The Hunger Games - Race to the Cornucopia! (Descriptive Writing Lesson)

This engaging and informative lesson enables students to compose sophisticated, imaginative creative writing, through producing a first person account about competing in the opening stages of The Hunger Games. In order to do so, students first analyse the descriptive writing devices and sentence structures used by Suzanne Collins in Chapter 11 of The Hunger Games - the section in which the Hunger Games commence – before applying what they have learnt to their own compositions.

The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through:

Defining each of the different types of descriptive devices, through playing a fun, interactive bingo game;
Reading an extract from Chapter 11 of the text (provided) which describes the moments immediately before and after the Hunger Games commence;
Identifying the language techniques used in the extract to paint an image of place in the minds of the readers, and to create the desired atmosphere;
Analysing the effectiveness of each of Collins’ descriptive devices;
Analysing the sentence structures and lengths employed by Collins in the extract;
Creating their own first-person description of the horrific moments at the Cornucopia, before and after the Hunger Games begin;
Peer assessing each other’s learning attempts.

Included is:
Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and comprehensive;
Bingo Cards for the starter activity (and host instructions/ questions);’
Extract from Chapter 11 of The Hunger Games;
Structure strips to support the descriptive writing;
Writing to Describe Helpsheet to support the descriptive writing;
Comprehensive Lesson Plan.
All resources are provided in Word (for easy editing) and PDF (to ensure formatting remains fixed between different computers).
There are also opportunities for group learning, speaking and listening, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. I originally used these resources with year 8 classes, however colleagues have used them for between years 5 and 10 with some adaptations.

All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.