Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to today's lesson.

Today we're going to be editing some of our writing.

In today's lesson, you are going to edit the main body of a diary entry based on "How to train your dragon".

Here are some key words we're 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 a 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 sentences to convey meaning.

Vocabulary is the language choices made by a writer.

Today we're going to edit the main body of a diary entry.

We're going to begin by editing punctuation.

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

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

Even really successful writers need to edit their work.

This is part of the writing process.

Editing does not mean rewriting everything again.

It's about being selective with what you want to improve.

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

We need to check for mistakes in punctuation, make improvements to sentence structure, and make improvements to 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 our language choices and making improvements to sentence structure.

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

There are some punctuation mistakes below.

Let's read this sentence together.

"The dragon cornered me narrowing its menacing fiery eyes as it approached I couldn't move a muscle." You might have spotted that there are actually two sentences here.

It's hard to tell because we have no punctuation.

So let's begin by adding in our capital letters and our full stops.

Now we can see that there are two clear sentences.

Let's read it again.

"The dragon cornered me narrowing its menacing fiery eyes.

As it approached I couldn't move a muscle." It's now much clearer that we can see there are two sentences, but we do still need to add some extra punctuation.

So we've done our capital letters and our full stops.

Now let's see if we can spot an apostrophe for contraction.

Could not is contracted to form, couldn't.

The apostrophe is used in place of the omitted letter O in "Not".

So now we've got our apostrophes for contraction.

The final step is adding in our commas.

Here we are now.

Now you might be able to see that there are different purposes for these commas.

"The dragon cornered me, narrowing its menacing fiery eyes." This is to separate the non finite subordinate clause from the main clause.

"Its menacing, fiery eyes".

Here the comma is used to separate the adjectives and the expanded noun phrase, and "As it approached, I couldn't move a muscle".

This comma is used to separate the aerial subordinate clause from the main clause.

Now we've added our commas.

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

Well done if you spotted that commas are used to separate a subordinate clause from a main clause, they're also used after a fronted adverbial, and they're used in an expanded noun phrase.

We only use commas when we know the rule.

Now it's time for your first task.

Edit the punctuation in your main body and use the checklist to help you.

Have you checked for missing or incorrectly Used capital letters, full stops, apostrophes for contraction and commas? You can edit your own writing or you can also edit mine.

Let's take a moment to read through this example.

"As we entered the vast intimidating arena I knew I was in big trouble.

My mouth went dry and I felt nauseous.

All the others were really excited and were obviously confident.

They couldn't wait to get started.

When I made a joke they all turned and stared at me, then burst out laughing.

Why do they love teasing me so much?" Pause the video now while you complete your task.

Brilliant work everyone.

Either you will have chosen to have edited your own writing or you'll have edited mine.

In my example, we can see that you needed to add in some commas, some capital letters, some apostrophes for contracted words, and that final sentence needed to be punctuated with a question mark because it was a rhetorical question.

Great work, everyone.

Now that we've edited our punctuation, we're going to move on to editing sentence structure.

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

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

True or false, text cohesion refers to the flow of a text? It helps to keep the reader engaged and achieve the text's purpose.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is true.

Now pause the video again while you decide how to justify your answer.

Well done if you spotted that the correct justification was B, we achieved text cohesion through using fronted adverbials, a range of vocabulary choices, varied sentence types and different conjunctions.

Well done.

When editing sentence structure, we check for all of these things.

Missing words, that our writing makes sense and that our writing is cohesive.

Let's read this example sentence together, or group of sentences together.

"Gobber welcomed us to the arena.

I was filled with fear as he explained which dragons might be released into the enclosure.

I my heart began to begin to race." Technically this sentence is punctuated correctly and there are some really nice examples of vocabulary such as "Enclosure", or "I was filled with fear".

However, it doesn't really flow in a way that I know it could.

I'm going to make some edits here to improve the sentence structure.

This will help ensure that my writing makes sense and that it is cohesive.

Between sentences one and two, there's per cohesion.

There's no link between the two sentences.

I've also missed out a word in that final sentence.

"I, hmm, my heart begin to race." Here's an example of how I could have improved it.

Let's read this together.

"At 9:00 AM Gobber welcomed us to the arena." So here I've added an example of a fronted adverbial of time.

"Lining up with the other trainees I was filled with fear." Now I've introduced a non finite subordinate clause to link together these events.

"As he explained which dragons might be released into the enclosure, I felt my heart begin to race." Here I've added my missing word, which was "Felt".

Hopefully we can all see that this example is much more cohesive than the original.

Now it's time for your second task.

Edit the sentence structure of your main body.

Alternatively, you could choose to edit my example.

Let's read through it together.

"The air crackled with excitement from my classmates.

Their eyes gleamed with confidence.

I tried to master up some enthusiasm.

It felt like trying to light a match in a thunderstorm.

I tried to a joke to ease my nerves, their laughter echoed like thunder." As you can see, there's some great language choices and the punctuation is correct, but there's very little cohesion or flow between my sentences.

Check and see whether you can add in any missing words.

Improve the writing so that it makes sense and improve it so that it's more cohesive.

Remember, you can edit your own writing or my example.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Brilliant work everyone.

So you may have edited your own writing or you might have edited mine.

If you edited my writing, you might have chosen to improve text cohesion and sentence structure in different ways to what I did.

But here's just an example of what you might have done.

The air crackled with excitement from my classmates and their eyes gleaned with confidence.

Here I've turned two simple sentences into one compound sentence using that coordinating conjunction "And".

"I tried to muster up some enthusiasm, but it felt like trying to light a match in a thunderstorm." Again, I've linked two separate sentences to form one compound sentence using the coordinating conjunction "But" this time.

But is really useful because it helps to show these two contrasting ideas.

"When I tried to crack a joke to ease my nerves, their laughter echoed like thunder." So I've turned those final two sentences into one adverbial subordinate complex sentence using "When" as my subordinating conjunction.

I also added in the missing word.

"Crack" a joke or "Make" a joke.

Well done and thank you for your help with editing my writing.

Well done everyone, and thank you so much for all your help so far with editing my writing as well.

Now we've edited our punctuation and we've edited our sentence structure.

We're going to move on now to editing vocabulary and spelling.

When we edit vocabulary and spelling, we check for all of these things.

Effective use of precise, ambitious vocabulary to create atmosphere, a range of precise vocabulary to avoid repetition, spelling accuracy.

Let's read this example of some sentences.

"Watching the Gronckle draw closer, I felt worried.

The Gronckle's teeth were rotten and its breath was putrid.

I didn't know what to do." So in this example, my punctuation is accurate and my writing is cohesive, but there are some issues with my vocabulary and spelling choices.

You might be able to spot some of them already.

Here I've repeated the Gronckle twice in two sentences, so I want to have a think about how I could refer to the Gronckle in a different way in my second sentence to allow for some variation.

We don't need to keep referring to it as a Gronckle.

We could think of lots of other more interesting ways to refer to it.

Secondly, I felt worried is not really a sophisticated enough example of an emotions word.

Maybe we could have a think or talk to other people in our class and get some ideas or magpie some ideas from others about what language we could use to capture this emotion a little bit more appropriately and accurately.

I also have got three spelling mistakes, "Where", "Breathe" and "Wat" are all spelled incorrectly.

You might be able to help me with producing the correct spellings.

Now let's see what happens when we've edited these sentences.

"Watching the Gronckle draw closer, I felt panic wash over me." So this is a much more mature and also visual way for me to help show my reader how worried I really felt.

This is a really nice example of a metaphor.

"The beast's teeth".

So rather than saying the Gronckle's teeth, I'm gonna refer to it as the beast.

"The beast's teeth were rotten and its breath was putrid.

I didn't know what to do." Thank you so much for helping me with those spelling corrections.

True or false, writers should vary their language choices in narrative writing? Pause the video while you decide.

Great work, everyone.

This is true.

Now pause the video while you decide how to justify your answer.

Well done if you spotted it, the correct justification was A, "Using a range of language choices keeps the reader engaged and enriches the writing." Now it's time for your third and final task.

Now you are going to edit the vocabulary and spelling in your main body.

While you're doing this, you need to use the checklist.

Have you checked for effective use of descriptive language, a range of vocabulary, so for example, we saw how we can refer to nouns in different to avoid repetition of the same words and have you check for spelling accuracy, particularly for words such as homophones, like where and were, or there and their.

You can choose to edit your own writing, or if you would prefer, you could edit my writing.

Let's read through my writing together.

"At that moment, Gobber released a monstrous, murderous animal from its cage, the Gronckle.

Bursting into the arena, the murderous dragon narrowed its eyes at us and let out a roar.

Within seconds, the murderous dragon had me cornered.

How was I going to escape?" So remember, it's important to bear in mind that here we are not editing punctuation.

We are not editing sentence structure.

We are just focusing on vocabulary and spelling using the checklist on the right hand side to help you.

Remember, you can choose to edit your own writing or you can edit mine.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Fantastic work everyone.

Thank you so much for your help.

Now, if you chose to edit my writing, your edits might be a little bit different from mine, especially if you're changing some vocabulary choices.

But here are some examples of what you might have done.

Let's read it through together.

"At that moment, Gobber released a monstrous, murderous beast from its cage." Animal wasn't really accurate enough to describe the dragon.

So I've used beast instead.

"The Gronckle.

." Remember, how do we, how do we spell Gronckle, It's a CK to make the K sound.

"Bursting into the arena, the blood thirsty dragon narrowed its eyes at us." So I've changed murderous to blood thirsty because I repeated the word murderous several times.

Also narrowed, you might have spotted that suffix on the end needed an -ed, not just the letter D.

"Within seconds it had me cornered." I don't need to refer to as the murder is dragon again.

I can just use the pronoun "It" to make my writing much more succinct and avoid repeating myself.

"How was I going to escape?" Was is a high frequency word, but it's also a word that we just need to know how to spell and we can't spell it using our phonics.

So rather than WOS, which is what it sounds like, it's actually spelled WAS.

Thank you so much for your help with that.

Well done everyone.

That now brings us to the end of our lesson, where today we've been editing the main body of a diary entry.

Editing is the process of improving writing to ensure that text flows well for the reader.

Editing involves making carefully chosen 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.

Thank you so much for all of your hard work in our editing lesson today.

Well done everyone.