Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Halladay.

I'll be your teacher for today.

Thank you so much for joining me again, it's lovely to see you all.

I can't wait to show you what we'll be working on together.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is the seventh lesson in the Writing Masters unit.

And again, we are focusing on fiction writing.

Today's lesson is called Planning a Description Based on an Image and it's pretty much going to do what it says on the tin.

By the end of today's lesson, you are going to be able to use single paragraph outlines to plan a written response to an image.

But first, some key words required for today's lesson, we've got a adorn, hue, plush and lurid.

I'm going to put the definitions up one by one, and I'd encourage you to take a moment to really process and digest these definitions before you move on to the next slide.

So here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to first start off looking at structure and how we would switch focus seamlessly so that we can cover different aspects of the picture without having to describe the entire image.

We're then going to look at how to use single paragraph outlines to plan our description.

Let's start with switching focus.

Here is an image, and as you can see, it's an image of an office.

We are going to look to transform this image into a multisensory and vivid description.

Now, multisensory means that it appeals to all of our six senses, touch, taste, smell, sound, sight and feel.

Vivid means that we should feel, as a reader as if we are in the office because it is such a lifelike description.

Now, in order to create a vivid and multisensory description, you need to pretend that you are in that office.

You need to imagine that you are actually there because otherwise how can you possibly imagine what it would smell like, what it would feel like, what it looks like? So you need to imagine that you are in this office.

This is a 2D image, there's another side to this office that we cannot see, that is for you to imagine.

So you can imagine things into the picture.

The picture is just a starting point for your imagination.

And when you are imagining yourself in that setting, it can be really useful to ask yourself questions about the setting so that you can further refine your ideas.

And we're gonna have a look at that process together.

So what I'd like you to do now is imagine that you are standing in this office.

You are looking forward at the desk and the curtains.

As you look, I'm going to ask you some questions about the setting, and I'd like you to jot down in note form your responses to these questions.

What colour are the walls? Is there anything on them? Where is the desk positioned? What kind of desk is it? What material is it made from? If you were to touch it, what would it feel like? Is there anything on it? What does the office smell like? I want you to look at the floor.

What is the carpet like? Is it clean, is it filthy? What colour is that carpet? What does it feel like to stand on the carpet? And what does it feel like to stand in that office? Is it warm or cold? Is it comfortable or is it unnerving? Can you hear any sounds? Is it silent or is there noise from perhaps outside or within the office? So I'm just gonna give you a few moments to have a look back at the questions if you missed any and jot down your ideas.

So once you've brainstormed all your ideas using that questioning process that we've just gone through together on the previous slide, you've then got to refine your ideas and you've got to choose which aspects of the setting you're going to describe, because unfortunately, you can't possibly describe them all.

Not only do you not have the time, but it would also be quite dull to do so.

So you're looking to pick, from your ideas about three or four of the strongest images that you have come up with.

You're gonna pick the objects that you think that you can picture and describe the most vividly.

So I'm now going to invite you to pause the video and I want you to put a little star or highlight the three ideas, or the four ideas that you think you'll be able to describe the most vividly.

So pause the video while you make your decision.

Fantastic, I can see that everybody's picked their three or four images, so that's really great, well done.

I'm going to show you three ideas that I picked from my questioning process as an example.

So I picked out the fact that this desk is antique and it's mahogany.

And I imagined, even though I couldn't see this in the picture, but I imagined that it has grooves and scribbles on from where somebody writing on it hasn't lent on anything underneath.

I also imagined that there was an expensive leather bound notebook on the desk, with really thick stitching in and of a of a high quality leather.

And I also imagined, and we could see this in the image a little bit, but I imagine that there's portraits hung up all around the room.

Obviously we could only see one wall in that image, but I imagine they're on every wall.

And I imagine that they're all in these rich red colours and that they're family portraits, perhaps somebody who's related to the person who works in this office.

So once you've gathered your three really strong or four really strong images together, you've got to start thinking, right, well, how am I gonna structure these now for impact? And you need to think about which you are going to focus on first.

So for me, I'm going to focus on these three ideas, and I'm gonna pick out the desk as the defining feature, because to me, it's the desk that dominates this room.

So I'm gonna focus on the desk first.

And the next thing you have to decide is, well, how am I going to link these objects together? Because we're bouncing around the picture using different foci, how am I gonna tie them in together to create a cohesive description? So again, I'm just gonna give you a few minutes to think about, well, what are you going to focus on first? Which of your three ideas and how might you tie them together? So just have a think, pause the video and we'll come back together in a moment.

Some great ideas there, well done.

Now, as I said, I chose to focus on the desk first, so I'm now going to show you what that might look like in a paragraph.

So here's the beginning of my description that, as I said, focuses on the desk first.

The polished surface of the antique desk gleamed softly in the warm, golden rays of the afternoon sun, which poured in through the lace curtain windows.

Its colour was deep mahogany, and the sunlight illuminated its imperfections shallow grooves that could only be the result of a sturdy steel fountain pen carving out an afternoon's concentrated thoughts.

The groove spelled out all kinds of stories in a long, elegant font.

Someone had taken special care to dot all the Is and cross the Ts.

No letter had been left incomplete during the rush of the working day.

What I'm going to invite you to do now is have a little bit of a discussion about this beginning paragraph.

So I'd like you to think about what do you notice about the structure of this description? So what does the writer focus on first? What do they focus on last? So I'm gonna give you a few moments to pause the video while you have those discussions.

Fantastic discussions.

So let's share some of our ideas together and I'm gonna show you the ideas that I liked the best.

So first of all, we start off with this quite holistic and broad focus of the desk as the dominant object in the room.

So we're going straight in the polished surface of the antique desk.

Now that surface is quite large.

So we've started off with quite a broad lens here.

If we imagine the lens of a camera, we've started off quite zoomed out, looking at something quite broad here.

And we're talking about this warm golden rayS of the afternoon sun pouring in through the lay's curtain windows.

So again, we've kind of given a holistic description of the office before we then focus on more minor detail.

So we've started to add more detail in.

We've started to zoom in NOW, We're talking about the fact it was deep mahogany, so the colour, and we started to talk about exactly the function of the sunlight here.

And we are using that sunlight to facilitate these transitions between our foCi in the picture.

So we're bouncing from the desk, to the sunlight to the grooves, using the sun to facilitate that transition.

Towards the end of the description, we start to zoom in further.

So again, if we imagine that we're looking at this through the lens of a camera, we started off looking at the desk next to the window, and now we've really zoomed in to focus on these tiny little grooves on the surface of the desk.

And likewise, we've continued that zooming in all the way to the end.

And we're ending with that really minute focus of the Is and the Ts within the font that is scribbled onto the desk.

So again, we're really, really zooming in to that minute focus, and actually, that reflects the character of the owner.

The person that owned this, we've been told make sure that they dot their Is and cross their Ts.

This is a very meticulous, a very diligent worker.

And actually, the structure reflects that about them.

Somebody careful and organised, would go through things systematically, in an organised way.

They'd start big and they'd end little.

So we've used the structure to reflect the character of the owner of this office and that's really clever and you can do that in your own writing.

The next challenge we face is, because we are bouncing around the picture, we've got to consider, well, how are we going to link these very different objects within the same image together? And we can use an extended metaphor or a semantic field in order to do that.

So here's our second paragraph from my description.

So I'm going to read it to you and then I've given you some questions to think about.

So on the desk, an ornate brass lamp stood proudly redirecting the sun's gentle glow onto a closed leather bound journal in a soft, focused pool of light.

The binding smelled musty, but expensive, and the thick stitching that wove its way in and outta the leather with determined punches was still all intact, the true mark of good craftsmanship.

So I'd like you to discuss what is it that links this paragraph to the last one? Is there any repetition of images or words? What is it that ties them together? So I'm gonna invite you to pause the video again while you have those discussions.

Some great ideas there.

And I heard someone talking about the fact that it's the image of the sunlight that links this paragraph to the last.

Now that sunlight's used really cleverly throughout, because what it does is allows for the shift in focus.

So we're bouncing from object to object, but we're linking it through one repeated image of the sun and its impact upon these individual objects within the office.

So it's really cleverly done.

We've also linked it by focusing on this granular detail.

The grooves and stitching in the last paragraph and here it's the thick stitching on the bound notebook.

So again, that focus structurally, links the paragraphs together as well as we're really zooming in to focus on those minute and granular details.

And finally, we had that mahogany desk it was antique, it was mahogany, lace curtains.

Those were all really kind of expensive materials.

And that's continued here with this ornate brass lamp it's ornate, it is decorated, it's brass, which is expensive, we've got leather, thick stitching, and we're even told that this is the symbol of good craftsmanship.

So we've got this semantic field of expense that is linking these two paragraphs.

And it's also characterising not only the office, but the person who would've inhabited this office as somebody quite important, someone quite wealthy, someone quite house proud, is the impression that we get here.

So let's check your understanding.

If you wanted the structure to reflect a confused or chaotic character, which structure might you use? Might you start with the bigger picture and then zoom into details.

Do you think that you would focus on details and zoom out to the bigger picture? Or might you switch between zoom in and zoom out? So I'm gonna give you a moment to think about which of those three structural options you would use to reflect a chaotic character.

And well done to those of you that correctly identified that it would be C.

Somebody confused or chaotic would not think chronologically or in any organised sense.

So it would therefore make sense to have our structure bounce between zoom and zoom out to reflect the chaos that's going on within that character's mind or life.

So well done if you got that right.

For our first task of the lesson, and this is a real exciting task, I can't wait to see what you come up with.

I'm going to give you some sentences that I would like you to put in order to form a paragraph.

There is no right or wrong to this, and there are actually many ways you could piece them together.

But you have to decide what impression of the room you want to create.

Do you want to zoom in first? Do you want to zoom out first? Do you want to give a holistic impression of the room and then focus on granular detail? You are going to make those choices now, and I want you to use those choices to inform how you put these sentences together and in what order.

So as I said, you need to think about your structural choices.

Are you zooming in, zooming out first? And how are you going to link the sentences together as well? So here are your sentences for reordering.

And I'm going to get ask you to pause the video while you read those sentences and make those structural decisions.

And I am really intrigued to see what order you're going to put them in.

I'm hoping for some different orders as well.

So try to think outside the box.

Enjoy.

So here I'm going to show you an order that you could have put these in.

Now this is not necessarily the right order, it is just an order.

So here's what I would've done, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the only right way.

The room itself conveyed an inviting atmosphere.

The walls were adorned in a subtle, earthy taupe hue.

This formed the perfect backdrop for the many portraits which hung proudly around the room.

A plush, red wine coloured rug sprawled underfoot.

The hue of the rug teased the rich dark colours out of the portraits, the red velvet sailor jackets and the rouged red of the older lady's pursed lips.

They were all positioned at different heights, and yet their subjects gazes all seem to acknowledge one another in secret approval.

So as you can see here, I've chosen to start holistically and give an overall impression of the atmosphere before them focusing on more minute and granular details.

One thing I want to draw your attention to is that it can actually be really powerful to finish your description with a little bit of a shift in tone to leave your reader with that sense of foreboding.

So what seemed like quite a comforting and warm office has actually turned into something a little bit more sinister.

And that builds tension and leaves the reader on a little bit of a cliffhanger.

So that can be really effective when used at the end of your description.

So well done for putting those in order.

As I say, there was no right or wrong answer, but I'm really impressed with your efforts, so well done.

Let's move on to the second section of the lesson where we're going to plan our own description and use single paragraph outlines to help us do so.

So you are going to use a single paragraph outline to support the planning of each section of your work.

Now, you've probably encountered these before, but I'll just quickly run through what they look like and then we'll get started.

So you have a topic sentence, and that introduces the main ideas in your paragraph.

You then have some supporting details, and these are the ideas that you will use in your writing along with some key vocabulary that you think you might use.

Now it's really important to plot out that vocab to make sure it's the most specific and precise choice of vocabulary possible.

And finally, you will be plotting a closing sentence, which concludes the main ideas in your paragraph.

So that is what a single paragraph outline looks like.

Now let's have a look at how you actually plan them.

So here's our paragraph from earlier.

I'm not going to read it to you again because you've already read it.

I will simply leave it on the board for a few moments for you to just cast your eyes over and remind yourselves of its contents.

Now here's how it would look as a single paragraph outline.

First of all, we start with a topic sentence we're introducing the main ideas.

So this is our holistic impression of the room.

The room itself conveyed an inviting atmosphere.

Now, our supporting details, they reinforce the main ideas of the paragraph so they support the ideas.

So Where is this inviting atmosphere? Well, it's in the fact that the walls were this earthy taupe hue.

And again, I've plotted out that word adorned because I think it's the most precise word.

We've got the plush, red wine coloured rug that was sprawled across the room suggesting its size.

We have these portraits hanging around the room so rouge lips, red velvet, gazes met.

So I'm plotting some rough ideas here of how I'm going to convey this atmosphere.

And then finally, our closing sentence.

And here I've stated that I really wanted to create that tension.

So I needed to shift the tone slightly to make that happen.

And yet the subject's gazes all seem to acknowledge one another in secret approval.

So you can see just from the topic sentence and the closing sentence that we've had a shift in tone in this paragraph, and we've plotted that into our single paragraph outline.

So here's how that paragraph would have looked as a single paragraph outline.

Let's test our understanding.

In the supporting detail you should plot vocabulary that you want to use.

Is that true or is that false? And I'm just gonna give you a minute to pause the video while you have a think about what the correct answer is.

And well done to those of you that identified that indeed, it is true, we should be plotting vocabulary.

My question now is why? And I'm going to ask you to pick the correct justification.

So is it that plotting vocabulary early on ensures that you are picking the most precise words, convey meaning, or is it the fact that plotting vocabulary early on ensures that you are choosing the most sophisticated word to convey meaning? So again, pause the video and jot your answer down.

And well done to those of you that identified A, you are absolutely right, it is really important, not necessarily to choose the most sophisticated word, but the most precise word to convey your meaning, well done.

So now you are going to be planning a description of this image.

And you're gonna use single paragraph outlines to do it.

So as we did with the first example in learning cycle one, I would like you to note down three key aspects of this image that you are going to describe.

So I'm just going to give you a minute in order to do that, and then we'll move on.

Then you'll need to think about, well, which am I gonna describe first? And how am I going to link these images together? So again, I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you just have a little bit of a think of how you are going to link these images.

Will you use a semantic field? Will you use an extended metaphor? So pause the video and have a little bit of a think.

Now I'm gonna walk you through what I would've done here as an example before I let you go off on your own.

So I would've looked at this image, and I quite liked the cracked ceiling, exposing the damp.

I also quite liked the kettle, it really stood out to me as possibly the only thing that might still work in this establishment, but it is obviously stained from the filthy water.

So I picked that out as something I want to focus on.

I also thought the cupboard colours were very interesting and I thought that they were lurid.

And I actually couldn't quite tell when I looked at this image whether it was the colour or the mould, and I thought that might be something quite nice to pick up on in my description to characterise this as a filthy kitchen.

And I thought about the fact that these might be watermarked, the veneer of the cupboard might be peeling away slightly.

So those are my three focal points.

I then needed to think, okay, well, I've got my three focal points they're all from very different sides of the kitchen so how am I going to link them together? And I thought, well, actually, maybe I'll use a motif of water because I've got this cracked ceiling exposing the damp.

I've got the kettle that used to hold water and the watermarked cupboards, so I will relate back each of my items to water in some way.

And I also thought it might be nice, because this is such a kind of dishevelled kitchen, I thought that it might be nice to use this idea of water as an extended metaphor for this idea of either sweating or crying, as both of those are quite negative and they will reflect the filthy living conditions of this kitchen.

So those were my initial thoughts on how I would've planned this image out.

I also then thought, well, you know, what? What am I gonna focus in first and how am I gonna structure this? And I thought, well, I think I might zoom in and zoom out constantly because I'm looking to reflect the chaotic nature of this scene.

So using a really organised structure wouldn't really work in this sense because it wouldn't reflect the atmosphere and the nature of the setting.

So I'm going to choose a constant zoom in, zoom out structure to reflect that chaos.

So once you've decided on your ideas and you've thought about how you're gonna link them, that's when you start to plot your single paragraph outlines.

So here's my example using my ideas from the previous slide.

So these are my three focal points.

And here I'm going to plot in the third idea, 'cause I want to start with that one.

So my topic sentence is going to be lurid, lime green cupboards leaned precariously off the rotten wall.

So I'm introducing that I'm going to start talking about the cupboards now.

So that's my topic sentence.

Then I'm going to look at some details about those cupboards.

So I'm going to look at the colour, and I'm going to debate in my description whether or not it's mould or whether someone has actually painted them that colour.

And I'm actually not sure which one's worse, and that will come through in my description.

I'm also going to look at the dirty brown watermarks where the veneers haVE peeled away and revealed the damp underneath.

So I'm really bearing in mind that I've got to link these cupboards to the rest of my focal points.

So I'm bringing it back to that extended metaphor and that semantic field of water that I plotted in the previous slide.

I'm also going to look at the rusted hinges that gaped like broken jaws, and I'm gonna think about the fact they're partially attached, they're cracked.

And again, I've used some figurative language there that likens them to these broken jaws.

So this idea of things being destroyed and decaying.

And then my closing sentence is going to be one could only begin to imagine the half-consumed horrors these cupboards might contain.

So again, I'm summarising I've said that the cupboards are disgusting, and now I'm saying we actually can't even comprehend how disgusting these cupboards are.

So that would be my summarising sentence here the closing sentence.

So now I'm gonna pass this over to you, and you are going to plan the single paragraph outlines for each of the paragraphs of your description.

Now, you will need single paragraph outlines for each of the three sections of your descriptions.

So that's the three focal points within your description.

And as you plan, you should be adding details about how you're gonna link your paragraphs together.

Are you gonna use semantic field? Are you gonna use an extended metaphor? And plotting that out so that you've done all of your thinking Before you start writing.

You should also think about plotting your figurative language and the vocabulary that you might want to choose.

So here's a reminder again, of what a single paragraph outline looks like.

I won't go through it as I want you to have as much time as possible to plan your response.

So I'm going to encourage you to pause the video now, and I want you to get really creative with this.

So pause the video and have a go plotting your single paragraph outlines for each focal point within your image.

Well done, really good work there.

And I could see that nearly everybody had got all the way to the third single paragraph outline.

So massive well done.

What we're going to do now is we're going to assess our work to make sure we've done it properly.

So I would like you to check that you have written your topic sentence in full, and that it does introduce the main idea or the main focal point of your paragraph.

I'd like you to check that you've provided at least three ideas for each element of the description in your supporting detail.

And that you've plotted down some examples of vocabulary that you might want to use and that goes within the supporting detail as well.

I'd like you to make sure that you've plotted your use of figurative language to link your paragraphs together in your single paragraph outline.

And finally, I'd really like to make sure that you have written your closing sentence in full, reinforcing the main idea in your paragraph, and allowing yourself to lead fluidly into the next paragraph.

So in that closing sentence, you're really facilitating a smooth transition into the next foci.

So in summary of today's lesson on planning a description based on an image, you've got to remember that you can use structure to reflect the atmosphere or the character who inhabits the setting that you are describing.

So we talked a little bit about using a more chaotic and disorganised structure to reflect somebody who is perhaps less organised or slightly more confused.

You can zoom in and zoom out of a scene to bounce between focal points because we cannot describe the whole image.

To link paragraphs together we are looking to use a semantic field or extended metaphor to make sure that we are creating a cohesive description.

And finally, single paragraph outlines are really useful in planning your ideas before you begin writing.

And they allow you to be in the best possible position going forward, writing where you know exactly what you're going to write and how you're going to link your paragraphs together.

I'd like to thank you for coming to today's lesson and engaging so actively with the learning.

I've really enjoyed teaching you, and I'm massively looking forward to seeing you for lesson eight in the Writing Master series next time.

So thank you very much, well done, and have a fabulous day.