Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to today's lesson where today we are going to be editing our narrative writing based on "How to Train Your Dragon." In today's lesson, we are going to be editing your narrative writing based on "How to Train Your Dragon." Here are some key words we are going to use, editing, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, vocabulary.

Editing is the process of improving writing to improve text flow and overall quality.

Grammar is the set of rules that govern a language.

Punctuation is a set of standardised symbols and marks used in written language to structure sentences.

Sentence structure is the way that words are arranged within a sentences to convey meaning.

Vocabulary is the language choices made by a writer.

Today we're going to be editing our narrative writing based on "How to Train Your Dragon." We're going to begin by editing punctuation.

Then we're going to move on and edit sentence structure.

And finally, we're going to finish by editing vocabulary and spelling.

Editing is the process of making changes to improve writing, to ensure text flow and overall quality.

When you edit, you decide what you'll change and what you'll keep the same.

Even really successful writers need to edit their work.

Editing does not mean rewriting everything again, it is about being selective with what you want to improve.

The job of an editor is to do all of these.

Check for mistakes in punctuation, make improvements to sentence structure, and make improvements in language choices.

In this lesson, we are going to be editors.

Editing is the process of which two of these.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that editing involves making improvements in language choices and making improvements to sentence structure.

When we edit punctuation, we check for missing, or incorrectly used capital letters, full stops, commas, apostrophes for possession.

There are some punctuation mistakes in this sentence.

Let's begin by reading it through together.

Swooping towards the islands hillside, the dragons mercilessly narrowed their fiery amber eyes.

As you can see, there's no punctuation in this sentence at all.

I wonder if you can help me add in capital letters, full stops, commas, and apostrophes for possession that are missing.

Let's start with capital letters.

So capital S for swooping as it is the start of a sentence.

There are no proper nouns in this sentence, so this is the only capital letter we need.

We also need a full stop to end the sentence.

There's just one sentence here, so we only need one full stop.

Commas, now there are a few commas in this sentence, I wonder if you can spot them.

So the first comma is used to separate the non-finite subordinate clause from the mean clause after the word hillside.

The second comma is used to separate the two adjectives in the expanded noun phrase, fiery comma amber eyes.

Finally, an apostrophe four possession.

The hillside belongs to the island.

There's only one island here, so this is singular possession.

Thank you so much for your help.

Now it's your turn, correct the punctuation mistakes in this sentence.

Let's begin by reading it through together.

Circling the sky above the Isle of Berk, a horde of dragons set their sights on the unsuspecting villagers sheep below.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Well done everyone.

Here's the corrected version.

So we needed capital letters for the start of the sentence, but also Isle of Berk, as this was a pronoun, a proper noun.

We needed commas after the non-finite subordinate clause.

We also needed an apostrophe in villagers' sheep.

The sheep belonged to the villagers'.

So this is plural possession.

And finally, we need a full stop to end the sentence.

Let's talk a little bit more about commas.

Commas have several functions.

Let's read these sentences together and then we'll talk about the functions of the commas.

As the stars' light illuminated the jet-black sky, the gargantuan dragons beat their powerful, vast wings.

Plummeting from the and skies, the mythical beasts roared deafeningly.

With cries of panic, the villagers leapt from their beds to defend their livestock, which grazed unsuspectingly on the hillside.

There are multiple different commas in these sentences and they do different things.

Firstly, we have, as the stars light illuminated the jet-back sky comma, this is used after an adverbial subordinate clause.

Our next comma is using an expanded noun phrase to separate the two adjective, powerful comma, vast wings.

Plummeting from the dark and skies, comma is an example of a comma after a non-finite subordinate clause.

And with cries of panic, comma is an example of a comma after a fronted adverbial, this is a fronted at verbal of manner.

And finally, the final comma goes between a mean clause and a relative subordinate clause.

So it separates the relative subordinate clause from the mean clause.

Remember, we only use commas when we know the rule, that helps us make sure that we're using them correctly.

When are commas used? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that, we use them to separate a subordinate clause from a main clause, after a fronted adverbial and in an expanded noun phrase.

Now it's time for your task.

Edit the punctuation in your opening.

You can choose to edit your own writing and use the checklist on the screen.

So have you checked for missing, or incorrectly used capital letters, full stops, commas, hyphens, and apostrophes? Or you can choose to edit my writing, which is on the screen.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Great work, everyone.

As you can see here, if you chose to edit my writing, there were some missing full stop, some missing full stops, capital letters, commas, and an apostrophe for singular possession.

Now we're going to move on to editing our sentence structure.

When we edit sentence structure, we make changes to the way sentences are constructed to improve text flow.

When editing, you should check all of these, missing words, that your writing makes sense, and that your writing is cohesive.

When we describe writing as cohesive, we refer to how the text flows for the reader.

Avoiding repetition and keeping the reader engaged.

True or false? Text cohesion refers to the flow of a text.

It helps to keep the reader engaged and achieve the text purpose.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is true, now choose how to justify your answer.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that we achieve text cohesion through using fronted adverbials, a range of vocabulary choices, varied sentence types and different conjunctions.

When editing sentence structure, we check for all of these, missing words, that our writing makes sense and that our writing is cohesive.

Let's read this example together.

In the darkest hour of the night, the moon was a ghostly orb in the jet-black sky as clouds danced across it.

Stars silently dressed the sky like glittering diamonds.

As the howling wind tore furiously at the battered island, trees cracked and their trunks bent against its force.

You might have spotted a few issues here.

Firstly, there's very poor cohesion between the first and second sentences.

There's no real flow linking those two sentences together.

There also is a missing word, trees' something cracked.

I know it has to be something belonging to the trees because we've got an apostrophe for plural possession on the word trees.

So here I've made some edits.

Let's reread it together.

In the darkest hour of the night, the moon was a ghostly orb in the jet-black sky as clouds danced across it and stars silently dressed the sky like glittering diamonds.

As the howling wind tour furiously at the battered landscape, trees' branches cracked and their trunks bent against its force.

Sometimes when we are writing, we're focusing on so many different things, such as our vocabularies and spelling, our handwriting, getting our ideas from our mind onto the page and our sentence structure.

But sometimes this can lead to us actually missing out words or making really simple to solve mistakes.

This requires us to really carefully reread our writing and spot any missing words or per cohesion that we may have.

Now it's time for your task.

Edit the sentence structure in your opening.

You could also choose to edit my writing, which is on the screen.

Use the checklist to help you.

Have you checked that there are no missing words, that your writing makes sense and that your writing is cohesive? Pause the video while you complete your task.

Well done everyone.

If you edited my writing, you might have done something similar to what I've done.

But remember, my edits here with sentence structure might be a little bit different to yours because I may have chosen to use a relative clause for cohesion, for example, when you might have edited the sentence structure in a different way.

Take a moment to reread your edits and make sure that the writing is fully cohesive.

You could also magpie some ideas that you can see on the screen now.

Well done everyone.

This now brings us onto the third and final part of our editing lesson.

Now we're going to edit vocabulary and spelling.

When we edit vocabulary and spelling, we check for all of these, effective use of precise, ambitious vocabulary to create atmosphere.

A range of precise vocabulary to avoid repetition and spelling accuracy.

Let's read these sentences together.

As the young boy observed the pandemonium around him, the boy felt sad.

In horror, he watched his fellow villagers defend their home and he felt helpless.

What could he do? There are some really strong vocabulary choices in these sentences, and there are some words that are repeated, spelled incorrectly, or words that are not really ambitious or precise enough.

For example, the word boy is repeated twice in one sentence.

Sad is not really a precise enough word to describe this boy's emotions.

And finally, there are some spelling mistakes of villagers, there, and what.

I wonder if you can help me edit these to improve them.

Let's reread the edited version.

As young boy observed the pandemonium around him, he felt engulfed in panic.

In horror, he watched his fellow villagers defend their home and he felt helpless.

What could he do? So rather than repeating the word, boy again, I just used the pronoun he, and rather than saying he felt sad, I'm saying he was engulfed in panic, much stronger language to describe what was happening as he watched the dragons destroy the island in front of him.

And finally, villagers is a tricky word that we might easily misspell.

There is a homophone.

That means there are multiple spellings of a word that sound the same, so I changed it to the correct homophone.

And what is a word that can be spelled incorrectly quite often if people forget to use the H in what.

Thank you so much for your help.

True or false? Writers should vary their language choices in narrative writing.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is true, now decide how to justify your answer.

Great work everyone.

Using a range of language choices keeps the reader engaged and enriches the writing.

Now it's time for your third and final task.

Edit the vocabulary and spelling in your opening, or you could choose to edit the vocabulary and spelling in my writing.

Use this checklist to help you.

Have you checked for effective use of descriptive language, a range of vocabulary and spelling accuracy? Pause the video while you complete your task.

Great work everyone.

In my writing you can see that there were a few words that were repeated, such as monsters and villagers, or sorry, demons and villagers.

There were also some words that were spelt incorrectly, such as brave, and chaos, and seen, and determined.

Also, we needed to edit some language choices to make them a little bit more specific and ambitious.

Thank you so much for your help.

Brilliant work, everyone.

Today we've been editing our narrative writing based on "How to Train Your Dragon." Editing is the process of improving writing to ensure that text flows well for the reader.

Editing involves making improvements to a piece of writing without completely rewriting it.

Punctuation, sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling are sensible areas to focus on when editing.

Editing is a vital part of the writing process and all writers edit their work.

Well done everyone, for your hard work with our editing today.

I hope you feel really proud of what you've achieved and that you feel like you've really improved your writing.

Well done everyone.