Lesson video

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back to lesson seven in our unit about Persephone.

In today's lesson, we're going to be digging deeper into how writers or authors make really exciting and satisfying endings for their readers.

We're going to go back to a story that was in a previous unit that you might have seen before called Ganesh.

We're going to look at the ending to this story and use our endings toolkit that we talked about earlier in the unit to help us understand what makes it such a satisfying ending so that when we go on to write our own endings in the rest of the unit, we know what to do.

It is really warm and sunny today.

I'm hoping that I can get outside, maybe go for a walk or a cycle in the sunshine.

What are you planning to do for the rest of your day? Today you are going to need something to write on, something to write with, and your brain.

If you don't have a pen or pencil and a piece of paper, I'd like you to pause the video now, and then come back when you've got it.

Fantastic.

Let's get started with our lesson today.

In today's lesson, we're going to start off with a fun oral game called Tell me more to dig a little bit deeper into some of our characters.

We're then going to listen to the new story ending from the story "Marriage of Ganesh." We're going to dig deeper into endings using our toolkit to help us understand what makes them so interesting and satisfying.

We're then going to challenge our brains with a quick challenge task at the end.

Let's get on with it.

The first thing we're going to do today is our game, Tell me more.

I would like you to imagine that you are the character of Hades from our story Persephone.

I would like you to use your best acting skills to imagine how you would reply to the questions below if you were Hades.

The first one says, tell me more about where you live.

I'm going to do this one for you and you can have a go afterwards.

I'm going to imagine that I am Hades, living in the underworld, I've got flaming hair, I'm quite a mean and angry person.

Okay? The first one says, tell me more about where you've live.

I need to think about what kind of place the underworld would be.

I live in the underworld sunk beneath the Earth.

It's full of fire and lava and darkness.

And it's where I take my prey to be captured.

Okay? So you can see that I tried to take on the persona of Hades and act like I imagine he would a little bit.

I would like you to pause here in a minute and have a go at answering the following Tell me more questions.

Have a go and tell me more about where you live.

The next one says, tell me more about why you took Persephone and I've given you a sentence down there.

The following one says, tell me more about how you feel when Persephone leaves.

And the sentence stem says, it makes me feel.

Pause the video here and have a go at pretending to be Hades and answering those tell me more statements.

Oh, my goodness, you were a little bit scary.

I am so impressed by your Hades impressions and about how you used your imagination to help you become the character of Hades.

Hopefully that's helped us to understand his character a little bit more.

I put an extra challenge on there.

It says, can you think of any more tell me more statements that you could answer as Hades? So if you were having fun pretending to be Hades, you could keep going, by asking some more information of him.

We're going to recap our endings toolkit today because we're going to be looking at the ending of another story and I want us to compare it to the ending of Persephone.

Our toolkit told us that endings that satisfy us as the listener or the reader have a solution that rewards the main character, include a solution which surprises or satisfies the audience, that's us, the reader or listener shows how the good qualities of the main character leads to the problem solution, shows the consequences of the solution for the characters and ends with a memorable scene or event.

We said that the first one about rewarding the character kind of half applies, doesn't it? 'Cause Demeter does get Persephone back for half the year.

I would say the solution definitely satisfies us, doesn't it? Because it was a compromise, which is satisfying, but also we learned something about the seasons didn't we? I'm not so sure about how the good qualities of the main character leads to the problem's resolution.

Really it only works out because Zeus goes down to bargain with Hades and technically he's probably not the main character of the whole story.

It definitely does show the consequences of the solution because it shows that Persephone goes to her mother Demeter and it's summer and when she goes down to Hades it's winter, because of the impact it has on Demeter's emotions and her control of the seasons.

It didn't end with one memorable scene or event, but it really did paint a picture of the different seasons in our mind, didn't it? I wonder how this endings toolkit is going to work when we do our new ending about the "Marriage of Ganesh." I just want us to remember our strategy check.

So whilst I'm reading you the ending of this story, remember to look at the screen and to me and see that, what am I doing with my facial expressions, what am I doing with my gestures to help tell the story? Also listen really clearly to the language I'm using and the tone of my voice.

We're going to listen to the Ganesh story ending now.

I'm going to recap a little bit about what's happened before the end, because it's been a little while since you've done it, if you look to the previous unit or you might not have heard it before.

In this story, there are two brothers, Ganesh and Kartikeya.

They hear about a beautiful, intelligent princess called Buddhi.

And they would both like to host a feast to invite her family round and to impress her.

They decide to have a competition and whoever wins gets to throw the feast.

The competition is whoever can get around the world the fastest.

Kartikeya sets off and he goes around the world, swimming through oceans, over plains, through forests, over mountains, until he gets back and finds Ganesh sitting in a chair, reading a book like he was when he left him.

He questions him deeply saying, where did you go? Have you even been at all? And then Ganesh tells him a wonderful story about all the different things that he saw, which Kartikeya had also seen.

Therefore Kartikeya says, you can host the feast.

We're going to read a little bit of that ending that I've just said and then the rest of the ending too now.

Ganesh describes his journey to his brother in great detail, noting all the things that Kartikeya remembered and more.

In the end, Kartikeya was persuaded.

Okay, brother, Kartikeya said, you've won.

Host the feast and invite Buddhi and her family.

And so Ganesh threw the feast.

It just so happened that Buddhi admired Ganesh just as much as he admired her.

So they were married on the most beautiful day of the year.

After the wedding Kartikeya came over to his brother.

Brother, did you really travel the world? I'm still not sure about that.

Well, yes and no.

You travelled round the world your way and I travelled from the world my way.

How do you mean? asked Kartikeya.

While you were running and swimming, I was reading.

I read book after book about every country on the journey.

As I read, I saw them all in my imagination.

In that way I travelled around the world.

Hmm, said Kartikeya.

Isn't that cheating? What do you think? So, I want us to have a think about this new ending and to see if our endings toolkit applies in the same way as it did to Persephone.

Does the solution reward the main character? I would say yes, Ganesh is probably our main character.

He is rewarded because he ends up throwing the feast and getting to marry Buddhi.

Did you find the solution satisfying? Personally I found it satisfying.

I thought it was really clever the way that Ganesha kind of got round the competition and won in a different way that suited him.

But there might be some people who find it unsatisfying and they think Kartikeya's been cheated and that maybe he should have won.

What do you think? Does the ending show the good qualities of the main character led to the problem's solution? I would say it does in a way, it shows that Ganesh's wit and intelligence helped him to solve the problem and to win the competition.

Does the ending show the consequences of the solution for the characters? I think so, because it shows that Ganesh gets to throw the feast and it shows that he gets to marry Buddhi.

And does the story end with a memorable scene or event? I'd say it ends with both, that feast scene and the marriage.

So lots of big moments in the ending of the story.

But also, really at the very end, that conversation between Kartikeya and Ganesh where they discuss and it's revealed what has happened.

So we learn something really satisfying in that last event in that conversation.

It also leaves it on a rhetorical question, which makes us as the reader really think, do we think that what Ganesh did was cheating or do we think it's just really clever? We're now going to dig a little deeper into this ending by reflecting on our answers to these questions.

I would like you to have a pen or pencil ready to make some notes about what you think about this different ending.

The first question is, what does this ending of the story make you think or feel? The next question says, which brother do you agree with? Do you agree with Ganesh and you think what he did was really smart and clever and he deserved to win? Or do you agree with Kartikeya and you think it was cheating and it was a bit unfair that Ganesh won? Building on to that, the next question says, is this ending satisfying to you? So probably if you agree with Ganesh, it is satisfying, you think he deserves to win.

But perhaps if you agree with Kartikeya and you think he was cheated, perhaps that's not as satisfying 'cause you think it's unfair.

You can make your decision.

The next question says, what do you think might happen next if the story continued? Do you think Kartikeya would get cross and demand that they have a rematch? Or do you think Kartikeya would accept what happened and they would be fine and things would go along happily? Or perhaps you think something else might happen.

I would like you to pause the video here, have a go at writing some notes down for your answers to these questions and then press play when you're ready to go.

Superstars.

Hopefully we've really thought about what makes this ending satisfying and we can start to think about in our heads, how it's similar or different to the ending of Persephone.

They are both satisfying endings in different ways and we learned something interesting about the characters, too, don't we? For our final part of the lesson, we are going to look at a challenge task together.

The question for this challenge is, if you could change the ending, what would you change? I would change, mmm, because I think a better ending for the story would be.

Perhaps you think that the ending is great just as it is.

And if that's the case, I would like you to explain why you think it's such a good ending.

But if not, what would you change? Perhaps you'd rather Kartikeya had won because he physically went around the world and perhaps he deserved to do the feast.

And what would have happened if it was Kartikeya who threw the feast instead of Ganesh? Especially 'cause we know that we heard Buddhi already quite liked Ganesh.

Pause the video here and have a go at writing out the challenge for yourself and then press play when you're ready to go.

Well done for taking on a challenge, testing your brain.

You're amazing.

You have been so brilliant today looking at a new story ending and using our toolkit to help us understand how this ending is really satisfying too and how an author or writer creates that satisfaction for us as a reader or listener.

Some things were similar to the ending of Persephone and some things were a bit different, weren't they? As we move on to write our own ending, we can think about how we will create the same satisfied feelings for the reader when they read our ending to the story.

I would love to see your work today.

So if you would like to share it with me, please ask a parent or carer to share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter by tagging Oak National and using the hashtag #LearnwithOak.

Hopefully I'll see you in the next lesson when we'll start to plan our story ending, ready to write it later on in the unit.