Hello there, Mr. Barnsley here.

Fantastic to see you today.

Thank you for joining me as we continue to work through the unit, "Read Around the World," where we look at texts that have been written in other languages and have been translated into English.

Today, we are gonna be looking at the text "Suite Francaise," which is available to you in your additional materials.

And we are gonna be forming our own personal opinions on the text and thinking about what it means to form a really solid personal opinion.

All right, make sure you have the text in front of you and then it's time for us to begin.

So let's have a look at today's outcome then.

By the end of the lesson, you are gonna be able to confidently form and justify your own opinions based on an extract from a fiction text.

So three key words we're looking out for, opinion, justify and credible.

So our opinions are a thought, are own personal thoughts or beliefs about something.

To justify, it means to give a really good reason for, and credible means to be able to be believed or trusted.

So we are gonna be reading an extract from a novel called "Suite Francaise," and we're gonna be forming our opinions on it.

So we're gonna start the lesson by reading the text and then we're gonna really think about our opinions.

What we thought about what we have read.

So let's start by reading "Suite Francaise".

So we're gonna be reading the opening of a novel, as I said, called "Suite Francaise," and this is right from the beginning.

And this was written by Irene Nemirovsky.

Here is some context about the writer.

So Nemirovsky is a writer of Ukrainian-Jewish origin.

She spent most of her life, however, living in France, Paris.

In September, 1939, France declared war on Germany.

And in May, 1940 Germany invaded France.

Now Nemirovsky then moved herself and her children to a small French village.

And it was here where she began writing "Suite Francaise" in 1941.

So with all of that context, thinking about all of that context, what predictions can you make about this text? What predictions might you be making about this text? All right, over to you for this one.

And if you've got a partner, you can share your predictions with them.

If you're working by yourself, you can just think through this independently.

So pause the video, think about what your predictions might be, and then press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

It was great to hear you right from the beginning of the lesson, justifying using words like, "because," "as," or "since." So I heard lots of you saying that actually it might be centred on World War II.

Okay, that's what was happening at the time.

This was written kind of in the midst, in the middle of World War II.

So, but perhaps it's gonna be centred on World War II.

Interestingly, some of you are saying it's going to be potentially written from a perspective that we might not be used to reading about.

But then, this time a French perspective, this is a text that was written in French and has since been translated into English.

So it's gonna show a slightly different perspective of the war, particularly because we know that France was invaded and whilst the UK was heavily bombed, it wasn't invaded.

So the experience of being a civilian in France and in the UK during World War II would've been different.

So I heard lots of you saying, look, it's going to describe what it's like to be a victim of war.

So we know there were many victims of war.

There were obviously the people who died in battle, but there were also civilians who were victims through invasions or bombing.

And I heard lots of you saying that actually it's history to us, but actually this is contemporary to the writer.

So it's not about, if it is about the war, it's not gonna be about her memory of the war, looking back on the war, but writing at a time where it was happening, where it was current, where it was live.

So some really interesting predictions there and like I said, really well done to those of you who are using conjunctions there to justify.

So, "because," "but" and "so," you were saying that "I'm making this prediction "because the context has told me this." That's fantastic to see.

All right, we're gonna read the first two paragraphs of "Suite Francaise." You'll be able to find this in your additional materials.

I am gonna read it to you, but I am gonna turn the camera off 'cause I want everyone to be following along rather than just listening and looking at the screen.

And we're going to be checking at the end, our comprehension check we've understood.

So there are four questions I'm gonna be asking you and I want you to be thinking whether these are true or false.

So maybe you can have these in mind as we're reading together.

So the first statement is, "The war hasn't yet started in Paris." The second statement is, "The women are nervous at the first signs of an air raid." Three, "There are cows in the Parisian streets." And four, "Everyone was frantic during the air raid." So four statements to look out for.

Frantic means, kind of really anxious, really, really nervous.

Four statements to be thinking about 'cause we want to show our understanding by being able to say whether these are true or false.

Right, I'm gonna turn my camera off now.

Everyone should have their copy of the text in front of them.

Remember this is in your additional materials and let's follow along as we read the first two paragraphs together.

"War.

"Hot, thought the Parisians.

"The warm air of spring.

"It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid.

"But Dawn was near and the war far away.

"The first to hear the hum of the siren "were those who couldn't sleep, "the ill and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, "women crying for the men they loved.

"To them it began as a long breath, "like air being forced into a deep sigh.

"It wasn't long before its wailing filled the sky.

"It came from a far from beyond the horizon, "slowly, almost lazily.

"Those still asleep, dreamed of waves breaking over pebbles, "a March storm whipping the woods, "a herd of cows trampling the ground with their hooves, "until finally sleep was shaken off "and they struggled to open their eyes murmuring, "'Is it an air raid?' "The women more anxious, more alert, were already up, "although some of them after closing their windows "and shutters went back to bed.

"The night before Monday, 3rd of June, "bombs had fallen on Paris for the first time "since the beginning of war.

"Yet everyone remained calm.

"Even though the reports were terrible, "no one believed them.

"No more so than if victory had been announced.

"'We don't understand what's happening,' people said." Okay, some excellent following along there.

Well done.

Over to you now to check your comprehension, check your understanding of the text that we have just read.

I would like you to discuss whether the following statements are true or false.

Pause the video, give this a go and press play when you think you have the answers.

Welcome back, let's see what you said.

So, "The war hadn't started in Paris," well that is false.

The war has already begun.

And in fact, we learned that the first bombs had been dropped just a few days before.

"The women were nervous at the first signs of the air raid." True.

The writer really focused on the women who wouldn't be sleeping.

There were other people who might not be sleeping, but she talks about women with children at war, women who had their men, their husbands, their boyfriends, their partners at war being too anxious to sleep, being too nervous to sleep, and therefore, they were the ones who could hear the air siren.

"There are cows in the Parisian streets." Well, I don't know if you noticed that was false.

They do talk about the cows, but these were in the dreams of the people who were managing to sleep.

Perhaps kind of dreaming of the countryside.

And, "Everyone was frantic during the air raid." That too.

(coughs) Excuse me, that was false.

There was this sense of calmness, but maybe we wouldn't have expected.

There seemed to be this kind of confusion that people didn't really know what was going on.

Well done if you've got those correct.

Okay, let's do a check for understanding then.

In the opening of "Suite Francaise," how do most people react to the air raid? Is it A, frantically, B, calmly, or C, aggressively? Pause the video, have a think, A, B, or C, press play when you think you've got the answer.

Yeah, well done if you said B, calmly, great job.

Okay, over to you then for our first task of today's lesson.

You are going to read the rest of the opening of "Suite Francaise." You should have this in front of you from your additional materials.

Then you are gonna answer the following questions.

And here we're focusing on your own personal response to the text.

Okay, I'm not now checking if you understand, I'm checking about how you feel about this text.

So what feelings did the text evoke in you? What feelings did they bring up in you? What stood out to you in the text? It could be a word, it could be a phrase, it could be a pattern that you've spotted, but what jumped out on the page to you and how was this text different from other texts about war that you may have read? All right, over to you.

You may wish to reread the first two paragraphs again, but make sure you've now read the whole of the opening that is in your additional materials and then answer these questions.

So think about your personal response to this text.

All right, pause the video, over to you and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Some fantastic independent reading there.

Really well done.

Okay, we're gonna take a moment before we move on to reflect on the reading that we've done and specifically the way that we responded to this reading.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna share some of Izzy's personal responses and you can compare these to yours and think, "Did you have similar responses to Izzy?" "Did you have different responses to Izzy? "And if you had different responses to Izzy, "why might you have had different responses to Izzy?" Let's have a look then.

So Izzy said for the first question, what feelings did the text evoke in her? She said, "Well, I was expecting to be on edge "as the text began telling the reader that there was a war "and an air raid.

"However, the writer allowed the reader "to feel the same sense of calm "that some of the citizens felt." For the second question, what stood out to her? Izzy, in the text she said, "I noticed light imagery throughout the text "which stood out to me "as I wasn't expecting such a beautiful descriptions "to be included when writing "about such a harrowing event," such as war.

I wonder if you saw similar things to Izzy.

How was the text different from other war texts that you've read? Well, Izzy's read other text about war and she said, "They usually focused on the danger, "the brutality, or the experience of the soldiers.

"However, 'Suite Francaise' was unusual "in how it focused on how the ordinary lives of citizens "are disrupted in war.

"I think it allowed the reader to see a more mundane "and perhaps relatable perspective of war as well." Really interesting ideas there from Izzy.

Why don't you pause the video and take a moment to reflect on your personal responses.

Were they similar or different to Izzy's and why? Pause the video, take some time to reflect and press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

We did some fantastic reading in the first part of today's lesson.

Now we're gonna really focus on formulating our own opinions on the text.

So let's have a quick discussion then.

What is the difference between a fact and opinion? Okay, what's the difference between an opinion and a fact? Pause the video, have a think.

Press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

So you might have said that a fact is something that we know definitely happened.

Okay, it can be proven so, in the text there is an air raid taking place.

Okay, we can prove that.

We can find a line that proves to us that there is an air raid taking place in this text.

An opinion is the writer makes the air raid seem really daunting.

Okay, daunting means something we should be worried about, something we should be nervous about.

Now that's an opinion, okay.

We can find evidence that suggests that, that implies that.

But we cannot say for sure that that was the writer's purpose.

We are not the writer.

We cannot say for sure this is what they are trying to do.

This is how they're trying to make the air raid seem.

This is an opinion that we are making through making inferences from the text.

So an opinion is a view or a judgement formed on something that's not based on fact.

This means each opinion is a personal response.

Everyone can respond to a text differently and therefore, we could all have different opinions on a text.

Let's practise then forming some of our own opinions on "Suite Francaise." So what did you like about the opening of "Suite Francaise" and what did you dislike about the opening of "Suite Francaise"? Why don't you pause the video and give yourself some time to think here about what you liked and disliked about the opening of "Suite Francaise." Now here are some opinion centres starters that might be really useful for you.

"Personally," "I believe," "In my opinion." Over to you now to pause the video, do some discussing whether in pairs or by yourself using these sentence starters and press play when you've got some ideas.

Over to you.

Welcome back.

I heard some really great discussions there.

Fantastic job.

Now I want to share with you two opinions that I heard people saying.

Opinion one.

Someone said, "Personally, I didn't like the text "because it was boring." And person two who said, "Personally I disliked the text "because it suggested that people "were calm in the face of an air raid "and I was quite sceptical about that." I want you to think about which of these opinions are you more inclined to listen to and engage with, and why? Is it opinion one? "Personally I didn't like the text because it was boring," or is it opinion two, "Personally, I disliked the text "because it suggested that people were calm "in the face of an air raid, "which I'm sceptical about." Means I'm unsure about.

I'm unsure whether that feels right, believable.

So over to you then, which opinion are you most inclined to listen to and engage with? Pause the video, talk in pairs or think independently and press play when you think you have decided.

Welcome back.

I heard lots of you saying opinion two, because actually in order to add credibility to our opinions, make people kind of want to trust us and believe us, we have to justify them.

We have to explain them.

So how could you further justify? How could you explain the opinions that you had on the opening of "Suite Francaise"? Looking at opinion two, they didn't like the text.

That's okay.

You don't have to like every text you read, but they gave a really clear reason and they've taken it further.

You know, they've not said, "Oh, it's boring." Okay yes, you've given a reason, but why is it boring? Why did you find it boring? Here they've said look, "I'm sceptical about it.

"I would've expected an air raid to be frantic, be chaotic, "and this is not what I expected, "so I'm not sure whether I believe it." Feels like they are justifying their opinion.

So over to you then, how would you justify your opinion on the opening of "Suite Francaise"? Pause the video and if you've got partner, you can work through your justifications together.

Otherwise you can think through this independently.

Welcome back.

It was great to hear you starting to do some justifications there.

Okay, now we're gonna start thinking about how we can form opinions about the writer's purpose.

So not just kind of how we are responding to what we read, but we can now start thinking about why the writer has written, why they've included what they've included.

So here are some of the Oak pupil's opinions on Nemirovsky's purpose.

Aisha says she thinks the writer captures the innocence of Parisian citizens at the beginning of war.

So actually that's what she wanted to do.

She wanted to show how innocent that citizens were in the face of war.

Andeep says, "I believe the writer purposefully focuses "on the reactions of citizens "and their ordinary lives rather than the dangers itself "to help us relate to the characters." So actually it's much easier for those of us who have never had to be fighting at war, to relate to the citizens and their ordinary lives.

And that really makes us relate to them as characters.

In Izzy's opinion, the writer successfully portrays the feeling of hope despite the horrific circumstances.

So maybe here, there is a focus on yes, these terrible things are happening, but also there was a sense of hope that things would be okay in the end.

And John says, he thinks that his view is that the writer clearly exposes the sheer panic and chaos one would expect from those experiencing an air raid.

So let's have a think then about Izzy's opinion.

She needs to justify her opinion.

Okay, so she's got an opinion, she's thought about it, but we've said that a really good opinion will be justified, will be explained.

What evidence can you find to help Izzy justify her opinion? Remember in her opinion, the writer to successfully portrays a feeling of hope despite the horrific circumstances.

Why don't you pause the video, go back and look at your extract of the text and see if you can find some evidence that Izzy could use to justify, to kind of, to support her opinion.

Pause the video, give us a go and press play when you think you've got some evidence.

Welcome back.

I wonder if you'd said any of the things that you can see on the screen.

You might have talked about the imagery in people's dreams as they sleep.

You might have talked about the light imagery and light representing hope.

You might thought of that a new day was arriving and a new day might represent kind of new beginnings.

You might have thought about the description of the birds and birds representing freedom, or you might have focused on the comforting closing sentence.

But you can see, Izzy's got a really good opinion on what the writer's purpose may be, but she has to justify that with some evidence, with some ideas from the text.

Okay, let's check then how we're getting on.

What can you add? What can you do to add credibility to your opinions? Is it A, prove that your opinions are right.

Is it B, justify your opinions, or C, only state them if someone else agrees with you.

A, B, or C, pause the video, have a think and press play when you've got your idea.

Well done if you said B, we should justify them.

So over to you then for our final task in today's lesson.

I want you to write down your own opinions about the opening of "Suite Francaise." And I want you to ensure you justify your opinions.

So you could write about your opinion on how the writer, Nemirovsky, portrays the following: The atmosphere of the text, the characters within the text and how they behave, how she portrays war, or how she portrays the air raid itself.

You could even focus on how she portrays nature.

So over to you for this task, I want you to write some of your own opinions, but making sure you justify them and you can use evidence from the text to support your opinions.

All right, pause the video, give this a go and press play when you think you're done.

All right, before we finish, we're gonna take a moment to reflect on the work that we have done.

So I want you to reread your ideas and confirm that you've done the following.

Did you present your own opinion on the text, based on your personal response? Did you sign post justification for your opinions using words such as "because," or "for example," or "specifically." Did you justify your opinions using evidence from the text.

Over to you now.

Pause the video, reflect on the work that you've done.

Right, that's it.

We've reached the end of today's lesson.

You have done some fantastic work on forming your own opinions.

Let's take a moment now to read through the summary of the learning that we've covered in today's lesson so you can feel really confident before you move on.

So we've learned that you can begin to form a personal response to a text by asking yourself what feelings the text evoked in you and what stood out to you.

We've learned that opinions are personal, so each person may have a different opinion on a text.

We also learned that in order to make your opinion more credible, you should justify it.

An appropriate justification comes in the form of evidence from the text.

Fantastic work today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I really hope to see you in one of our lessons again in the future.

Enjoy the rest of your day and I hope to see you all soon.

Bye-bye.