Comprehension and Writing Craft Resource Using a Fiction Extract- White Lies

Build students’ confidence in recognising writer craftsmanship, emotive vocabulary, atmosphere, inference and tension-driven narrative construction using a ready-made fiction extract and structured analytical tasks.

The text immerses learners into a tense trench-based scene, where the narrator’s internal conflict (guilt, fear, hunger, distrust and emotional overload) contrasts with developing atmospheric tension. The extract contains ambitious emotive language choices, sound disruption, sensory symbolism, direct address and pacing shifts, making it ideal for teaching:

how vocabulary influences tone and reader reaction

how short, fragmented or one-word paragraphs increase dramatic impact

how sentence rhythm can mirror panic, reflection or emotional restraint

how settings can feel menacing, silent, chaotic or oppressive

how emotion can be shown through gesture, sensory detail and pacing instead of explicit statements

Core Learning Pathway

Students move through a logical sequence of skills:

Technique spotting and effect discussion (looking at dialogue, punctuation, pauses, sensory markers, and emotive nouns/verbs)

Inference and internal state analysis

Ranking word impact from a curated emotive word bank

Rewriting a paragraph to inject atmosphere and tension using thesaurus-supported vocabulary refinement

Applying ambitious vocabulary into original sentences, reinforcing semantic precision and tone control

Evaluating narrative dynamics, exploring how relationships and emotion shift through the text to maintain reader interest

Teacher Benefits

Fully editable and print-ready format

Clear instructions that can be delivered on screen or in print

Enables evidence-led classroom discussion around tone, tension, reader positioning, structural pacing, and lexical effect

Designed for high engagement with minimal preparation

Ideal for vocabulary development, paragraph improvement, inference rehearsal or classroom modelling

Encourages independent thesaurus use before students write original narratives

Reinforces deliberate sentence craft rather than basic description