Lesson video

Hello, it's Mrs. Smart.

Welcome back to this English unit.

In today's lesson, we are going to be writing our first paragraph of our newspaper report.

We're going to be writing the opening paragraph.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil, and your opening paragraph plan from our previous lesson.

If you haven't got any of those items with you right now, just pause the recording and go and get them.

In today's lesson, we're going to start with an introduction.

Then, we're going to discuss the features and the success criteria for our opening paragraph.

Next, I'm going to model write an opening paragraph for you.

And lastly, you will be writing your own opening paragraph for your task today.

This is the newspaper report structure that we are following in this unit.

So by the end of this unit, you will have written an opening, a chronological recount, a quotes, and a closing paragraph, four whole paragraphs of our newspaper report.

Today is our first writing lesson, and we're going to be writing our opening paragraph.

We looked at this example of an opening in a previous lesson and thought about this question.

What is the purpose of the opening paragraph? We discussed that the opening paragraph summarises the key information of the event or the rest of the report, it covers the who, what, where, and when, the four W's.

It also provides the reader with an overview of the event, and this can help the reader decide whether they want to read on and read the rest of the report or not.

Here is an example opening plan.

Hopefully, you have got yours in front of you right now.

Make sure you've got it with you.

Quick check.

Good, hopefully you're ready.

So, we had the who, we said was Wolf, Mrs. Puckett, and Red, the three main people involved in this incident.

What, a violent incident occurred, or a fight broke out.

Where, we thought of a few different words we could use, property, house, cottage, or residence on Cherry Pot Lane, or we could say Mrs. Puckett's property, or Mrs. Puckett's house.

And when did it occur? Yesterday afternoon.

We're imagining that we are publishing this the day after the event has happened.

And it happened around four o'clock.

So definitely the afternoon.

Let's have a think about the features that we need in an opening paragraph.

Maybe you can remember back to the first lesson of this unit, where we looked at an example, and we identified some of the key features.

Can you remember anything about the language or the sentences that one would expect to see in an opening paragraph? Pause the recording and write down any of your ideas now.

Let's have a look at what I've got on my list.

Language, formal language, referring to nouns in different ways, and prepositional phrases.

So referring to nouns in different ways, remember that was different ways of saying Wolf.

And we thought of lots of different nouns instead of using Wolf in a previous lesson.

Things like suspect or perpetrator or assailant, and this makes our writing a little bit more interesting.

Prepositional phrases can be used for time or place.

So they can tell our reader when something happened, or where something happened.

Sentences, we could use simple, compound, or complex sentences in our opening paragraph.

And it would be really good to have a range of all three.

Next, let's think about the layout and the punctuation we would expect to see in an opening paragraph.

Can you write down any features linked to these two different areas on your piece of paper now? Okay.

So, for layout, we of course start our newspaper report with a headline, a bit like a title.

And then our opening paragraph starts with an opening sentence and ends with a closing sentence.

For punctuation, of course, we're going to have the normal punctuation, like full stops and capital letters and commas, but one piece of punctuation that we often see in newspaper reports is brackets to add extra information.

Here is the success criteria for our piece of writing today.

To write the opening of a newspaper report.

And then we've got four different features that we need to try and include.

I have included the four W's, who, what, where, and when.

I have used formal vocabulary.

I have used prepositional phrases, time and place.

I have used brackets to add extra information.

So we're going to try and include all of those features in our opening paragraph today.

Now it is time for us to start writing our opening paragraph.

You can see I have already chosen a headline for my report.

Savage Wolf Attack in Cherry Pot Lane.

You can see I've really exaggerated it being a savage attack, hoping that this will engage and draw my reader in and make them want to read the rest of my newspaper report.

Okay, so, I'm going to start with our opening sentence.

And this is where we want to summarise what has happened as part of this event, and when it happened as well.

So I'm going to start with yesterday afternoon.

That's my prepositional phrase to tell me when the event happened.

Now, when I start a sentence with a prepositional phrase I always need to follow it with a comma.

Yesterday afternoon, police were called to Cherry Pot Lane.

Now Cherry Pot Lane needs capital letters.

Do you know why? Good.

Cherry Pot Lane is a proper noun.

It's the name of the road.

So yesterday afternoon, police were called to Cherry Pot Lane.

Now I'm going to add a subordinate clause to add a little bit more information as to why they were called.

I'm going to use the conjunction after, after a violent incident, oh, not capital letter, there we go, at one of the houses.

Now what was the more formal word that we learned instead of houses? Can you remember one? Good.

We could use at one of the properties, would work well.

Okay, let's read my first sentence back.

"Yesterday afternoon, police where called to Cherry Pot Lane after a violent incident at one of the properties." Excellent, that's really good summary of what happened.

Now, I want to go into a little bit more detail about what happened when the police arrived.

I'm going to say, now what was another word for the person who commits the crime? Can you think of one of those synonyms? Excellent.

I'm going to use the suspect.

The suspect was arrested and, let's give a little bit more information.

I've given my information about my suspect.

Now, I want to add some information about my victims. And both victims were treated by paramedics, that's people who work in an ambulance.

So that's to show that they were slightly injured.

So they were treated by paramedics.

I'm going to say, at the scene.

So they didn't go to hospital, but they were given some basic first aid at the scene.

Now this could be a sentence where I use brackets for some extra information.

I know, I could add in some brackets here.

The suspect, now the suspect's name was Wolf.

So I'm going to have a capital W, because it's a proper noun.

And then here I could add in some more information about who my victims were.

So I had Mrs. Puckett, I need capital letters for both of those, and Red, capital letter for Red, because that's her name.

Okay, let's read that sentence back.

"The suspect was arrested and both victims were treated by paramedics at the scene.

Now what's happening now as a result of that? I know, the police will be conducting an investigation to find out more about this incident.

So I'm going to write, a thorough, that means a very detailed, a thorough police investigation is currently, oh no, investigation, there we go, is currently underway, that means it's happening right now.

So I've told my reader what happened yesterday, but I'm also telling them what's happening now as we as we speak, or as they read the news.

Okay, now we've written our whole paragraph.

I'm going to read it back all the way through just to check I haven't made any errors or there's nothing else I want to change.

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

The suspect was arrested and both victims were treated by paramedics at the scene.

A thorough police investigation is currently underway." So you can see my opening paragraph is only three sentences long, but I've included my four Ws.

My who, what, where, and when I'm now going to check my success criteria and see how I've got on.

Here's my success criteria.

So the first feature was I've included four Ws.

I know I've done that.

So I've ticked that off.

I have used formal vocabulary.

I definitely did that because I chose words like property and suspect.

I have used prepositional phrases.

Remember I had that prepositional phrase right at the beginning, yesterday afternoon, telling my reader when the event happened.

And I have used brackets.

I have brackets for extra information for the Wolf and for the names Mrs. Puckett and Red.

For today's task, I would like you to write the opening paragraph of your newspaper report.

Remember to use your plan to help you and include those four Ws who, what, where, and when.

Your success criteria will also help you to know which features to include.

Here is the agenda for our lesson today.

We started with an introduction.

We then moved on to discuss the features and success criteria of an opening paragraph.

I wrote an example for you, and now it's your turn to write your opening paragraph of your newspaper report.

Congratulations, you have completed the first half of this unit.

As this is your first lesson where you have completed some writing, you might want to share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I hope to see you in the next half of the unit, where we will be writing our chronological recap paragraph, our quotes paragraph, and our closing.

See you in our next lesson, good bye.