Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome to lesson 10 in our unit about Persephone.

This is our final lesson and today we are going to be writing our alternative ending.

We have gone through so much in this unit, We've listened to a new story, we've learned it, we've stepped it, we've told it ourselves, we have written our own version of the ending and now we are going to write our alternative ending.

I'm really proud of everything we've done.

Today, I thought I would introduce you to my dog called Bertie.

He's a little bit sleepy.

He's been sitting at my feet this whole time during this unit, and I thought it was time that I introduced him to you as well.

Do you have any pets? Or what's your favourite animal? For our game today, we are going to play Everyday object stories.

We are going to be focusing on a flower today.

Do you know what this flower is called? That's right, it's a poppy.

We're going to be thinking about how poppies, or a poppy are linked to our story of Persephone.

We are going to go through some questions together and I would like you to have your thinking hats on, ready to go.

The first question says, where did they come from? Can you remember poppies being mentioned in the story? It was only once, and it was quite brief, so you'd have to have been really listening.

Superstar, you're right, it was at the beginning of the story, wasn't it, when Persephone was picking poppies before Hades came to take her to the underworld Well done.

Who do they belong to? I guess, you could say they belong to Persephone if she picks them.

I guess perhaps they belong to the earth as they are part of nature.

Although, given that Demeter controls all the life on Earth, perhaps they could belong to her as well.

What do you think? The next question says, what is their role in the story? Now, strangely, even though they're just flowers I think they have quite an important role.

If Persephone wasn't in the fields picking poppies then what might not have happened? That's it! If she wasn't out there picking poppies, perhaps Hades wouldn't have been able to come and get her and take her to the underworld.

So really, maybe we have the poppies to blame for what happened.

What problem might they face? Now, as they are part of nature, can you think about what season poppies normally grow in? I agree, I think its probably spring and summer when it's nice and warm.

So when Persephone and Demeter are together they'll be having a lovely time.

There'll be poppies everywhere, they'll be growing.

But what is going to happen to those poppies when Persephone goes to the underworld and Demeter is sad? They're going to die, aren't they, when it gets cold and wintery, and all the life begins to die.

So they're going to face the same problem as lots of the other characters in the story.

What solution might there be for that? Mmm, I guess you're right.

Summer time is going to come around again isn't it? They'll get the chance to flower and bloom again even if they do have to die in winter.

I guess it would nice to them, if it was summer the whole time, and if Persephone could return to Demeter full-time and they could always be in bloom.

If you want to pause here and have a little bit of a think about those questions, or write down any notes about your answers, you can do that.

And then, press play when you're ready to carry on.

Fantastic, let's keep going.

Can you remember our spelling rule from earlier in the week? It was to do with the /n/ sound, wasn't it? Can you remember any of the words that had that /n/ sound in it, with our spelling rule? We know /n/ can be spelled with an N, but there are two other spellings we were looking at, who are a little bit tricky.

You're right, they were spelt with "n", "kn" or "gn" Okay so we know that /n/ sound can be spelt in those different ways.

Some examples at the bottom, you might have thought of these night, as in night-time; know, as in know in your head and gnaw, as in to chew on something.

I've got a special challenge for you today, and it's a little bit more challenging because it's our final spelling practise on this spelling rule.

It says, can you unscramble these words with "kn" and "gn" in them? So all of these words either begin with "kn" or "gn" So that's going to help you to unscramble the first bit isn't it? Then the rest of the letters should be able to be unscrambled to form a word that you know really well.

I would like you to pause the video here and on a piece of paper, have a go at unscrambling these words.

If there are any that are too tricky don't worry, leave them, because I'm going to show you the answers once you press play again.

Okay, did you have a go? Let's have a look at the answers together Here we go, so the first one was knight Then we had gnome, then we had kneel then we had know, gnaw an knock Well done if you managed to get some of those That was quite tricky wasn't it? Feel free to go and correct any that you might not have got Let's carry on We are going to quickly have a think about endings toolkit today, before we start writing We discussed this in our last lesson but I know that we want to have, in our minds, how we make our new ending that we are writing today, really satisfying for our reader So we discussed didn't we, that our solution for our main character doesn't really happen in this one because we know so many of them end up sad.

We did say that it's going to surprise our audience and I think that is what is going to be really satisfying today, about what happens, and what the consequences are of Hades saying no to Zeus' deal We know the good qualities aren't necessarily rewarded at first, but we know that in the end we decided, didn't we, that Hades was going to give back Persephone for six months So we do have that satisfying ending here and there is some reward.

We know that the consequences are seen.

It becomes frozen, it becomes the ice age but eventually Hades sees that he has no-one else he can steal because everything on earth is lifeless So he decides to share Persephone.

And you've got that memorable event at the end of half the year being summer and half the year being winter.

Are you ready to get started? I've got my boxing up, from the previous lesson here If you have got yours, I would like you to go and find it so you've got it ready to help you whilst we are doing our shared write.

Remember, you should hopefully have filled in the notes and the mood columns yourself at the end of the last lesson I'm just going to quickly have a look at those events again to make sure they're fresh in my mind before we start writing.

So I know that it's going to start again with Zeus going to Hades to ask for Persephone back but this time, he says no.

Then Zeus is going to tell Demeter about what happened and she is going to be very upset.

Then it's going to be winter, not just for 6 months but for the whole year, and it's going to get so cold that eventually everything dies and everything is frozen and they have a really long ice age We decided didn't we, that eventually Hades would come back up to earth to see if he could find anyone else to take to the underworld but he would see that everything has gone which isn't very fun for him, if he can't take anyone away So he decides as a compromise, in the end, to give back Persephone for six months of the year so that there can be some summer and that gives him the chance to come to Earth and take some more people to the underworld.

Okay, I've got those ideas really fresh in my mind Think about the mood that you want to create for the reader as well from your third column and then we'll be ready to start our shared write.

In our shared write today, I want you to be ready to make notes as we go so make sure your pencil or pen and your piece of paper is ready I want your brain to be switched on and full of imagination so that you can answer the questions I ask you with lots of creativity.

Remember, this is a video, so if you feel like it's going a bit too quickly for you you can pause, you can go back So you've got time to make your notes and think your amazing ideas.

When you think you've got everything you need press play and we'll get on with our shared write In our shared write today I'm going to try and include these things and I'd like you to help me.

I'm going to write in third person.

That means I'm not going to be any of the characters and I'm not going to be using I or me or we.

I'm going to be writing in past tense about events that have already happened.

That means quite a lot of my verbs are going to end in -ed I'm going to do show don't tell, for the emotions of the characters using descriptive language.

I'm going to try and use a mixture of long and short sentences to create suspense and make it interesting for the reader.

I'm going to use lot's of adjectives for the descriptive language, alongside powerful verbs and adverbs, and also if I can, I am going to try and use those possessive apostrophes we talked about earlier in the unit.

Before I start writing, I'm going to write the unit number and lesson and then I'm going to write the L.

O.

for today's lesson So I'm going to write, Unit 13, Lesson 10 And them I'm going to write L.

O.

which is, to write an alternative ending.

Okay, so, I have my boxing up sheet here just to help me as I go along.

So I've got the pictures, and my notes to help me.

Make sure you've got yours, if you have it from a previous lesson.

I know that, it's going to start off again in a similar way to my last ending with Zeus going down to ask for Persephone back and then it's all going to change from there.

Okay, so I'm going to start off by saying Zeus went down to the "something" underworld.

Now we wanted to include descriptive language, what adjective could we use to describe the underworld? Can you think of any? Perhaps dark? or fiery? Or dangerous? Foggy? Or hot? Or scary? Have a think about what your favourite word is and you can pop your adjective in that gap.

I'm going go with, fiery.

Zeus went down to the fiery underworld to demand for I'm going to use - Persephone's return.

I've managed to sneak in an apostrophe for possession there already, so the return would be, belong to Persephone so I've put apostrophe s; Persephone's return I'm going to use my inverted commas to go around what Zeus says "You must give Persephone back or all living things on Earth will die [Whispers] Do an exclamation mark How might Zeus have said this? Commanded? Demanded? Shouted? What do you think? I'm going to put, commanded [Whispers] Oh right, put that -ed there Commanded Zeus.

Oh I'm going to use an adverb here How did he do it? Did he say it happily? Or kindly? No, I don't think so.

He probably did it angrily or crossly, or sternly.

I'm going to put angrily.

What choice are you going to do? Now, this time we know Hades is going to say "No!" Okay, so I'm going to start a new line, because I've got a new character speaking and we'll think about what Hades might say in return What do you think Hades might say? I think he might say, she has eaten from this place so she will stay here forever.

Close my inverted commas.

How might Hades say that? I think he's probably quite happy about it, isn't he? He's going to reply, so we say replied Hades.

What do you think the adverb will be? Replied Hades? Happily? Gleefully? Yeah, proudly perhaps? I'm going to say proudly, I like that one.

He thinks he's very clever having gotten her to eat something.

And then perhaps he'll also say let me keep going "Leave here and never return." So I'm going to write on the next line So Zeus was forced to leave and returned to Earth.

Oh I'm going to do show don't tell here.

Okay is he going to be happy about that news? I don't think he's going to be happy is he? He returns to Earth, what might it look like if you're feeling a bit downtrodden and a bit sad? Oh yeah, maybe your shoulders are slumped, you're frowning.

Perhaps you're looking down at the floor I love those ideas.

So Zeus was forced to leave and returned to Earth with his shoulders slumped.

We are going to write here, He knew that he must tell who does he need to tell? Demeter about the bad news.

Okay? [Whispers] Start a new paragraph Later that day, Zeus found Demeter in the corn fields where she last, [Whispers] oh sorry didn't mean to do that she last saw her daughter.

What's he going to say to her do you think? If you were going to tell someone some really bad news, how might you start it? Yeah so you might say, "I am sorry to have to tell you this Demeter, but Persephone What's he going to say? Yeah, "but Persephone will not ever return to Earth." Zeus stated.

How might he say? What adverb could we use? He stated, sadly? Solemnly, might be a nice one? Yeah? Okay, I'm going to say sadly.

Okay, now lets have a think what is Demeter's reaction going to be? Is it going to be a positive reaction? No it's not, and we want to use our show don't tell here It's not just going to say Demeter was sad.

We are going to think about how she might react If you had heard some devastating news that you were never going to see someone that you really loved ever again I'd burst into tears, absolutely You might crumple to the floor You might scream You might turn away, people react in different ways So you can decide how you want Demeter to react in this bit Okay, and write some notes down.

I'm going to say Demeter let out a woeful - that's my adjectives - cry and crumpled to the ground with her head in her hands.

Okay now, I'm going to start a new line on the next page for what she says back to Zeus.

Okay, so I've got my inverted commas around what she's going to say.

What do you think she might say back? What's the consequence going to be? Is she going to say, okay that's fine, I'll get over it, I'm going to start making life again, and make it summer? No, I don't think so either.

I think she's going to say it'll be winter forever.

"If I never see Persephone again then you will never see What might they not see? Life again? Sunshine again? Trees? Flowers? You can choose what you want to put here.

"If I never see Persephone again, then you will never see the sun shine - fullstop It will be winter forever! [whispers] Exclamation mark Demeter - how might she say it? Screeched? Cried? What might she say? You choose.

Demeter.

screeched in reply.

Okay so, we know now, we've done these two We need to think about how we are going to describe and use our descriptive language to describe this wintery scene that moves from, this kind of everlasting winter, into this frozen ice age without life Okay so I'm going to start a new paragraph; new line I'm going to say, from that point onwards, I'm going to say, the sun disappeared.

I'm going to try and use some shorter sentences here Okay so I might say the animals and plants began to die Fullstop, what else might happen? The sun disappeared, the animals and plants began to die The wind grew ice cold.

Snow fell in a thick blanket that coated the earth.

Okay so what are your short sentences going to be? Your description of how the earth changes now that its winter, okay? So have a think You can magpie from here, try and have a think of your own descriptions as well for your short sentences.

The winter, lasted for so long, that the planet became completely frozen What could you say? Use a simile here Like a giant shimmering crystal Yeah imagine the world becomes a giant shimmering crystal Yeah, so, you can choose what you want your simile to be.

[Whispers] Move that up a little bit Okay, so have a think.

Now the next bit that we've got is Hades coming back to steal another life to take to the underworld and realising there's nothing for him to take.

Okay so we are going to start a new paragraph here We are going to say Many years later - okay you can choose how you want to start that sentence Do you want it to be years later? Months? It's up to you Many years later, Hades returned to Earth to steal another life away to the underworld When he arrived, he realised What did he realise? You're right, yeah - he realised there was no life left to take.

What might he say? I mean he is kind of saying it to himself, isn't he? Oh, let me just move this over here a little bit.

There we go What might he realise? Yeah, okay, I think he might say something funny like, well this is no fun for me Hades - I'm going to say, he muttered.

How do you want him to say it? Muttered to himself - there's no-one for him to talk to is there? Okay so I'm going to say, Hades decided to return Persephone for half of the year so that some - what would happen? Yeah, some sun would shine, some life would return It's up to you.

Some life would return.

So, the ice age ended and seasons came to be.

Fantastic, you may have been writing along with me during that, which is absolutely fine but if you would like to have a go by yourself now at writing it up really neatly and including any extra things that you might have missed out then you can pause here and have a go In our challenge task today, I want you to answer this question Is the original ending or your alternative ending more satisfying to you? There's a sentence stem that you can use and you can either say this sentence out loud or you can write it down I'd like you to pause the video here and either say or write your answer to this question down and then press play when you're ready to go Well done for getting to the end of this unit We have done some amazing work on Persephone I think it's such a fantastic story and you have all made it so much better by thinking of some interesting ideas digging deeper into the endings and the characters and the events and thinking of your own alternative ending.

You should be very proud of yourself.

If you would like to share your shared write with me today please ask a parent or carer to take a picture and put it on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter You can tag @OakNational and use the hashtag #LearnwithOak.