Lesson video

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

In particular, today we'll be writing the diet paragraph of our non-chronological report.

So let's find out about the diet of this peculiar creature, the anglerfish.

Let's make a start.

Here's the agenda for today's lesson.

First, we're going to look at the features of a non-chronological report.

Then we will recap what we've learned about the anglerfish's diet.

After that, you're going to help me write a diet paragraph, and then you're going to have a go for yourself.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil, and your notes on the diet of the anglerfish.

These will be really useful.

If for whatever reason you don't have any, that's fine too, because there's lots in today's lesson that you can use for yourself.

Let's remind ourselves of the features of a non-chronological report.

So, we ask ourselves this often, what is a non-chronological report? Well, it's a type of nonfiction text.

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

There's an example on the right of a text that a non-chronological report might appear in.

So when we're writing our report, we're imagining that it's going to end up in a text, just like this.

It's a nonfiction text about the creatures of the deep.

Today, we're writing one of the main paragraphs, the diet paragraph.

But what is the purpose of each of the main paragraphs? What are they for? I liked you to pause the video and have a think.

Okay, so what is the purpose of each of the main paragraphs? Well, they provide general, then specific information about the anglerfish.

They expand on points and they add detail.

We've already introduced the anglerfish.

We've spoken about its appearance in detail.

And now we have an opportunity to speak about its diet in detail.

They also link to whatever comes next.

In this instance, that will be the next paragraph, which is the habitat paragraph.

Here's a non-chronological report.

You can see I've highlighted the main paragraphs which come in between the opening at the top and the closing at the bottom.

In our non-chronological report, we have three main paragraphs: appearance, diet, and habitat.

We have already written the appearance.

Today, we're writing the diet.

This is the success criteria that we're going to use today to help us achieve everything we want to achieve in this piece of writing.

Learning objective, to write the diet paragraph of a non-chronological report.

I have included an opening and a linking sentence.

I have included brackets to add extra information.

I have included formal conjunctions and subject specific vocabulary.

I have referred to nouns in different ways.

So, we've had a chance to practise lots of these features already, so we're in a really good position to implement what we've learned.

A question we must ask ourselves is how could you refer to the anglerfish in different ways.

Now first I'd like you to think about why this is necessary.

Why can't we just say anglerfish every time we need to? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, so it's important that we refer to the anglerfish in different ways to avoid repetition.

Since we're talking about the anglerfish, the whole way through the report, we're going to be referring to it lots and lots and lots.

Therefore, it's nice if we have an opportunity to refer to it in a few different ways, just so the report doesn't start to sound a bit samey and repetitive.

I liked you to think now of some ideas.

How could we refer to the anglerfish without just using the term anglerfish? Pause the video now and have a think.

Okay, great, these are the ones I came up with: fish, animal, species, creature, predator.

Okay, now I'd like you to spend a few moments adding an appropriate adjective to three of these.

So I'd like you to pick three, any three, and I'd like you to think of an appropriate adjective for that synonym for anglerfish.

Now, we have to be cautious because if you were to say something like silly animal.

Well, that's certainly not appropriate.

That's far too informal and it's not the kind of language in which you'd expect from a scientific report, so think cautiously about your choices.

Okay, I came up with powerful predator, which I think is accurate and appropriate and I think it's adequately formal, yep.

Okay, let's recap what we've learned about the diet of the anglerfish.

Here is our anglerfish represented here in two different pictures.

One is a photograph, one is a drawing.

Now, when we think about its diet, yes, we consider what it eats and where it finds its food, but we also think about how it eats its food.

It uses, of course, its mouth, which is a really distinctive feature.

That's something I think we should really keep in the back of our mind because it's one of the most interesting aspects of the anglerfish, I think, its mouth.

So it's good if we have an opportunity to talk about it, which we do today.

In the previous lesson, we took notes on the diet of the anglerfish.

We discovered that it's a carnivore with a varied diet.

It eats fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods.

There are not many creatures for it to choose from on the sea floor, so it's not especially picky.

It has a very large mouth, the one we just mentioned, and it can eat prey almost as big as itself.

And it has those long, very sharp teeth, which can pierce flesh.

Finally, different territories have different food in and therefore, different anglerfish have slightly different diets.

Now, this is the information we'll use today when we write our paragraph together.

When you go on to write your own diet paragraph, you'll be using the notes that you wrote in the previous lesson.

Okay, time for you to help me come up with a diet paragraph, you're going to help me improve what I've thought of and think of the next idea that we need to include at each stage.

You will then have a chance to write a paragraph of your own, okay? So you're going to help me and then you'll have a chance by yourselves to have a go.

So, here's our success criteria.

Let's just remind ourselves of what we need to include.

Opening a linking sentence, brackets for extra information, formal conjunctions and subject-specific vocab, and then referring to the noun in different ways.

Okay, I think we've got that in hand.

I think they're all things that we can achieve today.

So here's my subheading.

You can see it there at the top, underlined, diet.

And then we have the first sentence that we're going to work with.

The anglerfish is a carnivorous creature with a varied diet.

Now, this works as an opening sentence because it's quite broad.

I haven't started speaking about anything in particular yet.

I'm just introducing the reader to the paragraph, which is going to be about the diet.

So I'm just putting them in the right frame of mind for what's to come.

Here's my next sentence.

This weird species eats almost anything that strays into its isolated, deep-sea territory.

So there are some really lovely things about this sentence.

I've referred to it as a species, which I think is a nice synonym for anglerfish.

And then I have this lovely ENP, isolated deep-sea territory.

That's an expanded noun phrase.

In this instance, it's a noun accompanied by two really, really lovely adjectives, isolated and then deep-sea.

The noun I've chosen here is territory, which is actually one of the words that we picked up when we were developing vocabulary.

So I think it's a really, really appropriate noun.

There are some things that we can improve, however.

Firstly, I think we should consider this word here.

Weird and the one two along from it eats.

I think they're words that we can improve on.

So weird yes, that's an adjective.

Is it an appropriate adjective? I don't think it is.

I think it's too informal and I don't think it's the kind of adjective that you would see in a scientific piece of writing like this, so that's something we need to change and then eats.

I mean, eats is very precise, it's very accurate.

However, I think we can do a step better.

In addition, I feel as though this entire sentence could probably be introduced with a sentence starter of some sort.

Now, when you choose sentence starters to introduce sentences, you're thinking of things that set the tone for the sentence that would actually add something.

So you might say interestingly, or fascinatingly, two LY sentence starters, which give the reader an idea of what's to come.

What kind of fact is on its way, or you could use something like scientists believe that, or scientists have discovered that, which I really like because that adds an element of formality to the writing and it makes it seem a bit more kind of impressive and scientific.

So there are three jobs.

We need a sentence starter.

We need to replace weird.

We need to replace eats.

Now I'd like you to have a go.

So, pause the video now and have a think.

Okay, I've had a go too.

I've decided to do this to my sentence.

So I've added a sentence starter.

Scientists have discovered that this bizarre species consumes almost anything that strays into this isolated, deep-sea territory.

So I've gone for scientists have discovered that, which I really like, and then I've replaced weird with bizarre.

Bizarre actually means the exact same thing as weird.

It's another word for weird; it's a synonym.

However, I think it's a bit more serious, a bit more formal, so therefore more appropriate.

Consumes in place of eats, that's an easy win.

The term consumes is basically a fancy way of saying eat, so it works really well here.

Excellent, what a good start.

We have two really lovely sentences here.

Okay, so we've said that it eats almost anything.

However, we know that it eats a few things in particular.

So there are a few things that it eats most of all.

It does eat anything, we know that.

There are a few things, three things in fact, that it mostly eats.

So how could we introduce the fact that it eats these three things in particular? We've said it eat everything, but it eats a few things in particular.

I think the best way to do this would be with a formal conjunction.

So we need to formal conjunction to introduce the fact that it eats mainly fish, crustaceans and cephalopods.

What type of formal conjunction? A but formal conjunction.

That will do this really well.

So we're saying eats anything, almost anything, but in particular, it eats fish, crustaceans and cephalopods.

Okay, I need your help with a formal but conjunction, shout one out for me, we have three options: however, nevertheless, or despite this.

Shout one out I'm going to go for however.

However, they mainly eat fish, crustaceans and cephalopods.

That's very smooth.

It's a really nice way of adding this next sentence on smoothly, ensuring that we have this lovely flow that we keep talking about.

The highly developed mouth of this fish is very large.

Brilliant.

So we're now moving on to kind of the next feature, which is its mouth, its highly developed mouth, in fact.

One thing that's kind of not quite right about this sentence is this word here, of this fish.

Fish is fine, but I actually think we can do a bit better.

So I need your help with a synonym for fish.

I'm going to give you a chance to pause the video and have a little think, synonym for fish.

Pause the video now.

Okay, I've gone for this one.

The highly developed mouth of this powerful predator is very large.

Now, I want to say that because of this fact, it can eat things up to two times its size.

How am I going to say that because of this? Well, we've got those conjunctions to pick from: formal and, formal but, or causal.

Which of these will introduce something that happens because of something else? Causal.

So, when it comes to causal conjunctions, we have a few options.

We have therefore.

We have as a result.

Maybe you can help me pick between those two, therefore or as a result.

Shout one out for me, I'm going to go for as a result.

So, the highly developed mouth of this powerful predator is very large.

As a result, well, what can it do? As a result, it can swallow creatures almost as big as itself.

Fantastic.

Now I want to build onto this because I want to start talking about its teeth.

So if I want to build on, how can I do it in a smooth way? How can I create a smooth transition between one sentence and the next? I've just done it with this sentence as it happens.

Conjunctions.

So I'm adding information on, so I need a formal and conjunction.

We have a choice between furthermore, in addition, and also, and then I'm going to add an extra one, moreover.

So that's four.

Furthermore, in addition, also, moreover.

Which one should we go for? Shout one out for me.

Okay, I'm going to for furthermore.

If that's the one you suggested then fantastic.

If not, then I'm sure your suggestion was equally good.

So furthermore, let's talk about its teeth.

It uses its long, translucent teeth to pierce the flesh of its unsuspecting prey.

What a beautiful sentence.

We have this reference to its long, translucent teeth.

Translucent, meaning remember kind of partly see through.

I've just remembered something.

I've remembered that in this piece of writing, we're meant to include information in brackets.

Now maybe we can include some information in this last sentence and put it in brackets.

Hm.

Furthermore, it uses its long, translucent teeth to pierce the flesh of its unsuspecting prey.

Well, how about we talk about the length of his teeth? That's a bit of extra information we can put in brackets.

There we go.

Furthermore, it uses its long, translucent teeth, brackets, 10 centimetres, to pierce the flesh of its unsuspecting prey.

Beautiful.

This is reading really nicely.

Now we have something tricky to do.

We need to link to the next paragraph, which is hard.

The way you do this is by continuing to talk about the animal's diet, but also making a few mentions of its habitat, which is the next paragraph to come.

So it's because of these kind of adaptations that it can survive in its habitat.

So maybe we can make that link.

Maybe we can say that thanks to these, you know, fantastic adaptations in this peculiar diet, it can survive in its bizarre, its hostile, its inhospitable habitat.

Okay.

I'm going to go for these adaptations allow the anglerfish to survive in its hostile habitat.

Excellent.

So that touches on the current paragraph while also making some suggestions about what's coming next.

Okay, and there we have it, the finished product.

Let's read it back from the beginning.

Diet.

The anglerfish is a carnivorous creature with a varied diet.

Scientists have discovered that this bizarre species consumes almost anything that strays into its isolated deep-sea territory.

However, they mainly eat fish, crustaceans and cephalopods.

The highly developed mouth of this powerful predator is very large.

As a result, it can swallow creatures almost as big as itself.

Furthermore, it uses its long translucent teeth, 10 centimetres, to pierce the flesh of its unsuspecting prey.

These adaptations allow the anglerfish to survive in its hostile habitat.

Okay, fantastic.

Let's just makes sure that we've included everything we need to.

I've included an opening and linking sentence.

Yup, we have a nice general opening sentence and the linking sentence, which refers to the habitat of the anglerfish.

Brackets for extra information.

Yup, the length of the teeth.

Formal conjunctions, we have one of each type.

Subject-specific vocabulary, yes, in almost every sentence.

Referring to nouns in different ways.

Yes, remember we changed fish to powerful predator.

We had more, I think, but that was the one that I can definitely remember.

Okay.

Now it's your turn.

In a second you're going to pause the video to write your own paragraph.

What we're going to do is we're going to just quickly refer to these success criteria, which you're going to use to complete your writing.

I'd liked you to keep these on the screen so that you know exactly what you need to include.

So pause the video, have a go and then come back.

Okay, well done.

So that's the lesson completed.

We have looked at the features of a non-chronological report.

We've recapped the diet.

We've done a paragraph together and you've done one of your own, which is really, really good.

That's an awful lot that we've done today.

So well done.

Well done for all of your hard work.

You've completed your lesson.