Lesson video

Hello, everyone, my name is Mr. Brown, and I'm your teacher for today's English lesson, and today, we're planning, we're planning to write the climax, the most exciting part of the story staircase, and it's the climax for the animated story, "Otherwise." So let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is I can plan the climax of "Otherwise." We will use ambitious vocabulary and plan as our keywords.

Let say this together, my turn and then your turn: ambitious vocabulary, plan.

Fantastic, let's look at the definitions.

Ambitious vocabulary is the use of precise and descriptive words in writing, and a plan is a framework that writers create before they write.

We will start today's lesson by preparing to plan, and then move on to writing the plan.

Here is the story of "Otherwise" structured on a story staircase.

In this lesson, we are planning the climax.

The purpose of the climax is to do these things: describe the significant challenge or problem, so a big problem now; create the highest point of tension and excitement where you really feel, as a reader, that you can't relax because you don't know what's gonna happen next, because there is an atmosphere of, perhaps, danger, or something bad might be going to happen; and keep the reader engaged and interested.

We want to make this part of our writing impossible for the reader to put down.

The purpose of the climax is A, to solve a problem, B, to describe the problem, C, to create lots of tension or D, to introduce a problem.

Pause the video and decide now.

Okay, welcome back.

The purpose of the climax is to describe the problem and to create lots of tension.

So we've already introduced the problem in the buildup, and we are now describing it in more detail, and that problem is feeling more serious, more severe than it was.

Let's watch the climax so we know what this section of "Otherwise" contains.

Pause the video and watch the climax clip now.

(suspenseful music) (water splashing) (suspenseful music builds) (eagle screams) (dramatic menacing music) (chameleon screeching) (threatening music) (water splashing) (chameleons growling) (footsteps tapping rapidly) (chiming music) (chameleons growling) (foliage rustling) (ominous music) (footsteps tapping) (foliage rustling) (tense suspenseful music) (suspenseful music builds) (Anders panting) (ominous music) (eaglets chirping) And welcome back, I hope you enjoyed it, the most exciting part of the story.

I know I love watching the climax of "Otherwise," and I bet you did too.

Here's a written model of the climax.

This is what we are aiming to produce by the end of our next lesson when we're writing the climax, "Suddenly, a huge, hungry eagle swooped down and violently grabbed one of the green chameleons in its vicious, sharp, talons.

Anders couldn't believe his eyes.

Angrily, the other chameleons glared at the crimson lizard and gritted their teeth.

The raging animals edged towards Anders, and he ran away.

In a flash, the chameleons charged towards Anders and chased him up a rocky, jagged mountain.

Nervously, Anders kept running and running." Okay.

When we plan, we generate ambitious vocabulary for us to use in our writing.

Now, ambitious vocabulary that we're gonna be generating will include verbs and adverbs, and adjectives and nouns.

Now, using ambitious vocabulary means using words that are precise and descriptive.

We want to paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind so that our writing is clear for them to picture and exciting to read.

Which of these will be in our plan? Will it be verbs and adverbs, adjectives and nouns, or full sentences? Which of these will be in our plan? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back.

Okay, which of these will be in our plan? Well, it will be verbs and adverbs, and adjectives and nouns.

Well done if you said A and B.

Let's review the key moments of the climax.

An eagle swoops down and grabs one of the green chameleons.

I had mentioned in my example write that it grabbed a comedian in its talons.

Now, its talons are the claws that it uses.

A bird like an eagle has talons, and that's those black, sharp, almost like nails at the end of its feet.

The other green chameleons are angry, and they blame Anders.

They chase him up a rocky mountain.

So they blame him because he was the one that was splashing around, that caused the eagle to be able to see them.

He wasn't camouflaged, like the others, he was a red lizard in a blue pool, and so was easy to spot.

That drew the eagle's attention.

As the eagle got closer, it spotted there was a green chameleon to grab rather than Anders, and so it grabbed one of the green chameleons.

Now, the other green chameleons blame Anders because of that.

They are angry with him and they chase him.

We don't know what they would do if they caught him, but I think we can presume that it's not going to be very nice.

Let's order the key moments of the climax.

So we have, they chase him, and he tries to escape by climbing up a rocky mountain; an eagle swoops down and grabs one of the green chameleons; and the other green chameleons are angry and blame Anders.

Let's order those from 1, to 2, to 3.

Pause the video and order those key moments of the climax now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, shall we? So 1, an eagle swoops down and grabs one of the green chameleons.

2, the other green chameleons are angry and blame Anders, and 3, they chase him, and he tries to escape by climbing up a rocky mountain.

Well done if you've ordered those correctly.

Let's look at each moment in more detail.

An eagle's attention is attracted by Anders splashing around.

The eagle flies down and grabs one of the green chameleons, so this is the first moment.

The eagle flies away with the green chameleon.

So in this first moment, these three things happen.

Let's generate some verbs and adverbs to describe the actions in this moment.

Now, verbs are doing or being words, and adverbs are words that describe verbs.

Anders plays in the water, and the eagle grabs a green chameleon.

So let's think about the verbs and adverbs in this moment.

So in terms of verbs, we've got splashed, Anders splashed, swooped, for the eagle coming down, and grabbed.

Now adverbs, how about splashed? Splashed loudly, happily.

Swooped rapidly, which means very, very fast.

Grabbed viciously, yeah.

And then let's put that into a sentence.

Anders splashed loudly in the water and caught the attention of a huge, hungry eagle.

Lovely.

Okay, let's generate some adjectives now to describe the important nouns in this moment.

So what are the important nouns? Well, we know nouns are people, places, and things.

Now, adjectives are words that describe nouns, but let's focus on nouns.

What nouns are there? So we've got the eagle, talons, which we talked about, its sharp claws, and chameleon, so that could be the green chameleon or it could be Anders.

Probably, in this moment, it's the green chameleon that gets grabbed.

So in terms of adjectives, the eagle, we could describe as huge, hungry, terrifying, vicious.

Now, a word like terrifying means scary, so you could use terrifying, or horrifying, or petrifying.

In terms of the talons, razor-sharp, they are sharp as razors, pointed, and deadly.

And then in the chameleon, we could say he's terrified, motionless, because he's not moving, and frozen, which again means he's not moving, and, of course, green, just another word to describe, to let the reader know that it's not Anders that we're talking about.

So huge, hungry eagle, razor-sharp, pointed talons, these are the kind of expanded noun phrases that we'll be looking to create.

We'll also be planning this moment from the climax, which is the other chameleons blame Anders for attracting the eagle.

They grit their teeth angrily, and point at him, and then they start to move towards him, and this moment, Anders running away from the green chameleons as he feels scared, they chase him through the jungle, and Anders is distraught, and tries to escape by climbing up a rocky mountain.

True or false? In the climax, Anders chases the green chameleons.

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

Welcome back, everyone.

In the climax, Anders does not chase the green chameleons, they chase him, so well done if you said false.

Time for a task, and I'd like you to fill in the blanks with ambitious vocabulary from the box below, and you've got your verbs and adverbs, and adjectives and nouns to use.

So read through the sentences and fill in those blanks.

For example, the first sentence, "Later that day, Anders, something, happily in the cold water.

What did he do? So happily is a adverb, so it needs a verb next to it, Anders.

What do you think? Pause the video and fill in those blanks using the ambitious vocabulary from the box at the bottom of the page, and do this now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at the answers, or the answers I've chosen, anyway.

You may have chosen differently, and that doesn't necessarily mean that one of us is right or wrong, it can just be different options that we've chosen.

"Later that day, Anders splashed happily in the cool water.

Suddenly, a huge, terrifying eagle swooped down from the sky.

Viciously, it grabbed a terrified, motionless chameleon in its razor-sharp, deadly talons.

Lovely.

Let's move on to writing the plan.

When we write a plan, we use notes.

Notes are concise, and capture key vocabulary and information.

The purpose of notes is to help the writer to organise information easily for future use.

We use bullet points when note-taking, and they look like this, like a thick full-stop floating in between the lines, and then you write next to each one.

True or false? Notes are concise, and capture key vocabulary and information.

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

Welcome back.

Okay, notes are concise and capture key vocabulary and information is absolutely true.

Well done if you said true.

They are.

They should be concise, which means short, and capture key vocabulary and information, not full sentences.

Time for a task.

I'd like you to fill in the first part of your plan with ambitious vocabulary to use when writing this moment of the climax, so the first moment, where the eagle grabs a green chameleon in its talons.

I'll start you off with some verbs and adverbs.

Rapidly swooped, I could be describing the way the eagle flew down.

Sharp, deadly talons.

Okay, over to you.

Fill in the first part of your plan with ambitious vocabulary for this part, this key moment of the climax.

Pause the video and have a go now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's have a look at some examples.

So I added aggressively grabbed, as well, and hungrily snatched, to my plan, and instantly flew, in terms of how it flew away, as well.

I quite like hungrily snatched.

And then in terms of adjectives and nouns, we've got huge, hungry eagle, sharp, deadly talons, and frozen, terrified chameleon.

Let's do exactly the same now for this key moment.

This is when the other chameleons are angry with Anders.

I'll start you off.

Angrily glared, the way they look at him, and furious green chameleons.

Over to you.

Fill in this second part of your plan with ambitious vocabulary by pausing the video and completing this task now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, shall we? So we had furiously gritted teeth, furiously gritted teeth, they furiously gritted their teeth.

Accusingly pointed, so they are accusing him of something, and they're doing that in the way that they point at him.

They are furious green chameleons.

Sharp white teeth is how I describe their teeth.

And then terrified red chameleon, that's Anders.

Finally, that last key moment when Anders is climbing up the rocks, the green chameleons are chasing him.

We've got relentlessly chased.

Now, if something is relentless, it means it never ends, it keeps going and going and going.

They are relentlessly chasing him.

They don't seem to give up.

These green chameleons will not give up, they just want to keep chasing Anders until they catch him.

And then adjectives and nouns, raging chameleons.

They are raging, they are filled with rage, so they are raging chameleons.

Over to you.

Fill in the third part of your plan now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, shall we? So we said relentlessly chased was the way that they are pursuing Anders.

Rapidly climbed, quickly darted, and desperately ran, so these are great ones to describe Anders trying to get away from the green chameleons.

Raging chameleons, that's those green chameleons.

Tear-filled, wide eyes, that will be Anders, he's so upset.

Heavy, jagged rocks, of course, yeah, the rocks they're climbing over.

And steep, rocky mountain, so the mountain itself, you could describe as steep.

Steep means it's a very, very sharp incline, it's not very flat, steep, rocky mountain.

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

The purpose of the climax is to describe the problem and create the highest point of tension.

Our plan will contain ambitious vocabulary.

Our plan will contain nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

Using ambitious vocabulary helps to paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind and make writing exciting to read.

Brilliant work today.

I think you are ready to write an exciting climax, and we'll do that next time.

I will see you then.