Lesson video

Hi there, my name is Byrne-Smith, and today we're going to be doing some English together.

In today's lesson, we're going to write the appearance paragraph on non-chronological report about the anglerfish.

So let's make a start.

Here's the agenda for today's lesson.

Firstly, we'll look at the features of a non-chronological report, then we'll recap the appearance of our creature, the anglerfish.

after that, you'll help me with a modelled write of the appearance paragraph before you have ago in your task for the day.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil and your notes about the appearance paragraph.

If you don't have these, don't worry because we're going to go through a lot today that you'll be able to use.

However, they will be very useful if you have them nearby.

If you need to go and get any of these things, pause the video now.

Let's think about the features of a non-chronological report.

So the question is, what is a non-chronological report? We've discussed this before and it's worth remembering and worth reminding ourselves that non-chronological report is a type of nonfiction text.

It provides factual information about a subject, a person or an event and importantly, it is not written in time order.

The word chronological comes from chron which is Greek for time.

So if something is non-chronological, it is not written in time order.

What's the purpose of each of the main paragraphs? So we've done the opening, now we need to consider the main paragraphs of the report.

We need to think about what their purpose is, why they included, pause the video and have a think.

What's the purpose of each of the main paragraphs? They provide general then specific information about, in our case, the anglerfish.

So we start off with general facts.

The opening does a very good job of introducing the creature and gives a few general facts about it.

In the main paragraphs, you have the time and space to go into more detail.

So you can be more specific, gives you an opportunity to expand on points and add detail.

And it also gives you a chance to link to the next paragraph.

The three main paragraphs will all in one way or another link to what comes next.

So this is where the main paragraphs sit within the overall report.

They're in the middle there between the opening and closing.

In our instance, we have three main paragraphs appearance, diet and habitat.

Today we are writing the appearance, the first of the three main paragraphs.

So this is our success criteria for the day.

This is what we're going to use to ensure we are successful in our writing.

So write the appearance paragraph of the non-chronological report.

I have included an opening and a linking sentence, I've included brackets to add extra information, I've included a formal conjunction and subject specific vocabulary, I have referred to nouns in different ways.

You'll notice there are similarities here between the criteria we have today and the criteria used in the opening.

That's because lots of the features of the non-chronological report run throughout the report from beginning to end.

There's also a reminder here to use, say, write, read.

This technique makes certain that our sentences make sense and that they flow correctly.

We say our sentence out loud, we write it down and then we read it back to ourselves to make sure it's exactly what we wanted to be.

Now, this is going to be really helpful for our writing today.

How could you refer to the anglerfish in different ways? This is one of our success criteria so it's worth practising.

We don't want to be saying anglerfish again and again and again and again.

So what else could we say? Pause the video and have a think.

You could say fish, animal, species, creature or predator.

Or can you find examples that all of which I think are appropriate, you might have come up with some of your own.

Now the beauty of these five is that you can apply adjectives to each of these to make them even more interesting.

For example, you might say, powerful predator or bizarre creature.

I'd like you to pick two of these and have a go at adding an appropriate adjective to them to make them that bit more interesting.

Pause the video now and have a go.

Okay, great, let's recap the appearance of the anglerfish.

Now here's our anglerfish, there are two depictions of it here.

The first thing that jumps out to me is the lure on the top of its head.

This is the alert that lights up it's bioluminescent.

Its purpose is to attract prey towards it.

Prey that the anglerfish can then eat.

So it's very important to the anglerfish's survival, that's definitely worth mentioning.

The other thing that we've made note of is the eyesight of the anglerfish, which is highly developed to allow it to see in the dark depths of the deep sea, a very important aspect of its appearance.

We also have things like its teeth.

We can touch on its teeth now if we want, however, they might be worth saving the diet paragraph since the teeth play really important role in the anglerfish's is eating habits.

These are the notes that we made on the appearance of the anglerfish.

We're going to make use of these today.

It's named after its method of fishing.

That's useful to know, that's something we might include in today's writing.

Has a bioluminescent lure protruding from head excellent so really good vocabulary there, we have bioluminescence, lure and protruding.

All of which I think we should try and use today in our writing.

Lure attracts unsuspecting prey.

I just love that phrase, unsuspecting prey.

That suggests that they don't know what's coming until they gobble up.

Highly developed eyesight, eyesight allows them to navigate seafloor and hunt.

Great, so we have two features and then we have a brief explanation of what the features do.

I think that definitely the makings of a really, really good paragraph.

It's time for us to write, you're going to help me create an appearance paragraph now, which we'll do together.

After that, you'll have a chance to write one of your own.

So you're going to help me with this one, then you'll have a chance to do one of your own.

First let's have a quick reminder about success criteria.

Opening and linking sentence, brackets to extra information, formal conjunction, subject-specific vocabulary referring to nouns in different ways.

And then there's a reminder for say, write, read, which is really important, let's practise that now.

So our first sentence has been done already.

Let's check it.

The anglerfish is known for its distinctive appearance and range of interesting adaptations.

That's a really nice sentence to open our paragraph with.

I haven't started talking about any of the adaptations in detail.

I'm just saying that it has some, which is a really nice general opening sentence.

The anglerfish is known for its distinctive appearance and range of interesting adaptations.

I also have my subheading their, appearance, which is really important, that's a useful way of signposting the paragraph to the reader.

If the reader just wanted to find out about the appearance, they know exactly where to come, they can come to this paragraph.

Let's consider the next thing we need to talk about.

I think it's time to talk about the first of these interesting adaptations.

The most obvious one to talk about I think is the lure, the lure on top of the anglerfish's head.

So this predator, I'm going to try and refer to it in a different way.

This predator has a long something lure protruding from its head.

Which adjective have we been using to describe the lure? Is definitely long, I think that's useful, but quite easy, long something lure protruding and sticking up on its head.

What was that adjective? Bioluminescent, that's it.

So it has a long bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

I'm calling it predator, so I'm going to say, this predator, in fact, no, let's add an adjective.

This deadly predator has a long bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

This deadly predator has a long, long commented temporary adjectives, bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

Lets read that back just to make sure it flows as much as we would like it to.

This deadly predator has a long bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

There are two things I think we should do to be sentence.

Firstly, I think it would increase flow if we had a sentence starter of some sort.

I'm thinking of "ly" sentence starter.

I'm going to suggest three options and I'd like you to choose your favourite, Intriguingly, fascinatingly and interestingly.

Since these are sentence starters, "ly" sentence starters, they're going to need to be followed by a comma.

Help me choose interestingly, intriguingly or fascinatingly.

I'm going to go for fascinatingly.

Fascinatingly, this deadly predator has a long bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

Now in our success criteria there's reference to brackets to actually information.

I think in this sentence, we have a really good opportunity to do that, to add extra information.

When it comes to the length of the lure, I think we can be more specific.

We said it long, but how long? Let's say now 10 centimetres, there and I've put it into brackets.

So there's my extra information.

Fascinatingly, this deadly predator has a long 10 centimetre bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

What a really good start? It has this lure but the thing is, we need to think and describe what it actually does.

So it's sticking out from its head, but why? What does it allow this creature to do? So this feature, this peculiar feature allows or enabled it to attract prey into its waiting jaws.

This peculiar feature allows slash enables, I haven't decided yet, it to attract prey into its waiting jaws.

This peculiar feature allows, let's put it in in the back for now 'cause I haven't quite decided, I might need your help for this.

It to attract prey into it's waiting jaws.

Now, I just want to check, there are adjectives that are appropriate because we have included some here.

I think we need to just make sure that they of the right tone for this kind of report.

This peculiar feature, I think that's really nicely pitched.

I could have said weird, I could have said strange, but I think peculiar makes it sound a bit more precise and a bit more scientific.

Because it's fun to say that the feature is a bit strange.

It's changed because you don't see it on any of the animals.

So I think to say exchange is fair, however, I think we may need to try and remain formal and scientific and I think peculiar does a good job of that.

This peculiar feature allows slash enables it to attract prey and it's waiting jaws.

I need your help allows or enables.

Now they both mean the same thing in this context so I think either of these work, I'll let you to pick the one you think sounds better.

As writers, we have a bit of a responsibility to make sure that our writing sounds nice, because if it sounds nice, people are more likely to read it.

So even in a nonfiction, the way our writing flows and the way it sounds, this is very important.

I'm going to go for enables, I think enabled works better.

It's peculiar feature enables it to attract prey into its waiting jaws.

How can we describe the prey? We have a really good adjective that describes prey which isn't expecting something bad to happen.

Can you remember? That's the question.

I'd be very impressed if you can, don't worry if you can't.

Chance out for me, I'm suspecting it's peculiar feature enabled it to attract unsuspecting prey into its waiting jaws.

So that's one thing that the lure does.

Now, I want to talk about another thing.

So I want to add a sentence which continues to talk about the lure, a sentence that adds extra information.

To ensure that my writing flows and to maintain a formal tone, I think I should use a formal conjunction.

So I'm going to be saying it does this and it does something else as well.

Which of our three types of form of conjunction do you think would work best? Formal and, formal but or causal? It does this and it also does this.

Formal and works best in this instance.

We have a few to choose from, we have things like moreover, in addition, also, I'm going to go for furthermore.

Furthermore, what else does it do? Well, we know that it attracts pray towards it but it also acts as a kind of guiding light, allowing the anglerfish to kind of find its way about the murky waters of the deep.

Furthermore, this adaptation, this unique adaptation allows it to find its way about the murky waters of the deep.

Furthermore, this unique adaptation allows it to find its way about the murky waters of the deep.

Murky is a lovely way of describing these waters, makes them sound really kind of dingy and dark and hard to see through, which is true.

This unique adaptation allows it to find its way about the murky waters of the deep.

Now this verb choice find its way about.

It's very clear we know what that means, but I'm not sure it's formal enough.

That's the kind of way I might speak to somebody in real life if I just bumped into them on the street.

I might say, "Oh, I've been using my phone "to find my way about town." Well, I'm not sure that that's appropriate for a formal non-chronological report.

So how could we rephrase that? Furthermore, this unique adaptation allows it to.

I'm going to go for navigate around the murky waters of the deep.

Navigate around or just navigate the murky waters of the deep.

Yeah, I think that's fine, that works really well.

Allows it to navigate the murky waters of the deep.

Navigate is a really lovely verb which means to find your way around the murky waters of the deep.

Lovely, we're doing really, really well here.

So we've described one feature, the bioluminescent lure.

The second feature we mentioned was behind he developed eyesight.

So I think we can introduce this quite simply by saying, the anglerfish also has highly developed eyesight.

The anglerfish also has highly developed eyesight.

So I've referred to the anglerfish here as the anglerfish.

In non-chronological we try when necessary to use synonyms for the animal we're referring to.

Just so we don't have to keep saying anglerfish, anglerfish, anglerfish, anglerfish.

In this instance, I think it's fine because it actually hasn't.

It's been quite a long time since we used the term anglerfish, not since the very first sentence.

So I think actually it's fine to just say anglerfish in this instance.

The anglerfish also has highly developed eyesight.

What does the eyesight allow it to do? Well, it allows it to kind of explore its territory, it also allows it to locate food.

So it allows it to explore and locate food.

I want to say that it can explore and locate food because of its good eyesight.

Help me think of a conjunction that will do this really well.

A formal conjunction, I have and, but, or causal.

And, but, or causal.

I have causal, causal suggest that something has happened or something is the way it is because of something else.

That's exactly what we want.

So I'm going to go for, as a result and it's followed by a comma.

As a result, it is able to explore its territory and locate food.

Locate is a really lovely verb, which basically just means find.

It's quite a fancy formal scientific way of saying find, highly developed eyesight as a result, it is able to explore its territory and locate food.

This final sentence just touches on food.

I'm going to give you a few seconds to think about why that's a good thing.

Just starts to think and talk about food.

So the reason it's a good thing because our next paragraph, the diet paragraph is all about food.

So it really nice that in this sentence we're just pushing the reader's mind to work the idea of diet and food.

Because that's what they're about to learn about.

Okay, fantastic, so I'm going to read it back from the beginning and then we'll have a chance to check our success criteria and make sure we've included everything.

The anglerfish is known for its distinctive appearance and range of interesting adaptations.

Fascinatingly, this deadly predator has a long 10 centimetre bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

This peculiar feature enables it to attract unsuspecting prey into its waiting jaws.

Furthermore, this unique adaptation allows it to navigate the murky waters of the deep.

The anglerfish also has highly developed eyesight, as a result it is able to explore its territory and locate food.

I'm really happy with that.

Let's check our success criteria.

The first thing on our success criteria is, I have included an opening and a linking sentence.

Let's see if we've done that.

Yes, I remember now, the anglerfish is known for its distinctive appearance and range of interesting adaptations.

That's a really nice opening sentence, it's nice and broad, nothing too specific yet, but it does introduce the paragraph and what it's about.

For our linking sentence, that's the last sentence of the paragraph, we have reference to food, which is really useful because our next paragraph is all about the diet.

I think that deserves a tick.

Next, we're looking for brackets to add extra information.

Oh yes, I remember, in the second sentence, fascinatingly, this deadly predator has a long bracket, 10 centimetre bioluminescent lure protruding from its head.

Really good use of brackets there for extra or additional information, tick.

Next, form of conjunction, subject-specific vocabulary.

So I remember using formal conjunctions, I actually remember using two, we use the formal and conjunction.

I wonder if he could remember what it was? And we used a causal conjunction.

The and conjunction was furthermore.

Furthermore, this unique adaptation allows it to navigate the murky waters of the deep.

As a result was used in the last sentence to explain what the highly developed eyesight is used for.

As a result, it is able to explore its territory and locate food, tick.

And then I have referred to nouns in different ways.

Well, have we done that? Let's have a look.

Yes, well there in the second sentence I can see deadly predator, which is a really nice way of referring to our noun in different ways.

What we've also done is we've also referred to the adaptations in different ways.

So instead of saying lure again and again, we've managed to use other means of describing it, which is very, very effective.

We've got things like peculiar feature and unique adaptation, so tick.

And if anything, I think we deserve a bonus tick.

Now it's your turn to write an appearance paragraph of your own.

Please use the success criteria to guide you, use the notes that you have from the appearance paragraph and use anything that's come up in today's lesson.

You have helped me with lots of really useful ideas today.

So you have every right to use them in your own writing.

Pause the video now and have a go.

That was the end of the lesson, well done.

Today, we have looked at the features of a non-chronological rapport, we've recapped the appearance of the anglerfish, we have done a modelled write, you've helped me with that.

And then you've done an appearance paragraph of your own.

That at the end of the lesson, well done for your hard work, bye.