The Giraffe and Zebra Duel!

Year 4

The Giraffe and Zebra Duel! 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.

The sun-drenched savanna was calm, and acacia trees swayed gently in the breeze. A most unusual showdown was taking place there. Gerald the Giraffe had a long neck and he moved with graceful steps. Zara the Zebra was quick on her hooves and she was full of energy. They kicked and twisted, and they danced like warriors under the wide blue sky. While they practised, a mysterious shadow lurked nearby and it waited to join their wild kung fu adventure.

The complication

  • Gerald and Zara practise a new move and accidentally knock over a pile of painted rocks that startle the mysterious shadow, which reveals itself as something neither of them expected.
  • The mysterious shadow challenges Gerald and Zara to a duel, but it uses tricks that make them doubt their kung fu skills and they must find a clever way to work together.
  • A sudden storm of dust and wind blurs the savanna, separating Gerald and Zara from each other and from the shadow, and they must decide whether to search for the shadow or help one another first.

Sentence starters

  1. Suddenly, Gerald swung his neck in a wide arc and Zara darted under his legs like a streak of black and white.
  2. The ground smelled of dry grass and dust, and the shadows under the acacia trees trembled as the sun moved slowly across the sky.

…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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