Lesson video

Hello everyone, my name is Mr. Brown and I am your English teacher for today's lesson, and we are going to be writing.

Writing the opening of a fantastic animation called "Lucky Dip." So writing the opening, let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is I can write the opening of "Lucky Dip." The key words we will use in our lesson are expanded noun phrase, verbs, adverbs.

Let's say those together.

My turn and then your turn.

Expanded noun phrase.

Verbs.

Adverbs.

Amazing, well done.

Okay, so let's look at the lesson.

The lesson outline.

We will start by preparing to write and then move on to writing the opening itself.

Stories can be structured on a story staircase and a story staircase looks like this.

You have the opening, build up, climax and resolution, and we are focusing on the opening in this lesson.

Now here is the story of "Lucky Dip" structured on a story staircase.

You can see we have the opening, and that's what we're focusing on today, build up, climax and resolution, and they will be to come in the future.

Now, the purpose of the opening is to do these things.

You need to introduce the main characters and introduce the setting.

They're the two things that we must do as a writer when writing our opening.

Let's check your understanding.

True or false, the purpose of the opening is to not tell the reader what the setting is so they can make it up for themselves.

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

Welcome back, let's see if you were right.

The purpose of the opening is to not tell the reader what the setting is so that they can make it up for themselves.

Well, that is absolutely false.

That is not correct, it is not true.

The purpose of the opening is to be able to tell the reader what the setting is.

Okay, so let's have a look at the opening of "Lucky Dip." Now in the opening of "Lucky Dip," we are introduced to the setting, and that setting is the seaside, pier and arcade.

We also are introduced to the main character who is of course, Emily.

We are calling her Emily.

You can call her a different name because the animation doesn't actually tell us what her name is.

So let's watch just the opening of the "Lucky Dip." So we know what this section contains.

We are only going to watch the opening of the amazing animation "Lucky Dip." So let's watch the opening now.

(playful music) (seagull squawking) (birds chirping) (wind howling) (playful music continues) Welcome back everyone, so did you enjoy the opening? Do you feel ready to write it yourself? I'm sure you do.

So now you've seen the opening.

I would like to read you an example of the opening.

So I'm going to read you an opening.

Now this will help you to know what we are aiming to write in today's lesson.

"One blustery, chilly day, a young girl named Emily arrived at the seaside with her grandparents.

In a flash, she skipped joyfully off the shiny, red bus and felt the fresh breeze on her face.

Emily could see the shimmering, turquoise ocean as the soft, golden sound.

Moments later, she heard fairground music in the distance, so she strolled happily towards a wooden pier.

Just then she spotted an old, mysterious arcade.

The curious girl felt excited.

What could be inside?" Okay, so that is an example of the opening.

Now you have seen the opening of the animation.

You've read an opening.

You should know what we are aiming to do in this lesson.

When describing a setting and characters, a writer will use lots of expanded noun phrases to add detailed description.

Can you spot any in this opening? Have a little look.

Can you spot any expanded noun phrases? Often expanded noun phrases can feature two adjectives before a noun.

So you might have heard a teacher say to you before, remember an expanded noun phrase, "Adjective, comma, adjective, noun," that's how I remember.

Do you see any adjective, comma, adjective, nouns? Remember, a noun is a person, place or thing.

An adjective is a describing word.

If you'd like to, you can pause the video and have a good look at this example of an opening to try and find expanded noun phrases.

Okay, let's take a look and see where they are.

Ah, we have "Blustery comma, chilly day." Blustery and chilly are adjectives, they're describing a noun, the noun is day.

We've got "Shiny, red bus, shimmering, turquoise ocean," lovely.

"Soft, golden sand, old, mysterious arcade." Lots of examples of expanded noun phrases.

And these help a writer to describe things, particularly settings and characters.

Let's check our understanding, a writer will use expanded noun phrases to our detailed description.

Is that true or is that false? A writer will use expanded noun phrases to add detailed description, true or false? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back, let's see if you found the correct answer.

A writer will use expanded noun phrases to add detailed description is true.

Well done if you said true.

Expanded noun phrases are a great tool for a writer to use to add description.

So here we have an example of a plan.

Now these are notes from a plan for writing the opening.

They contain expanded noun phrases in the adjectives and nouns column, and you can see that over on the right side, the adjectives and nouns column, that's your expanded noun phrases, "Red, shiny bus, golden, sandy beach." There they are.

Now your task is to use this part of your plan to say the first two sentences of the opening of "Lucky Dip." So important to be able to say your sentences before you think about writing them.

I would like you to include at least two expanded noun phrases from that adjectives and nouns column of your plan.

So it's over to you now.

I would like you to say the first two sentences of the opening of "Lucky Dip." Now remember this opening, the first part, the first key moment is when Emily gets off the bus, she sees the beach, the sea, and the funfair.

That's what you'll be describing in the first two sentences.

And try and use some of those adjectives and nouns like red, shiny bus, golden, sandy beach, shimmering, icy sea, colourful, noisy funfair.

Okay, over to you.

Pause the video and say the first two sentences of your opening of "Lucky Dip," now.

Welcome back, let's see how you got on.

Here is an example.

"One windy day, a young girl named Emily arrived at the seaside with her grandparents." So that's my first sentence, no adjectives and nouns used yet.

"She skipped joyfully off the shiny, red bus." There they are my adjectives and noun, my expanded noun phrase "And looked at the golden, sandy beach." And there is another.

So we don't have to include one in every single sentence.

I've included two in the second sentence.

We just want to make sure that our writing is full of description at the right time.

Here are more notes from a plan for writing the opening are they contain verbs and adverbs that can be used to describe the action in the opening.

So you can see in this column here we have "Eagerly walked, strolled contently, swiftly peaked, and curiously peered." These verbs describe what a character is doing and the adverbs say how they were doing it.

So this section of our plan is when we have Emily and her grandparents and they're walking on the pier and Emily peaks over the rails.

So this is the second key moment of the opening.

I would like you to use your plan to say the next two sentences of the opening describing Emily and her grandparents walking onto the pier.

Include verbs and adverbs from your plan.

So you might include some adjectives and nouns too, but I am especially looking out for those verbs and adverbs, and you can see those highlighted in that middle column of your plan.

So it's over to you now.

Say the next two sentences of your opening, now.

Welcome back, let's see how you got on there.

So here's another example.

"The excited, little girl eagerly walked onto a long, wooden pier." So you can see I've got "Eagerly walked" as my verb and adverb.

"She strolled contently," that's another verb and adverb, "And then swiftly peeked over the rail to see the powerful, foamy waves." So I've got three examples of verbs and adverbs.

Sometimes you'll have the verb first.

Sometimes the adverb first, it actually doesn't matter.

They are interchangeable.

And I've included some nouns and adjectives too.

"Excited, little girl, powerful, foamy waves." Well done if you did similar.

Last task, I would like you to now have a go at using your plan to say the ending of your opening.

And this is when Emily sees the arcade and walks towards it.

And for this, I want you to bring those verbs and adverbs and the expanded noun phrases together to make your sentences so rich, and so detailed, and so descriptive.

So this key moment, Emily sees an arcade and walks towards it.

You've got your verbs and adverbs.

You've got your adjectives and nouns.

You know how to do this, so let's go for it.

Pause the video and say the end of your opening, now.

Welcome back.

Okay, so you have now completed the end of your opening by saying it out loud.

Let's look at an example.

"Emily suddenly noticed a mysterious, old arcade at the end of the pier.

The curious, brave girl inquisitively shuffled towards it.

She eagerly tiptoed towards the abandoned arcade and her grandparents didn't see her leave." You can see I have included lots of verbs and adverbs, lots of adjectives and nouns to produce a really detailed, descriptive piece of writing, and that's what we're aiming to do today.

Let's move on to writing the opening.

When we write, we always try and do these things.

We always try to plan and say each sentence before we write it.

Use punctuation where we know the rules.

Vary our sentence types.

Write letters neatly and on the line in joined handwriting.

Sound out words to spell them accurately, and read our sentences out loud to check they make sense and edit to improve our writing if necessary.

Let's check your understanding.

Which of these do we always try and do when writing? Is it A, use punctuation even if we don't know the rules? B, use punctuation where we know the rules.

Or C, use as much punctuation as we can.

Pause the video and decide which is the correct answer, now.

Welcome back, okay, let's see if you found the right answer.

A, do we use punctuation even if we don't know the rules? Absolutely not.

If you don't know the rules for a piece of punctuation, don't use that piece of punctuation.

B, use punctuation where we know the rules or C, use as much punctuation as we can? Well, punctuation needs to be used if it is the right moment to use that punctuation, not just using as much as we can.

So B is the correct answer, well done if you said B.

Here is the success criteria for your writing today.

If you can complete these four things, you will have produced an excellent piece of writing.

I had used my plan to write about each key moment, so using your plan to help guide your writing is important today.

I have included expanded noun phrases and we've talked about those already, those adjectives and nouns.

I have included verbs and adverbs, really important, to describe the action that's happening in the scene.

And I have read my writing back to check for any mistakes.

So important, every piece of writing we do, we should be checking and reading back to see if there's anything we need to edit and improve.

Make sure you use your plan to guide your writing, here is an example.

Now if you do not have a plan, you can use this one on the screen.

I'm going to show you all three parts of this plan and feel free to pause the video at any point if you want to copy this plan down or make notes.

We have the first key moment, Emily getting off the bus, seeing the beach, the sea, the funfair.

Then we have her walking on the pier with her grandparents and peeking over the rails.

And finally we have her seeing an arcade and walking towards it.

Okay, I am going to write the first two sentences of the opening and then we will work together to check against the success criteria.

Okay, so first part of the opening.

Right, I need to say what the weather was like on the day.

So I'm going to go for "One blustery, cold day," so my reader straightaway knows that it is not summer.

It's probably going to be autumn or winter, and it's windy and it's quite cold.

So already the reader is starting to picture what this setting is going to be like.

"A young girl," so I've described the girl a little bit, "Named Emily," saying her name, "Happily jumped," that's my first verb and adverb, I'm saying how she got off the bus, and the reader knows from happily jumped that she's excited, she's eager, she's energetic.

She "Jumped off a shiny, red bus at the beautiful seaside." That's my first sentence.

"One blustery, cold day, a young girl named Emily, happily jumped off a shiny, red bus at the beautiful seaside." All looks good, you can see I've gone back and read it one last time.

I've got a capital letter, I've got a full stop.

Great, let's move on to my second sentence.

Okay, so I've got her off the bus.

I now need to say what she can see.

"She excitedly gazed," is such a nice way of saying she saw, "She excitedly," tells you how she looked and gazed is a synonym for looked, it's another word that means the same as looked.

"She excitedly gazed at the golden," what do you think is coming next? What was golden in this setting? Exactly, the golden, sandy beach.

"And shimmering, clear," what was shimmering and clear, tell me? Perfect, "The shimmering, clear sea that lay before her." Finally, "She could hear a colourful, noisy funfair behind her." That's my last sentence of this part of the opening.

"She could hear a colourful, noisy funfair behind her." So I've actually written three sentences.

You can use those three to inspire your writing.

Okay, let's work together.

Let's now check against the success criteria.

I have used my plan to write about each key moment.

Yes, there are lots of things here that I've used from my plan.

Lots of things like "Blustery, cold day, happily jumped, shiny, red bus." These are things that we used in our plan, didn't we? And now they're appearing in my writing.

I have included expanded noun phrases, absolutely.

We've seen those in our plan and we know that they're there.

"Blustery, cold day, beautiful seaside, shiny, red bus, shimmering, clear sea, golden, sandy beach." There's so many examples.

Okay, the next one is verbs and adverbs.

Have I done verbs and adverbs? This might be one that I missed.

You tell me, have I? Ah, yes, thank you.

We've got "Happily jumped," that's a verb and adverb.

Any others? "Excitedly gazed," really nice, well done.

Oh, and let's just pop back.

I have read my writing back to check for any mistakes.

Now this is one that I don't tick off until the end.

I really need to make sure that I've done this consistently.

So I'm going to hold back on taking that off until I've written the entire opening.

Okay, it's now your turn.

I would like you to write your opening for "Lucky Dip." Use your success criteria and your plan to help you.

You have your success criteria here.

You know your plan, you should have made your notes.

If you need to, you could always pause the video and go back to see our plan from earlier.

It's now your turn.

Pause the video and write your opening for "Lucky Dip," now.

Welcome back, I am so excited to see how you got on.

Let's have a look at an example.

"One blustery, chilly day, a young girl named Emily arrived at the seaside with her grandparents.

In a flash, she skipped joyfully off the shiny, red bus and felt the fresh breeze on her face.

Emily could see the shimmering, turquoise ocean and the soft, golden sand.

Moments later, she heard fairground music in the distance so she strolled happily towards a wooden pier.

Just then, she spotted an old, mysterious arcade.

The curious girl felt excited.

What could be inside?" Now, ending an opening with a question is a great way to be able to entice your reader to keep reading.

If you didn't have a question at the end of your opening, you could even pause the video now and add one in.

Let's use our success criteria to see if I've completed everything that I need to in my opening.

Have I used my plan? Yes, we've got examples from my plan, like "blustery, chilly day, shiny, red bus," expanded noun phases.

These are all examples too, so I can click that one as well.

Verbs and adverbs, yes, "skipped joyfully, strolled happily," good, I can tick that, and have I read my writing back to check for mistakes.

I am constantly reading my writing back.

At the end of every sentence I read back.

Check that I've got that capital letter.

Check that I've got that full stop.

Check that I have commas in between my adjectives in an expanded noun phrase so I can tick that too.

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

An opening will introduce the setting and main characters.

A descriptive opening will contain expanded noun phrases.

A descriptive opening will contain adverbs and verbs.

Brilliant writing today, well done.

I can't wait to see you again very soon.