The Knight Who Didn’t Want to Fight

Year 4

The Knight Who Didn’t Want to Fight 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.

Sir Oliver was not what anyone would call a "typical" knight. He was not sure he wanted to be a knight. He had spent most of his days hiding from dragons. He sneezed in his armour because of his allergies. He also struggled to lift the oversized sword they had handed him. A magical prophecy suddenly said he was the only hero who could save the kingdom from war. Sir Oliver had no choice and he had to face his fears. He stood in the grand hall, nervously trembling in his armour, and he wondered if he could really fake his way through a battle.

The complication

  • Sir Oliver discovers the prophecy also names a rival knight who believes he should lead, and the rival tries to steal Sir Oliver’s sword before the battle.
  • The dragons guarding the border are not ordinary beasts but enchanted creatures that can become invisible, making them hard for Sir Oliver to find and fight.
  • Sir Oliver’s sneezing gets worse at a crucial moment because the enemy uses a powder that triggers his allergies, and he must decide whether to remove his helmet to breathe or keep it on and try to fight.

Sentence starters

  1. Suddenly Sir Oliver swung the oversized sword and gasped at how heavy it felt.
  2. The grand hall smelled of dust and candle wax as Sir Oliver listened for footsteps.

…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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