Lesson video

Hello again, today we're going to analyse and retell or retell first and then analyse the story or a section of the story of "The Happy Prince".

And that's going to help us to understand more about the structure of the story and what the author does to make us feel the way that we do.

Okay, let's go.

Let's have a look at what we're doing in the lesson.

We are going to, retell the opening and the build up.

So that's the beginning bit of the story and the bit where it starts to get a bit more exciting.

We're going to identify the key action and the structure.

So what happens and in which sections they happen.

And we're going to analyse the author's techniques, so what the author does in part to make us feel the way that we do.

So some of the tricks that we could steal for our writing.

So you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil or a pen, and your brain switched on.

So can you please get those things if you don't have them already and make sure you're sitting somewhere with as little distraction as possible.

Pause now and do that if you haven't already.

Okay, let's do a little warmup.

One night, what happened one night? Do you remember in the story? Think back in the story to "The Happy Prince".

One night something happened.

Pause and finish this sentence for me.

One night something happened, I want you to write it down.

Pause now.

Okay, one night, a bird flew through the air.

You happy with that? Is that good? I think something might be missing.

What's missing from this sentence? What does it need? Can you tell me please? Yes.

One night, it needs a capital letter.

Oh, always the wrong side, capital letter.

One night, comma, a bird flew through the air, full stop at the end.

Okay, I wonder then, can we make this sentence a little better? This is just pointing to the punctuation marks that we had missing and the ones that we have there.

Did you check yours? Maybe you should.

One something night, one something night, a bird flew through the air.

What would you add to your sentence? Can you do a little arrow and add something? One, hmm, what was the night like? One, was it very dark, was it nice and clear, was it full of stars? What are you going to put? Add that one word to improve your sentence now, please? Huh, was that one? One clear night, a bird flew through the air.

One clear night, a bird flew through the air.

You could have said, one starry night, a bird flew through the air or one fine night, a bird flew through the air.

So now I'm going to make it even better.

What would you put to describe the bird? One clear night I've used, uh, hmm, a bird flew through the air.

What's the bird like? Is it really huge? Is it, is it, is it, is it, is it? How would you describe the bird? Tell me you, just tell me this time.

Hmm, some good ideas.

One night, a it could be tiny.

Yeah, a tiny bird.

Any of your other options would work really, really well.

One night a tiny bird.

Cause that's quite good with the big statute, a tiny bird it could be a little bird, could be a fragile bird.

So, we've got flew, how could we change this verb? The pink ones we changed were adjectives, but I want to change this verb to make it more precise.

Is it, how is the bird flying, one time, one night, clear night, a tiny bird, how is it moving? What might you say? Give me some ideas.

Fantastic ideas.

Here are some of the things you said, One clear night, a tiny bed glided through the air.

I like that.

Glided is when you're not flapping, you're just going straight through the air.

Dipped, so it could be that the bird was flying like this and then suddenly dipped down, darted, moved like a dart, so it was going very fast.

Fluttered, fluttered is like this, like a butterfly flutters.

Really good danced, that might be quite a nice way to show that the birds quite happy actually at this point.

Danced, do the act, we dance when we're happy.

Although it's not actually going, I'm dancing through the air.

It's just, it's just a way of showing that maybe he's doing it in a jolly way.

So those are great ideas.

Thank you for those.

Let's keep them in our heads because we might need them later.

So we might replace it with, what do you think? One clear night, a tiny bird glided, yeah, that's nice.

But if you chose another one that would also be good.

One clear night, a tiny bed glided through the air.

Let's have a look at how much better that sentence is.

One night, we forgot our capital at the beginning, we remembered our comma a bird flew through the air.

Now we've got one clear night, so we can picture it, comma, a tiny bird glided, so it's kind of this peaceful movement through the air, full stop at the end.

Much better, thank you for your help improving it.

Real good.

And now we're going to retell the opening and the buildup.

So, and I have to see if we can remember this story from a couple of lessons ago if you did the grammar lessons.

And don't worry I will help you a bit.

So what was the setting of "The Happy Prince"? Can you remember? Can you tell me, was it a, city? Yeah, it was a city.

And I want you to say the next one out loud as well.

Can you tell me what was there? What's in the city right at the beginning, standing on the tall? It's a, statue.

Yeah, a golden statue.

So there's a city and in it there's a golden statue.

Who came along, who came in onto the golden statue? It was the, tell me, yes, the bird flew in one night, didn't it? And what does the bird do? Good, the bird lands on the, do you remember the word for that, for the feet, by the feet there? Pedestal, that's it.

So then what happens? He's on the pedestal and yeah, a drop falls on his head and he realises that the Prince is crying, very strange and quite sad.

And then what does he say? What does the prince say to the bird? What does the prince tell the bird about? Yeah, he tells him about how he was once very rich and lived in a palace and everyone was happy and they didn't know anything of all the miserable stuff that was going on around.

And you can see all these poor, begging children, all these poor people who haven't got enough to eat and are working all the time or possibly living on the streets.

And so he's telling a story of sadness, isn't he? That he had all this, but actually in his heart he was sad, he's sad, because he realises now.

So who does he tell the bird about? He tells the bad about, yes, the seamstress.

So tell the bird about the seamstress and her sick son.

And what does he ask about to do? Do you remember? Yeah, to take the jewel, the ruby from his sword and then the bird decides it will take the ruby to the, oh yeah, over, pass the palace, pass the cathedral, passed the marble angels.

And how do they feel when they get it? They feel really happy.

So they go, it goes to the seamstress and the child and they feel very happy.

So I want you to remember this story and put these, these have got muddled out.

So you need to put these, pause and put these in order.

And I just want you to write the first picture, the letter of the first picture first.

So where do we start the story? Which picture do you think is the start of the story? Put that letter first and then what happens next? We just retold it.

See if you can remember, it will help you when you're doing your writing.

Pause the video, write down the letters in the correct order.

Go.

Okay, let's check.

Tell me which was the first one it was, H, well done.

We're in the city, it's all grimy, but above is the statue.

That's it, all shining and gold and clean air above, so that's H and then D and then we had I, yes, tick it if you got right.

The bird comes along flies in and lands on the, so what was the next one it was? B, well done, lands on the pedestal.

And then what happens? Yeah, starts crying.

He asked why is he crying? And he tells him about being very happy Prince, that it was all about pleasure not necessarily about happiness, which is interesting things feeling nice.

Don't always necessarily make you happy.

And then actually, he now sees the very poor families from where he's standing in the city.

So we've got C and then A, then E, he asks the bird to fly down and drop the ruby.

The bird wakes up the boy and the family are happy.

Just check that that is what you've got, really well done.

So we're going to retell this story now together.

I want you to help me, finish my sentences please.

Once there, Yes, once there was a city or a dirty city and towering above the city, that's it, towering above on a, was a, a golden statue towering above the city was a golden statue.

One fine night, say the sentence aloud for me, one fine night, what happened? That's it, the bird flew down.

And then wearily the little bird what did he do? Was going to sleep, to sleep.

Wearily the little bird put his head down to go to sleep, but suddenly, suddenly what happened? Yeah, the drops fell on his head and he realised the Prince was crying.

Okay, next bit of the story.

The Prince told this one about, doing this full sentence.

Did the Prince tell this one about, being very rich, that's it.

He also told, he said and he asked the bird for help.

And he also told the bird about, what did he say? He said there was a, that's it, a seamstress and a sick boy, swiftly the kind bird took, full sentence.

Good, yes, the kind bird took, swiftly the kind bird took the ruby to the seamstress and the sick boy, sick boy woke happy, yeah.

Really good.

So just checking, the setting is in there.

Yes, a city.

And the main characters are? Statue and the bird, good.

And what is the purpose, what's the point of this story? What's the message? Do you remember from Oscar Wilde what the message is? The message is about the unfairness of wealth and that maybe we should share things more and that it's not always good to not know about things being unfair.

You can't really pretend that you don't know and not do anything about it, and that you have a happier life or happier heart.

If you try to do things to help people.

So we want to show that message to him.

We'll look at how he does that together.

So we're looking, identifying, spotting the key actions so the main stuff that happens and the structure.

So how he does it.

So we're looking at the opening, that first bit of the story and the buildup, when things get exciting.

The climax and the resolution that will come later.

So in the opening, he sets the scene.

So where we are, who are the main characters, he introduces the, some of the main characters and he grabs your attention or interest you.

It's a bit of a strange thing, isn't it? That a statute is crying.

And then in the buildup, he introduces the problem or how to solve it.

Then he builds in excitement and tension, as we begin to solve the problem with the bird, that say the problem being that he's sad, and that there's someone who's very sick and needs help.

And then we begin to solve the problem with the ruby.

And then we might solve a mini problem, which is giving the ruby away.

So let's look at how the author does it.

One of the ways that he does it is using something called contrast.

Now contrast is where two things that are kind of very different or opposing are put side-by-side.

So something that's dark against something that's light or contrasting colours like blue and yellow and artists use them a lot, like in this painting here to make things stand out and we can do that in our writing.

And it's really exciting.

That's one of the things that Oscar Wilde does too.

He does it by contrasting, so holding up against each other, the very poor and the very rich or the very dirty city, and they're very shining statue.

And he does that with the language he uses.

And I think we need to steal some of that.

So let's have a look at some of the contrasts that he uses.

So he's got up, the statue, he's got the sky, he's got rich, clean, fixed, golden and beautiful in one category.

And then in the other category, he's got things being grey or ugly, or the floor or moving or dirty.

I want you to pause and just tell me which ones match up with the opposite.

So what does up match with in the second column? What's, what is it that it opposes? What is the contrast that Oscar Wilde uses? I want you to pause, match them up, you don't have to write anything down, just match up the opposites in those two columns for me.

Just to see some of the contrasts that Oscar Wilde uses.

Pause and do that now.

Okay, let's look at what the opposite were so up is not equal to down, sky and the floor, rich and poor, clean and dirty, fixed and moving, golden and grey, beautiful and ugly.

And Oscar Wilde uses that in his writing throughout the story.

And I think we should use it too.

So I would like you, just we're going to spot in his writing where he's used those contrasts.

So for example, we've got on the one side up, sky, rich, clean, fixed, golden and beautiful, and on the other side, down, floor, poor, dirty, moving, grey, ugly.

We've got some extracts from his writing and we're going to organise it into those two categories.

So on your page, I would like you just to put a one and that's the first category, and the two, and that's the second category.

And then for example, here we have a section of his writing, we've got, "High above the city on a tall column." Is that in section one or section two? What do you think? It's in section one row.

So I would like you to pause, in a moment and just put a letter.

You don't need to write the whole extract, just put a letter next to a one or two fit each of these extracts, "High above the city on a tall column, he was covered all over with thin leaves of fine gold.

For eyes he had two bright sapphires and a large red ruby glowed on his sword." Which section do you think that falls in? So pause and just write the letters next to the correct numbers for me, off you go.

Okay, let's check your answers.

Here's section one.

And we've got A, B, E and G because A is being about up high, lots of gold and rubies and sapphires in B, fine position with plenty of air, so it's all clean up there.

So we've got up, we've got sky, we've got rich, we've got clean and we've got seeing the rich sitting happily in their beautiful houses, so things being beautiful.

And then on the other hand in section two, you should have, let's check, check that you got the same.

Down, floor, poor, So we've got C, D and F.

we've got the ugly ugliness and misery, we got a poor house, we got beggar sitting at the gates and starving children crouched on the black, in the black street.

So those are very much opposing things.

So check, you've got C, D and F.

Really good work, fantastic.

So this is us analysing how, Oscar Wilde does it.

And well done.

You have finished and completed your lesson.

You worked super duper hard and all this is going to go into our starting writing very soon.

Look forward to that.

Bye.