The Whispering Shadows

Year 5

The Whispering Shadows is a free, NAPLAN-aligned writing resource for Year 5 students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).

Year 5 AC9E5LE05 AC9E5LA05 AC9E5LA08 AC9E5LA09 AC9E5LA04 AC9E5LY06

Supports the Year 5 achievement standard (creating written texts).

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

It was the shadows that made everything feel strange. Timmy had been lying in bed, his stuffed bear tucked under his arm, when he noticed it. The shadows on the walls were shifting, even though the light from his bedside lamp hadn’t moved an inch. He tried to blink them away, but no matter how hard he focused, the shadows just kept dancing on the walls. Slowly, they began to stretch, reaching out toward him. He shivered, pulling the blanket up to his chin. They weren't just moving, they were whispering too, but the words were too quiet for him to understand. Timmy squeezed his eyes shut, hoping it was just his imagination, but when he opened them again, the shadows were still there, closer this time.

The complication

  • A shadow reaches out and tugs Timmy’s blanket, refusing to let go unless he answers its whispered question.
  • The shadows begin to slip off the walls and gather into the shape of a figure that looks like someone Timmy knows but is missing a piece of its face.
  • Timmy discovers that every time he blinks the shadows move closer, and if he falls asleep he will wake inside the shadows instead of his bedroom.

Sentence starters

  1. Suddenly, Timmy felt something cold brush his ankle and he swallowed hard.
  2. The lamp hummed softly as the shadows slid together and the room smelled faintly of dust and old paper.

…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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