Lesson video

Hi everyone and welcome to today's lesson.

Today we're going to be planning the opening of our diary entry based on "How To Train Your Dragon." In today's lesson, you will be able to plan the opening of a diary entry based on "How To Train Your Dragon." Here are some key words we're going to use.

Contraction.

Show-not-tell.

First person.

A contraction is two words pushed together with an apostrophe.

Show-not-tell is when the writer conveys feelings by describing physical sensations and actions.

First person is the I/we perspective.

Today we're going to be planning the opening of a diary entry based on "How To Train Your Dragon." We're going to begin by learning about the linguistic features and then we're going to move on to planning the opening.

Let's review what we know about "How To Train Your Dragon." "How To Train Your Dragon" is a children's fictional book that tells the story of Hiccup, a young Viking who lives on the is of Berk.

The author and illustrator of "How To Train Your Dragon" is Cressida Cowell.

The book's setting is inspired by the Scottish islands that Cressida Cowell visited during her family holidays as a child.

The Isle of Berk is routinely attacked by dragons, so the villagers undertake dragon training in order to learn how to defend themselves and tame the unruly dragons.

This diary entry can be structured like this.

We begin with an opening.

Then we have two parts to our main body, both of them describing dragon training from Hiccup's perspective and finally a closing.

Today we are planning the opening.

You are going to write your plan in the first person perspective as Hiccup.

Perspective is the way someone thinks, feels or sees something.

It's their point of view.

For example, points of view or perspectives may be, "I love to play with my friends." "My favourite subject is geography," or, "I can see a park on the map." These characters are telling us their perspectives.

They're speaking from the first person perspective.

This is the point of view where they're speaking as I.

The first person perspective gives a personal account.

True or false.

"Perspective is the way someone thinks, feels or sees something.

It is their point of view." Pause the video while you decide.

(no audio) Well done if you spotted that this is true.

Now choose how to justify your answer.

(no audio) Well done if you spotted that the correct justification is A.

when you write from a character's perspective, you are expressing the character's thoughts and feelings.

A diary entry is informal in tone.

This is because it's personal and private.

The writer is the only person who will read it.

We can create informal tone through the use of some contractions.

Can you think of any common contractions? Take a moment to have a little think.

(no audio) Here are some.

I've.

Didn't.

Couldn't.

Won't.

They're.

The purpose of using contractions in a diary is that? Pause the video while you decide.

(no audio) Well done if you spotted, "Contracted words help create an informal tone." The purpose of a diary is to record the writer's thoughts and their feelings.

We can convey feelings by simply naming them, which is to tell our writer or by describing the physical reactions to these feelings.

This is called show-not-tell.

For example, "My heart raced, my spine tingled nausea swept over me," are all examples of show-not-tell.

Because they describe the physical feelings in the person's body in response to their emotions.

Using a mixture of tell and show-not-tell improves the text's flow or cohesion and it helps to achieve the text's purpose.

True or false? "We can use show-not-tell to describe feelings in a diary." Pause the video while you decide.

(no audio) Well done.

This is true.

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

(no audio) Great work, everyone.

"Using a range of both tell and show-not-tell enhances the text's cohesion and it helps achieve the text's purpose." Now it's time for your first task.

Sort the clauses into tell and show-not-tell.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

(no audio) Well done if you spotted that, "Examples of tell were, 'I heard the panic in their voices,' and, 'I looked at Gobber in desperation.

'" Here I'm telling my reader how the characters feel.

Examples of show-not-tell are, "I felt my blood run cold," and, "I felt the blood drain away from my cheeks." Great work, everyone.

What a brilliant start to our lesson.

Now that we've learned about the linguistic features, we are going to move on to planning the opening.

When we write a plan, we use notes.

Notes are concise and they capture the most important information.

For a diary entry, this is the key events in chronological order as well as thoughts and feelings.

The purpose of notes is to help the writer summarise and organise key information for future use.

We do not write in full sentences in a plan, we use bullet points when we take note and they look like this.

What will a written plan for your diary entry include? Post the video while you decide.

(no audio) Great work, everyone.

Your plan should include bullet points for notes, key events, as well as thoughts and feelings.

We do not write with full sentences in our plans and we do not include unnecessary information.

Remember, we can build on from our plans when we come to writing.

Let's remind ourselves of what happened at dragon training in chronological order.

How did Hiccup feel at each point? The first thing that happened was Gobber, the dragon training teacher, welcomed the students to the arena.

Here Hiccup felt stressed and apprehensive.

He was not looking forward to the dragon training experience.

After that, the other students teased Hiccup for not helping defend Berk during the last dragon attack.

At this point, Hiccup felt humiliated, resentful, and angry.

Then Gobber explained which types of dragons would be behind the enclosure doors.

At this point, Hiccup felt panicked and fearful.

These three events are going to form the basis of paragraph one of our main body of our diary entry.

Then we're going to move on and describe how Gobber released Gronckle.

It flew around the arena and the students tried to defend themselves with shields.

At this point, Hiccup felt panicked and horrified.

The Gronckle then cornered Hiccup and was about to attack.

Here, Hiccup was petrified because he thought that the might actually kill him, and finally, Gobber saved Hiccup, but told him off.

The other students laughed at Hiccup.

Here, Hiccup once again felt humiliated and resentful and angry.

This is going to form the basis of paragraph two of the main body of our diary entry, but remember today we are planning the opening.

We need to understand all of the key events that happened in order to help us plan our opening though.

The purpose of the opening paragraph is to summarise the day's key event and describe the character's thoughts.

We also need to describe our character's feelings.

List some adjectives to describe Hiccup's day.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

(no audio) Great work, everyone.

Here are some adjectives I've got.

Let's read them together.

Disastrous.

Humiliating.

Horrendous.

Nightmare-ish.

Awful.

Terrible.

You might have some different adjectives, which is great.

These adjectives are going to be helpful for us when we come to summarising what kind of a day we had.

Remember, we are writing in the first person perspective as Hiccup.

Here's the planning format we are going to use for our opening paragraph.

You can see it's split into three parts.

Firstly, we're going to be talking about what type of day it was and here's where our adjectives to describe the day will come in really helpful.

Then we're going to briefly summarise what happened.

The really important thing here is that we are keeping the information general.

We are not getting too specific with the details in the opening because we can keep the specific details for the main body paragraphs later on.

Then we're going to think about what questions or thoughts or feelings you have.

Now, you are going to write bullet point notes for the opening.

Remember to write in the first person perspective as Hiccup.

This means that you'll be using words such as I, me, we, us.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

(no audio) Great work, everyone.

Now I'm going to show you my plan.

Now remember, the ideas on my plan are going to be a little bit different to the ideas on your plan.

That's a really good thing because we wouldn't want everybody's writing to be the exact same, but if you see some ideas on my plan that you would like to magpie and use in your own, you can feel free to add those ideas to your plan as we go along.

So firstly, what type of day was it? I've described my day as Hiccup as awful.

I could also say that today was like a bad dream or it was a day I wish I could forget already.

Just doing a quick reminder here, I know that I'm writing in the first person perspective because I have got words such as I and me and my.

Now, when I move on to briefly summarise what happened, I'm going to give the key, key, key events.

I'm not going to go into any minor details 'cause that's what's going to happen later in my diary entry.

But I'm gonna begin by saying that Dad told me I had to go to dragon training.

It was a total disaster.

I almost got eaten by a Gronckle.

That's the key thing that happened was that the Gronckle attacked me or cornered me or nearly ate me or nearly killed me.

Everyone's making fun of me more than ever.

Here I've got the word, everyone's.

This is an example of a contracted word.

Remember, contracted words are when two words are pushed together using an apostrophe for contraction to form one new word and it helps to create this informal tone.

So rather than saying, "Everyone is making fun of me," I've gone with everyone's.

This creates that informal conversational tone.

We have that sort of tone in a diary entry because remember, the writer is the only person who actually reads the diary entry.

So it's almost the sort of tone that you would have if you were talking to your very best friend.

And finally, questions or thoughts or feelings I have.

"How will I show my face again tomorrow?" There's a rhetorical question and I know this 'cause I've got a question mark.

I am filled with dread.

This is where I'm telling my reader, how I feel.

My hands are still shaking.

This is an example of some show-not-tell.

I can't stop reliving it all.

Again, I've got another contracted word.

Cannot becomes can't creating that informal tone.

Take a moment to reread what you've got written on your plan and make any edits or additions or if there's anything you would like to magpie from my plan onto yours, you can do that now.

(no audio) Brilliant work everyone.

That now brings us to the end of our first lesson where we have been planning the opening of a diary entry based on "How To Train Your Dragon." When planning a diary entry, we do so in the first person perspective.

An effective plan for a diary entry contains key events in chronological order and thoughts and feelings.

A plan is written in note format using bullet points to capture the most important information.

Remember, our plans only include the most basic information and we can build on those when we come to writing.

Well done, everyone.

I'm so impressed with the standard of the planning that we have done today.

I'm really, really looking forward to seeing you again soon so we can use these plans to help us with writing the opening of a diary entry.

(no audio).