is the Australian bushfires that spread through Victorian country. On one of the pages in 'Fire' a man firefighter is feeding a koala some water. That firefighter is a Victorian firefighter. Of course we can't forget about ' Drought'! ' Drought' is based on the 'Tinderbox' drought that spanned for 2 years from 2017 to 2019. These events changed peoples lives forever and in all of the books that are shown. There are a lot of feelings that are affecting the reader's mind and heart. Reading all three books makes the reader want to read more so Bruce Whatley and Jckie French have created so many amazing books and they have succeeded in creating engaging kids books. Yes, there are pages with some confronting illustrations but overall they are really interesting and engaging. 

Human Connection

Human Connection is a bond between humans and the environment, animals and other humans. Jackie French and Bruce Whatley have used many different examples of human connection throughout all three books 'Fire, Flood and Drought'. A very engaging example from 'Flood' is when all the strangers offer their hands and homes to  help those who are suffering. This can make you have mixed emotions about what is happening and what the reader will predict will happen next too. When someone reads a story about a flood or a natural disaster it can worry the reader because by reading just a little part, it can become very confronting for the reader. Bruce Whatley is trying to make the story come to life and become more real by putting in the Brisbane floods. On one of the pages, the illustration on that page is the brisbane river. By putting that river in it has made the story a courageous journey for the reader. 

It manipulates the reader to feel happy that people are making changes. Some readers could relate because 'Flood' is based on the Brisbane floods in 2022. The story is based on this event to create a real life sense of what people went through in the floods and how other people helped. The connection between a human and other humans is really important in times of real life crisis. 

Personification and Interesting Language 

Personification is giving a nonliving thing (E.G. A house) human qualities. ( The  house walked to the shops.)In stories a lot of authors use a variety of language features. One example of personification from the story ' Drought' is ' So dry the hot baked rocks could cry.' When a reader reads such a sad part of a story like this it can give the reader a rollercoaster of emotions or feelings at the same time. Jackie French has written this to create a sense of sadness and to bring a tear to the reader's eye when they read this to make them realize how hot the sun is in a drought that is so serious. The adversity in the book is so amazing how the farmer can overcome the hiccup of the wheat crop dying because it is the thing that provides for his family. When there is one thing that is trying to provide for a family it is important to keep going and persevering. Reading those few harsh words can modify the reader's feelings and tied emotions. The story ' Drought' is a real life event that occurred from 2017 to 2019.  This drought went on for two years and was named " Tinder box drought'. When the reader reads ' White sheets slashed the sky' it has a very large picture in your head of what that would look like. They realize that the author has made this to make the story have a good meaning in the brain of the reader. 

 By Maddy Copeland

Exploring Feeling In Flood Fire Drought

The books are about disasters such as fires,floods,droughts.

Jackie French and Bruce Whatley Show feeling by using personification imagery and human connection.

Authors regularly use a range of literacy devices to make texts more powerful and engaging, and appeal to the reader. In the texts fire,flood,drought Jackie French and Bruce Whatley use personification, similes, metaphors , alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhyming providing more detail and supporting the illustrations. These examples are explicitly creatively used throughout flood. For Example the rain turned savage showing that it was louder and heavier and later in the books shows how devastating it can be.

Jackie French and Bruce Whatley use illustrator’s techniques(pictures) throughout books; this is where they use colors, perspective and what the place looks like. For example in the book drought they use light warmer colors like yellow because it's hot and dry and hasn't rained for a long time.

The perspective part is what you can see for example birds eye view is where you're looking down like a bird would.

Jackie French and Bruce Whatley use human connections to give it more depth in the story and make it more engaging, it's when people help other people and animals in need. For example in the book fire the man goes to the koala to feed it water, also the firefighters helping the other people risking their own life to help others.

Jackie French and Bruce Whatley consistently and creatively use these examples in their books making it more engaging and interesting.

By Chase Gelhaar

Exploring feeling in fire flood drought

These books are about natural disasters that have happened in Australia and Jackie French and Bruce Whatley are showing our feelings in these books and the illustrations that are drawn on the page by Bruce and the words that were written by Jackie French makes me feel that i am actually THERE.

I think some personification shown in the book flood could be when the creek is nibbling at the banks. It makes me think of a river getting higher and higher and how hard the rain is pouring down from the angry sky. Another example  of personification would be when the water bursts across the river and bends up onto the streets when I hear that I can Imagine that the atrocious water being as mean as it can and how fast the waters are going and how sad and sacred   the people would be.

In  fire the illustration are magnificence and when I see the dripping paint dripping down the page I think that the dripping paint would the ashes blowing around and scorching orange and black sparks that are flicking up everywhere and i makes me feel of how horrified i would be and how they used dark colors when the fire was over to how much damage the terrible, devastating  bushfire and when the fire was awake that's when all the bright colors were out like red,orange and yellow  to show that how hot it was and massive the bushfire was.

An example of human connection could be for me is when the farmer was sitting in the wheat field looking and feeling that derstation of all his dead crop dand that shows human connection because of the man and the environment and the look on his face made me think of how sad he would be and all dead crop made me think of the connection between the man and crop because him and his family would be devastating because they would of put a lot of effet in the crop  and i also think that another example of human connection would be when all the hay trucks were coming giving hay to the farmers that need it for there animals that are suffering from the drought and  i think that shows human connection because the farmers need the hay trucks so the hay truck drivers are coming in with hay to help the farmers with dying animals.

Finally these books that have been written by Jackie french and illustrated by Bruce Whatley have made me think in everyday life how people are suffering from these terrible natural disasters and in human connection it shows that people help each other when they need it and the surroundings they are in and for the illustrations that is just amazing how  Bruce used the illustration it really makes me feel like i am actually there and how terrible it was and how jackie used her personification it really makes you feel how mean and scared the people would of been in these terrible and most nastiest times. Jackie French and Bruce Whatley are truly good at working together and they both have their amazing talents.

By Charlie Schalk