Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today, we're going to be taking the next big step towards writing our essays by constructing the logical argument we're going to make in the essay.

We've got lots to do, so let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called "Setting Out a Logical Argument in Response to an Essay Title" from our unit called Amazon Rainforest: Essay Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to set out a logical argument in response to an essay title.

Now, this lesson builds on the research we did in the last lesson, so you'll want to have your notes with you from that lesson.

You'll also want to have access to the fossil fuels essay you can find in the additional materials for this lesson.

If you're ready, let's make a start.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson, my turn, your turn: essay, logical argument, and subject-specific vocabulary.

Well done, so, an essay is a piece of writing that explores arguments about a particular issue, and a logical argument is one that follows a series of steps that lead clearly towards a conclusion, and subject-specific vocabulary is vocabulary that relates to a particular subject.

So, here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by exploring an essay title.

And then we'll look at how we can structure a logical argument in response to that title.

So, we know that an essay is a nonfiction text that explores arguments about a particular issue, and we know that it can give both sides of the argument or just one side.

So, here's the title of the essay we're going to write in this unit.

It says, "Explain How Reducing Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest Could Help Reduce the Impact of Climate Change." So, will this essay give both sides of the argument or just one side? Pause the video, and have a chat to the person next to you about this essay title and whether it's going to give us an essay which has both sides of the argument or just one.

Have a think.

Good thinking, well done.

Now, we can see this essay title is asking us to give just one side of the argument.

It says, "Explain How," and that's our clue.

So, this makes things easier.

We're being told exactly what to explain.

We're being told to explain how reducing deforestation in the Amazon could help reduce the impact of climate change.

We're being told what to do, so our job, when we write this essay, isn't to weigh up the different options: "Will it help reduce climate change? Or won't it help reduce climate change?" No, we're not gonna do that.

All we're going to do is give all the arguments to prove that reducing deforestation will help tackle climate change and its impacts, so our readers should feel like that conclusion, that we need to reduce deforestation to help tackle climate change, is unavoidable: "That must be correct." So that's what we gotta try and do in this essay.

So which of the below is likely to be the conclusion of our essay, based on this title? Is it A, B, or C? Pause the video, and have a think.

Well done, you're thinking.

So, A says, "Reducing deforestation is impossible," but we're being told to explain how reducing deforestation could help do something, so it can't be that one.

B says, "It's possible to reduce deforestation, but doing so will have no impact on climate change." Well, the title says to explain how reducing deforestation could help reduce the impact of climate change, so it can't be that one, and C says, "We can reduce deforestation, and by doing so, we can help reduce the impact of climate change." Now, that mirrors almost exactly the essay title, so that is going to be our conclusion.

So we've got to now build an argument towards that conclusion, so when we write this essay, we're gonna do the following things.

We've got to think, "Can we define important pieces of subject-specific vocabulary that are essential to our argument?" We also need to create that logical step-by-step argument that leads towards the conclusion that reducing deforestation will help tackle climate change, and along the way, we're going to provide a range of evidence to support those logical steps in our argument, and the evidence could take many forms. It could be facts and statistics.

It could be explanations of how things work, and it could be expert opinions and official reports.

So, what subject-specific vocabulary in this title might we want to define for our reader? And what could our definitions be? See if you can find two or three pieces of subject-specific vocabulary, and try and define them.

Have a go.

Well done, good job.

Maybe you spotted deforestation.

Well, we know that deforestation is clearing an area of trees so that it can be used for something else, such as farming.

We could also say, "The Amazon rainforest," and that's a vast warm wet rainforest spanning the equator in South America, which, as we know, the Amazon River run through, and maybe you chose climate change, which we know is the gradual change in global weather and temperature caused by increased greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

Now, we won't start our essay by stating those definitions just like that.

We're gonna have to include this information in our essay in order for our reader to understand what it is we're trying to communicate.

Really well done for your ideas there.

So, let's look closely at the essay title and some smaller questions it raises.

So, it says, "Explain How Reducing Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest Could Help Reduce the Impact of Climate Change," so we first of all got this word, deforestation, so what smaller question does that raise? Well, it raises "what is deforestation?" and "how is it carried out?" Then we have this phrase: "in the Amazon rainforest." Well, that raises some questions: "How does deforestation affect the Amazon rainforest? And why has deforestation happened in the Amazon rainforest?" Then we could take this section: "the impact of climate change." What question does that raise? Well, it makes us think, "What is climate change? And what causes it? And how does deforestation drive that?" Then we can take this word, reducing.

We're talking 'bout reducing deforestation, so how can we reduce deforestation? And finally, we've got this word, reduce, which is referring to climate change and its impacts, so how does reducing deforestation reduce the impacts of climate change? And you can see that last question is very similar to the essay title because that's going to be our concluding idea, isn't it? "How does reducing deforestation help to reduce the impact of climate change?" So we've come up with a series of questions that lead towards that conclusion that addresses the essay title.

So which of these questions might need to be answered in our essay? Pause the video, and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So, A, "how is deforestation linked climate change?" yes, we'll need to say that.

B, "how could reducing car use help tackle climate change?" Well, our essay relates to climate change but not to car use.

We are showing the link between deforestation and climate change, so no, we won't address that.

"How is deforestation affecting the Amazon rainforest?" Yes, we want to say that, and "how can deforestation be reduced?" Yes, we need to say that, because we need to show that it's possible to reduce it in order to affect climate change, in order to help reduce the impacts of climate change.

So we're gonna try and hit all of those three questions but also many more in our essay.

Really well done.

So, what would be a logical order to answer each question in our essay? Can you number these, one to three, starting with number one? Which one would logically go first? Then which one would logically go next? And which one would logically go last? Pause the video, and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So, first of all, we'd probably have to answer "what is deforestation?" Then we'd have to answer "how does deforestation drive climate change?" And then we could answer "how would reducing deforestation reduce the impact of climate change?" We can't answer this third one until we've explained how deforestation is related to climate change, and to do that, we'll probably need to define what climate change is, first of all.

So can you see how each of these steps would build on the other? Really well done if you noticed that logical step-by-step progression.

So, we've got here our questions that were raised by the essay title.

What do you notice about the order these questions are in? Pause the video, and have a careful think.

Well done, I'm sure you notice that they are in a logical order.

Each answer would build on the last, and that would build us towards that conclusion, so this is a good way to structure our argument.

Is it the only way? No, you could do this in a variety of different ways, but this way makes sense as a progression through the argument we're trying to make to reach that conclusion, that reducing deforestation can help reduce the impacts of climate change.

So, let's have a first attempt at trying to answer our essay question, and we're gonna keep it really simple to start with.

So, I could answer it in three steps, like this.

I could say, "The Amazon has suffered a lot of deforestation.

When trees are cut down, they release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, which worsens climate change.

And so if we have less deforestation, that would help reduce the strength of the greenhouse effect, and that would reduce the impact of climate change." So have I addressed the question? I've explained how reducing deforestation could help reduce the impact of climate change, so yes, I have.

Now, we've left some things unanswered.

We have not covered every point there, and we haven't provided any evidence.

So this isn't an essay yet, is it? But it's an idea of our logical argument.

It's a good start.

So, now you try.

Can you have a first go at answering this question out loud, going step by step to explain it? Pause the video, and have a first try at saying a logical argument to answer this essay title.

Have a go.

Well done, really good first try.

Maybe you came up with something like this.

You might have said, "Well, deforestation is clearing areas of trees, and this is happening a lot in the Amazon rainforest.

Climate change is driven by the greenhouse effect.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat, and that warms the Earth, and when trees are cut down or burned, they release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, which strengthens the greenhouse effect, so if we cut down fewer trees, this would help combat climate change," really simple step-by-step progression through a logical argument that addresses our essay title.

Really well done if manage do something similar, and if you're not sure yet, don't panic.

We'll have lots more chance, as we go through this lesson, to get our logical argument correct.

So, now we have a basic idea of the argument we're making in our essay, so we're going to practise saying it now, once more, with a lot more help.

So this time I want you to use the questions below to help you say that whole argument aloud in a logical order, and you can just use simple, everyday language for now.

So, you're gonna try and answer each question in order, building towards that conclusion.

So, pause the video.

And just talking, can you try and answer these questions to create a logical argument? Pause the video, and have a go.

Well done, really good job.

So, here's an example of the first part of the logical argument you could've made answering those questions in order, so let's see what Sam said.

She said, "Deforestation is when trees are cleared from an area to use it for something else.

This is often done by slashing and burning.

It's happened a lot in the Amazon, with over 20% the rainforest having been destroyed.

This has been done to make way for farmland, particularly for cattle and for soybeans, as well as for logging." Here's the second part of the argument: "Deforestation's a cause of climate change because trees take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it.

When they're cut down, this greenhouse gas returns to the atmosphere.

Here it strengthens the greenhouse effect, helping drive climate change.

We can reduce deforestation by tackling illegal forest-burning and avoiding products that are linked to it.

This will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help tackle climate change.

So, we've tried there to say the whole argument aloud, answering those step-by-step questions in a logical order to create a logical argument that responds to our essay title.

Really well done there, good job, so now let's think about how we can structure this logical argument into an essay, so we've explored our essay title, and we've begun to create that logical argument to answer it.

We now need to think about how to structure that argument into paragraphs, because we know an essay will be structured into separate paragraphs.

So, each paragraph should be a logical step towards our conclusion, so let's look our example essay on a similar subject, fossil fuels, to help us understand how to structure our writing.

Now, I'm now going to read to you the example essay about the use of fossil fuels, which you may've seen before, but when we read it this time, we want to focus on how the argument is structured, so I'm going to read it to you.

Listen really carefully, and think about that structure: "Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, are energy sources from the remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago.

These fuels, which are buried beneath the Earth's surface, have become the main energy source for much of the world.

Currently, fossil fuels are responsible for meeting 84% of the world's energy needs.

In 2020, the International Energy Agency reported that we use about 100 million barrels of oil per day, showing that we are now heavily reliant on these fuels.

The widespread use of fossil fuels can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, beginning in the late 1700s.

As societies moved away from farming and towards life in the city, demand for fuel grew, particularly in factories.

Coal was the first fossil fuel to be used on a massive scale, powering steam engines.

Soon, oil and natural gas were being extracted, too.

These fuels were full of energy, and they were cheap to extract.

As a result, they became a vital building block for the modern way of life.

When fossil fuels are burned for energy, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, CO2, which is the most common greenhouse gas.

These gases trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.

Consequently, they have played a huge role in driving climate change.

In 2019, CO2 from burning fossil fuels made up 74% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Because fossil fuel use has added so much to the greenhouse effect, the global average temperature has increased by at least 1.

1 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution began.

As a result, we are seeing more frequent severe weather events and rising sea levels.

Because reducing fossil fuel use reduces greenhouse gas emissions, it's an essential step in tackling climate change.

Consequently, many countries are trying to increase their use of renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, leading to lower emissions.

In addition, using electric vehicles can also contribute to reducing the use of fossil fuels; furthermore, climate scientists argue that it is vital that countries set ambitious targets for reducing the use of these fuels.

If governments and individuals can take all available steps to reduce the use of fossil fuels, we will stand the best chance of reducing the impact of climate change." So hopefully, you noticed that the example essay followed this structure.

It had this title: "Explain Why Reducing Fossil Fuel Use Is Vital to Tackling Climate Change." And then it had four paragraphs: an introduction, paragraph one, paragraph two, and a conclusion.

In the introduction, it answered these questions: "What are fossil fuels? And how widely used are they?" Paragraph one answered "when and why did fossil fuels become widely used?" Paragraph two answered "how does the use of fossil fuels contribute to climate change?" And then the conclusion answered "how can we reduce fossil fuel use? And how will this help to tackle climate change?" So that links back to the essay title again, so each paragraph is giving the next logical step in the argument by answering these questions.

So how could we group our small questions that we've already used together into four paragraphs with each as a logical step in our argument? Now, when you think about this, a question might be a paragraph all on its own, or you might want to combine several different questions into one paragraph because we need to make these eight questions into four paragraphs.

So, how would you do it? How could you group these into four paragraphs that show the steps in our logical argument? Pause the video, and have a think.

Well done, really good ideas.

Now, again, there's not one way of doing this.

I'm gonna show you an example of how we could do it in a logical way, but there might be many other ways.

So, I could take these first four questions, and I could change them into two paragraphs: one that answers "what is deforestation?" "how does it happen?" and "how does it affect the Amazon rainforest?" and then a second one that answers "why has deforestation happened in the Amazon rainforest?" So that could be, number one, the introduction and, number two, paragraph one.

Then for these four questions, I could group them like this.

I could have my next paragraph, paragraph two, saying, "How does deforestation drive climate change?" And then my conclusion could say, "How can we reduce deforestation and how would doing that help to reduce the impacts of climate change?" So now I've grouped these ideas into four paragraphs that build logically from each other from an introduction to a conclusion that addresses my essay title.

Really well done if manage do the same.

If yours are slightly different, that is okay, but really well done for trying to group them logically together.

So, now let's have a think about what we'll say in each of our paragraphs as a step in our logical argument.

Here's how we did it in the example essay.

The introduction said, "Fossil fuels are found in the ground, and they're widely used." Paragraph one said, "This started the Industrial Revolution, and it's because they're energy rich and cheap to extract.

That's why they're widely used." Paragraph two said that they cause climate change because, when they're burned, they produce greenhouse gases, strengthening the greenhouse effect, and the conclusion said that, if we use more renewable energy and electric vehicles, we'll burn fewer fossil fuels, helping to reduce greenhouse gases.

So I've really summarised there, very short and very simple, what was said in each paragraph in response to the questions we saw earlier.

So in the same way, for this task, I'd like you to write a sentence or two to summarise each step in our logical argument, using the questions to help, so I've put the questions that I grouped these into.

So, I grouped my eight questions into four questions, didn't I? And now I'd like you to try and write a summary in response to each of those questions, what is it we're going to say for that logical step, just like you saw for the example essay on the previous slide, so pause the video, and think carefully about what you'd like to write for your summary for each of these paragraphs.

Have a go.

Well done, really good job.

So, here's an example of how you might've summarised the start of the logical argument we're making in our essay.

For the introduction, we were answering these questions, and we could say, "Deforestation is the cutting down of trees, often by using the slash-and-burn method, and 20% of the Amazon rainforest has already been removed in this way." For paragraph one, "why has deforestation happened in the Amazon rainforest?" maybe you said, "Deforestation has been driven by the need for farmland for cattle and to grow soybeans, as well as logging." For paragraph two, "how does deforestation drive climate change?" maybe you said this: "Climate change is driven by high greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

Trees store carbon from the atmosphere.

When they're cut down or burned, carbon dioxide reenters the atmosphere, strengthening the greenhouse effect." And for the conclusion, "how can we reduce deforestation? And how would doing that reduce the impact of climate change?" which is what our essay title's really asking us, we could say, "Deforestation can be reduced if we avoid buying products that drive it and if governments take action against illegal logging and burning.

This would mean lower carbon emissions, reducing the strength of the greenhouse effect." So we've really clearly summarised the steps in our logical argument now, and hopefully, now you're really clear of how that argument progresses from paragraph to paragraph through towards a conclusion that matches up with our essay title.

Really well done.

So, let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We said that our essay will give one side of an argument and it will provide a logical argument that builds, step by step, towards a conclusion, supported by evidence at every stage.

We've said that we have to put the steps of our argument into a logical order so that our reader fully understands what we're saying and is persuaded by our explanation, and we saw that we have to group the explanation into paragraphs that build logically on from each other.

Really well done for your effort in this lesson.

Hopefully, now really clear on the idea of our logical argument progressing towards our conclusion.

That's going to really help us when we come to write.

I'd love to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.