Planning questions
- How does the heat affect the characters’ plans?
- What problem must they solve?
- What does the changing weather reveal?
NarrativeYears 3–9
The Heatwave
The hottest day anyone can remember has arrived, and the heat is changing everyone’s plans. Write a story that takes place during a heatwave.
Bring your characters and setting to life, and give your story a clear beginning, complication and resolution.
NarrativeYears 3–9
The Heatwave
The hottest day anyone can remember has arrived, and the heat is changing everyone’s plans. Write a story that takes place during a heatwave.
Bring your characters and setting to life, and give your story a clear beginning, complication and resolution.
Planning and teaching notes
Writer’s checklist
- Plan the characters, setting and main problem.
- Shape the events so the reader can follow what happens.
- Choose words carefully and vary your sentences.
- Use paragraphs, punctuation and spelling to make meaning clear.
- Reread and edit before you finish.
Teaching notes
Let the setting drive a story, or argue for a practical safety skill.
Support: Collect words and details for how heat looks, sounds and feels before you plan.
Extend: Use the weather to build tension, then let it change at the turning point of the story.
Choose one skill from your current teaching. Model it and practise it together before students write, then check it again in a later task.
How to teach narrative writingOriginal Writing Boost classroom resource for Years 3–9. Print and share with your class.
Feedback on the story they write
Writing Boost marks students’ writing and gives each writer feedback for their next draft.
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Typed or handwritten
Bring typed work into Writing Boost, or review a transcript of a handwritten piece before sending it for feedback.
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Feedback on each criterion
Students see what is working and where to focus next, with a specific change to try in their draft. From “improve your vocabulary” to a next step a writer can act on.
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Revise and compare drafts
Feedback stays close while students revise. Compare versions to see what changed and talk about why. Students make the changes. The writing stays theirs. See a writing example
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See the whole class
See criterion results across your class, spot shared needs and strengths, and open the student work behind them.
Illustrative product views with example writing and fictional class data.
See Writing Boost in a demo
- Persuasive
