Planning for effective language analysis.

Hello and welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mr. Young and I'm so glad you could join me today for another lesson in our Changing Views Language Unit.

I'm super excited to be teaching you today in this lesson all about planning for language analysis.

So let's get started.

So today's lesson has a very clear learning outcome.

So let's take a look at what it's.

So hopefully by the end of today's lesson everybody will be able to plan for cohesively written language analysis.

And just as in any lesson, we have some very important words, our keywords.

So I do always encourage you just to pause the video and jot these down and their definitions, particularly if they are new to you because we are going to be using them quite a bit.

So let's take a look at what they're.

Evaluative adjectives.

Adjectives we can use in our writing to give a judgement about what we are reading.

So we might describe a author's perspective as being hopeful for example.

Overarching, something so important, it affects all other areas.

In English, we refer to a writer's overarching idea.

So in our own essays we might have our own overarch, our arching idea, that idea that kind of underpins everything else we write about.

Judicious, showing good judgement.

When applied to evidence, it means well chosen to the point you are making.

So we want our quotes to be judicious.

Embedded, when referring to quotes it means quotes that form part of your own writing.

And finally dwarfism, a condition causing someone to have a shorter height as a result of a genetic or medical condition.

And we're gonna be reading a fantastic art article today by a writer that has dwarfism.

Okay, so we have two very clear learning cycles.

Our first learning cycle is called, "Reading My Life as a Little Person," which is a fantastic article by a writer called Cara Reedy.

Really excited to read that one with you.

And then we are gonna move on to learning cycle two, which is all about analysing language to explore attitude.

In particular, all of those fantastic things a writer does to really kind of articulate their attitude, the kind of language choices they they're gonna make.

So let's get started with learning cycle one.

So in today's learning cycle, we are going to read an extract called, "My Life as a Little Person[" via Cara Reedy.

And you can find this in the additional materials.

I do really encourage you to take a look at that because we're gonna be using that quite a bit throughout today's lesson.

So Cara Reedy is a journalist and photographer who currently works as director of the Disabled Journalists Association.

And she also has a condition called achondroplastic dwarfism, which affects her height.

And she writes frequently about her experiences as a little person living in the United States.

And this includes some of the challenges she actually faces in society.

And we're gonna read about some of those today in her article.

So let's take a look at the beginning of Reedy's article.

It begins in the following way.

"From the moment I was born people around me were saying, "Oh God," the nurse exclaimed it.

When I finally arrived a month late, a habit I have kept, that's how parents found out that I was a little person, a dwarf of short stature.

They were shocked and upset knowing that my life would be hard.

My maternal grandfather told my mother, I don't care how tall she is, she's my first granddaughter and she's pretty." So really nice start there to read his opinion piece.

So quick discussion question for me then to kick us off in this learning cycle.

Reedy notes that her parents were shocked and upset by her diagnosis.

Why is that? Pause the video, have a quick discussion, or jot down some ideas if you're working independently.

And then do play when you'd like to proceed.

Okay, my goodness, what a fantastic start to this lesson.

Let's keep that energy going throughout today's learning.

So really well done to everyone who picked up on why they felt those emotions.

So she argues that they believed her life will be hard as a result of her condition, her condition of dwarfism, she contrasts this reaction with a much more positive reaction from her grandfather who says, he's her first granddaughter and she's really pretty.

So really kind of contrast between the two.

I dunno if you picked up on that.

Okay, then quick check for understanding for me then please.

So true or force really recounts that people had different reactions to her birth.

Is that true or force? Hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do play when you'd like to proceed.

Okay, what on to everybody who identified it as true is, of course true, isn't it? But how can we justify that answer? Let's just make this a little bit more challenging.

So how can we justify the statement that people had different reactions to her birth? Is it A, her parents were shocked and upset, but her grandfather was more positive stating how pretty she was? Or is it B, her parents are unsurprised but the nurse is shocked and exclaims, oh God, when she's born, once again, hit that pause button, complete the task, and then push play when you'd like to see the correct answer.

Okay, what on to everybody who identified it as a, is her grandfather who has this much more positive reaction stating how pretty she was in B is absolutely true that the nurse exclaims, oh God, but I wouldn't say her parents are unsurprised.

That doesn't really come across in the extracts.

What on for picking up on that in your own work.

Okay, so reader's article continues, "They didn't find out I had achondroplactic dwarfism until a few months later.

Achondroplasia is a word that haunted me in my childhood.

I never wanted to hear it.

It wasn't who I was, I was not different.

According to a 2009 report by Richard M.

Pauli from the Midwest Regional Bone Dysplasia Clinics, achondroplasia happens one in every 25,000 births.

It doesn't really matter how often it happens, we happened and we're here.

So once again, discussion question for me, please.

Reedy says that her condition haunted her when she was young.

What does this suggest? Hit the pause button, have a discussion, jot down some ideas, push play when you like to continue.

Yeah, I absolutely agree.

It's quite a powerful word, isn't it using haunted.

And what that kind of suggests to me is that her condition marked her out as from a young age, something she really didn't want to be.

And we get that kind of further, don't we, by her kind of drawing attention just to how kind of rare her condition is, almost kind of how unlucky she seems to be in her own telling of it, at least at the beginning of her life.

Okay, so first practise task for me then please.

I would like you to read the entirety of Reedy's fantastic article, which you can find in the additional materials.

And then to answer the following questions.

Those questions are as follows, what condition does Cara Reedy have and how common is it according to the information provided in the article? How does Cara Reedy describe her upbringing and the attitude of her family towards her condition? What language does Cara Reedy use to describe her experiences in public places? And how does this reflect her feelings about being a little person? How does Cara Reedy challenge the language used to describe little people, particularly in medical context and why does she find it problematic? And finally, what is Cara Reedy's overall attitude towards being a little person? Really excited to see how you get on with these and really looking forward to going through some answers with you shortly.

So hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to continue with today's lesson.

Okay, fantastic effort on that first practise task of today's lesson.

Let's keep that enthusiasm, let's keep that energy going as we move through throughout today's lesson.

So here are some things you could have potentially said for these questions.

And don't worry, they don't have to be identical to this.

These are just some ways you could have approached this task.

So for question one, what condition does Cara Reedy have and how common is it according to the information provided? We could say, well, Cara Reedy has achondroplastic dwarfism.

And according to the information provided in the article, it occurs in approximately one in every 25,000 births.

How does Cara Reedy describe her upbringing and the attitude of her family towards her condition? Well, I'd say that Cara Reedy describes her family as supportive and not shielding her from the world.

Despite the challenges, her family encouraged her to participate in various activities and never lowered their expectations for her.

I think that's a really clear thing that comes across again and again in the article, doesn't it? Let's continue.

For question three, what language does Cara Reedy use to describe her experiences in public places and how does this reflect her feelings about being a little person? Well, what really kind of strikes me is that she describes her experiences as feeling like she's the main attraction at a circus every day of her life.

This kind of really powerful comparison, this really powerful simile, she refers to herself as a celebrity without fame or money highlighting the constant attention and scrutiny she faces due to her stature.

And I think that's a really interesting piece of language of well done if you picked up on that in your own work.

Question four, how does Cara Reedy challenge the language used to describe little people, particularly in medical context, and why does she find it problematic? For this one I think we could have said Cara Reedy challenges the language used to describe little people, particularly in medical contexts, by pointing out that the dehumanising language such as this male dwarf, she argues that such language reduces individuals to their conditions rather than acknowledging their humanity.

Really powerful point in the article, I think.

The final question, what is Cara Reedy's overall attitude towards being a little person? How can we kind of work out what her overall attitude is? I think for me, two things really struck out.

It's the idea that Cara Reedy's overall attitude towards being a little person is one of resilience, self-acceptance and ultimately defiance against societal prejudice.

Despite facing constant scrutiny, ridicule, and discrimination, she refuses to internalise society's negative perceptions of little people.

Instead she embraces her identity, asserting her right to live her life on her own terms and challenging societal norms that marginalise individuals with physical differences.

I think it's a really hopeful, really powerful article that I always love and always enjoy reading and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Okay, we've reached Learning Cycle two where we are going to focus in a bit more detail on the specific language used by Reedy and how it really kind of underpins and outlines her attitude, her attitude to her condition of dwarfism, her attitude towards being a little person.

So let's get started.

So in this learning cycle, we are going to focus on planning an answer to the following question.

And that question is, how does Reedy use language to present her experiences as a little person? So we read that article, it kind of talks in detail in depth about her experiences as a little person, and now we're gonna kind of focus in on the language that really explores her attitude.

So we've got this example here from Alex.

So Alex has said, I think Reedy presents her experience as a little person, as one of resilience and determination.

So tell me then please, quick discussion question to kick us off.

Alex has come up with this following idea, but what do you think led Alex to make this statement.

So pause the video, have a quick discussion, jot down some ideas, make sure you are drawing from that article itself, any specific examples that really has said that could potentially back up Alex's fantastic point there.

So pause the video, complete the task, and then push play when you would like to proceed.

Okay, some fantastic discussions taking place there.

People are really kind of focusing in on very specific things in the article to back up Alex's point, which is exactly what I'd like to see.

I'm gonna draw on those even more detail as we go through this learning cycle.

So what I'm for picking up on them.

Okay, so a good first step with questions of this kind is to identify the writer's overarching purpose or message with their writing so we can use evaluative adjectives to do this.

So evaluative adjectives can help us express our understanding of a piece of writing in an insightful way.

So let's look at an example.

Throughout her article, Reedy presents a negative attitude towards her experiences as a little person.

Who've got an opening sentence here from Jun, which really tries to identify the overarching idea.

So quick discussion question for me then please.

So Jun created the following statement using evaluative adjectives and his evaluative adjective here is, negative.

So how could this be improved? And I think this could definitely be improved.

So tell me how could it be improved? Pause the video, have a quick discussion, and then push play when you'd like to continue.

Okay, fantastic, welcome.

I'm hearing lots and lots and lots of people saying exactly the same thing, which is what I've got here, which is that Jun's adjective negative is far too simplistic.

It is such a simple catchall adjective that doesn't really capture the full extent of Reedy's experience does it? I don't think we can write off her experiences as simply negative.

It needs a much more precise adjective to really be a high level point.

And Jun also doesn't combine it with a discussion of Reedy's overarching purpose.

We don't understand from Jun what Reedy is trying to achieve with the article, which again is a really, really key part of answering that question.

So let's take a look at how June could have improved it.

June could have said, Reedy's article seeks to present the reality of living as a little person.

Her resilience and candid account explores the hardships of her life, but also the power that such experiences have given her.

So a significantly improved account there from Jun.

So now Jun's adjectives are much more precise and capture the reality of Reedy's experience.

So these adjectives of resilient and candid, I think that is a much better way to characterise read's experience.

And Jun has also combined it now with the discussion of Reedy's overarching message, which is to present the reality of living as a little person.

So a fantastic effort there from Jun of how we can improve our topic sentences to be even better by using evaluative adjectives and paying attention to the writer's overarching idea.

So when analysing language, it is good to have one overarching comment supported by three smaller details.

This is really, really good analytical writing.

And a single paragraph outline can be a great way to do this.

And they look a little bit like this.

So we've got our topic sentence at the top, which is, the overall topic sentence of our paragraph where our our ideas are going to go.

Then we have that middle row, which is all about supporting detail, which is where we add the detail that will back up our main point.

And then we also have our closing sentence, which kind of brings to a close the things that we have developed and explored in that paragraph.

So let's have a look at Sophia's plan.

Sophia has the topic sentence of, in her article, Reedy explores her experiences of being viewed as an outsider by some parts of society.

So in this paragraph, Sophia is going to focus on the outsider like nature of what Reedy is saying.

And we've also got that closing sentence, which is through the use of this language really challenges how negative some attitudes still are towards people like her.

So a really nice way to wrap up the paragraph.

So my question for you then is what supporting detail could really back up Sophia's point here.

What bits from the text? Are there any language devices? Are there any words? Are there any examples that Cara really has used that could really work well in this example paragraph? So hit that pause button, have a discussion, have a little look again at the article if you need to, or dot down some ideas and then push play when you'd like to continue.

Okay, fantastic Work on that task.

And once again, I really agree, I'm hearing lots of people saying, there are loads and loads of things you can put here for the supporting detail and that is absolutely correct.

So let's just have a look at what some of the things are that you could have put down.

And remember for this part of your single paragraph outline, you don't need to write in four sentences.

Writing in bullet points or notes is absolutely fine because it's just there as a planning document.

So we could have focused on the following things.

we could have said like being the main attraction at the circus.

So I really, really like this.

Similarly, I think it's really powerful, I think it's really vivid and I think it's really great at just explaining to us the daily experience of reading.

And I would say that this similarly highlights that some see her almost as entertaining or as or as an entertainment.

Again, we've got these powerful words like laugh and jeer, which show the mocking treatment that she receives.

These are not very nice ways to be treated by people, and I think her kind of focus on them is really, really powerful.

And then finally we've got this phrase, they look away this kind of three word phrase, which really highlights the rejection that she receives in society.

So all of these details really back up that opening point, which remember, it's all about being seen as an outsider by some parts of society.

So when put together, this can be a really fantastic paragraph.

Okay, so when writing an analysis of how language is used, quotes are used to provide evidence to support your point, they should be embedded within your response, which means that they become part of your sentences.

So embedded quotes should be short.

So ideally no more than three words and judicious.

This means they are well chosen to the point you are making is are really, really good tips for us to use evidence in our own pieces of writing.

So quick check for understanding for me then please.

So Jun wants advice on how to use quotations in his work.

Which of the below describe how Jun should use quotations in his work? Is it A embedded, B judicious or C detailed? So hit that pause button, complete this task, and then push play when you'd like to see the correct answer.

Okay, great work on that.

What on to everybody who said A and B? Embedded and judicious are the key rules for our quotations.

We don't really want detailed quotations.

We can have quotations that are simply one word long, as long as they are effectively analysed.

We don't want to put really long, really detailed quotations.

We want to keep them embedded and we want them judicious as well.

It's well done for picking up on that.

Okay, so let's look at an example of what I mean by an embedded and a judicious quotation.

So we have a non-example on the left and an example on the right.

So our non example reedy describes the attention she receives and highlights the intrusive and negative treatment she experiences in society.

This is shown in the quote, it's like being a celebrity and the whole world is my paparazzi.

Let's look at an example, what we actually wanna do.

Reedy describes her life as being like a celebrity, given the attention she receives, she develops this further by referring to the world as the paparazzi highlighting the negative and intrusive treatment she can sometimes receive from society.

So my question to you then, how is the second example more effective than the first? So hit that pause button, have a discussion, look at exactly what makes it better, and then push play when you'd like to see some correct answers.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that in the example, the quotations are very short.

They're only one word long, both of them, and they are embedded as well.

That also gives us more opportunity to analyse them.

So for example, in that example on the right hand side it says she develops this further by referring to the world as the paparazzi highlighting the negative and intrusive treatment she can sometimes receive.

So we are able to embed that in our own writing and develop that point further by talking about the intrusive treatment.

That just doesn't happen in the column on the left hand side.

We are just putting the quote there without any analysis.

That second sentence just says this is shown in the quote, it's like being a celebrity and the whole world is my paparazzi.

We are not elaborating on that, we are not showing our intelligence about why that quote links to our overarching point.

So remember embedded quotes and judicious quotes.

So we have reached our final practise task of today's lesson and I'm super excited to see how you get on with this one.

So Laura created the following single paragraph outline to answer the question.

And the question is, how does Reedy use language to show her experience as a little person? That question we've been developing throughout this learning cycle, and this is what her single paragraph outline looks like.

So we have the topic sentence, which is throughout Reedy explores the negative treatment that remains a part of her daily life.

So we know this paragraph is about negative treatment experienced as part of Reedy's daily life, and then she's got the following supporting detail.

We've got three really nice bits of detail there.

So first and foremost, like a kick in the chest this similarly that highlights the violence of others' opinions.

Again, a really, really vivid language there from Reedy.

We've also got this rhetorical question of isn't she cute? This rhetorical question which shows the kind of childish or infantalizing treatment she receives.

If you infantalize someone, you treat them like a baby, you treat them like a child.

And finally we've got, don't use that word, something that she says herself, an imperative that shows her assertiveness with dealing with this kind of negativity.

And then we've got that closing sentence, which is ultimately Reedy's language choices vividly illustrate the enduring impact of such treatment on her daily experiences despite her resilient and determined outlook.

So my task for you? Yep, you've guessed it.

I would like you to write a paragraph to answer this question using Laura's plan.

So using single paragraph outlines like this is a really good habit to get into to ensure that we have really first rate, really excellent writing.

So I'm really looking forward to how you get on with this task.

So pause the video, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to see some feedback.

Okay, my goodness, we are working incredibly hard today, which is what I love to see.

So let's take a look at how we could have approached that task.

And do remember, yours does not have to be identical to this.

This is just a way you could have approached today's practise task.

So throughout Reedy explores the persistent negative treatment that remains a prevalent aspect of her daily life.

Reedy describes other people's comments as like a kick in the chest, the similarly accentuating violence inherent in others' opinions and attitudes towards her.

Additionally, the rhetorical question, isn't she cute underscores the infantalizing and dismissive treatment she often encounters.

Furthermore Reedy's, use of imperatives as seen in don't use that word, reflects the assertiveness in confronting and challenging the negativity directed towards her.

Ultimately Reedy's language choices vividly illustrate the enduring impact of such treatment on her daily experiences despite her resilient and determined outlook.

So a really great example there of how we could have done this.

So final discussion question for you.

What evaluative adjectives have been used in this response? Where are those evaluative adjectives.

Pause the video, complete the task and push play when you'd like to continue.

Yep, you've absolutely got it is infantalizing and dismissive.

So we could have just said negative, but we don't want to do that, do we? Because that is too general and too catchall.

These words are much more precise and really go to the heart of exploring how it Reedy is treated.

So infantalizing and dismissive are really kind of judicious, really precise, which is exactly what we want.

So my very last task for today then, where can you identify the evaluative adjectives that you have used in your own work? So once again, for the final time, pause that video, identify those evaluative adjectives in your own work, and then push play when you would like to bring today's lesson to a close.

Okay, it's been an absolute pleasure to teach you today and we've learned an awful lot, haven't we? So let's just recap all of those fantastic things that we have focused on today.

So firstly, precise evaluative adjectives, express and interpretation in relation to the question.

Define one overarching point about the way language is used and use three smaller points to support.

Select evidence that explores patterns and contrasts within the language.

Use short judicious quotations of one to three words to support, analysis, and finally create an overarching sense of the writer's purpose or underlying message.

Show how this is conveyed through language.

It's been an absolute pleasure to teach you today and I really look forward to teaching you on another lesson in this sequence.

So thank you very much and goodbye.