Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to our writing lesson today.

Today, we are going to be planning the main paragraph of our persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes.

So for our learning objective today, we are going to plan the main body of our persuasive letter.

This is lesson nine of 10, and it's outcome number three.

In this lesson, you will need your exercise book or paper, your pen or pencil, and your very best learning brain.

Pause the video if you need to go and get any of those things.

Here's our agenda for learning.

Firstly, we're going to develop our understanding of common homophones, which we might use in our writing.

Then we're going to reread our opening paragraph, which we worked on in our last writing lesson, and then we're going to plan our main body paragraph.

Firstly, let's get started with our writing warmup, which is on homophones.

What is the difference in meaning between these homophones? Now homophone are words that sound the same, but they're spelled differently and they may have different meanings.

So your and you're, have some thinking time.

What is the difference in meaning between these homophones and when would you use them differently? Pause the video while you have some time to think, okay, everyone, I'm going to reveal what each one is used for.

So the green, your, Y-O-U-R, is possessive, it shows ownership, your skills and quick wit, is an example of when you might use that word.

You're is in the purple version, Y-O-U-'R-E is a contraction.

You are has been contracted to you're, for example, you're such a creative writer.

Now we know that in our writing, we are not using contracted versions of words for our formal persuasive letter, but we do still need to know how they're used.

So I would like you to try writing a sentence for each one, challenge yourself by seeing whether you can make it complex, pause the video while do you do that.

Okay, everyone, hopefully we've all paused the video and we should have two sentences written down where we have used your as a possessive version, and you're as the contracted version.

Here are some of my examples, although these are incredibly unfortunate circumstances, it is an honour to work with a detective of your calibre.

So although these are incredibly unfortunate circumstances, that is my subordinate clause.

This is a complex sentence, and my subordinating conjunction is although.

And calibre just means quality or excellence.

So here's is a sentence we might find in our persuasive letter.

And here's an example of where I've used the contracted version of you're, you will be learning some formal language this week because you're going to write a formal persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes.

Here's my subordinate clause beginning with because as a subordinating conjunction.

So both of these sentences were complex sentences.

So now we're going to try, now we're going to test our knowledge with a little quiz.

We require a detective of your intelligence to assist us.

So I've got the contracted you're here, correct or incorrect? You've got five, four, three, two, one, incorrect.

It should be the possessive version of the word.

Next you're generating some excellent vocabulary! This is another contracted version of the word, is it correct or incorrect in this sentence? In five, four, three, two, one, it is correct because this is the same thing as saying, you are generating some excellent vocabulary, which is correct for this sentence.

So now we've got some new homophones.

What is the difference in meaning between these ones? So we've got their, there, and they're, they all sound the same.

But my green their is possessive, my pink there is a positional word as in over there, and it's a clue in that spelling because I can see the word here, which is another locational word inside the spelling, I can see it's underlined there.

And they're is another contraction for they are.

Somewhere right there this vicious criminal remains unpunished.

Now point to the version that you think is correct.

You've got five, four, three, two, one, point at the one you think it should be, well done it should be our pink there, a locational word.

My children are desolate, Blue Knight was their favourite horse.

Is it possession, location or contraction? In five, four, three, two, and one, it was the possessive word.

Now, this one they're going outside to play.

Is it possession, location or contraction? Go five, four, three, two, and one, point to the one you think it is, it's there, meaning they are going outside to play, would also work.

Now, we're going to reread our opening paragraph.

This was the paragraph that we wrote in our last lesson, and this is my example.

Let's read through my example together, and then you'll get chance to read yours.

Dear Detective Holmes, I am writing to you today to request your assistance in solving a terrible crime.

Our beloved race horse, who is my family's pride and joy has been abducted.

Although we have notified the police, the case remains unsolved.

I have no doubt that you are the only detective astute and skillful enough to solve this mystery.

Okay, everyone, we've just, re-read my example.

Now I would like you to pause the video while you reread your opening paragraph from our last writing lesson, and you can press play once you are finished.

Okay, so now we're going to read a model.

This is a model, main body paragraph, so we can understand what we will be producing at the end of this outcome.

I'm going to read it mine out loud first, and then we're going to go through it, a sentence at a time and make sure we understand the vocabulary.

May I begin by stating that Blue Knight is our family's primary source of income and is currently valued at 500,000 Guineas.

At the Irish Derby last year, the race horse's success earned our family an additional 20,000 Guineas in that race alone.

This contributed to approximately 25% of our annual income.

It is crucial that Blue Knight be found immediately and returned to the family.

If not, we may fall into poverty.

Surely you would not want that on your conscience? I am sure you are aware that if you refuse to support us in our hour of need, you may risk damaging your immaculate reputation.

Okay, so let's go through each sentence at a time.

May I begin by stating that Blue Knight is our family's primary source of income and is currently valued at 500,000 Guineas.

Our family's source of income, is our family's main source of income.

The family earn lots of their money through the horse, through racing him.

At the Irish Derby last year, the race horse's success earned our family an additional or extra 20,000 Guineas in that race alone, this contributed to approximately 25% of our annual income.

So contributed to, it made up or added to approximately 25% of our annual yearly income.

Now we know that a Derby is a horse race as well.

We learned that whenever we read our newspaper report in a previous lesson.

It is crucial, meaning it is extremely important, that Blue Knight be found immediately and returned to the family.

If not, we may fall into poverty.

Surely you would not want that on your conscience? If and fall into poverty means become very poor.

We know that the state and family are really wealthy.

I am sure you are aware that if you refuse to support us in our hour of need, you may risk damaging your immaculate reputation, that word immaculate meaning perfect or clean or unstained, similar to the word untarnished, which we looked at in a previous lesson.

Now, your task, I would like you to see whether you can spot an example of evidence to support a point, veiled threat, rhetorical question, or presumption in the model.

Off you go, pause the video while you do that.

Okay, everyone, I'm going to reveal our example of evidence.

At the Irish Derby last year, the race horse's success earned our family an additional 20,000 Guineas in that race alone.

This contributed to approximately 25% of our annual income.

So I've backed up my point by giving evidence to show times when the state and family have earned lots of money from Blue Knight.

Up next, I would like you to reveal veiled threats.

If you refuse to support us in our hour of need, you may risk damaging your immaculate reputation.

There is a threat there, isn't there? Saying if you don't help us, your perfect reputation could be ruined.

A rhetorical question, now that's quite a quick one to find, 'cause we skim through, we read carefully and we scan, we look for a question mark.

I find it, surely you would not want that on your conscience? And finally presumption.

I am sure you all are aware that.

I'm acting like Sherlock Holmes already knows that if he doesn't help us, then he will ruin his perfect reputation.

Okay, so now we are going to plan the main body paragraph of our letter.

Here are some word banks, which we may use to help us.

So I would like you to pause the video now, while you write down these word banks.

Let's do some my turn, your turn first.

So here are some sentence stems that we might use for a presumption.

I have no doubt that, your turn.

Well done.

I look forward to, your turn.

I'm sure you will agree that, your turn.

Excellent, well done.

So I look forward to hearing back from you.

I look forward to witnessing you solving this case.

Those stems could be used for our presumption sentences.

A nice and veiled threat.

I would hate to think that, your turn.

I would not want to have to, your turn.

Well done.

So now I would like you to pause the video while you write down those word banks.

Okay everybody, here is an example of how we could lay out our planning.

You don't have to draw a table or anything like that on your page, you can just write a subheading.

So point, what is your key argument in this paragraph? This is where we need to state the purpose of the paragraph.

Then we are going to come on to evidence and persuasive devices, but I would advise you to start by just planning your point first, and then we'll move on to evidence and persuasive devices later.

So what is the key argument in this paragraph? Think back to the model, what was the whole purpose of the paragraph? Oh, okay.

The key purpose is that the race horse, Blue Knight, is our family's main or primary source of income.

And he provides the family with financial security, which means he provides them with the money to keep them in the high, wealthy lifestyle, living that affluent lifestyle that they are used to.

Now, this brings us to our evidence.

So if you haven't already, write a little subheading on your sheet with the word evidence, have you got any facts to back up your point, which show how the horse, Blue Knight, has helped your family to raise income or has helped to provide income for your family and provide that financial security or stability, which is so important to the state and family.

Pause the video while you have to think, and jot down any ideas you've initially got, well done, everyone.

I bet you've all got some amazing suggestions and ideas which you've started to put down in your evidence section of your plan.

If you're feeling a little bit stuck, here are some ideas of mine.

So for example, you might use a phrase such as the one-of-a-kind colt, which is a male horse is currently valued at Guineas.

So you can make up how much his current value is If he were to be sold.

And another example you might use might be, for example, last year, the horse is racing success, accounted % of the family's income.

Again, you can make up a statistic here.

Pause the video now, while you add any more evidence points that you would like to use in your writing.

And our final part is the persuasive devices.

How are you going to use flattery or rhetorical questions or presumption, or even maybe a veiled threat here.

Go back and look through our modelled, right? Or through your word banks for those persuasive devices to give you some inspiration.

Pause the video while you do that.

Okay everyone, here are my suggestions.

So if our award-winning race horse is not returned to us, that could be a sentence starter that you use, what might happen? We might fall into poverty or financial crisis, or our children's futures may be put at risk.

Surely you would not, so there's a bit of presumption there.

I know in our model we had something like, surely you would not have this on your conscience.

I am certain that or I have no doubt that you will agree to help us in this, or to agree to support us through this terrible time.

Those are all just a few sentence stems or words and phrases that we might want to use for our persuasive devices.

Pause the video now, if you would like to magpie from any of those, but think also about how you would use these sentence stems in a full sentence and practise saying those full sentences outright.

Okay, everyone, and now we are at the end of our lesson.

So you should finish this lesson today with a really strong plan filled with words and phrases that you are going to use in our next lesson where we will be writing this paragraph together.

Well done for all of your hard work.