Lesson video

Hello, everybody, and welcome to our writing lesson today.

Today, I'm so excited about our lesson.

We are going to begin researching a mysterious crime, a mysterious disappearance.

We are then going to be learning about the characters that we are going to be writing as when we write our persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes, asking for his help in solving this crime.

Let's get started.

Our learning objective today is to develop our understanding of the context for a persuasive letter.

This is outcome number three, and it's our third lesson for this outcome.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, your pencil or pen, and your best learning brain.

And pause the video now if you need to go and get any of those things.

Here's today's agenda for learning.

Firstly, we're going to research the crime, which is going to be the context for our persuasive letter.

Then we are going to meet the characters.

Now, we are going to be writing as these characters, so we're going to spend some time making inferences about them and working out their personalities and their backgrounds a little bit more.

And finally, we are going to develop some persuasive vocabulary.

We are going to write a persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes.

The word persuasive means to persuade or convince.

So, we want to convince Sherlock Holmes to help us with solving a crime.

Firstly, we've got to research the crime and find out what exactly has happened.

We are going to read a newspaper report which gives the details of a mysterious crime.

Here is the newspaper report as a whole.

Now we're going to break it down and look at it in smaller chunks.

So, this newspaper report was written on the 15th of October, 1871.

The headline is "Blue Knight: The Day The Wonder Horse Was Stolen." Your turn.

Excellent.

Well done.

I'm going to read this through, and you can just listen and follow along.

And then together we are going to go back through the newspaper report and make sure we unpick any unfamiliar vocabulary.

Last week, kidnappers broke into the Stoughton Hall Stables in North Wales and stole the champion race horse, Blue Knight.

What happened to the animal remains a mystery.

Blue Knight was the most famous and most valuable racehorse in the world.

The big bay colt with a distinctive white blaze on its face had won the 1871 Derby a record ten times and had a reputation as one of the all-time greats.

When the horse retired from racing, his new owners bought him for a staggering 100,000 Guineas.

But after just one year, fate intervened.

Kidnappers, armed with handguns, broke into the Stoughton Hall Stables, owned, like the horse, by Lord and Lady Stoughton, and forced the head groom, James FitzGerald, to load Blue Knight into a trailer.

It is reported that FitzGerald and Blue Knight were then driven off in separate vehicles; FitzGerald was dumped by the roadside three hours later, uninjured.

For unfathomable reasons, the police were not notified of the kidnapping for another five hours, so the search for the horse did not begin until eight hours after the animal had been stolen.

In those crucial eight hours, the prize-winning horse could have been driven in any direction North, East, South or West of the Stoughton Hall Stables.

Now I'm going to just disappear off webcam for a moment so that we can read the final paragraph.

The police have begun a thorough search, asking the public to check every barn and stable across the country as speculation grows over who is responsible for the abduction.

And here we have an image, a photograph, of Blue Knight, and below it the caption, The prize-winning colt after his 1871 Derby success.

So, now we're going to reread the text a few paragraphs at a time and make sure we really understand all of this vocabulary.

So, I have highlighted some of the words that I think we might be unfamiliar with.

The big bay colt.

My turn, colt.

Your turn.

Fantastic.

A colt is a young male horse.

This might be a word that we use later for our letters.

So, if you have got your pen or pencil and paper, I would jot down some of these vocabulary if you don't know what it means.

Next, we've got distinctive.

With a distinctive white blaze on its face.

The word distinctive means unique or recognisable.

So, we would be able to recognise Blue Knight by his distinctive white blaze or white markings on his face, and finally a Derby.

Now I can see it's got a capital letter.

That means it's a proper noun.

A Derby is an annual horse race.

Now what does annual mean? Can you explain? Hmm, what does annual mean? Well done.

A synonym for annual would be yearly.

So, it's a horse race that takes place every year.

Next, we've got: When the horse retired from racing, his new owners bought him for a staggering 100,000 Guineas.

Hmm, maybe you'll be able to work out what Guineas are.

They were the Victorian version of currency.

So, they were the currency or the money that was used in the Victorian era.

Like today, we use pounds and pence.

And another noun here is the head groom.

So, they forced the head groom, James FitzGerald, to load Blue Knight into a trailer.

The head groom is also known as the stable master, the person who is in complete charge of the horses, from training to taking care, to exercising those horses.

And now we have the verb notified.

For unfathomable reasons, the police were not notified of the kidnapping for another five hours, so the search did not begin until eight hours after the animal had been stolen.

Notified means told about or made aware of.

So, the police were not told about the kidnapping for five hours afterwards.

In those crucial eight hours, the word crucial means extremely important, in those extremely important eight hours, the prize-winning horse could have been driven in any direction North, East, South or West of the Stoughton Hall.

The police have begun a thorough search, asking the public to check every barn and stable across the country as speculation grows over who is responsible for the abduction.

Speculation is a noun, meaning people are beginning to guess or make suggestions about what happened without actually knowing any of the fact or having any evidence.

And the abduction, a synonym for abduction is kidnapping.

So, everyone, that now brings us to your task, which is to write a letter to Sherlock Holmes as Lord or Lady Stoughton persuading him to help you solve the mystery of your missing horse.

Now we've got to meet the characters.

We are going to be making inferences about them, which means we are going to look at some images and work out what we can about their characters by looking at those images.

Where do you think the victims live? Hmm.

I'm going to reveal.

So, the victims are Lord and Lady Stoughton.

Where do you think? What kind of a home do you think they might live in as they are a Lord and a Lady? Hmm, some thinking time.

Pause the video.

You might even want to draw a little sketch of what kind of a home you think they live in.

And you can pause the video while you do that.

Now I'm going to show you where they live.

They live in a place called Stoughton Hall in Wales.

This is an image of Lord and Lady Stoughton's home named Stoughton Hall.

It's a huge manor.

It's really grand.

It's got tall, towering, imposing turrets.

It's got spires which pierce the sky.

It seems to be surrounded by lushes, green gardens and land.

It is very grand and very impressive.

Now, what can we infer, or work out, about the characters based on where they live? So, I've given you a few starting points.

So, it's a very large, grand building.

What can we work out about the characters based on that? It's got very ornate architecture, ornate meaning very complex and very carefully designed.

And it's got lots of surrounding land.

So, what do you think that means for Lord and Lady Stoughton as they live there? Pause the video while you mind-map some inferences about Lord and Lady Stoughton, perhaps how much wealth or money they have, and perhaps how they maintain or look after a property like this.

Do you think they need any extra staff or help to support them? Pause the video while you do that.

Okay, everyone, I'm going to reveal some of my inferences now that you've paused the video and had a go at inferring yourself.

So, it's a very large, grand manor house.

So, I would suggest or I would assume that it's very expensive and time-consuming to maintain.

Look at the size of it.

Imagine trying to clean it all on your own.

It would take such a long time.

So, I think that this would require staff such as maids and cooks.

So, perhaps, the Stoughton family employs staff to help with running the house.

Now, that ornate architecture would suggest that it's very expensive to buy.

Stoughton Hall is named after the family, Lord and Lady Stoughton.

So that suggests that the owners are very wealthy and very important, and it's been in the family for a long time.

So, perhaps, Lord and Lady Stoughton's family before them owned this house if it's named Stoughton Hall.

And finally, there's lots of surrounding land.

Now, this point kind of links with the staff.

I think it would require staff to maintain the gardens and stables as well, so Lord and Lady Stoughton may also employ gardeners.

We know they've got a stable master, Mr. FitzGerald, so they may have lots of other people working for them around their home.

Now we're going to meet Lord and Lady Stoughton.

Here is an image of them.

I would like you to pause the video while you look very carefully at this image.

Now we're going to make some inferences about the characters based on their appearances.

So, look at what they are wearing, for example.

What does that tell us about them or their lifestyle? Off you go.

Okay, everyone, hopefully we've all paused the video while we've spent a few moments looking carefully at this image and working out what we can about these characters.

So, here are some things that I've spotted.

Lady Stoughton is wearing a tiara or a crown.

She's got diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, and her dress is very ornate.

It's very patterned.

It looks like it's made of a heavy, high-quality material.

Lord Stoughton has got lots of medals, and he's also got a walking cane.

Now, was there another character in this unit who also walked with a cane? Hmm, can you think back? Oh yes, of course! John Watson walked with a walking cane because he had been in the war and injured his leg.

Perhaps, Lord Stoughton had also fought in a war.

Maybe that's where all his medals come from.

Perhaps, he's got an injury from his time fighting in the war.

So, these diamond earrings, the diamond necklace, all of this jewellery, and all of the impressive clothes that both of the characters are wearing would suggest to me that they are very, very wealthy.

We might describe them as rich or wealthy or well-off.

We could also describe them as affluent.

My turn, affluent.

Your turn.

Excellent.

The word affluent means rich or wealthy like a neighbourhood where everyone lives in fancy houses.

Now, of course, Lord and Lady Stoughton's house might not look exactly like this one, and they may not have a car like that one, but we could use the word affluent to describe them.

They are very wealthy.

Okay, everyone, what a fantastic lesson we've had.

So, we've gone back.

We've researched our crime, so now we understand what the crime is about.

We know our task is to write a persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes as Lord or Lady Stoughton.

We've met Lord and Lady Stoughton.

Now, it's important that we've made those inferences about them because if we know that they are very wealthy, in the Victorian era, they would have been described as upper class, that's really going to have an impact on the way they write, the kind of language they use.

They're going to use very, very formal language.

In our next writing lesson, we are going to look in more detail at formal language we can use when we write in character as Lord or Lady Stoughton.

Well done, everyone.