Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Mr. Brown and I'm your teacher for today's English lesson, and we're going to be writing, writing the buildup of the animated story "Otherwise".

So let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is, I can write the buildup of "Otherwise".

The keywords we use are fronted adverbial of time, plan, and ambitious vocabulary.

Let's say this together, my turn and then your turn.

Fronted adverbial of time, plan, ambitious vocabulary.

Perfect.

So a fronted adverbial of time is a sentence starter that tells the reader when something happens.

A plan is a framework that writers create before they write.

Ambitious vocabulary is the use of precise and descriptive words in writing.

Let's start today's lesson by preparing to write and then move on to writing the buildup.

"Otherwise" can be structured like this, into an opening, a buildup, a climax, and a resolution.

In this lesson, we are writing the buildup.

The purpose of the buildup is to do these things, to develop the plot and characters and to introduce a problem.

Also to build up tension and excitement.

The purpose of the buildup is, is it A, to solve a problem? B, to build up tension and excitement? C, to introduce the characters? Or D, to introduce a problem? Pause the video and decide now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look.

The purpose of the buildup is to build up tension and excitement and to introduce a problem.

Well done if you said B and D.

In the buildup, we develop the characters and introduce a problem.

Anders begins to feel that he's different.

He feels left out by the other chameleons and he decides to go for a swim to cheer himself up at the end of the buildup.

The problem in the story is that Anders is not included by the others.

That's the problem that we are facing in "Otherwise".

I'd like you to re-watch the buildup of "Otherwise", discuss how you think Anders is feeling at the end of each section of the buildup.

So I've broken it into two parts.

You've got buildup part one and part two.

In the middle, have a discussion with your partner.

How is Anders feeling? How would you use vocabulary to describe that to the reader? Pause the video and watch these clips of the buildup now.

(playful music) And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at a written model of the buildup.

So this is what we are trying to create by the end of this lesson.

"Later that day, Anders started to notice that the green chameleons could all change colour, but he could not.

He felt different to the others.

Then he looked down at his red, scaly skin and rubbed his stomach, but he could not make his skin change colour.

He felt distraught, and his eyes filled with tears.

Later on, he tried to cheer himself up by taking a swim.

Splash! He happily jumped into the cool clear water and joyfully swam around." Fronted adverbials of time help the reader to know how much time has passed between each sentence.

Can you spot them? Can you spot any fronted adverbials of time in this buildup? Talk to the person next to you.

Can you spot any? Where are they? What are they? Pause the video and try and spot those fronted adverbials of time now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look.

Are there any, oh, of course, there's later that day, then, and later on.

So it tells the reader how much time has passed between each sentence.

True or false, fronted adverbials of time help the reader know how much time has passed between each sentence.

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

And welcome back.

Okay, let's see if you were right.

You were if you said true, fronted adverbials of time do help the reader to know how much time has passed between each sentence.

Fronted adverbials of time can help to speed up or slow down the action you are describing.

In terms of speeding up, things like as quick as a flash, in a heartbeat, in a second, these are fast fronted adverbials of time.

They will speed up the action.

They tell the reader that hardly any time at all has passed between the last sentence and this sentence.

At that moment, just then, a moment later, a minute later, we can see we are starting to slow down a little bit, but the pace is still there.

Next, then, after a while, and then the next day would be one that would show that there was an entire day between the last sentence and the next sentence.

Fronted adverbials always start sentences, so they need a capital letter and they have a comma after.

Which of these fronted adverbials of time would help to speed up the action in your writing? Is it A, after a while, B, then, or C, in a heartbeat? Which fronted adverbial of time would help to speed up the action in your writing? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back.

Okay, after a while and then seemed quite slow, but in a heartbeat is a very fast fronted adverbial of time.

It would speed up the action.

A heartbeat is just boom-boom, that quick.

So C is the correct answer.

Time for a task.

Use this part of your plan to say the first two sentences of the buildup of "Otherwise".

You can see that this key moment is Anders beginning to feel that he's different, and you've got verbs and adverbs and adjectives and nouns to include.

Try and include a fronted adverbial of time for one of your sentences too.

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

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at an example.

Later that day, Anders quietly followed the green chameleons and noticed that they could all change colour.

He felt different to the others.

And the fronted adverbial of time I've used is later that day.

Tells you a chunk of maybe three or four hours has passed.

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

So this is Anders feeling left out because he can't change colour.

Exactly the same, but this time we're focusing on including that fronted adverbial of time and an adverb to describe how Anders felt.

And I've highlighted them for you.

So sadly, anxiously, and angrily, these are great adverbs to use to describe how Anders felt and how the green chameleons felt.

Okay, pause the video and have a go at this task now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, shall we? Here's an example.

Then, oh, there's my fronted adverbial of time already.

"Then he sadly looked down and rubbed his stomach to see if his colour would change.

Anders could not make his red scaly skin change colour." Beautiful.

There's my adverb, sadly, and my fronted adverbials of time, then.

Okay, last task I would like you to do in terms of practising , I'd like you to say the ending of your buildup.

So include a fronted adverbial of time and an expanded noun phrase using two adjectives.

And I've highlighted the adjectives in our plan that you might want to include.

Pause the video and tell me about this moment when Anders goes for a swim to cheer himself up, the ending of our buildup.

Say those sentences now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at an example.

"Later on," there's my fronted adverbial of time, "Anders tried to cheer himself up by taking a swim.

Splash! He happily jumped into the cool, clear water and swam around." Perfect.

You can see I've even got a sound effect word in there, splash with an exclamation mark, to tell the reader what he did, that he jumped into the water and the noise it made, splash.

Let's move on to writing the buildup.

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

Plan and say each sentence before we write it.

Use punctuation where we know the rules.

Vary our sentence types.

Write letters neatly on the line in joined handwriting.

And sound out words to spell them accurately.

And finally, read our sentences out loud to check they make sense.

And edits to improve our writing if necessary.

Which of these do we always try to do when writing? Is it A, very our tense? B, vary our handwriting size? Or C, vary our sentence types? Which of these do we always try to do when we're writing? Pause the video and decide now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's see if you found the right answer.

Which of these do we always try to do in writing? It is of course C, we try to vary our sentence types.

We do not need to vary our tense.

And varying our handwriting size is not something we should be doing.

So varying our sentence types.

Here is the success criteria for your writing today.

I have used my plan to write about each key moment, exactly the same as in the opening, we need to use our plan to write about each key moment.

I've included a fronted adverbial of time.

Let's make sure we get our fronted adverbials of time in there.

I've included ambitious vocabulary for my plan.

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

Here is a model for the first few sentences of the buildup.

So I will show you how I wrote the first few sentences, and then we'll get a chance to have a look at the success criteria just to see how I've got on.

"Later that day," so there's my fronted adverbial of time.

"Anders quietly followed the green chameleons.

Soon he began to notice that he was a different colour to the others.

He felt," hmm, what's a good word to use? "He felt lonely and the green, grumpy chameleons ignored him.

A while later, Anders went for a swim in the cool, clear water." Okay, we're going to check against the success criteria.

So have I used my plan? So I've got the key moments in the right order.

So him following the green chameleons, him noticing that he can't change colour, him feeling lonely and him going for a swim.

So I have used my plan in that sense.

Have I included fronted adverbial of time? Absolutely, later that day, soon, a while later.

Perfect.

Ambitious vocabulary, lots of ambitious vocabulary from my plan.

Green, grumpy chameleons.

We've got quietly followed was a verb and adverb from my plan, so let's tick that.

Cool, clear water as well.

Read my writing back to check for any mistakes.

This is something I always say we wait until the very end to do, so I'll hold back on ticking that until I've read it one more time, perhaps.

But it's your turn now.

It's your turn to write your buildup for "Otherwise".

I'd like you to use your success criteria and your plan to help you.

And I've even included some images from the buildup to be able to keep you on track.

Pause the video and write your buildup for "Otherwise" now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, shall we? But just before we look at my model one more time, and let's take a moment to reflect, to stop, and to read your writing back, to check it makes sense, and to edit any errors.

Also, I'd like you to tick each box of the success criteria when you have completed that thing.

So if you have included fronted adverbials of time, then make sure you tick the box that says, "I have included fronted adverbials of time." Okay, over to you.

Pause the video and read your writing back.

Check, edit, complete the success criteria.

Off you go.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's have a look at my example and see how I got on.

Okay, so the first thing I'm looking for is have I used my plan to write about each key moment? And you can see that I've got, "Anders to notice the green chameleons could change colour, but he couldn't." And then I moved that on to him taking a swim, so I'm following that plan really carefully so I can tick that.

Have I included fronted adverbials of time? Yes, later that day, then, later on, perfect.

Three examples is definitely enough.

Have I included ambitious vocabulary from my plan? We've got, okay, felt different, red, scaly skin, felt distraught, splash, happily jumped, cool, clear water.

Lovely, that's lots of examples there.

And then have I read my writing back? Of course I read my writing back, I checked everything, I edited if anything was necessary, so I can tick that too.

Okay, let's summarise the learning that we've done today.

The purpose of the buildup is to develop the plot and characters, introduce a problem and build up tension and excitement.

We can use our plan to help form full sentences for writing.

Fronted adverbials of time tell the reader how much time has passed between each sentence.

And fronted adverbials of time can speed up or slow down the action being described.

Brilliant work today.

I look forward to seeing you for, well, that's the opening, we've done the buildup.

The climax must be next.

I'll see you for the climax very soon.