Lesson video

Hello and welcome.

My name is Mr. Santhanam, and this is lesson eight of ten.

Today's learning objective is all about writing our persuasive speech and we're going to finally use all our skills that we've been developing in order to write a really well-structured and well-written persuasive speech all about the little brave bird and her asking people not to light fires in a dry forest.

Now, to start with, I want to give you a little challenge.

I want you to tell me which of these questions are rhetorical questions and which ones are not rhetorical questions.

This is going to help you to use rhetorical questions in your persuasive speech.

Are you ready? Before we begin, what exactly is a rhetorical question? Do you remember? It's quite tricky to try and explain, isn't it? Rhetorical questions are questions which are just there to help other people to reflect.

It's to make other people think.

They are not supposed to be answered and they are purely there to emphasise your point when you're trying to persuade people or change people's minds.

So for instance, I could say, how would you like it if your home was burned down? That is an example of a rhetorical question.

We don't need to answer that question, because it's supposed to make us feel or think a certain way.

Okay, here's some other questions and you need to decide if it's rhetorical or not rhetorical.

Would you like some ice cream? Is that rhetorical or not rhetorical? That's right, it's not rhetorical because you can answer yes or no to that question.

So it definitely is not rhetorical.

Are you ready for another one? How could you eat all my cake? Is that rhetorical or not rhetorical? That's right, that one is rhetorical.

It's saying, how could you eat all my cake? That's trying to make you reflect on eating all my cake.

Next question.

How old are you? Is that rhetorical or not rhetorical? That's right, that one is not rhetorical because we can all answer how old are you? Okay, final question.

Let's think of a good one.

If a fire burns down a whole forest there will be no more trees left.

Is that what you want? Is that a rhetorical question or not rhetorical question? Is that what you want? That's right, that is a rhetorical question.

I'm asking you to think and reflect on if you want there to be no trees left in the forest.

So that is definitely a rhetorical question.

It does not need an answer.

Amazing, I think we're really getting the hang of rhetorical questions now.

So we can move on to the next part of our lesson.

So in this lesson, you are going to need your exercise book and some paper, you're going to need a pencil because we're going to be doing lots of writing today and you're going to need your brilliant brain because we're going to be generating lots of ideas.

Pause your video now while you go and get those things.

Fantastic, let's begin.

Here's our agenda for today.

First, we're going to start with our spelling activity.

Then we're going to review our persuasion toolkit so that we really, really know what we're going to include in our shared write later on.

Then we're going to do our shared write of the first few paragraphs of our persuasion text.

And after that we're going to have some reflection time where we will do our self assessment and really think about how well we have used our persuasion techniques, our grammar and how well we've structured our persuasion text.

So first of all, let's get started with our spelling.

This week, we've been really trying to consolidate and review our learning.

So that means that we're trying to make sure that all those spellings are locked into our brain so that we do not need to try and think about it anymore.

They're just there forever and we can always recognise those spellings.

Here are the spellings that we're going to be working on today.

Switch; hatch; sketch; steak; class; whole; fiction; station; pleasure; imagination.

As you can see, there's a mix of some tricky words and words we can sound out.

So the words that we can sound out are quite easy but the ones that are tricky words or common exception words, they are the ones that we really need to just be able to remember, lock them in our brains and then we can always, always recognise them in feature.

Pause the video now while you write down those words.

Amazing, we're now ready to do our spelling test.

I know that I can do a strategy check where I look at a word, say it in a sentence so that it makes sense to me, write the word, cover the word, write the word, and then check my spelling.

Why not give that a go now with our words from our spelling list today.

Pause the video now while you do your spelling test.

Amazing, I can just tell that you're picking up more and more spellings every day.

Let's have a go at reviewing our persuasion toolkit.

Here are the persuasive techniques that we really want to try and use in our shared write today.

The first thing we're looking at is the power of three.

An example of this from the Fireman's Speech is, Don't light fires, protect the forest, and save lives." Things are always much more powerful when we say them in threes, that way we can really emphasise our point and they really stick in people's minds.

Direct address.

This is when we are talking to the person we are addressing.

I'm talking to you, not your mate, not Bob down the road, you.

That way the reader really feels like they're connecting with you and that you're talking specifically to them and how it relates to them.

So that's very important in persuasive writing.

The next one is repetition.

This is when we repeat ourselves again and again and again to really emphasise those main key points.

There's not much point in saying things over and over again right after each other, but you might want to introduce something in the beginning of your persuasive speech and then at the end, you might want to repeat it.

Well, you might even want to repeat it in the middle of your speech as well so that when people hear it time and time again, they start to think, "Ah, I remember them saying that before, that must be very, very important and I'm going to remember that." Evidence to support your point.

This is when we explain ourselves using reasons.

So we don't just say what we think, but we back it up with evidence to really, really emphasise our point.

This is what I think and this is why I think that, that's why you should believe me.

A great way to persuade people, a great way to persuade people.

Okay, now let's have a look at what the structure's going to look like.

Can you guess what's going to come first? Of course, before we even begin to think about the introduction, we need to say the title.

Every speech needs a title so that we know what it's going to be about.

Then we have the introduction and again, this is when we say who we are and we explain what we're going to be talking about.

You might even want to say why you're going to be talking about it.

Why you feel so strongly about it.

If it was the Little Bird giving the speech, she might say, "I am the Little Bird, I'm here to talk to you about forest fires today because of an experience I had." Next we're going to have a paragraph for our first argument.

Then our second argument.

Another paragraph for our third argument.

And then finally a paragraph for our conclusion.

In today's shared write, we only need to worry about the title, the introduction and the first argument.

So remember the title is what exactly are we persuading people to do? Can you remember what we're going to be persuading people about? That's right, this persuasion text is all about why you should never light fires in a dry forest.

The next paragraph is going to be our introduction.

What do you think is going to be in there? That's right, this is when we introduce our topic and we explain what we're going to be talking about.

And finally, our first argument.

What is our first point and why is it so important? What are the reasons for us giving that point? Remember, we need to give evidence here.

Why is it so important? If you would like to include some challenge persuasive techniques, these are ones that we haven't covered very much, but you can try and add them in if you want to.

You could include personal experience.

This is when you might include a personal story.

It's not going to be a whole page-long story because we want to make it short and snappy in a speech.

But maybe the Little Bird might want to talk about her experience of the fire a little bit more.

You might want to include some rhetorical questions.

How would you feel if.

Would you like it if.

And you might want to use some emotive language.

This is when the Little Bird talks about how she feels about the topic as a whole.

She might say something like, "My heart was broken when.

." or she might say, "I was completely devastated when.

." she talks about how the fire has affected her emotions.

Okay, it's now time for our shared write.

So don't forget to get your pencil out.

You might want another colour to help you with ideas.

Don't forget to watch me first and then you can have a go at doing your own shared write.

Or you might want to do it at the same time as me, it's up to you.

So I've got my toolkit here on the side to remind me of the things that I need to do.

I've looked at my story map, I've looked at my box up version, I know exactly what I need to write in my title.

So the first thing I'm going to write is my title at the top, I know that my title is why you should never light fires in a dry forest.

Full stop.

I'm going to leave a line and now I'm going to write my introduction.

So I know that my introduction starts with, Hello, my name is, who is writing this speech, from what perspective are we telling it? Oh yes, that's right.

We're telling it from the perspective of the Little Bird.

And why is the Little Bird here to talk to you today? And I am here to talk you about the dangers of what does she want to talk to us about? The dangers of forest fires.

Full stop.

Now at this point, I might want to include some emotive language or maybe even a personal story from the Little Bird.

Remember she's been through this before and she really knows the most about forest fires.

So she might say, how can we explain her story? Why is it important to her? This is so important to me because of something.

Now what word can we use to describe her experience? Was it, I'm going to come up with some ideas and put them on the side.

Was it horrible? Was it traumatic? Or was it heartbreaking? I think maybe the word traumatic might be a little bit too much to use right at the beginning of our speech.

So I think I might go for something like heartbreaking because it will make the audience really, really connect with me.

This is so important because of something heartbreaking that happened to me.

Now, what happened to Little Bird? This is where we can give a personal account of her story.

I think I will say, My home was destroyed by a fire and I never want that to happen to anyone else.

What about a rhetorical question that I could use here to really address the audience? I could say, I could say can you imagine your home being destroyed or I could say would you like your home to be lost? Or I could even just say something very simple.

Like, do you? I never want that to happen to anyone else.

Do you? So not only have I asked a rhetorical question, but I've also used direct address, I'm talking directly to the audience.

My message is simple.

Don't light fires.

Now this is items and list, I'm going to separate them using commas.

Don't light fires, protect the forest and save lives.

Full stop.

So I've used some emotive language.

I have asked a rhetorical question and I have even used a personal account to help the audience connect with me.

I have done my title, let me give myself a tick.

I've written my introduction.

I've used the power of three, one, two, three.

I haven't repeated myself yet, but I have given evidence to support my point.

You should not light fires because it can destroy someone's home, so I've done that as well.

Amazing.

Now I'm going to leave a line and I'm going to start my first argument, my first paragraph.

You should never light fires in forests because, what reason should we give first for not lighting fires? What did the fire chief say? Can we remember? Oh yes, you should never light fires in forests because they are home to many plants and animals.

What happened in the Little Birds forest when the fire first started? I remember that all her friends ran away because they were so scared.

So maybe I could use a personal account here to really make it very personal about the Little Bird.

When my forest was on fire, because that's from said verbal, when my forest was on fire, what happened to all her friends? Lots of my friends had to run away because they were so, now let's use some emotive language to really help the audience to understand just how terrifying it was.

Lots of my friends had to run away because they were so scared, terrified, or shocked.

I think scared is a little bit boring.

Shock doesn't quite explain how they felt, but terrified really emphasises it and I'm using emotive language there.

Because they were so terrified.

I might use a rhetorical question here to really emphasise my point.

I might say, how would you feel if you, maybe if you were forced to leave your own home? And of course, that's a question, so I need a question, even though it's not expecting an answer, I still need to put a question mark there.

Finally, the last part of this paragraph is, there could also be humans in the forest and they might die too.

Okay, so I've got I.

So I've got my title, my introduction paragraph.

Okay, great job everyone.

I'm so impressed with all the writing that you've done.

We've now got our title, our introduction and our first argument finished.

It's now time to do some self-assessment.

If you want to, you can draw a table like this on your piece of paper or you can just think about it in your mind, but it might be really helpful for you to tick things off so that you understand your progress and how well you're doing.

We're going to think about the persuasive techniques first of all and then we're going to think about have we included them in our speech? If you've got a tick for every single one, you can underline it in your writing to show where you've done it.

If you've not got it in your writing, then you know you need to include it next time.

Or you could try and add it in now.

It's time to pause your video now and reflect on your writing.

Have you included everything from our toolkit? And if you have, maybe try and include some things from our challenge toolkit.

I have been so impressed with all your amazing writing today and I cannot wait to read it.

So please share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I can't wait to finish off the rest of our shared write next time.

See you then.

Bye-bye.