The Day the Ocean Vanished

Year 4

The Day the Ocean Vanished is a free, NAPLAN-aligned writing resource for Year 4 students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).

Year 4 AC9E4LE05 AC9E4LA06 AC9E4LA04 AC9E4LA12 AC9E4LA11 AC9E4LY06

Supports the Year 4 achievement standard (creating written texts).

Australian Curriculum content descriptions © ACARA. Writesy is not affiliated with or endorsed by ACARA.

Lena had always loved the beach, the sound of the waves crashing, the smell of salty air, and the cool ocean breeze. But that morning, everything had changed. As she stood on the edge of the sand, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The ocean was gone. The once-blue expanse of water had vanished, leaving behind only cracked earth and dried-out shells. In the distance, the remains of broken ships stood like forgotten statues, and the sun cast eerie shadows over the vast emptiness. Lena’s heart raced, what had happened to the ocean?

The complication

  • The cracked sea bed begins to shift and sink while Lena explores, trapping her and forcing her to find higher ground quickly.
  • A group of survivors arrive, arguing over scarce resources and blaming Lena for drawing attention to the dried ocean.
  • Strange machines appear at the horizon, sent to extract what remains, and Lena must decide whether to trust the strangers who operate them.

Sentence starters

  1. Suddenly, Lena stepped forward and felt the cracked ground tremble beneath her.
  2. Lena kicked a dried shell across the sand and ran her fingers over the ship’s splintered wood.

…and 1 more with your free account.

What's in the full resource

  • Complications
  • Brainstorming Prompts
  • Vocabulary Support
  • Sentence Starters
  • Dialogue Prompts
  • Writing Challenges
  • Sentence Variety
  • Creative Twists
  • Writing Checklist
  • Reflective Questions
  • Collaborative Writing Ideas
  • Printable teacher and student PDFs

NAPLAN writing criteria this resource targets

Audience Text structure Ideas Character and setting Vocabulary Cohesion Paragraphing Sentence structure Punctuation Spelling

See how Writesy aligns to the NAPLAN writing criteria.

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