Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Mr. Brown and I am your teacher today for this English lesson, and we are going to be generating, generating vocabulary.

Now that vocabulary is going to be to describe the characters in the animation "Lucky Dip." Now there are some very interesting characters in "Lucky Dip." We are going to be focusing on the main two characters.

So let's get generating some vocabulary.

The outcome for today's lesson is, I can generate vocabulary to describe the characters in the story "Lucky Dip." Our lesson outline.

We will start by focusing on describing the girl, and then we will move on to describing the Pin Man.

Our keywords are vocabulary, character, and expanded noun phrase.

Let's say those together.

My turn and then your turn.

Vocabulary.

Character.

Expanded noun phrase.

Perfect.

Well done.

Okay, so describing the girl.

We are using the animated story, "Lucky Dip", as inspiration for our fiction writing.

Now, fiction stories involve made-up characters because fiction writing is not real.

The writer can use their imagination to create whatever characters they want to have in their story.

This is the amazing thing about fiction writing.

You are only limited by your imagination.

You can have whatever characters in whatever setting you want because it is down to you as the writer.

A character is a person or animal in a fictional story.

They are not real and have been created by the mind of the writer.

So the characters we're going to talk about today are not real.

They do not exist.

You cannot meet them in real life.

True or false, a character is a person or animal in a fictional story.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back.

Let's see if you were right.

A character is a person or animal in a fictional story is correct.

It's true.

Well done if you said true.

A character must be created by the writer.

They do not exist in real life.

Therefore, the writer must use their imagination.

The writer must ask themselves lots of questions when creating a character.

The answers to those questions will form the character's appearance and personality.

Really important words in today's lesson.

A character's appearance is what they look like.

A character's personality is what kind of person they are on the inside and how they behave.

We will generate vocabulary for both of these in today's lesson.

We will do this for the two main characters in the animation "Lucky Dip." And the two main characters are, if you have any ideas, if you've seen the animation already, you might have a clue, the little girl and the Pin Man.

Now the little girl doesn't have a name.

At no point in the animation do we get told what her name is.

So I have had to give her a name for the purpose of our lesson, and the name I have given her is Emily.

So Emily is what we will call her.

If you want to call her a different name, you absolutely can.

The Pin Man, well, we know he is the Pin Man because we see a poster which says Pin Man, and you see his picture.

So we have Emily and the Pin Man.

They are the main characters in "Lucky Dip." Let's watch the animation "Lucky Dip." I am first going to concentrate on generating vocabulary for Emily's appearance.

I will write down observations on what she looks like.

I will include nouns and adjectives to describe the nouns.

So for example, I may say she has straight, dark hair.

So hair is the noun, and straight and dark are the adjectives.

So if you were writing that, that would be an expanded noun phrase.

You would put a comma in between the two adjectives, straight, comma, dark hair.

And that might be the kind of note you would make during this period of watching the animation and jotting down and generating vocabulary.

So let's go for it, shall we? Let's watch the "Lucky Dip" animation in its entirety, all the way through, so that you can try and generate as much vocabulary as you can for Emily's appearance, what she looks like.

Okay, let's watch "Lucky Dip." (fairground music) (gulls cawing) (birds chirping) (litter rustling) (gulls cawing) (waves crashing) (footsteps echoing) (arcade machine bleeping) (enchanting music) (coin dropping) (grabber whirring) (umbrella flapping) (coin dropping) (grabber whirring) (door creaking) (footsteps echoing) (rain falling) (electric lights buzzing) (lightning striking) (thunder rumbling) (enchanting music) (coin rolling) (ominous music) (machine crashing) (Emily gasps) (rain falling) (enchanting music) (Emily sniffs) (ominous music) (gulls cawing) (enchanting music) And welcome back.

So let's see how I got on.

Let's look at the observations I made for Emily.

And remember, I was focusing on her appearance.

Now I started at the top of her body and worked my way down, and that, I think, helped give a little bit of structure to my generating vocabulary.

So we had straight, dark hair, wide, comma, green eyes.

You can see from that picture at the bottom of the screen there, she does have very wide green eyes.

Rosy, red cheeks.

Warm, woollen coat.

So this is describing her appearance 'cause she's wearing the coat.

I know it's not her eyes or her skin or her hair.

The coat isn't part of her body, but she's wearing it, so it is part of her character.

Beige, fabric backpack.

She wears it for the whole of the animation, so it was a good thing to use when you're describing her appearance.

Crimson, leather shoes.

So crimson is another word for red, a kind of dark, deeper red, and leather is the material the shoes are made from.

Now, the observations I've made are all expanded noun phrases.

They have two adjectives to describe a noun with a comma in between.

You can see there I've put adjective, comma, adjective, noun.

And this is something that I remember to help me be able to put expanded noun phrases together correctly.

True or false.

An expanded noun phrase can contain two verbs with a comma between them describing a noun.

Is that true or is that false? Pause the video and decide now.

And welcome back.

Let's see if you were right.

An expanded noun phrase can contain two verbs with a comma between them, describing a noun, is of course, false.

It's not correct.

It's not two verbs, it's two adjectives with a comma describing a noun.

So well done if you spotted that and said false.

Time for a task.

I would like you to generate adjectives to describe Emily's personality.

So this is not what she looks like, this is what kind of person she is.

You may wish to watch the animation again to help you.

If you would like to, you can use any of these adjectives in your list.

However, choose carefully as not all of them fit Emily.

Let me show the adjectives.

We have, kind, brave, rude, curious, inquisitive, afraid, mischievous, caring, mean, obedient, persistent and fearless.

You can use some of those to create a list of adjectives that describe Emily's personality.

But remember, not all of those are appropriate, so you need to think carefully.

Just to go through a couple of these.

Inquisitive might be a new word that you're encountering.

Inquisitive means you are very curious.

You are interested in something, you are interested in inquiring about it.

You want to know more about it.

Mischievous means that you can be a little bit naughty, maybe doing things that perhaps are not always appropriate.

Obedient means that you do exactly what you are told, you follow instructions very clearly.

Persistent means that you keep going at something.

You don't give up, you don't get put off if something's doesn't work at first.

You keep trying.

Okay, over to you.

I'd like you to pause the video and generate a list of adjectives to describe Emily's personality now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's see how you got on.

So I gave you lots of different adjectives and I told you that not all of them were appropriate for Emily.

This is the list of ones that were appropriate.

Kind.

She is kind, she wants to help the bunny.

She wants to rescue the bunny.

She could leave the bunny inside the machine, but she wants to look after it.

Brave.

She's very brave.

I don't think that many children, and rightly so, would want to go into that arcade.

That arcade, that abandoned arcade looks a bit unsafe.

And to walk away from her grandparents could be a bit dangerous, but she isn't put off by that.

She's obviously quite brave.

Curious.

Exactly, yeah.

She's very, very curious.

This is a particularly well-suited adjective to describe Emily.

She wants to know what's in the arcade, even though it says abandoned, keep out, don't go in.

She can't help but want to go in.

That shows that she's very curious.

Inquisitive, very similar to curious.

She wants to know more about it.

Caring, similar to kind.

She cares for the bunny.

She wants to make sure that he's okay.

Persistent.

When her granddad pulls her out of the arcade, you would think for most people that would be the end, but she sneaks off and goes back in.

She's persistent.

She didn't give up.

And mischievous, and this is one that I thought long and hard about.

But I think she is a little bit mischievous because it is not something that we would say is a good thing, to walk away from your grandparents if they take you to the seaside.

To walk away from the adults that are with you can be very dangerous, very unsafe, and can cause a lot of stress and worry to the adults if they realise that you're not there.

So that is why I think that she is mischievous.

And I'm sure when you are watching this, you are thinking, "Well I wouldn't do that." And I'm glad, because keeping ourselves safe is the most important thing.

Okay, let's move on to describing the Pin Man.

A writer can control how the reader feels about a character by carefully selecting the vocabulary to describe them.

A character can be described in a positive, so in a good way, or a negative, so in a bad way, depending on how the writer wants the reader to feel about them.

For example, describing a character as kind or brave will probably make the reader like that character.

It will be positive.

They will feel positive about that character.

The description will have been positive, the adjectives chosen will have been positive.

And as a reader you would feel positive about that character, you'd like them.

Now we are now gonna generate vocabulary for the Pin Man, and you may already notice the arrow on our positive to negative scale has moved.

For most of the animation, the viewer is led to believe the Pin Man is not a nice character.

Therefore, we will be focusing on describing him in a negative way.

Now, we know by the end of the animation, the Pin Man is actually a really nice character.

And if there is a lesson to take away from "Lucky Dip", it is that you shouldn't judge someone by their appearance.

As a viewer of that animation, most people will think, "Okay, the Pin Man doesn't seem nice.

He seems scary", and maybe we're not sure what his plans are.

Why is he doing this? Why is he picking Emily up? And you naturally think the worst.

But, by the end, we realised that he wanted to help Emily.

He picked her up when she'd fallen through the hole, checked that she was okay, waved goodbye to her, made sure that she went off with her grandparents safely.

So we shouldn't have judged him by how he looked, and that is an important lesson to learn.

But to teach the reader that lesson, we have to describe him in a negative way at the start.

All the way up, actually up until the end of the climax, we have to describe him in a negative way.

We have to make the reader not like him.

We can use this positive to negative scale to help us remember the type of adjectives that we are generating.

True or false.

These adjectives could be used to describe a character in a negative way.

So these adjectives could be used to describe a character in a negative way.

And the adjectives are, kind, caring, gentle.

Could those adjectives be used to describe a character in a negative way? Kind, caring, gentle.

Pause the video, and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back.

Let's see if you were right.

So kind, caring, gentle.

Can these be used to describe a character in a negative way? Absolutely not.

These are words that have very positive connotations.

They make us feel positive about someone.

If I told you someone was kind and caring or gentle, your instinct would be to like that person.

So we would not choose these if we wanted to describe a character in a negative way.

We will not be using kind, caring, and gentle to describe the Pin Man.

Let's watch "Lucky Dip" again, and this time we're going to focus on the Pin Man.

We'll focus on generating vocabulary for the Pin Man's appearance, so what he looks like, I will write down observations on what he looks like.

And these will include nouns and adjectives to describe the nouns, exactly like we did for Emily.

Just as with Emily, I will try to write these observations as expanded noun phrases.

Now remember, we are trying to create a negative image of this character, so your adjectives need to be carefully chosen.

They need to be negative adjectives.

Adjectives that are going to make us not like the Pin Man, worry about the Pin Man, fear the Pin Man.

Okay, let's watch "Lucky Dip" again, but this time focus on generating vocabulary for the Pin Man and particularly his appearance.

Let's go.

(fairground music) (gulls cawing) (birds chirping) (litter rustling) (gulls cawing) (waves crashing) (footsteps echoing) (arcade machine bleeping) (enchanting music) (coin dropping) (grabber whirring) (umbrella flapping) (coin dropping) (grabber whirring) (door creaking) (footsteps echoing) (rain falling) (lights buzzing) (lightning striking) (fairground music) (coin rolling) (ominous music) (machine crashing) (Emily gasps) (rain falling) (enchanting music) (Emily sniffs) (ominous music) (gulls cawing) (fairground music) Welcome back everyone.

How did you get on? Now I actually found it easier for the Pin Man because he's such an interesting character.

To generate adjectives for his appearance I found easier because there's so much about him that's interesting.

Let's have a look at the expanded noun phrases that I made for the Pin Man.

Again, I start at the top and worked my way down.

Sharp, metal pins.

The very top of the Pin Man is obviously the pins that are sticking in his head.

Now, it seems to me that he is part of a seaside show, a show where interesting things can happen, where people are able to do amazing and unusual things.

Now that might be the kind of show that might happen at a place like the seaside, particularly in the past, not so much now, but particularly in the past, and someone who could have spikes in his head, pins in his head, would be an interesting person to be at that show, and that's why he's called the Pin Man because you would pay some money to buy a ticket and go and see him sticking pins in his head, because that would be interesting.

Dark, menacing eyes.

If you are a menace, that is a very negative word.

It means it's a very bad thing.

Menacing eyes is a great adjective to use to describe him.

Long, pointy nose.

Tattooed, muscly arms, or you could say muscular arms. Creased, stained vest.

So it's creased, it's got stains on it.

Loose, black jeans, and heavy, leather boots.

So you can see I've gone from the very top with these sharp, metal pins, all the way down to his heavy, leather boots.

Time for a practise task.

I would like you to generate a list of adjectives to describe Pin Man's personality.

If you would like to, you can use some of the adjectives from this list below.

However, just as we did with Emily, choose carefully, as not all of them fit our objective, describing him in a negative way.

So that's our objective, to describe him in a negative way, and not all of these adjectives do that.

So we have mean, mysterious, gentle, angry, aggressive, funny, mischievous, and strange.

Remember, negative way.

That's our objective.

How can we describe him in a negative way? Give me a list of adjectives to describe the Pin Man's personality.

You can use these if you want to, or come up with your own.

Over to you.

Pause the video and have a go at this task now.

Welcome back.

I am so intrigued to see how you got on.

Let's have a look.

So I gave you a list of eight adjectives.

I told you that not all of them would suit the Pin Man, but these ones did.

Mean, very negative word.

He's a mean character.

Aggressive.

It means you are full of lots of aggression.

You do things in a very rough way.

Mysterious.

So we don't know about him.

We don't know if he's a good character or a bad character, and we think he might be a bad character.

Angry and strange.

All of these adjectives are great to describe his personality.

Let's summarise the learning that we've done today.

A character is a person or animal in a fictional story.

Characters in fiction are not real and have been created by the mind of the writer.

A writer will form each character's appearance and personality.

A character's appearance is what they look like.

A character's personality is what kind of person they are on the inside and how they behave.

Superb work today.

I think you've really captured how we can use adjectives to describe characters and control how the reader will feel about that character, and that's a really grown up skill to be able to have.

So well done.

I will see you again very soon.