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Hi everyone, and welcome to today's lesson.
Today we're going to be doing some peer editing of our writing.
In your lesson today, you will be editing your own and your peers early life section of a biography about Harriet Tubman.
Here are some key words we're going to use.
Editing, punctuation, text cohesion, vocabulary, well done.
Editing is the process of improving quality writing to improve text flow and overall quality.
Punctuation is a set of standardised symbols and marks used in written language to structure sentences.
Text cohesion refers to how text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve the text purpose.
Vocabulary is the language choices made by a writer.
Today we're going to be peer editing the early life section of a biography about Harriet Tubman.
We're gonna start with editing punctuation, then we'll look at cohesion and finally vocabulary.
When we finish a draught, we edit to improve our work.
This is a chance to rethink, rephrase, and reconsider our first ideas.
Remember, every piece of work can always be improved.
Editing a piece of work involves checking several things, punctuation, sentence structure, and cohesive devices and vocabulary and spelling.
Editing is about polishing our work so it really shows off our skills.
True or false? If you're asked to edit your work, it means it is full of mistakes.
Pause the video while you decide.
Well done if you spotted that, this is false.
Now decide how to justify your answer.
Well done if you spotted it, the correct answer is b.
Editing is something all writers do because it is a chance to improve their work and make it better.
First, we should check our punctuation.
Commas can be used after fronted adverbials.
For example, in 1820, Harriet Tubman was born into enslavement on a plantation.
Commas can also be used to separate place names.
Let's read this together.
Harriet Tubman was born in Maryland, USA.
Commas can also be used to separate a relative clause from the main clause.
Tubman, who was one of nine children, lived and worked on the plantation with her family.
Full stop separate sentences and they help us to avoid run-on sentences.
Let's read this together.
Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 this was a time when slavery was legal.
You might be able to spot and hear that actually this should be two separate sentences.
Let's try it now that it's been edited.
Harriet Tubman was born in 1820.
This was a time when slavery was legal.
This is the correct version.
Apostrophes help us show possession of a noun by another noun.
Let's read these together.
Harriet's life experiences shaped her future activism.
So the life experiences here in this sentence belong to Harriet, so this is an apostrophe for singular possession.
Southern states' laws still permitted enslavement at this time.
The laws belong to the southern states.
There's more than one southern state, so this is plural possession.
Add the missing punctuation into each sentence and pause the video while you do that.
Great work.
In a, we had a missing singular possessive apostrophe.
In b, we had a missing comma after a fronted adverbial, and in c, we had a missing comma to separate the which relative clause from the mean clause.
Now pause the video while you discuss with a partner where you can see punctuation mistakes in this passage.
To help you, I've given you some clues.
Here are some places where punctuation should be added.
Pause the video while you discuss this with your partner.
Well done everyone.
So I'm sure we've got lots of ideas for where the missing punctuation is.
We're gonna come back to look at this in a moment.
First, we're going to complete our task.
We're going to complete the early life section of our biography looking only at punctuation.
We're gonna work in a pair as partner A and partner B.
So you need to decide on who is A and B now.
Then, once you've decided that, place A's work on top of B's work and find the early life section.
Then, A should follow with a ruler as B reads the paragraph aloud.
Looking only at punctuation, make any additions or changes that need to be made in A's work together.
Remember, we're only focusing on punctuation.
Then when you've done that, you can repeat the same process with B's work, you can use this checklist to help you.
So we're looking for commas, full stops, brackets and apostrophes.
Pause the video now while you complete your task.
Well done everybody.
Now let's go back to the example we looked at beforehand.
Hopefully you find it really helpful to edit your writing in your task, but here are the mistakes in my writing.
So Harriet Tubman originally named Araminta Ross.
This needed brackets because it was parenthesis, was born in 1820 Maryland, USA.
Remember, we can use a comma to separate place names.
Both of her parents were enslaved people, which meant that Harriet and eight siblings were automatically born into slavery.
That comma there is separating the main clause from the which relative clause.
Throughout her early life, there's a comma after a fronted adverbial, Harriet's family, so the family belongs to Harriet.
That's singular apostrophe for possession.
We're frequently split up as a result of being rented out to other slave owners.
Well done if we spotted all of those punctuation mistakes.
Now we're going to move on to peer editing for cohesion.
We know that a biography should have good text cohesion.
When we edit our work, we check for cohesion in a number of ways.
Have we used a range of sentence structures that connect ideas in different ways? So for example, have we used parenthesis? Have we used fronted adverbials? Have we used compound and complex sentences? Have we added in any missing words and removed any extra ones? So does the writing make sense? Here's an example of the editing we might do for cohesion.
Let's read this passage together.
Harriet Tubman was born 1820 in Maryland, USA.
This was a time when slavery was still legal in southern states.
Harriet was born into slavery.
Her mum, dad, and siblings, slaves too.
You might be able to spot some of my mistakes here, but we've got a missing word, poor cohesion between the first and second sentence, poor cohesion for at the start of the final sentence and another missing word in the final sentence.
Here's how I could have edited my writing to make it more cohesive.
Let's read it again together.
Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 in Maryland, USA at a time when slavery was still legal in America's Southern states.
Harriet and her siblings were born into slavery due to the fact that both her parents were slaves.
So here by editing some sentence structure and by adding in some missing words, my writing is much more cohesive and flows much more easily.
Now it's your time to improve the cohesion of this passage.
You may have to add cohesive devices or missing words.
Pause the video while you do that.
Well done if you had a go at editing the cohesion here.
Here are some edits you might have made.
Harriet Tubman was born in 1820, due to the fact that both of her parents were slaves, she was born into enslavement.
Throughout her childhood, she lived and worked on a plantation in Maryland, USA.
So my example, I've added in some cohesive openers and fronted adverbials so that my writing is more cohesive.
Take a moment to reread your edits and really ask yourself whether your writing flows.
We often want to connect ideas more closely to promote cohesion using different cohesive devices.
This is how we link sentences together.
So for example, if I had these two sentences.
The family lived and worked together on the plantation.
They were regularly separated.
We could join these two ideas using compound and complex sentences, parenthesis and fronted adverbials.
Let's look at how we could do that.
The family lived and worked together on the plantation, but they were regularly separated.
Using that but coordinating conjunction, I can join those two sentences and form a compound sentence.
Although the family lived and worked together on the plantation, they were regularly separated.
This time I've used the subordinating conjunction, although, so I've turned this sentence into one adverbial complex sentence.
The family who lived and worked on the same plantation were regularly separated.
This time I've joined these two ideas by turning them into one relative complex sentence.
The family lived and worked together on the plantation, however, they were regularly separated.
This time I've kept the two sentences separate, but I've used a formal but fronted adverbial to link them both together.
Discuss with a partner where you could improve cohesion in this passage.
Pause the video while you do that.
Some of the sentences could be joined together to make complex and compound sentences.
Other ideas could be linked using fronted adverbials.
Now it's time for your task.
Let's peer edit the early life section of our biography looking only at cohesion.
So it's the exact same process as we used before where we're gonna continue to work as partners A and B.
Start with partners A's work looking only at the early live section, and A should follow with a ruler as B reads the paragraph aloud.
Looking only at cohesion, make any additions or changes that need to be made and A's work together, then repeat the process with B's work.
You can use this checklist to help you.
So we need to check for missing words, missing cohesive devices and sense.
Pause the video while you complete your task.
Well done everyone.
Hopefully you find it really helpful to peer edit each other's writing.
Let's now go back to my example from earlier on and look at how we might have edited this passage to make it more cohesive.
Let's read it together.
Early life: Harriet Tubman, who was originally named Araminta Ross, was born in 1820 in Maryland, USA.
Because both of her parents were enslaved people, Harriet and her eight siblings were automatically born into slavery.
So in my example here I have edited some of my sentence structure, turned some sentences into complex sentences and use subordinate conjunctions to create a verbal complex sentences.
Well done everyone.
This now brings us on to our final section of our learning where today now we're going to edit vocabulary.
If we were editing a narrative, we would often want to try and make our writing more imaginative and descriptive.
When editing a biography, we will have different questions in mind because of the formal tone of our writing.
Is the language formal enough? Have I used subject specific vocabulary? We will want to avoid using language like this.
So we don't want contractions like couldn't, didn't, or wouldn't because they're too informal.
We also wouldn't want to use phrases such as you wouldn't believe, because we are not going to address our reader directly, because again, this is too informal.
Here's an example of how we might edit to improve vocabulary.
Let's read this together.
Harriet was born into slavery and hadn't ever experienced freedom.
Harriet also didn't have any rights to formal education.
Can you believe how unjust this was? So in my passage here, I've got a contracted word which is too informal.
I've also repeated the subject.
I've repeated Harriet's name twice in two sentences.
I've also got a second contraction which is again too informal, and finally, by directly addressing the reader, I've made my writing too informal again.
So I could rewrite it in this way.
Due to unjust and racist laws at the time, Harriet was born into enslavement without any hope of freedom.
Furthermore, she had no entitlement or opportunities to receive formal education.
So I've got the exact same information across, but this time in a much more formal way.
Discuss with a partner what problems you see with the vocabulary in this passage.
Use the clues here to help you with your discussion.
Pause the video while you do that.
Well done everyone.
We'll come back to look at this in a bit more detail in a moment.
Now it's time for your task.
Let's peer edit the early life section of our biography looking only at vocabulary.
Again, this time you're going to work in pairs as partners A and B.
Start with partner A's work and find the early life section.
A should follow with a ruler as B reads the paragraph aloud.
Looking only at vocabulary, make any additions or changes that need to be made in A's work, then repeat with B's work, and use this checklist to help you.
So we want to focus on formal language, subject specific vocabulary and using varied language choices.
Pause the video while you complete your task.
Well done everyone.
Let's go back to my original example and look at some of the changes we might have made.
Let's read it together.
Throughout Harriet's childhood, she worked as a house servant and in the fields.
On one occasion, she courageously protected another enslaved person from being attacked by an overseer.
She was hit on the head and suffered life altering injuries, which lasted for the rest of her life.
So here I have removed some of my informal openers such as one time and informal vocabulary like brave or evil or aggressive, and I've also removed a contracted word here, didn't.
Well done everyone.
That now brings us to the end of our lesson where today we've been peer editing the early life section of a biography about Harriet Tubman.
Editing is an essential part of the writing process during which we refine and improve our ideas.
We can check that punctuation has been used correctly following the rules we have been taught.
We can check for cohesion by looking at the sentence structures we've used and connecting ideas more closely where needed.
We can check our vocabulary to ensure it is formal and subject specific.
Well done everyone.
I really hope that you feel that you have improved and developed your writing in our lesson today.