I stopped to look more closely.

I stopped to look more closely.
These days and especially these days, we all realise the increasing pressure on our students. The speed of change, the uncertainty, the anxieties all around. This exercise is designed to provide a little oasis of calm in a busy world and at the same time help with their writing skills and, in fact, use their writing skills to help create that oasis of calm.
The task is for them to imagine walking in the countryside somewhere when they come across something that causes them to stop and just look. It may be a thing of beauty, or a thing of curiosity or something unusual or unexpected.
Then ask them to write about their walk and then describe the thing they stop for in such a way as to create a calmness of perception.
Below is an example to read to them entitled: “The blue bird on the old statue”. Read it through with them and discuss it and point out how the writing slows time down and provides a meditative observation.
Then ask them to have a go themselves. You may wish to have ready a selection of pictures of things found in the countryside to help boost their imaginations.