Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham and I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today, we're going to be editing our narratives that we've written, based on the climax of 'A Kind of Spark'.

So this is our chance to make some improvements to what we've written and take our writing from good, to great and really impress our reader.

Let's get going.

Today's lesson is called self-editing the climax of 'A Kind of Spark' and it comes from my unit called, 'A Kind of Spark, Narrative Writing'.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll have edited your own climax of 'A Kind of Spark', aiming to improve the punctuation, text cohesion, and vocabulary.

So for this lesson, you will need to have your first draught of the climax of 'A Kind of Spark', that you've written in previous lessons.

If you're ready, let's make a start.

Here are our key words for today's lesson.

Cohesive devices are language structures that develop text cohesion.

And text cohesion, is how a text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve its text purpose.

And a growth mindset is a desire to keep developing any skillset.

And here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to be self editing our work today, which means we'll be doing our own editing, on our own piece of work.

And we're going to do that through three different lenses, if you like.

We're going to start off by self-editing for punctuation, looking just at punctuation.

Then we'll look at cohesion and then we'll look at vocabulary.

So by the end of this lesson, you'll have self-edited your own work, three times, looking at three different features that we can try and improve.

So as you know, when we finish writing a draught of a piece of writing, we edit to improve our work.

So today, we'll be going to be editing our climax of 'A Kind of Spark', that we've written across three previous lessons.

So, this is a chance to rethink and rephrase and reconsider, those first ideas that we've written down.

And remember, every piece of work can always be improved, even if it's one we're really proud of, already.

So, we should approach our editing with a growth mindset, which means an awareness that we can always improve any skill we have, if we're aware that we've done a great piece of work, but we can still try and improve it, to make it even better.

Now, editing a piece of work like this involves checking several things.

First of all, our punctuation and our sentence structures and cohesive devices, and our vocabulary and spelling.

So we can edit for all those things to make sure we've done a really good job of improving our work, as much as possible.

So which of these statements about editing are true? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, great job.

So hopefully you spotted that, yes, it's true.

We still edit work that we're very proud of, hopefully trying to make it something we can be even more proud of.

It's not the case that editing means rewriting our whole text.

We might rewrite small sections, or even paragraphs, but we will usually just be rewriting sentences, or even parts of sentences, in order to improve them.

And we might not even need to do that.

It all depends on what we see, we could improve in our text.

If you're told to edit, it does not mean your work is bad.

It means that you could make it better, which is true of any piece of work.

And 'D', editing can help to make good work into great work.

That's definitely true, isn't it? And it might make great work into really outstanding work.

So we're going to try and improve in any way we can to make this work even more impressive for our reader.

So, first of all, we can check our punctuation and I'm going to talk you through a few pieces of punctuation that you might want to check for.

Now you'll see in the examples that I show you, these aren't relevant to the piece of the story that we've retold, in our narrative here.

Don't worry, I've just chosen these so that your editing is completely independent and it's based on your own ideas.

So one piece of punctuation we might want to check for, is commas.

And we know that commas can be used to demarcate, or show the boundaries of clauses and phrases within sentences.

For instance, when Mr Macintosh pulled back the curtain, comma, they thought they saw the plaque.

That comma is after a fronted adverbial clause.

Here, I've got "Before long" a fronted adverbial, followed by that comma.

"Before long," comma "Nina was able to help Keedie to her bed." Then I've got "Nina left the kitchen," comma "stomping upstairs to her room." And here the comma comes before stomping that verb in its "ing" form, which starts a non finite "ing" clause there.

And we need a comma before that, to show the boundary of that non finite "ing" clause.

We know that hyphens are another great piece of punctuation and they can be used to join two words, to create compound adjectives, like this.

"As Miss Murphy speaks, I perch on the too-large chair in the headteacher's office." There, I've got too and large, joined together to make a compound adjective, to describe the chair.

And we can use dashes as well, for dramatic effect, often to kind of repeat an idea.

Here's an idea, "Jenna - my former friend Jenna - stands by, doing nothing at all." So that piece of information in the dashes could be removed and the sentence could still make sense, but we've put dashes on either side of it, to emphasise it for dramatic effect.

And notice how it repeats something, that came before it, repeats the idea of Jenna, added some more detail and that's what makes it slightly dramatic in this sentence.

Now, semicolon, as you know, it's another piece of punctuation we can use really well.

And they can be used to join what could be two complete sentences, or to separate items in a detailed list, that comes after a colon.

So here's an example of a semicolon to join two complete sentences.

"I breathe deeply, looking up at the tree;" semicolon, "I want to make them all proud." Two complete sentences, joined with a semicolon, but they have to be closely related, which these two are.

Here's an example of using semicolons in a list.

It's a detailed list, where each item in the list already has a comma, within that item.

So we can't just separate the items using commas.

Let's have a look.

It says, "I turn around to face everyone who matters to me most:" colon.

"Mum, who is smiling at me;" semicolon, "Nina, who nods encouragingly;" semicolon "and Keedie, who gives me a thumbs up." So there, I've got commas within each list item, so to separate them, I've put semicolons.

And notice how here, we do have a semicolon before and, when we're using semicolons to separate detailed items, in a list.

So we've already used a colon there, to introduce a list.

And we know that a colon can introduce either a list, a question, or an explanation.

So, here's a colon introducing an explanation.

"Mr Macintosh smiles proudly:" colon, "he's busily telling everyone how the plaque was all his idea." So, there what comes after the colon, explains what comes before.

It explains why Mr Macintosh is smiling.

And here, I've got "Miss Murphy rolled her eyes:" colon, "why did Addie always make such a fuss?" There I've got a question introduced by a colon, in both those cases, what's on either side of the colon, could be a complete sentence, but we've connected them, using the colon.

Now we know that direct speech is also going to feature a lot in our climax.

And inverted commas can be used to show direct speech, in various different ways.

We can have speech first, speech second or speech interrupted.

In a speech first sentence.

The direct speech comes first, followed by the reporting clause, where we say who spoke and how.

So I've got ""Sharks are okay, but I think I prefer dolphins," said Audrey." Notice how there I've got inverted commas around the words that were said and always some punctuation before that closing inverted comma.

Here, I've used a comma because I'm not asking a question, or sharing a strong emotion and it can't be a full stop.

'cause we know that the sentence continues, all the way to "said Audrey." Full stop.

In this speech second sentence, we can see, the direct speech comes second.

"Audrey's mum asked, "Who are you then?"" So this time, we've got the reporting clause first, "Audrey's mum asked" and it's followed by a comma and then we have the direct speech.

And again, we always have some closing punctuation, before that closing inverted comma, at the end.

And this time it's a question, so we've used a question mark.

When we have speech interrupted, that means that the reporting clause is in the middle.

So here I've said, ""Sharks are okay," said Audrey, "but I think I prefer dolphins."" This time, we've got a comma at the end of that first piece of direct speech, a comma after the reporting clause and then before the closing inverted commas after dolphins, I've got some punctuation.

This time it's okay to use a full stop because this is the end of the sentence.

So, we've got lots of rules to remember here, depending on where we've placed the direct speech, in our sentence.

So try and make sure you use those rules, as you check your work today.

And we know that when we combine some different sentence types, we have to use really careful punctuation.

So if a look at this example, I actually have first of all, a fronted adverbial, followed by a comma.

"Soon," comma.

Then, I know that's a complete sentence, "Soon, I spot Keedie sitting at the front of the lecture hall;" So I've put a semicolon after it.

And then what comes after, is actually an adverbial complex sentence.

"as I wave to her excitedly," comma, "she looks up with a horrified expression on her face." That could have been two complete sentences, which are separate.

They've been joined by a semicolon, but within each of them, I also have a comma.

One after a fronted adverbial word, "Soon," and one after fronted adverbial clause, "as I wave to her excitedly," So we have to keep the punctuation within each of those sentences, correct.

And then we've joined them with the semicolon because they're closely related.

So when you combine sentence types like that, watch out carefully, for the punctuation within each of the sentence types that you're connecting with your semicolon, in this case.

So, have a look at these three examples.

Where can we add the missing punctuation to each sentence? And remember, there might be some different options that work, as well as the ones I'm going to show you.

Pause the video and have a look.

Well done.

Good job.

So for 'a', I would put a comma after "Just then," that fronted adverbial clause and then go to put a semicolon after "dinner;".

Then I've got another comma after "soon," another fronted adverbial.

And then I've got a comma before, my non-finite "ing" clause here, before "putting away her film equipment." So, I've had several commas and then, sentences connected with a semicolon, as well.

For 'b', I've got some inverted commas missing, haven't I? So I could say this, I put inverted commas around the words that were said.

Then within that, it's two separate sentences.

So I've used a semicolon to connect them.

Didn't, is a contraction.

So it needs that apostrophe there.

And before my speech marks close, I need that comma there, to show that my reporting clause is still to come because this is a speech first sentence.

And then in my last example, we've just got two parts of a sentence here, one of which explains the other.

So I would add a colon here, I think.

"Miss Murphy glared angrily at Addie:" colon, "she was growing impatient." The bit that comes after the colon, explains why Miss Murphy was glaring at Addie.

And both of those, could be a sentence on their own, but we've connected them, with that colon.

Really well done, if you spotted those.

And remember, you could have used some slightly different punctuation and that's totally fine.

So, here's a whole passage now, similar to what you might have written, in one of your paragraphs maybe, but possibly a bit shorter.

Have a look at this passage and discuss with a partner where you can see any punctuation mistakes, in this passage, that you'd need to correct.

Pause the video and have a look.

Well done.

Good job.

So here are some places where the punctuation should be added and we'll look at what types of punctuation are needed here, later.

So you probably need one after spoke.

You'll need some around "her precious thesaurus", something before "Why" and after "this".

Something after "stammered" and then something after "face" as well.

So, those are the places where the punctuation should be.

We'll talk about what the punctuation needs to be in each of those, later on.

Really well done if you spotted those places.

So, let's do our first task for this lesson.

You are going to self-edit your work looking just at punctuation.

So, first of all, I want you to whisper your narrative out loud to yourself, using a ruler to follow the lines carefully, to make sure you don't miss anything out.

And you might want to say the punctuation as you go.

You could say comma and colon, as you read those pieces of punctuation.

And I want you looking only at that punctuation, to make any additions or changes that need to be made to your work, using the same coloured pen that you wrote the work in to start with.

And remember, varying your punctuation is another way of engaging our reader.

So just like having a variety of language, or variety of sentence structures, we want to vary our punctuation as well.

So you might see a spot where you can add in punctuation, to add a bit of variety as well.

So pause the video here and have a go at self-editing your work, looking just at punctuation.

Well done.

Really good job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made, with the punctuation of that paragraph, we looked at before.

So, I put a comma after "As Emily spoke", that fronted adverbial clause.

I've put dashes around "her precious thesaurus" because that's kind of emphasising the idea of the thesaurus, that came before.

I've got inverted commas and that question mark, around that direct speech, "Why have you done this?" And then I've got a comma before feeling, before that non finite "ing" clause.

And then I've put a colon in that last sentence because I've got two parts of a sentence, which each could be their own sentence.

But the second one explains the first.

He explains why Audrey covered her face.

So using a colon, to introduce an explanation, works really well there.

So, hopefully you didn't have to make quite as many changes as I did there, to my passage.

But hopefully you've improved the punctuation within your piece of work, to a level that you're really happy with.

Well done.

So now we've self edited for punctuation, ready to move on to the next lens through which we're going to look at our piece of work, which is self-editing for cohesion.

So, having good text cohesion means making sure that our ideas are connected appropriately and that our text flows well, together.

And when we edit our work, we can check for cohesion in a number of different ways.

First of all, we have to check, have we used a range of cohesive devices? And those are just the language features that help us to connect ideas together.

For example, fronted adverbials, they can connect different sentences together by showing the relationship between them.

Then there are different sentence types that connect ideas within sentences, like compound and complex sentences.

And finally, there's punctuation that can be used to connect ideas together.

For example, colon, semicolons and commas.

We also can check, that we've added in any missing words and removed any extra ones and we need to make sure that the writing makes sense.

That's almost the most important of all, isn't it? And finally, have we used the correct tense throughout each paragraph? We know that in our writing that we've been doing, we are switching tense and switching perspective a lot.

So we have to make sure that we've got the correct tense, throughout each of our paragraphs.

So here's a passage which has good text cohesion.

What cohesive devices do you notice, have been used in this passage? Pause the video and have a look.

Well done.

Really good job.

So hopefully you noticed here we've got a compound sentence using "but" and that's used to connect two contrasting pieces of information, to show the contrast between them.

"Miss Murphy's still talking, but I barely hear her." We're showing the contrast.

Then we've got a colon, to introduce an explanation.

So, what comes after that colon? "my mind is racing", is showing us the reason why Addie can't hear Miss Murphy.

And then we've got a non-finite "ing" clause, that starts with racing, which helps to connect two actions together.

So we've got "Racing down the corridor towards the library, I cover my ears;" Those two things happen simultaneously.

And using the non-finite "ing" clause, starting with "racing", helps us to show that simultaneous action.

And finally, we've got a semicolon, used to connect two closely related sentences.

Helping us to show those actions happen closely together.

So, "I cover my ears;" semicolon.

"it's far too loud and far too busy." Those are closely related.

So we've used semicolon, to join them together, to the show closer relationship between them.

So lots of different cohesive devices used there, in just one short passage.

All showing us the relationship between different ideas and connecting ideas together and making the flow of our writing, really, really good.

So that's what we're aiming for, in our piece of work today.

So, can you have a go at improving the text cohesion of each of these passages, by checking for those things that we've discussed? Pause the video and decide what changes you would make to improve the text cohesion of each of these.

Well done.

Good job.

So for "a", I've got "Audrey Grins at me.

She is my best friend.

She hands me a small book." So, I can combine those ideas together into one sentence.

"As Audrey - my best friend Audrey - grins at me, she hands me a small book." So I've now got an adverbial complex sentence and I've used dashes as well, to add the emphasis there, about Audrey.

For "b", I've got, "I rush up to my room.

I grab my shark book.

Sometimes, I need to read to relax my mind." I could do this, "Rushing up to my room," non-finite "ing" clause.

"I grab my shark book:" colon and introduce an explanation.

"Sometimes I need to read to relax my mind." We've joined those ideas much more closely together, to show how they're connected.

Then for C, I've written "Keedie curled on her bed.

She lay very still.

Nina beckoned me to come.

Keedie wanted me to sit by her." I could make that like this, "Keedie curled on her bed and she lay very still;" semicolon.

"Nina beckoned me to come, but Katie asked me to sit by her." There I've used compound sentences, using "and" and "but", and then I've connected them together, using that semicolon, to show that they're closely related.

So in all these cases we've used different cohesive devices, to connect ideas together, more closely.

Now as we've said, because our narrative includes switches in tense and perspective, we need to check really carefully for errors in this because they're very easy to make, but they're also easy to fix.

So here's an example.

"Maggie wakes with a start to a loud banging on her door.

"You cursed us!" came a shout from outside.

"Come out here, you old crone and face the law!" What is going on? What was I being accused of?" And I bet you already spotted some problems there.

Now we know this passage should be in the third person, past tense.

It's part of a flashback, isn't it? But we see two big problems. We've got some present tense verbs, like "wakes" and "is".

And we've used "I" in the first person, in "What was I being accused of?" and as we said, these are easy mistakes to make, but luckily that was easy to fix.

So I could just do this, "Maggie woke with a start", now that's in the past tense.

"What was going on?" That's now in the past tense.

And "What was she being accused of?" That's now in the third person.

So if we read in our heads, we might miss these things.

So reading aloud is a much better way of spotting these easy mistakes, like this.

So that's something to think about, when you come to edit.

So can you discuss now with a partner where you can improve the cohesion of this passage? Pause the video and see what mistakes you spot.

Have a go.

Well done.

Good job.

So hopefully you noticed there's a verb in the present tense, that needs to be fixed.

We'll talk about which one later on.

There's a sentence in the first person, that needs to be changed.

There are pairs of separate sentences that could be connected into individual sentences, to help us share the relationship between their ideas.

And there's also a missing word.

So hopefully you spotted those mistakes and we'll talk about how you might fix them, later on.

So now it's time for your second task.

You have to edit your narrative, now looking only at text cohesion.

So again, whispering to yourself, following with a ruler.

And this time looking only at text cohesion.

Make any changes that are needed.

Again, in the same colour pen that you already wrote with.

And if you want to rewrite a whole sentence, which you might want to do, you could do this below your work and then use a star, to show what that sentence should be.

And you should be checking that you've used a wide range of cohesive devices.

So, look for all of these things, missing words, missing cohesive devices.

That the word makes sense, most of all.

That the tense is the right one, for the passage you're writing and that you've used the correct person in each section.

The third person, or the first person.

So pause the video here and have a go at checking your work, for cohesion.

Well done.

Really good job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made, to improve the text cohesion of that paragraph we looked at before.

I've got the first one there.

Let's see how we might have changed it.

I said "Addie sat in the tiny office as Miss Murphy looks down at her.

She was furious.

Her eyes blazed as she glared Addie." So I've added in that missing word "blazed" and instead of me, I've put Addie because it was the third person.

I've put "looked" instead of "looks" and I've connected those sentences using a semicolon.

And I've used "as", as well, to show that those two ideas are connected together and happening simultaneously in an adverbial complex sentence.

Really well done, if you've made some similar changes to your own work, hopefully you've managed to improve the variety of cohesive devices that you've used.

Really well done.

So, we're going to our final check now.

We're going to be self-editing now, for vocabulary.

So when we're editing for vocabulary, we want to make sure we're choosing engaging and appropriate language.

And remember, we are writing from two different perspectives in this piece of work.

We've got a third person perspective, that describes Maggie's story and a first person perspective that shows Addie's perspective, on the events that are happening now.

So, just remind yourself, how might our language and vocabulary choices be different, in these two different perspectives? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, you're right.

So, our third person paragraphs might be a bit more formal and a bit more descriptive than our first person paragraphs, in this piece of work.

And we can consider this when we edit.

We're going to be slightly more informal, in our first person paragraphs because that is Addie's thoughts and ideas, in the moment, as she speaks.

So which of the versions below uses the most appropriate form of vocabulary for a third person description of an event.

How you might be writing about flashbacks in our narrative here.

Pause the video and decide which one is most appropriate.

Well done.

Hopefully you spotted that it is C.

If you look at A and B, they're using quite simple language there, aren't they? Whereas C is using much more advanced language, like "overcome with excitement", "wildly and dramatically" as adverbs and that relative complex sentence there as well.

And this is just a more formal and slightly more descriptive way of writing, which is more appropriate for our third person, flashback sections.

Well done if you spotted that.

So when we write from our first person perspective, in the role of Addie, we know we might be using some more informal language.

Here's an example, "I look over at the plaque and I smile.

It's funny to hear Mr Macintosh claim it was all his idea.

But I don't mind: it's done.

That's all that matters." There we can see we've used contractions like "it's" and "that's", which add a lot of informality to our writing.

And we can see lots of sentences starting with "I" and other informal sentence openers like "but" or "and".

And we can see some short sentences and some simple sentences, which have little description, use quite simple language and this helps our reader to have that really clear understanding of what's going on in Addie's mind right now, at this particular moment.

And understand that this is her own observations.

We are speaking as her.

So we're going to be slightly more informal.

That doesn't mean that we won't use a whole range of sentence types and punctuation, but we'll do it using slightly more informal, slightly simpler language, than our very descriptive, third-person flashback sections.

So, what vocabulary choices in this first person passage, help to show that it has an informal tone? Pause the video and see what you can spot.

Well done.

Good job.

Hopefully you spotted, we've got lots of contractions, like "it's" and "she's".

We've got simple language, like the words "really upset" and we've got informal sentence openers like "but", and we've got very little description, haven't we? This is quite plain language.

But notice how, even within this, we've used that range of sentence structures and punctuation.

For instance, those dashes around "really upset" are a great way of using punctuation as cohesive device and adding some extra detail for our reader.

Really well done, if you spotted those informal language features we can use in our first person paragraphs.

So, let's do our final task to assessment.

You're going to edit your narrative now, looking only at vocabulary this time.

Again, whispering and following with a ruler.

But this time looking only at vocabulary, I'm going to make any changes that are needed, focusing on these features.

I want you to focus on looking at improving your descriptive language and details, in the third person flashbacks and that informal language we've just discussed, in the first person sections.

And if you want to change a word, of course, you can cross it out with a ruler and write it above, again in that same coloured pen.

And you can use a dictionary, check any spellings that you're unsure of.

So pause the video here and have a go at checking for vocabulary.

Well done.

Good job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made, to a third person passage to add some descriptive detail.

Here's what I've written now.

"Miss Murphy held up Addie's work.

She tore it in two and she threw the pieces into the bin.

Addie was shocked and upset." That is not very detailed or descriptive, is it? So I could have changed it to this, "Holding Addie's work - her precious story - in front of her, Miss Murphy ripped it in two with a flourish, tossing the pieces into the bin.

Addie sat in shocked silence; tears were streaming down her cheeks." So I've added much more descriptive detail about what's happening here.

I've added some extra information, like her "precious story" there, in the dashes.

And we've got things like "with a flourish", "tossing", "shocked silence", "tears were streaming".

All of this descriptive detail is really appropriate for our third person flashback sections.

Now, I'm sure yours were already close to that before you started editing, but hopefully you've managed to introduce some even more descriptive detail there and add some more informal language, to your first person paragraphs.

Really well done.

So, we've now edited our whole piece of work, for punctuation, cohesion, and vocabulary.

So hopefully, you're really proud of the work you've produced.

Good job.

Let's summarise our learning from this lesson.

We've said that editing is an essential part of the writing process, during which we can refine and improve our ideas.

And we know that we can check that punctuation has been used correctly, following the rules that we've been taught.

We know we can check for cohesion by looking at the sentence structures we've used and connecting ideas more closely where needed, with different cohesive devices.

And we know we can check our vocabulary to ensure it's appropriate, to each part of the text we're writing.

Really well done, for all your effort in this unit, you've hopefully produced two fantastic pieces of writing, which I hope that you're really proud of.

Really well done.

I'd love to see you again, in a future lesson.

Goodbye.