Hello, my name is Miss Grant.

I'm so glad you've decided to learn with me.

Today, we're in the unit, myths, legends, and stories that inspire.

Today, we are gonna do some descriptive writing.

We're gonna use a painting to inspire our descriptive writing, and we're gonna look really closely at sensory language and our use of adjectives.

I cannot wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas.

I'm gonna be your support and guide as we work through today's lesson together.

Let's get started.

So, by the end of today's lesson, you're gonna employ the five senses in your descriptive writing to create a chosen effect.

Now, you might have done some writing with the five senses before.

Today, we're really going to get into the nitty gritty.

What does excellent writing using the five senses look like? Now, there are some keywords which are gonna help us unlock our learning today.

They're gonna help us achieve our objective.

If you'd like to spend some time with these keywords, pause the video now, you can read through them, make a note of certain ones if you wish.

I'm just gonna draw attention to one of the words, which is a third on the board, stagnant.

That's how you pronounce the word, stagnant.

And it usually describes water or air that smells bad because it's completely still and without movement.

As I say, if you'd like to pause the video and spend some more time with these key words, then please do.

Otherwise, there'll be referenced throughout today's lesson and help us achieve our objective.

Our lesson outline for today.

First of all, we're gonna think what does it mean to effectively refer to the five senses? We're really gonna get into the nuts and bolts of what great writing looks like there.

And in the second learning cycle, we're gonna consider choosing the right adjectives.

So, adjectives are really important, can really help lift a piece of descriptive writing.

What does it mean to choose the right one? Let's start off with effectively referring to the five senses.

So, I'd like you to have a look at this picture on the board and discuss what can you infer about what is happening in the painting? I'd like you to consider the emotions of those depicted as well as the story the picture is trying to tell.

And this is gonna be the picture that we use today in order to stimulate all our imagination and our descriptive writing.

So, look at it really, really carefully and spend some time discussing this question.

What can you infer about what is happening in the painting? And you can consider the emotions as well.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back.

Well done for really carefully examining this painting and noticing some very particular, very important details about it.

Most people were drawn to the central figure to begin with.

The central figure is painted in white, so attracts our attention.

She's in the light, whereas many of the other figures are in the shade.

And she is blindfolded, and most of you made a correct inference that she's in fact being led towards a block, which is an executioner's block.

And the axe, which is in the bottom right-hand of the corner, that is going to be used on her.

So, she's in fact preparing for death.

Now, actually, when I first looked at this painting, I didn't notice the axe in the right-hand corner.

Partly I think 'cause I was drawn to the central figure, but also because the man, the executioner, I guess we'll call him, he looked so sombre, I couldn't believe that he would be a part of the process whereby the central figure was going to be killed because he looked so unhappy about it.

I also failed to notice the first time that I looked at this painting that there are two figures on the left-hand side.

So, I noticed the woman near the foreground, but the woman in the background, she was wearing a black dress and she almost merged into the background for me.

But both of them looking very, very unhappy about what is about to happen.

Let's learn a little bit more about the facts about this painting.

So, this painting depicts the execution of Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for just nine days in 1553.

Now, this painting was not painted in 1553.

It was painted about 300 years later.

So, even though the painter who painted it was imagining the scene, it is based on true events.

Lady Jane Grey was a real person.

She was Queen of England for just nine days in 1553.

Now, King Edward VI nominated her to be Queen of England just before he died.

But Lady Jane Grey lacked support and she was deposed, removed from power by another queen, Queen Mary I.

And Lady Jane Grey was accused of treason by Mary I.

She was executed in November, 1553 when she was just 17 years old.

So this idea, this part of British history is inspirational to lots of painters, lots of artists because it is such a tragic tale of a young person who was killed when they were just a teenager.

Now these are her ladies in waiting.

So you can see they are very, very unhappy that their mistress is about to be killed.

This man works in the Tower of London where Lady Jane Grey was imprisoned, the one who's helping her, guiding her towards the block.

He helped her find the executioner's block after she was blindfolded.

And then this is the executioner.

He asked Lady Jane Grey to forgive him, which she did.

And Lady Jane Grey's last words were, "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!" So, we are learning a little bit more about this painting and you can see that lots of your inferences when you first look to the painting were correct.

Now, check for understanding before we move and delve deeper into thinking about, well, how would we use this painting as inspiration? True or false? Lady Jane Grey is a fictional character from history.

Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected false.

I'd like you to justify your answer.

Is it A, Lady Jane Grey was real and the shortest reigning monarch in England? Or B, Lady Jane Grey was real, and her execution is a legendary story? Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected A.

She was real, she was the shortest reigning monarch in England.

A legend, it does refer often to stories about history, but often these stories are fictional.

So, an example of this would be King Arthur.

So, King Arthur was not a King of England, but stories about him and his courts are legendary.

So, they're to do with history, but they are not in fact real.

Now, we are going to use this image to inspire our descriptive writing today.

We'll focus on evoking the experiences of Lady Jane Grey using sensory language.

So, using the five senses to really paint a picture with our words.

Now, Izzy starts to consider what Lady Jane Grey might be experiencing via her five senses.

And Izzy is relied on the sense of touch.

So, she said, "She might feel the fur of the man's cloak against her shoulder." And I think this is a really nice detail to draw out.

It's a small detail, you can see that actually of course Lady Jane Grey must have felt the fur because the man is so close to her shoulder.

I'd like you to discuss what do you think she might be experiencing via each of her five senses? So, just focus on Lady Jane Grey, the central figure in the painting.

What do you think she might be experiencing via each of her five senses? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Some really, really imaginative, descriptive ideas all generated, all inspired by this painting.

So, some people focus on the idea of sight immediately, and I can see why you did that because the idea of her being blindfolded, that must have been very scary.

So, the idea of just being able to see sort of black shapes, all that blindfold tightly pressing down on her eyes must have been a particularly unpleasant part of the process.

We've got the sense of sight there, but also the idea of touch.

So, maybe that blindfold is bound very tightly around her head.

It was nice to hear some people using the word stagnant from the beginning of the lesson.

So, she is in a cell after all, and maybe the cell has a stagnant air in it, and she's smelling that as she's approaching the executioner's block.

So, just looked at a couple of the senses there, but I know you've got loads and loads of ideas to fill your descriptive writing with.

So, Izzy writes a first draught of her description.

So here it is.

"She could feel that the fur was soft as it brushed against her skin.

She could feel his tender hand, coaxing her towards the block." So, really nice first draught there, particularly some nice use of vocabulary.

And of course Izzy has used the senses.

She then improves her first draught.

So Izzy writes, "The fur was soft as it brushed against her skin.

His hand was tender, coaxing her towards the block." So, tender, one of our key words, meaning sort of gentle caring.

Now, Izzy's second draught is more effective because it refers to the senses without using the phrase "she could feel.

." So, you can see that that first sentence, "she could feel that the fur was soft.

." has become, "the fur was soft as it brushed against her skin." And that second sentence, "she could feel his tender hand," becomes "his hand was tender, coaxing her towards the block." And this is more effective because it removes that phrase, "she could feel.

." Instead, Izzy has started with a noun she wants to describe, so she wants to describe the fur, she just starts off by describing the fur.

She wants to describe his hand, and she just starts off by describing his hand.

It's a small change, but it is a very, very effective one.

Now, Izzy writes another sentence.

She writes, "She could hear his breath, shallow and warm, pulsing rhythmically against her ear." She improves the sentence.

So again, she removes, "she could hear.

." and she just starts off with, "his breath." "His breath, shallow and warm, pulse rhythmically against her ear." So, she's had to change the verb, she's gone from "pulsing," the present participle, to "pulsed," the past.

But she's also removed that first phrase, "she could hear.

." So, a little bit of editing there, and it has really, really lifted her writing.

Now, I'd like you to improve Izzy's next sentence.

And Izzy wrote, "She could see the shadows in the room dancing in front of her." The first thing I'd like you to do is remove "she could see.

." and then just start with the nouns, with the noun, "the shadows." So, pause the video, and I'd like you to improve Izzy's next sentence, following those two steps.

So, first removing the "she could see.

." and then just starting with the noun.

Pause the video and complete this check now.

Welcome back, well done for completing that check and just improving, just editing Izzy's sentence so that it employs, uses the sense of sight, but writes it in a way that is more effective than saying "she could see.

." So, here's one way you could have improved the sentence, "the shadows in the room dance in front of her," you might have a variation on this, you might have even changed some of the other words in Izzy's sentence to improve it even further.

But as long as you've removed the "she could see.

." then you are using the sentence correctly and you've completed that check correctly.

So, I would like you to write one paragraph, evoking the sensory experiences of Lady Jane Grey.

Of course, I'd like you to avoid starting the sentences with "she could, she could see, she could hear, she could smell." Just start with the noun, and instead start with the noun.

For example, "the shadows in the room.

." So, pause the video, give this task the time that it deserves, you've had some brilliant discussions about this painting, but also some brilliant discussions about what it means to write well using the five senses.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back, beautiful to see such evocative writing in front of me, and all of you using the five senses.

But of course, crucially avoiding that phrase, "she could.

." so that you've got a really, really sophisticated use of the five senses.

Let's do some feedback.

So, Izzy reads through her work and identifies one area for improvement.

So, let's read through this work first.

She wrote, "The fur was soft as it brushed against her skin." We saw that sentence earlier on.

"His hand was tender, coaxing her towards the block.

His breath, shallow and warm, pulsed rhythmically against her ear.

The shadows in the room danced in front of her.

The whole experience felt dreamlike, gentle.

Only the taste in her mouth was an assault.

She could taste a mixture of the room's stagnant air, and blood as she bit her cheeks to suppress a cry." So, it's really nice use of vocabulary there.

Stagnant, that's still bad smelling air.

And that use of the word suppress.

So, trying to bottle up to hide her emotions.

But you can see that Izzy has got that phrase, "she could taste.

." And she knows that she needs to improve that because she wants to use that sense, but she doesn't want to use that phrase, "she could taste.

." She redrafts and she writes, "Her mouth was filled with a room's stagnant air, and blood as she bit her cheeks to suppress a cry." So, she has really quickly identified the area for improvement, and she's made that improvement.

I would like you to read through your work and remove any references to "she could.

." You might have some in there, that is absolutely fine.

The crucial thing is that you go through the editing process and remove them.

And then I'd like you to instead start with the noun that you wish to describe.

So, pause the video, complete this editing now, read your work aloud.

It's such a good way to hear anything that you want to change and anything you want to celebrate.

So, read it and remove any reference to "she could.

." And instead start with the noun you want to describe.

Pause the video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back, well done, fantastic editing there.

Really, really nice to see people making small changes here and there just to lift their work editing.

Such a crucial part of the writing process.

So, we're gonna move on to our second learning cycle now.

Now we've looked at the five senses.

What does it mean to use them really effectively? And now we're gonna think about choosing the right adjectives.

Another really careful part of the writing to lift it even further.

So, Izzy identifies the adjectives she has chosen in her first sentences, and she explains their effect.

So she wrote, "The fur was soft as it brushed against her skin.

His hand was tender, coaxing her towards the block." And Izzy says, "I emphasise the gentleness of the moment, even though she's about to be killed." So, really nice choice there to think, okay, well I know that this is a very intense scene, a very sad scene.

A scene where a young person is about to be executed.

But actually my adjectives are going to evoke the idea that all the people involved in this process do not want to make it even worse for Lady Jane Grey than it needs to be.

And I'm going to emphasise the gentleness of the moment.

Now, she adds another adjective and explains why she's added it.

So, she's written "The fur was soft, ticklish almost, as it brushed against her skin.

His hand was tender, coaxing her towards the block." Now, she says, "This adjective 'ticklish' is slightly unexpected given the scene it describes, but it further develops the idea of gentleness." So, of course we want to use adjectives to evoke the scene.

And sometimes choosing one that seems slightly unusual can give us a real insight into what is happening.

So, Izzy has done that really well here by selecting this idea of ticklish, which of course contrasts the idea of the execution of Lady Jane Grey.

So, powerful adjective choice there.

Now, Izzy identifies the adjectives she's chosen in her next sentence as well.

So, she looked at "His breath, shallow and warm, pulsed rhythmically against her ear." So, looking at that character who's helping Lady Jane Grey towards the executioners block.

Now Izzy says, "I want to develop the sense that the man is upset.

And these adjectives don't do that yet." So, "His breath, is shallow and warm," but we don't actually know how he's actually feeling.

So, she adds another adjective to create this effect.

"His breath, shallow, warm and broken, pulsed rhythmically against her ear." And Izzy says, "This adjective shows that the man is not breathing normally because he is upset." So, you can see how carefully Izzy is editing.

She's really interrogating each of her sentences and thinking, are these the best words? Are these really conveying what I want to do in this particular sentence? So, here's another sentence from Izzy's writing.

"The shadows in the room danced in front of her." And Izzy looks at the sentence, she says, "I want to show that the shadows are moving quickly." Now, it's not doing that yet, I need to pick an adjective that shows that.

So, help Izzy achieve this effect by rewriting her sentence for her to include an adjective.

So, I'd like you to pause the video and complete this check.

So, you're gonna rewrite this sentence.

Izzy, we know wants to show that the shadows are moving really quickly.

How could you do that in this sentence? Pause the video and complete this check now.

Welcome back, well done for completing the check and really considering, well, what could I do with this sentence to help Izzy achieve the effect that she wants, which is to show that the shadows are moving quickly.

Here are some ideas you could have had.

So, "The flickering shadows in the room danced in front of her." "Darting shadows in the room, danced in front of her." "Shifting shadows in the room, danced in front of her." So, these are just some examples.

You might have rewritten the sentence in a different way.

As long as you're helping Izzy achieve that effect, then you have completed the check accurately.

I'd like you to discuss what is the effect of each.

So, we've got three different examples here.

Flickering, darting, shifting.

So, what is the effect of each? And how does each choice differ from your own choice? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, some really nice analysis going on here.

So, you've been very creative, very descriptive throughout this lesson, but you are also able to analyse the choices that you are making.

So, I'd like to draw attention to lots of people saying this word "shifting" is quite different from flickering and darting.

So, flickering and darting maybe suggests that the movement is very, very quick, but it doesn't have this idea of menace.

Whereas the idea of shifting suggests that we cannot trust the shadows, and that it'll be very scary for someone who is blindfolded to experience the idea that they can see some sort of darker shapes moving around, but not quite sure where they are or what they are doing.

So, you can see how choosing a different adjective can really, really impact the experience of reading your work.

And so, with the knowledge that choosing the right adjectives is very important in creating the atmosphere, I would like you to first select a sentence from your descriptive paragraph describing the sensory experience of Lady Jane Grey.

So, just one sentence, don't look at the whole paragraph, just select one sentence.

Two, identify the adjectives you have used and the effect you want to create.

First, identify the adjectives and think, is it creating the atmosphere that I want? And then the third step is to add or alter the adjectives to develop this effect just like we saw Izzy doing in this learning cycle.

So, three steps there.

I would like you to complete these steps for three different sentences.

So, select your first sentence and go through the three steps, then select your second sentence, go through the three steps, and then finally select your third sentence and go through the three steps.

So, this is a really great task for really refining your writing.

So, give it the time that it deserves, and I look forward to hearing about all the edits that you have made to make your writing even better.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back, such a great experience to see you all editing your work and really considering the choices that you have made.

You can see how important it is to return and to really question yourself, what effect did I want here? And have I done that through my choices? How can I develop that even further? Let's do some feedback.

Now, I would like you to consider how Izzy altered her final sentence and the effect this had.

So, we had her draught, "Her mouth was filled with a mixture of the room's stagnant air, and blood as she bit her cheeks to suppress a cry." And her next draught, when she was focusing on the adjectives was, "Her mouth was filled with a mixture of the room's stagnant air, and blood as she bit her cheeks to suppress a desperate cry." Now Izzy says, this change develops the idea that lady Jane Grey is terrified.

So, you can see that Izzy pointed towards this in her first draught because we know that Lady Jane Grey is biting her cheeks to suppress a cry, so she's not happy.

But this inclusion of this word "desperate," of this adjective, desperate, really highlights the unhappiness, how scared Lady Jane Grey is.

So, it's a really nice little detail to add, and that word "desperate" really makes us feel sorry for Lady Jane Grey, really emphasises how vulnerable she is in this scene.

So, I would like you to select one change that you made to your paragraph, and discuss the effect that it had.

So, just select one sentence, you don't need to look at the whole paragraph.

And just consider, okay, this is the change I made, and this change develops the idea that.

Pause the video and complete this discussion task now.

Welcome back, really nice to hear you discussing the choices that you made in your own work.

And it also really highlights how one adjective, even a small moment in a paragraph can really make a big difference to the effect that you are trying to achieve.

So, you can see just how important it is to return to writing and really interrogate your sentences and ask yourself, what effect am I trying to achieve? And do the words that I've chosen so far, do they do that? Could I develop it further? In summary, sensory language is writing that includes references to some or all of the five senses.

You don't need to write, "They could feel, they could see, feel, taste, touch, hear.

." when using sensory language.

Instead, you can evoke the senses by starting with the noun you wish to describe.

And finally, adjectives should be chosen carefully so they create particular effects.

It has been such a pleasure to look at this painting today and to see all of your inspired writing from it.

I look forward to seeing you next time.