Lesson video

Hello, everyone, it's Mr. Brown here with your English lesson for today, and we are writing.

We are writing the second section of a non-chronological report on the Great Fire of London, and in today's lesson, we will be writing about how the fire spread and how it stopped.

I'm so excited to see your amazing writing, so let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is I can write a section of a report on the Great Fire of London.

The key vocabulary we're going to use, our key words, are formal fronted adverbials, fronted adverbials, and subheading.

My turn.

Your turn.

Formal fronted adverbials.

Very good.

Well done.

Fronted adverbials.

Perfect.

Subheading.

Excellent.

Well done.

So we're gonna start our lesson by preparing to write, and then we will be writing a section.

The sections of a non-chronological report are structured in this order.

We have the introduction section, section one, and section two, and in this lesson, we will be writing the second section, section two, which is about how the fire spread and stopped.

To explain how the fire spread and stopped, you'll need to tell the reader how the fire spread, where the fire spread to, how people tried and failed to stop the fire, and how the fire was eventually put out.

You may have a plan to guide you when writing this section.

If not, that's absolutely okay.

You can use this one.

So if you have your own plan, brilliant.

If not, you can use this one, and you can see it's in note form.

Things like hot and dry weather plus wind equals fire spread quickly.

That's it.

Wooden houses with straw roofs on narrow streets.

Those are notes, and we will use those and turn them into full sentences.

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

So we're writing today.

Let's remind ourselves what we try and do when we write.

We try and plan and say each sentence before we write it, so saying a sentence out loud before you write it is so important.

Use punctuation where we know the rules.

Vary our sentence types.

Write letters neatly on the line in joined handwriting.

Sound out words to spell them accurately, so we'll be using our phonics to sound out the words.

And read our sentences out loud to check, check they make sense, and edit to improve our writing if necessary.

Reading our writing back and checking it makes sense, then making any edits if we need to.

Let's check our understanding.

Which of these do we always try and do when writing? A, write letters neatly on the line in joined handwriting, B, write as quickly as we can, or C, write as many commas as you can.

Write with as many commas as we can.

Is it A, B, or C? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's see if you were right.

So B, writing as quickly as we can.

There's no need to rush.

The faster we go, the more chance there is of making mistakes, so it's not B.

C, write with as many commas as we can.

Well, if we know a rule to use for a comma, then we'll use it, but we won't worry about writing as many commas as we can.

So the answer is A, write neatly on the line in joined handwriting.

Well done if you said A.

Let's have a look at an example.

Now this is, you don't need to worry about reading this, this is just an example of an entire non-chronological report with a title at the top, an introduction section, a section one, and a section two.

And each of those sections are about a slightly different topic.

Same subject, we're talking about the Great Fire of London, of course, but a slightly different area of the fire.

The first one is how did the fire start, and the second section is how did the fire spread and stop.

So here's a section on how did the fire spread and stop.

Let's have a look at an example.

Now, before we dive into this text, I want to ask you a question.

What is this bit called? What is that called at the top? It seems to be a slightly different section, and it's got a line underneath it.

Well, this is called a subheading.

The headings given to individual sections of a report are called subheadings.

A subheading tells the reader what that particular section will be about.

Subheadings should always be underlined and use capital letters at the start, but not full stops at the end.

Quick question.

What do we underline with? Well done.

Exactly.

A ruler.

We underline with a ruler.

So make sure you're using a ruler to underline so you've got a perfectly straight line.

A good way to gain the reader's interest is to use questions for subheadings.

So instead of a subheading being, "How the fire spread and stopped," we know that's what we're writing about today, so instead of saying that, I could say, "How did the fire spread and stop?" because that's a question.

Don't forget that question mark.

It's so important.

If you miss it at the end, it's going to be confusing for the reader and they won't be sure that it's a question.

Remember, your subheading is underlined, and if it's a question, it has a question mark at the end.

Quick check for understanding.

A subheading should always be A, underlined, B, written in capital letters, C, written as a question.

What do you think? A, B, or C? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back, everyone.

So a subheading should always be underlined.

A, exactly, it's underlined.

Make sure your subheading is always underlined.

Another feature of a non-chronological report is fronted adverbials.

There's our keyword, fronted adverbials.

Now, there are different types of fronted adverbials.

For example, there is fronted adverbials of time, fronted adverbials of place, and they both have the same rule.

They both start a sentence and are followed by a comma.

So they both would be at the start of a sentence, and then you'd use a comma before you continue the rest of the sentence.

Now, fronted adverbials of time tell the reader when the events in the statement happened.

So your sentence is the statement, the fronted adverbial of time you would add at the beginning, and that would tell the reader when the event in the statement happened.

For example, "On Thursday, the 6th of September, the Great Fire of London stopped." So, "On Thursday, the 6th of September," that's the fronted adverbial of time, and you can see it has a comma after it.

Then the statement is, "the Great Fire of London Stopped." And that has a full stop at the end.

Let's have a look at the fronted adverbial of place.

Here's an example, "By the banks of the Thames, people desperately collected water." So, "By the banks of the Thames" is your fronted adverbial of place, and there's that comma, "people desperately collected water." That's a statement with a full stop at the end.

Which of these is a fronted adverbial of time? Is it A, in Thomas Farriner's bakery, B, in 1666, C, in London? Which is a fronted adverbial of time? They're all fronted adverbials, but which one is a fronted adverbial of time? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back, everyone.

So well done if you did not say A, because A, in Thomas Farriner's bakery, that's a fronted adverbial of place.

Exactly.

Fronted adverbial of place.

C, in London, is again a fronted adverbial of place.

So B, in 1666, that's the correct answer.

Well done if you said B.

Another type of fronted adverbial is a formal fronted adverbial.

Just say that with me.

Formal fronted adverbial.

Very good.

Formal fronted adverbial.

It is formal in tone, and it links a sentence to the sentence that comes directly before.

So it's formal in tone, which means it's perfect for a formal report like ours, and it links the sentence before to the sentence that comes next, so the sentence that comes directly before is linked to this sentence.

It shares the same grammatical rule of starting a sentence and being followed by a comma.

So exactly the same as fronted adverbials of time and place, it starts a sentence and it's followed by a comma.

That gives you a visual.

Your formal fronted adverbial goes at the beginning, then it has a comma, then you would have your statement.

Formal fronted adverbials can be organised into two different types.

You have and formal fronted adverbials and but formal fronted adverbials.

And we try and remember these by saying we have the and hand and the but hand.

So that will be a way for you to remember which one they go to.

An and formal fronted adverbial builds on a point from the previous sentence.

So the ones we are going to use in our report are, my turn, your turn, also.

Very good.

In addition.

Exactly.

And both of these are building on the point from the previous sentence.

So also we know we use when we are going to start saying a bit more about the same topic.

I might be telling you about a trip I had to the park, and then if I realise there's something that I forgot to mention, I might say, "Also, when we were in the park, we went on the swings." It's the same with in addition.

In addition.

And you can see a bit in addition, I can see the word add, and that's what you're doing.

You are adding a bit more information about the same topic.

You're not changing direction and talking about something new or something different to the last sentence.

You're adding to it.

"London had experienced a very hot and dry summer." So my next sentence is going to be about the wind, and that was also contributing to the fire spreading, so I'm gonna say, "Also, the weather at the time was windy." So I've got two sentences.

They're both about weather, they're both about things that contributed to the fire spreading, so that's a perfect place to use also or in addition.

And I've used also with a comma after it.

A but formal fronted adverbial introduces a contrasting idea to the previous sentence.

I like to use this visual to help me remember.

So whatever the sentence before is, whether it's a positive sentence or a negative sentence, my next sentence is going to contrast to that.

So for example, "I had a lovely morning today." And then my next sentence, if I'm going to tell you about something terrible that happened, perhaps in the afternoon or a change to that lovely morning, that's when I will use a but formal fronted adverbial.

And they are however, my turn, your turn, however, despite this, and they both flip the next sentence into a different direction, they contrast.

So, "I had a brilliant morning today, however my afternoon was not so good." You see, let's look at an example.

"Londoners battled bravely to put the fire out." Well, that sounds quite positive.

They battled bravely.

Well done.

Oh, there's a however coming.

Oh, it's gonna be bad, isn't it? "However, they only had leather buckets, axes, and water squirts." Yeah, that wasn't good.

They didn't have enough equipment.

So, "Londoners battled bravely," positive.

Let's flip it.

"However, they only had leather buckets, axes, and water squirts," negative.

There's my however that I've used.

Exactly the same rule as all the other fronted adverbials.

Starts a sentence, so it has a capital letter and a comma after.

Let's check your understanding.

Which of these is a formal fronted adverbial? Is it A, days later, B, because, C, also? Pause the video and decide which of these is a formal fronted adverbial now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's see if you were right.

So days later, A, well, that's a fronted adverbial, but it's a fronted adverbial of time.

It's a fronted adverbial of time, isn't it? It tells you that something happened days later.

So days after the last sentence, whenever that was, something happened days later.

Because, well, that's not a fronted adverbial at all, so it must be C, also.

Well done if you said C.

Okay, let's have a practise.

I would like you to choose a suitable formal fronted adverbial to link each of these sets of sentences.

So we've got set A and set B, two sentences per set.

Your job is to choose a formal fronted adverbial that will link them correctly.

Let's have a look at set A.

"The Lord Mayor didn't want to use firebreaks." Then you're going to put something in, could be an and formal frontal adverbial, like also or in addition, but it could be a but formal fronted adverbial, like however or despite this.

"The Lord may didn't want to use firebreaks." Something, "he had no choice but to agree to use them to try and stop the fire." Now, here's my top tip.

I suggest you have a go at saying a formal fronted adverbial in its place there in that gap and see if it sounds right.

Often you can hear if a formal fronted adverbial doesn't sound like it's in the right place.

Do the same with B.

"The fire breaks were helpful in slowing down the spread of the fire." Something, "the wind died down which helped too." Maybe you want to try also or in addition.

So put that word in that gap, and say it out loud, and see how it sounds.

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

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's see how you got on.

So, "The Lord Mayor didn't want to use firebreaks.

However, he had no choice but to agree to use them to try and stop the fire." So he didn't want to use firebreaks.

That's a negative sentence.

It's not good.

He's not gonna use them.

However, he changed his mind, didn't he? That's a positive thing.

It changes direction, it's contrasting.

So however or despite this works well there.

And then B, "The firebreaks were helpful in slowing down the spread of the fire." Okay, that's good.

They were helpful in slowing down the spread of the fire.

"The wind died down, which helped too." Okay, so that's also helping the spread of the fire to stop, which means it should be an also or in addition.

Also is the one that I have chosen to use.

Well done for completing your task.

I have another task for you now.

It's a talk task.

I would like you to say the first two sentences of your section out loud.

Use your plan or the one below, and there it is, to help guide you.

Try and use formal fronted adverbials to link your sentences.

So we are always trying to say our sentences out loud.

This is the last thing to do before we start writing, to practise saying them out loud, and then you'll be able to hear if any words don't quite work, if your formal fronted adverbial doesn't match.

So say the first two sentences of your section on how the fire spread and stopped.

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

Well done, everyone.

Okay, so let's have a look.

Did you check your sentences? Because this is the opportunity to do it.

Check your sentences.

Did you include an and formal fronted adverbial? Did you include a but formal fronted adverbial? Take a moment to reflect, to think back.

Did you include those? If not, this is your opportunity to have another go.

So you can pause the video if you want to, to have a go and include these if you forgot.

Let's have a look at an example.

"London experienced a hot, dry summer that year, which helped the fire to spread quickly.

In addition to this," oh, so we're talking more.

It's an and formal fronted adverbial, in addition.

Now, we looked at in addition, you can say in addition to this as well.

"In addition to this, there were strong winds on the day the fire started." Let's have a look at another example.

"People tried to battle the fire." Oh, that's good.

They tried to battle it.

Oh, and I now I'm gonna talk about how the fire was too fast when it spread to be contained, so I've used despite this.

That's a contrasting one, isn't it? "People tried to battle the fire.

Despite this, the houses were made of wood and straw and close together on narrow streets, so the flames spread too fast to be contained." And formal fronted adverbial and a but formal fronted adverbial.

Well done if you managed to use those in your sentences.

Okay, time for writing a section.

Here is the success criteria we'll be using in today's lesson.

These are four things that you must try and do in your writing.

I have written a subheading.

That's the first thing.

I have informed the reader of the key information about how the fire spread and stopped.

I have used at least two formal fronted adverbials with commas.

And the last thing is I have read my writing back to check for any mistakes.

So ensuring that you are reading your writing back and checking if there's anything you need to edit and improve.

So I am now going to have a go at writing the subheading and the first few sentences on how the fire spread and stopped.

I'm going to use my success criteria to guide my writing to make sure I can tick off all four of these things by the time I'm finished.

So you join me after I have started by writing my subheading and my first sentence, but this is the perfect opportunity to stop and to do this part of my success criteria.

Read my writing back to check for mistakes.

So my subheading, "How the fire spread and stopped?" Okay, something doesn't seem right here.

We wanted to write a question, and I've got a question mark, but that doesn't sound like a question.

"How the fire spread and stopped" is not a question.

So what am I missing? "How did the fire," so let me make an edit by putting an arrow here.

"How did the fire spread and stopped?" No, I just want it to be stop, so I'm just going to cross out the P-E-D at the end.

"How did the fire spread and stop?" That's it, with a question mark and it's underlined, so I can tick off the first part of my success criteria.

Let's read my first sentence.

"London," with a capital letter because it's the start of my sentence and it's a proper noun.

"London experienced a hot dry summer." Ah, I've spotted something.

I have spotted a mistake.

Can you see it? It is a piece of punctuation that is missing.

It is something missing on this first line here.

Can you see what's missing and where it should be? It is a comma.

The comma is missing, and it is missing in between two adjectives because I've written an expanded noun phrase.

And we know an expanded noun phrase is adjective, adjective, noun, but it's also adjective, comma, adjective, noun.

That's what I'm missing.

The comma between my adjectives.

Can you see? Yes, absolutely.

Well done.

You're right.

It's there in between hot and dry.

Hot and dry are adjectives describing the noun summer.

So it should be, "A hot, dry summer." "London experienced a hot, dry summer that year which helps the fire to spread quickly." Good, that makes sense.

First sentence looks good.

Let's just two finger check it.

Capital letter.

Yes.

Full stop.

Ah no, let's pop that in.

Great, I always like to just do a quick check of my capital letters and my full stops.

Perfect.

"London experienced a hot, dry summer that year which helped the fire to spread quickly." Good.

Okay, next sentence.

I want to keep telling the reader about the weather conditions that contributed to the fire spreading.

So we know hot and dry summer was one weather condition, but it was also, what's the other weather condition? It was also windy.

Yeah, it was windy when the fire happened, so that is a sentence that's going to be about a very similar thing, weather that helped the fire to spread quickly.

When you write sentences and you are continuing along the same theme, then that's an opportunity to use formal fronted adverbials, linking that sentence to the next one.

Letting the reader know that you are continuing to talk about the same thing.

So let's go for it.

Which frontal adverbial shall I use? I know there's and and but ones.

Now, but is when we're contrasting.

This is not the case here.

We are not contrasting.

We're talking about the same thing.

We're continuing, we're adding to this sentence, so it's going to be an and hand formal fronted adverbial.

So that would be also or in addition.

Now, with in addition, you can actually extend it slightly and say in addition to this, and the this that you are referring to is the information in this first sentence.

So in addition to this seems to work well here.

"In addition to this." "In addition to this." So in addition to the hot, dry summer.

"In addition to this, there were strong winds on the day the fire started." Yeah.

"In addition to this, there were strong," strong, that's the one, "there were strong winds on the day," day, "on the day the," T-H-E for the, "the fire," fire is ire, ire, I-R-E.

Great.

"In addition to this, there were strong winds on the day the fire started." Started, started, perfect.

E-D suffix at the end.

Great.

Let's read back through my sentence.

"In addition to this there were strong," oh wait, I've spotted something.

I've spotted something.

I'm missing another piece of punctuation.

Can you see where it should go? It's another comma, but it's not a comma between adjectives.

It's a comma at the end of a formal fronted adverbial.

You can see my success criteria, it says with commas.

"In addition to this," comma, that's the end of my formal fronted adverbial.

That's where my comma should be.

"In addition to this, there were strong winds on the day the fire started." Full stop on the end.

Capital letter, full stop.

Great.

Okay, so I now want to tell the reader more information about how the fire spread and stopped.

I want to say that the people tried to put the fire out, and then I'm gonna talk about how it was too difficult.

The fire was spreading too quickly.

It couldn't be stopped.

So I can't tick this one off quite yet.

I need to give more information.

So, "People tried to," people, new sentence, capital letter.

"People tried to fight the fire, tackle the fire, battle the fire, battle the fire." I like that, "People tried to battle the fire.

That really tells the reader that it would've been a battle in between the people trying to put the fire out and the fire.

"People tried to battle." "People tried to battle the fire." Full stop.

"People tried to battle the fire." "People tried to battle the fire." Full stop.

Now, that's a sentence with some positivity.

People are trying to put the fire out.

I am now going to contrast that by saying that the houses were made of wood and straw and they were too close together, so the flames spread too fast to be stopped.

What formal frontal adverbials can I use when I want to contrast the last sentence? It's not the and ones, it's the but ones, isn't it? It's however and despite this, yes, I'm now gonna take a different direction to this sentence.

"People try to battle the fire." "Despite this," with a capital letter.

"Despite this," "Despite this," oh, don't forget my comma.

"Despite this, the houses were." "The houses were made of," what were they made of? "The houses were made of." Check your notes if you need to.

"Wood and straw," absolutely, they were made of wood and straw.

Okay, I want to add a bit more detail.

They were made of wood and straw.

So I'm gonna write a compound sentence with and as my joining word.

"Despite this, the houses were made of wood and straw and close together." They were close together.

On what kind of streets were they on? Now they weren't wide streets, were they? They were, ah, that's it, narrow.

"On narrow streets." Street, double e for ee, street.

"Despite this, the houses, the houses made.

Oh, that doesn't make sense.

"Despite this, the houses made of wood and straw," I'm missing a word here.

The houses, what's the word? The houses were.

Thank you, "The houses were made of wood and straw and close together on narrow streets." I just wanna finish it off by saying, "This was the reason why the fire kept going.

So I'm just gonna use a so, "So the," I've said fire quite a few times.

Fire, fire, fire, so the flames.

Yeah, I could say flames or blaze.

"So the flames spread too fast," too fast, which too is it? It's not let's go to the park.

It's two as in too much, which I know is T-O-O.

"Spread too fast." Too, and now this is the other to.

"To be stopped, to be contained." Contained.

That's nice, to be contained.

So they couldn't contain the fire, could they? To be contained.

"People tried to battle the fire." Full stop.

"Despite this," so actually I know I can tick this now.

I've got my two formal fronted adverbials with commas, that can be ticked off.

"Despite this, the houses were made of wood and straw and close together on narrow streets," so the flames spread too fast to be contained.

Capital letter, full stop.

Lovely, good.

I've given the reader lots of key information about how the fire spread and I will keep going and tell them how it stopped.

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

I've been doing that constantly, even as I were going through sentences.

So this sentence, I spotted that mistake and I hadn't even got to the end.

So anytime I feel like I've lost momentum or I want to just take a moment to hear where I am, I go back to the beginning of my sentence and I read through, so I think I can tick that off too.

Well done.

Thank you for your help with this piece of writing.

It's looking great.

So now it's time for you to have a go.

I would like you to write and underline your question for your subheading, and then use the success criteria and your plan to write the section on how the fire spread and stopped.

So here is your success criteria.

These are the things that you must do in your writing today.

Pause the video and have a go at writing your section on how the fire spread and stopped now.

Welcome back, everyone.

So let's see an example of something that you might have written.

So let's use this example that I wrote to be able to contrast with yours to see if there's anything that I included that you might have included.

So I know I've got my subheading.

"How did the fire spread and stop?" "London experienced a hot, dry summer that year, which helped the fire to spread quickly.

In addition to this, there were strong winds on the day the fire started.

People tried to battle the fire.

Despite this," so there's another formal fronted adverbial.

"The houses were made of wood and straw and close together on narrow streets, so the flames spread too fast to be contained.

There was no organised fire brigade in 1666.

Also, people only had leather buckets, axes, and water squirts to tackle the blaze.

The Lord Mayor was asked to use firebreaks, which involved blowing up houses to control the spread.

At first, he didn't want to do this.

However, he had no choice but to use firebreaks to try and stop the fire.

Across London, the firebreaks were helpful in slowing down the spread of the fire and the wind died down, which helped too.

On Thursday, the 6th of September, the fire finally stopped." And you can see I've included my subheading, which is underlined.

I've got lots of description of the hot, dry summer.

I've told them all about all the things that contributed to the fire spreading.

So the hot, dry summer, the houses made of wood, being close together, people only having leather buckets and water squirts.

The firebreaks being used to slow down the spread.

That's all the information that I needed.

And then I've got my former fronted adverbials, like also, despite this, however.

I've read back my writing to check the mistakes, so I know that I can tick that off too.

So that means everything in my success criteria is successfully ticked off.

Let's summarise our learning from today's lesson.

The second section of the report should inform the reader about how the fire spread and stopped.

A subheading is a mini-heading given to a specific section of a report.

Formal fronted at verbals are sentence starters followed by a comma.

Brilliant work today.

Excellent writing.

I'm very proud of the effort you've put in, and I know that that piece of writing is something that you should be very proud of too.

Well done.

I hope to see you again soon.