Text model - Janet Frame excerpt

Our text model today, to help us see how a writer has used adjectives to help add detail to a short description of a treasured memory...from 'To the Is-land' by NZ writer Janet Frame (made even more real for the pupils as Glenham is one of our neighbours!)...

My memory is once again of the colours and spaces and natural features of the outside world.

On our first week in our Glenham house on the hill, I discovered a place, my place.

Exploring by myself, I found a secret place among old, fallen trees by a tiny creek, with a moss-covered log to sit on while the new-leaved branches of the silver birch tree formed a roof shutting out the sky except for the patterned holes of sunlight. The ground was covered with masses of old, used leaves, squelchy, slippery, wet.

I sat on the log and looked around myself. I was overcome by a delicious feeling of discovery, of gratitude, of possession. I knew that this place was entirely mine; mine the moss, the creek, the log, the secrecy.