Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Miss Chu and I'm really glad that you have joined me today in this lesson.

This lesson today, we're going to be planning a desert island scene.

Hm, I don't think many of us have been on a desert island, but perhaps we have been on holiday somewhere hot or visited a friend or family member who lives in a hot country and I think if we have, this will really help us to come up with a lot of exciting and ambitious vocabulary to help us to plan the scene.

So when you're ready, let's get started.

Today's lesson outcome is I can plan a descriptive scene about a hot desert island.

The keywords that you need for this lesson are here.

My turn to say it then your turn.

Plan.

Notes.

Let's break this up.

Ambitious.

Vocabulary.

Ambitious vocabulary.

Break this one up.

Figurative.

Language.

Figurative language.

Really good job there.

A plan is a framework that writers create before they write a section or whole text.

Notes are written out of full sentences.

Ambitious vocabulary is high-level language in writing that meets the text purpose.

And figurative language is the use of simile and personification to paint vivid pictures for the reader.

The lesson outline for today looks like this.

Preparing to plan and then writing the plan.

So let's start preparing.

Precise and ambitious vocabulary helps to convey a clear and vivid image of a desert island in our minds.

This is vocabulary related to a desert island, are you ready to say it? My turn then your turn.

Gleaming.

Well done, and this means shining or bright.

If you look at the picture, it helps you to remember the word.

So we've got the character's teeth are so shining that it's blinding the fly.

Our next word, oppressive, your turn.

Great, this means heavy, harsh, or overpowering like that sun.

The next word is searing.

Yeah, searing, that means burning or scorching.

And finally, we have scorching, I've already said that.

Scorching, your turn.

That means red-hot or blazing, like that fly with his marshmallows.

Which of the following words has the same meaning as searing? Is it, gleaming, scorching, oppressive, or is it burning? Maybe there's more than one there.

So have a think, pause the video now and have a think.

Okay, let's have a look to see what the answers are.

So, the following words that has the same meaning, scorching, and then what was the other one? Say it.

That's right, it's burning, well done.

Let's learn some more vocabulary related to a desert island.

My turn then your turn.

Stifling.

That means smothering or suffocating, when it's so hot you can't even breathe.

The next word, sweltering.

Good job, that means very hot or baking.

Relentless, your turn.

Yes, that means constant or non-stop.

When the sun is just relentlessly beating down on you, you're not having a single break.

Finally, radiant.

And radiant means bright, glowing, or brilliant.

Which of these words are the adjectives in this sentence? The radiant, stifling sun was beating down on the sand.

So which are the describing words in this sentence? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, shall we have a look and see what the answers are? So we have a radiant, yes that's an adjective and we have stifling and they are adjectives that describe what noun in that sentence? Can you say it out loud? The sun, well done, yes, it's the sun, they are describing the sun.

And radiant and stifling together with the sun makes an expanded noun phrase.

When we plan, we write down and we log precise and ambitious vocabulary because this really helps us to create or to paint a really clear and vivid picture in our minds or for the reader anyway if we're writing it.

Vivid pictures are often written with sensory-rich descriptions.

Now sensory is to do with our sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

If we look at this sentence here, the sun, a relentless, oppressive furnace in the sky, beat down its heat upon the island.

We can imagine colours.

Imagining colours as we write helps us to choose our vocabulary.

And in that sentence, the writer has chosen relentless and oppressive because they want to create a picture in the reader's mind.

And those words that the writer has chosen has created a negative image for a reader because they want the reader to feel that the sun is really, really hot.

And if we want the reader to feel really strong emotions, then we would choose words that are in the orange and red section of our colour scale.

If we want the reader to feel very calm and very serene, and very relaxed, then we would choose vocabulary in the blueish, greenish section of our colour scale.

Now, precise and ambitious vocabulary about dessert, desert island, not dessert, a desert island, should be related to our five senses, as I said before, our sense of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and of our smell.

And why would we use these five senses? Well, it helps us to choose the right vocabulary.

And here we're going to use our senses to generate, to create some nouns for this desert island picture.

Okay, and we've got to think about whether we want to choose, later on, adjectives that are going to support us to create a strong emotion about this desert island, but that's only later.

We've got that colour scale there just so it's in the fore of your mind.

So, for our sense of sound, I thought it'd be good to maybe say that we could hear the waves, that's something nice that we could write about.

Maybe the seagulls and maybe the palm trees swaying in the breeze, the palm front swaying and making a slight gentle sound.

And in terms of what we can see, well there's lots of things we can see but I think what a good noun we could talk about would be sun and the sea and the waves.

And then for our smell, this is a little bit harder, but we've got to use our imagination a bit more here.

The smell, we could really smell the salty sea air.

Perhaps we could smell the tropical fruit.

And then for touch, I would say sand would be a good one, sand and then the sea, the coolness of the water, and perhaps the sun on your skin.

That would be a good one.

And then for our taste.

I don't know if you've ever been swimming, but sometimes the water, when you're swimming in the sea splashes into your mouth and it tastes salty, and then perhaps the air.

We could sometimes say the air, you could taste the air and that would be a good noun for us to describe.

Okay, now we're going to use our five senses to generate nouns for this picture.

It's gonna be my turn and then your turn.

So don't worry, I'll have a go first, and then you can have a go.

So I'm going to think of some adjectives to describe what I can hear and what I can see.

So I'm going to use an expanded noun phrase to describe the seagulls and then some adjectives to describe the sun and extend it with that.

Okay, so let me have a think.

With the seagulls, what can I, yes, I've just thought, I could say that the seagulls were relentless and piercing because that's a sound that I can hear, that they're always squawking away and it just keeps on going.

It's not a nice sound.

Yep, so I'm gonna use that.

And then for the sun, because I'm trying to, again, create this negative image about the sun, I'm going to say it's blistering and scorching so the sun that beat down.

I think those are two really good expanded noun phrases that help to support this negative image in my mind.

Now, it's your turn to have a go.

I want you to think about using some adjectives or trying to choose some adjectives to describe what you can smell, touch, taste, and I've given you the nouns there to support you with thinking about what expanded noun phrases you could generate.

I want you to pause the video now and I want you to have a go at doing that.

Okay, shall we have a look to see? These will be different from yours, but that's fine.

Okay, so for fruit, I have chosen the smell of sweet, tropical fruit.

For sand I've chosen fine, golden sand that glistened.

And then for the sea water I've said salty, warm sea water.

Hm, I wonder if you noticed here the adjectives on my side compared to the adjectives on your side, they kind of create different images for the reader.

On my side it's on the orangey part of the colour scale and then on your side, the adjectives generate a more calm and nice, happy feeling.

So, even though we have the colour scale, sometimes we do sway between by going up and down the colour scale.

So, depending on what we're trying to create for the reader, you've got to just imagine the colours.

As well as expanded noun phrases and ambitious vocabulary, we also use figurative language because this really enhances our descriptions to make our imagery more vivid for the reader.

Let's have a look at this example, shall we? The desert island emerged from the turquoise waters like a jewel.

Close your eyes and actually imagine that.

I'm going to imagine that again, close your eyes, and I want you to picture this.

The desert island emerged from the turquoise waters like a jewel.

Wow, what a beautiful image I have.

In this sentence it's a simile because we've described the desert island like something else, we've used the word like to compare it with something else.

And this sentence actually creates a really nice image in our heads.

So it's on that blueish, greenish side of the colour scale.

Let's look at this one, I wonder if this one's the same.

The oppressive sun scowled down on the island's shimmering shores.

So here we're talking about the sun being oppressive.

I'm just thinking back to what that word means.

It means heavy, I remember the picture of the sun being really heavy on the character's shoulders.

And then the world scowled, hm.

Can you scowl? Can you scowl for me? Let's scowl now, three, two, one.

Yeah, so the word, scowled, is actually a human action, isn't it? So that, in this sentence then, there is personification because we're saying that the sun is doing a human action.

And in this sentence, we are creating quite a negative image about the sun.

So it's kind of in the orangey, not quite red because we've also in that sentence said the island's shimmering shores and the word shimmering creates a nicer image about the island.

So it's towards the orangey, yellow side because of the word oppressive and scowled.

Let's match these descriptions to make appropriate similes.

On this side I have the sand was as soft as, the palm trees swayed in the breeze like, the relentless sun blazed overheard like.

And then on the other side I've got some phrases that you've got to match up, a fiery orb, graceful dancers, and powdered sugar.

Now the way to do it is to look at some similar nouns.

So we've got sand, what's the sand most like? The sand was as soft as, would it be a fiery orb, would it be a dancer, or it would be powdered sugar? So you've kind of got to, it's a bit of a trial and error, you've got to guess a little bit at the beginning.

Have a go at matching them up and seeing what is the best fit.

But I think where you would get the clues are is looking at the nouns in both sides of that page.

So, pause the video and have a go.

Let's have a look, shall we? So the sand was as soft as powdered sugar.

Yes, because sand is comparable to sugar, it kind of has the same sort of texture.

Then we have the relentless sun blazed overhead like a fiery orb, like an orb is a round object, so we can imagine the sun being round as well.

So that's a good match.

And then we said the palm trees swayed in the breeze like graceful dancers.

So if you imagine, if you sway for me now, everyone sway.

Sway, sway, sway.

Okay, so if we're swaying in the breeze, do we look like graceful dancers? I think I do.

Let's now circle all the language that demonstrates human qualities.

So we have sighed in relief (sighing).

Everyone do this (sighing).

Great.

We have whispered secrets.

So everyone show me the action for whispering (whispering).

We have glistened in the sun.

Can you glisten in the sun? Well you could I guess if you're sweaty.

Crashed against the rocks.

Can you crash? Show me the action for crashing.

I guess we wouldn't crash.

So let me have a go because this is my turn.

I'm going to say that the language that demonstrates human qualities would definitely be sighing because I do that (sighing) when I feel relieved.

And I also do the action of whispering secrets.

Me, myself as human, I can't glisten in the sun.

I mean, I could describe my skin, but typically, commonly, you wouldn't describe a human action as glistening in the sun or crashing against the rocks.

So you're gonna have a turn.

You're going to circle the language that demonstrates human qualities.

Are you ready? Just have a think about what they are and then I'll let you pause the video.

So just think about them for now.

Blazed overhead.

Can you blaze overhead? Sweltering sand.

Gazed down.

Can you gaze down? Have a go.

Offering shade, hm.

Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, so just thinking about what we, our actions, our human actions can do, we can't blaze overhead because we don't blaze.

Can we gaze down? Yes we can because we can look down, can't we? So gaze is a synonym for looking, so we can look down, we can definitely do that.

And we can also offer shade, can't we, 'cause we, ourselves, can offer shade.

We can perhaps put an umbrella over someone, we perhaps can put a blanket over someone like this to offer them shade, or to use our jacket to offer them shade.

So yes, so those are the two that demonstrate human qualities.

For this task, I would like you to fill in the blanks with the precise and ambitious vocabulary from the box below.

Can you see there that there's words in the box? So I'm going to read out the words, gleaming, glistened, echoed, offered, and scorching.

And when I read this description, I would like you to just have a think and look down, peer down at those words and just have a think about where they would go in those blanks.

Okay, just you do that while I read it to you.

The sun, a relentless furnace in the sky, beat upon the island like an angry dragon's breath mm the earth.

All around, the calm sea mm like polished glass.

Mm in the vast ocean, the desert island emerged from the turquoise water like a radiant gem while the piercing seagulls mm their cries.

Palm trees stood tall and mm their shade from the stifling heat in this unforgiving place of untamed beauty.

I'd like you to pause the video and I'd like you to have a go at filling in the blanks please.

Let's have a look at what the answers are now.

The sun, a relentless furnace in the sky, beat upon the island like an angry dragon's breath mm the earth, scorching the earth, yes.

Breath is like a fire.

All around, the calm sea glistened like polished glass.

Gleaming in the vast ocean, the desert island emerged from the turquoise water like a radiant gem while the piercing seagulls echoed their cries.

Palm trees stood tall and offered their shade from the stifling heat in this unforgiving place of untamed beauty.

I kind of have an image of yellowy, orangey-red, but I'm also going down the colour scale and I have an image of quite calm and tranquil and just beautiful image in my head.

So it kind of goes between that side and that side and that's okay.

Now we are going to write the plan.

We've done loads of preparing, we've looked at loads of vocabulary, we looked at figurative language, and now we're going to write our plan.

Now, when we write the plan, we're going to use a zoom-in technique.

Can you say zoom in? Great, so the zoom-in technique starts with a really broad idea and then narrows the focus to explore specific details.

Now what do I mean by this? Well, you start off with a V.

So everyone do this with your hands, well done, really good V.

Excellent V there.

And you're going to start off with a broad idea which is the part here, it's the widest part of your V.

And then you're going to narrow down your ideas.

So you start off with a big picture and you narrow down.

What does that look like in practise? So, say we're talking about a desert island, we would start off with the sun because, for me, that is the biggest part of our scene.

It's creating the largest scale.

Then we zoom in into the sea.

Then we talk about the island, then the gulls, and then we can look at the foliage.

You can talk about the trees, the leaves, the flowers, the fruit, whatever you like.

But that's how it works, you start off big and you narrow down.

And in this picture, we are going to create a positive and a negative picture of the desert island for the reader.

So that's why my arrow on the colour scale is in the middle, because I could go that way or that way depending on what I'm choosing to write about.

So here is some more ambitious vocabulary to use.

We've got, my turn and then your turn, gleaming, oppressive, searing, and scorching.

Then we have stifling, sweltering, relentless, and radiant.

Now in our plans we also want to use fronted adverbials because they help to create text flow.

Can you do this with your hands? This is a flowing action.

I'm showing the waves flowing.

So we want to use these fronted adverbials because they are sentence starters and they help to make one sentence flow into the next and they give information about the time, place, manner, or frequency of the action in the scene.

These are some examples of ambitious fronted adverbials.

Are you ready? So we have fronted adverbials of time, for example this one is in the middle of the day.

Place, all across the desert, all across the desert island.

Manner, we could be talking about the way something is doing its action, forcefully.

And then for frequency, we have constantly, so we could say that how something is doing its action, so it's constantly beating down.

Now which fronted adverbial is the most appropriate for a descriptive scene? We've already talked about lots of different types of fronted adverbials, so now you need to have a think about what would be best for a descriptive scene? Is it in the middle of the sea, is it as a result, is it however, or is it in addition to this? Pause the video and have a think about which is the most appropriate? Okay, so, let's have a look to see.

I am guessing you got this right, so in three, two, one, did you choose in the middle of sea? Well done, yes, because that fronted adverbial is a fronted adverbial of, do you remember? Yes, it's of place, it's telling us where something is happening.

As a result is a fronted adverbial of cause, we would use this for, to link a cause and effect, so not so appropriate for a descriptive scene I would say.

However and in addition to this are formal fronted adverbials, they're used in a formal text.

For a descriptive scene, that's not appropriate.

So when we write, we use notes.

We think about the vocabulary, we think about our fronted adverbials, and we write notes.

Now notes are concise and they help to capture only the precise and ambitious vocabulary.

Now the purpose of notes is to help the writer to organise their writing, it helps to organise their thinking and the information so that when they actually come to write it in the future, it's really helpful for them, it's meant to be helpful.

We often use bullet points or a table when note-taking.

They look like this.

So, here we've got our bullet points.

Can you see there the two dots, the two dark dots that look like this? And next to our bullet points we write our set of notes.

And then we've got our subheading which is at the top.

We use subheadings because they help us to organise the notes, the bullet points, in that part of our plan.

And they're really important because without the subheading, it's really hard to know what the set of notes are.

In this task, you're going to write the first subheading, sun and I'd like you to complete the table with at least one example of each linguistic device.

So you've got your subheading, sun, underline it with a ruler please.

Then you've got your blank table and I'd like you to complete the table with at least one of these.

So I've actually helped you out here, I've given you two examples.

You can choose one of those, or you can come up with your own.

You could have overhead for the sun, that would be a good one, telling us where it is, or high above the ocean.

Fronted adverbials of place.

And then for our expanded noun phrase I've just left two blanks there for you to describe the sun or you could describe the sun as being an orb.

So adjective, adjective, orb.

And then, your simile or personification, so you don't have to have both, you can just choose one.

You could say scorched like a mm, seared like a mm, or beat mm.

Pause the video and have a go at writing your first table.

Okay, shall we have a look at my example? So I've got my subheading, sun, I've underlined it, and then I chose high above the ocean.

I thought that would be a good one for the sun.

And to describe the sun, I've said it's relentless and oppressive, again, thinking about the orangey, yellow, red side of my colour scale to describe the sun.

And because I'm doing that, I want to match up the simile as well.

So I'm saying that the simile, scorched like an angry dragon, because again, I'm still thinking about that sort of oppressive side of the sun, the manner, how the sun is beating down.

Okay, now you're going to write the next subheading, so you've got sea.

Write your subheading, underline it, and then you're going to complete the table again with at least one example and I've helped you out again by choosing two for you to choose from.

Surrounding the island, or we have all around.

They're quite good fronted adverbials to describe the sea.

So, surrounding the island or all around because the sea is all around.

And then again, I've got the scaffolds there for the expanded noun phrase, the two lines for your adjectives and then you can describe the sea or the waves.

And then for your simile or personification you could say like mm glass, you could describe the sea as comparing it to glass, or you could say as smooth as.

Okay, pause the video and have a go at doing this.

Great, so let's have a look at what I have for my plan.

So for the sea, I've underlined it and I've chosen all around.

And I described the sea as being still and gentle.

And then for my simile or personification, I described the sea as glistening like polished glass.

So again, I'm now thinking about the colour scale, and I'm moving across now to the blueish, greenish part of my colour scale because I'm describing the sea as being calm and gentle.

Right, moving on to the next part.

So we're going to write the subheading, island, underline it and complete the table with at least one of these linguistic devices.

So you could choose gracefully or unknown to the world, then choose an expanded noun phrase to describe the island.

You could say how it emerged from the sea.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, so my example for island was I chose unknown to the world, and I described the island as gleaming and obviously it's desert, it's a desert island, and then I said it emerged like a jewel.

So, sticking with that blueish, greenish side of the colour scale because I'm still talking about the island being a pleasant place.

Next one, seagulls, write it, underline it, complete the table.

So you could say the seagulls in every direction, or circling the skies, describe the seagulls for me, and then choose either a simile or a personification, screeched like mm, or sang mm.

Pause the video and have a go.

Let's look at my example, I've got seagulls underlined and I've chosen in every direction, which is describing them flying around really chaotically.

So if I'm saying that they are flying around chaotically, I might want to choose some vocabulary that would match it, so I'm gonna choose stifling and piercing.

So now I'm moving across from that blueish, greenish side and I'm heading more towards the yellow-ish, orange side of my colour scale and I'm saying they screeched like alarm bells, which is aligned with that orangey, yellowish picture that I'm trying to paint in the reader's mind.

Or I could choose sang a chorus of songs, which kind of depicts a more lovely image about the seagulls, so I've got the two there that I can choose from.

So when I actually come to write it, I can then just make sure that I've chosen the most appropriate one.

And finally, we've got foliage.

So write that down, underline it, and then complete the table with one of these linguistic devices.

We've got swaying in the breeze or under the heat of the sun, mm, mm palm trees offered, what? Pause the video, off you go.

Okay, let's have a look at what I have.

So for foliage I chose swaying in the breeze.

Again, remember, when we're swaying, what kind of image does that create in the reader's mind? Well, I've said that they're a bit tired, they're ancient, I'm creating quite a nice, calm image actually of the palm trees.

And so, because of that, I'm going to say that they offered shade, so they're welcoming, they're offering and welcoming shade from the searing heat.

Great, so we're now at our summary slide.

To summarise, a plan is a framework that writers create before they begin to write a section of text or a whole text.

A plan logs precise and ambitious vocabulary and it can contain figurative language for descriptive writing.

Notes help the writer to organise vocabulary easily for writing in the future.

And imagining the mood that we want to create for the reader helps us to choose the most ambitious vocabulary.

I really enjoyed planning a desert island scene with you today, I hope you did too.