Lesson video

Hello, it's Mrs. Smart.

Welcome back to this English unit all about journalistic writing.

In today's lesson, we're going to be doing some editing.

We're going to try and make some improvements to our opening paragraph and our chronological recount paragraph.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a coloured pen or pencil, and the writing that you've done our previous lessons.

So you need the opening paragraph and the chronological recount paragraph.

If you don't have any of those things with you right now, just pause the recording and get yourself ready for today's lesson.

In our lesson today, we're going to start by considering what the purpose of editing is.

We're then going to think about an editing checklist.

So what we need to make changes to or improve in our writing.

Then I'm going to do some live editing.

So I'm going to edit an example of an opening paragraph and an example of a chronological recount paragraph.

And lastly, your task would, of course, be to edit your own newspaper reports.

What is editing? Why do we edit? Maybe you've done some editing before.

Maybe you've heard about it.

Pause the recording and write down anything you know about editing and why we do it.

Editing is an opportunity to reread and reflect on our writing.

We can identify what we've done really well and we can identify some areas for improvement, maybe some aspects that need changing or improving.

We can correct errors.

So any mistakes that we might've made, we can make them correct.

We can make changes and we can make additions.

We can add in words or sentences to our writing to make it even better.

We're going to be focusing on the opening paragraph and the chronological recount paragraph of our newspaper report today.

So hopefully you've got both those pieces of writing right next to you.

Now, just to remind you, this was the success criteria we were using when we wrote our opening paragraph.

So we had to include the four Ws, who, what, where, and when.

Use formal vocabulary, prepositional phrases and brackets to add extra information.

Our success criteria for our chronological recount paragraph was to use formal vocabulary and journalistic phrases, formal conjunctions, prepositional phrases and a relative clause and brackets to add extra information.

Let's have a think about an editing checklist.

First of all, what errors do we need to check for when we're writing or when we're looking back at our writing? I know there are certain things that I always make mistakes on and I have to be extra careful not to make these errors.

Are there any errors that you often make? Pause the recording, and write down any ideas of errors that you might be looking for in your writing.

The three main areas for errors are punctuation, sense, so making sure that you're writing makes sense.

So for example, you haven't got any missing words or your writing's not in the wrong tense.

And lastly, spelling, we can correct as well.

What improvements do we need to make? So we've thought about checking the mistakes, but how can we make our writing even better? What sorts of improvements could we make? Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

We could make improvements with our language choices, so we could change words.

And in this piece of writing, we know we're trying to write really formally.

So we might want to change some vocabulary to make it more formal.

Cohesive devices that include anything Like formal conjunctions or prepositional phrases that help to link one sentence to the next.

And structure, making sure you've got things like an opening sentence and a closing sentence to structure your paragraph.

I'm now going to edit an example, opening paragraph.

First of all, I'm going to focus on checking for errors.

So I'm looking for any areas to do with punctuation, sense or spelling.

Here's the paragraph that I am going to be editing.

The first thing that I need to do is read the paragraph through, and then I'll start going through sentence by sentence and making any corrections.

Savage Wolf attack in Cherry Pot Lane.

Yesterday afternoon police were called to Cherry Pot Lane after a violent incident at one of the properties.

The suspect was arrested.

Sorry suspect, Wolf, was arrested and both victims, Mrs. Puckett and her granddaughter, Red were treated by paramedics at scene.

A thorough police investigation was currently underway.

You might notice I made a few errors when I was reading that because it was actually quite difficult to read because I had missed out some parts and punctuation which just shows you how important it is to have accurate punctuation in your writing.

Okay, let's start with the beginning.

Yesterday afternoon police were called to Cherry Pot Lane.

Now I've started with a prepositional phrase.

I've told my reader when this took place but I must remember when I'm using a prepositional phrase at the beginning of a sentence that it must finish with a, comma, well done.

So let's add in that comma there.

Yesterday afternoon, there we go, police were called.

Now, if you have seen the previous lesson about simple present, past and future tense, you will know that regular verbs in the past tense always have, ED, of course.

It might just sound like a D or it might even sound like a T but actually it's ED.

Police were called to Cherry Pot Lane.

Now I know that's the name of Mrs. Puckett's road.

So that should have capital letters for each word, for Cherry, for Pot and for Lane.

Let's read the rest of the sentence.

After a violent incident at one of the properties.

Now I think that's one of my spelling rules there.

I know that when a word ends with a consonant, so a T and then a Y, to make it plural, I can't just add an S, what do I need to do? Can you remember? Excellent, I need to remove the Y and add IES.

And this was where I tripped up a little bit because this needs a full stop.

This is the end of a sentence or the end of one idea or point.

Then I'm moving on to talk about the suspect.

So this needs to have a capital letter.

The suspect, Wolf.

Now, wolf, normally when we're talking about wolf, the animal would have a lowercase W but in this instance, Wolf is his name, just like my name is Mrs. Smart and that has capital letters as well.

So Wolf need a capital letter.

Wolf was arrested and both victims, again, I've used brackets, Mrs. Puckett and her granddaughter, Red, but I've forgotten to close my brackets which made it a little bit tricky to read.

So it should be Mrs. Puckett and her granddaughter, Red because that's the extra information that I could take out and the sentence would still make sense.

Were treated by paramedics at scene.

Now, I often miss out words when I don't read back carefully and I think I might've done that there.

At, I think that should be, the scene.

A thorough police investigation was currently underway.

Now hang on a second, was currently underway.

That makes it sound like it's in the past tense but I know the police investigation is happening right now.

So I need to change that verb from was to what? What would it be if it was in the present tense? A thorough police investigation is, well done, that's the correct tense.

Let's just have a look at those changes that we've made highlighted in pink.

So we added a comma after our prepositional phrase, we changed our spellings for called and properties.

Cherry Pot Lane and Wolf need capital letters because they're all proper nouns.

Then we had our close brackets for Mrs. Puckett and her granddaughter, Red.

We added in the word the and lastly, we changed the tense from the simple past tense to the simple present tense because we know it's happening right now.

Excellent.

So I have checked for errors.

I've checked my punctuation.

I've checked for sense.

So I made sure my tense and I didn't have any missing words.

And I've checked a couple of those key spellings because I knew the rule four.

I would now like you to pause the video, reread and edit your opening and chronological recount paragraphs and check your writing for errors.

So check the punctuation, sense and spelling errors and make your corrections in your different coloured pen or pencil.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

Hopefully, you have now edited your opening and your chronological recount paragraph for any errors.

So you've made any corrections to your writing.

We're now going to focus on making improvements and we're going to be particularly looking for any language choices that we need to improve, any cohesive devices.

Remember those features such as conjunctions or propositional phrases that help our writing to flow or link between sentences.

And we're also going to be focusing on structure.

So the structure of the paragraph, in terms of an opening sentence and a closing sentence but also the structure of our sentences making sure we've got a range of simple, compound and complex sentences to vary the structure within our writing.

Here is the example piece of writing that I am going to be editing for you now.

Let's read it through first of all, and then we can start making some improvements.

At 3:45 PM on 1st of September, a man saw an individual outside the Puckett house.

He was six foot tall with thick, grey fur and was wearing a blue zip-up sweatshirt.

He repeatedly peered in the windows before entering through the front door.

It is unclear how he gained entry.

A delivery man described seeing a young girl let herself into the house with a basket of goodies.

So there's listen really good features in there and I've included lots of the features that we've discussed but there are some improvements that I could make.

So let's look at the first sentence to start with.

Now I'm not sure this is my opening sentence.

I need to say something before this.

I need to explain to my reader that the police have provided further information.

So I'm going to add a sentence in there to provide more of a structure for my paragraph.

I'm going to write.

Police have revealed further details of, what could I refer to the event as? I know I could call it an incident, of yesterday's incident and then I can go into more information.

So I've got my opening sentence now.

Then I've got, at 3:45.

Now I'm not completely sure it was 3:45 because a witnesses told me this, so I might add in, at approximately 3:45, that tells the reader that it's around 3:45, I'm not completely sure.

Sorry, I'm going to write.

At approximately 3:45 PM on the 1st of September.

So I've got my prepositional phrase in there, a man that saw an individual.

Now rather than referring to him as a man, what would one of those, can you think of one of those synonyms that we thought of in a previous lesson for the people that saw or heard this incident occurring? Excellent, I'm going to use witness.

A witness saw an individual.

Now, could I describe this individual? I think the witness said that he looked quite suspicious.

That adds a bit more description.

So a witness saw a, or it should now say, a suspicious, shouldn't it? Because it doesn't start with a vowel anymore.

A suspicious individual outside the Puckett house.

Maybe I could change house.

That's not a very formal word to use in the newspaper report.

Can you remember one of the synonyms for Mrs. Puckett's house? Good, I'm going to use residence.

That now reads.

At approximately 3:45 PM on 1st of September, a witness or a suspicious individual outside the Puckett residence, that's much more formal.

He was six foot tall with thick, grey fur and was wearing a blue zip-up sweatshirt.

That all looks good.

Now, he repeatedly peered in the windows.

How do I know he repeatedly peered in the windows? I know it because someone told me it.

So I'm going to write.

It was reported that, because the witness reported it, he told the journalist or he told the police that it happened.

So it was reported that he repeatedly peered in the windows before entering through the front door.

Now, it is unclear how he gained entry.

That's a bit of a contrast there, isn't it? That we saw him entering, but we're not sure how.

So that would be a good opportunity there to use one of my formal conjunctions.

Can you remember which type of formal conjunction I'd use? If I've got two sentences that are contrasting or opposites.

Well done, I'm going to use a, but, formal conjunction and I'm going to use, however.

Now it's really important that whenever I use one of these formal conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence, it's followed by a comma, and I need to make my I lower case now.

However, it is unclear how he gained entry.

A delivery man described seeing a young girl let herself into the house with a basket of goodies.

Now, I need to make it clear to my reader that that happened a little bit later.

It didn't happen immediately afterwards.

So I'm going to write, I'm going to include a prepositional phrase here.

I'm going to say.

A short while later at 4 PM, a delivery man described seeing a young girl lets herself into the house with a basket of goodies.

Maybe I could add a bit more information here about my young girl.

Can you remember what the young girl's name is? Excellent, so I'm going to present a relative clause that to add some more information.

A delivery man described seeing a young girl, now I'm going to use, who is my relative pronoun because I'm talking about a person, who is known as Red, let herself into the house.

Now I've used that word house again.

Again, it's not very formal for a newspaper report.

What could I use instead of house? I've used residence already.

Can you remember another one of those synonyms? Excellent, I'm going to use property this time, with a basket of goodies.

Now I've managed to include a relative clause to add some extra information in there but I actually haven't got any brackets for extra information in that paragraph.

I wonder where I could put brackets in, any ideas? Okay, so I am going to add some brackets in when I talk about the Wolf.

So I refer to him as a suspicious individual.

I'm going to add in here in brackets, later identified as Wolf, and remember Wolf needs capital letter this time because it's his name, we're not just referring to the animal.

Okay, that's looking really good.

I've made, definitely made some language choices to make some, changed my language choices to make it more formal.

I've added in some cohesive devices because I added in a prepositional phrase and I added in a formal conjunction to help my writing to flow.

And I thought about my structure.

I added in that opening sentence to start off my paragraph.

Let's read it through and just check everything else makes sense.

Police have revealed further details of yesterday's incident.

At approximately 3:45 PM on 1st of September, a witness or a suspicious individual, later identified as Wolf, outside the Puckett residence.

He was six foot tall with thick, grey fur and was wearing a blue zip-up sweatshirts.

It was reported that he repeatedly peered in the windows before entering through the front door.

However, it is unclear how he gained entry.

A short while later at 4:00 PM, a delivery man described seeing a young girl, who is known as Red, let herself into the property with a basket of goodies.

On this slide, you can see all of the edits that I've made to that piece of writing highlighted in pink.

So we've checked language choices.

We've checked cohesive devices and we've checked structure.

And we added in some different examples and we changed some words when we thought it was needed.

I would now like you to pause the video reread and edit your opening and chronological recount paragraphs.

This time, I want you to focus on making improvements.

So making changes or adding words in.

You're going to focus on language choices, making sure they're really formal and journalistic, cohesive devices so that your writing flows and one sentence links to the next and structure.

Remember having that opening and that closing sentence and think about having a range of sentences.

So a simple, compound and complex sentences.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

For your task today, I would like you to reread your opening and chronological recount, paragraph.

Check for errors, so punctuation, sense and spelling, and then make some improvements.

Language choices, cohesive devices and structure.

You may already have completed your editing as you've gone through the lesson, in which case, well done, you've already finished today's lesson.

If you haven't been editing as you've gone through, this is your chance now to finish the lesson and then to start reading back through your writing and making some changes and making some improvements.

So our agenda today.

We looked at the purpose of editing.

We then drew up our editing checklist.

I did some live modelling of editing for you.

And now if you haven't already, you're going to go and edit your two paragraphs of your newspaper report to make them even better than they already are.

Congratulations, you have completed your lesson for today.

If you would like to please share your work with your parents or carer, I will see you in your next English lesson.

Goodbye.