Lesson video

Hi, everyone.

Welcome back.

For this lesson, I am really, really looking forward to what we're going to achieve.

Today, we are finally going to step through the door of Sherlock Holmes's house and see what lies beyond that mysterious front door.

We're going to be generating some descriptive vocabulary, which we're going to use to finish off our setting description outcome.

Let's get started.

So our learning objective today is to plan a setting description.

This is Lesson 9 of 10.

For our learning agenda, today we're going to begin by revisiting phrases and clauses, and revising and consolidating, which means going deeper with some of that knowledge.

We're then going to reread what we've written so far.

and finally, we're going to look at an image that we've never seen before of inside Sherlock's house and we're going to generate descriptive vocabulary about it.

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

You can pause the video while you go and get those things if you need to.

So for our writing warm up today, we are going to be revising phrases and clauses.

A phrase is a group of words without a verb.

My turn.

A phrase is a group of words with a verb.

Your turn.

Fantastic! Well done.

A clause is a group of words that contains a verb.

Let's say it one more time together.

A clause is a group of words that contains a verb.

Your turn.

Excellent! Well done.

Now, we're going to keep this information at the top of our screen because we're going to need to use it for our activity.

Here are some examples of phrases.

on a bleak, dilapidated street Your turn.

This is a phrase because it does not include a.

Excellent! It does not include a verb.

This is actually a prepositional phrase.

It's telling us where something is.

My turn.

the ancient, dusty steps Your turn.

Excellent! Again, we know this is a phrase because.

Super.

It does not contain a verb.

This is actually an expanded noun phrase.

This is a phrase which describes a noun.

below the ominous sky Your turn.

Well done.

So this is a phrase.

It does not include a verb.

What kind of phrase do you think it is? Have some thinking time.

What type of phrase is this? below the ominous sky Well done if you've spotted it.

This is actually another prepositional phrase.

That word below is a locational word.

It's telling us where something is.

Well done, everyone so far.

Now, we're going to look at a few clauses.

Remember, a clause contains a.

Fantastic! A clause contains a verb.

People hurried past, the verb is hurried.

Your turn.

Excellent.

The blustery wind whistled.

Your turn.

Excellent.

And that word whistled is our verb, which shows that this is a clause.

The dusty lantern creaked.

Your turn.

Excellent.

All three of these are clauses because they have verbs and the verbs are hurried, whistled and creaked.

Excellent job so far.

I would like you to write down all four of these phrases or clauses, whichever they may be, and then I would like you to label them.

If you don't want to write them down, you can just read them and decide, and have a think to yourself, which one you think is a phrase and which is a clause? Again, use this table at the top to help you.

So let's read them through together first before you start your task.

Number one, the rain-drenched streets.

Your turn.

Think about whether it is a phrase or a clause.

Number two, a solitary, comma, dilapidated house stood.

Your turn.

Fantastic.

Number three, beyond the chaos of the market.

Your turn.

Fantastic.

And number four, passers-by rushed past the ancient, towering front door.

Your turn.

Well done, everyone.

So my top tip, search for the verbs.

If you can't find a verb, that means that the group of words is a phrase.

If you can find a verb, that means it is a clause.

Everyone pause the video now while you get on with that activity and decide whether each group of words is a phrase or a clause.

Okay, everyone, hopefully we've all paused the video.

We've all decided whether each group of words is a phrase or a clause.

Now let's reveal the answers.

The rain-drenched streets, there's no verb in that group of words, which means it's a phrase.

A solitary dilapidated, house stood, this is a clause.

Can you tell me what the verb is? Shout out really loud so I can hear you.

Well done if you got it.

Stood, that's a doing word.

So this group of words has a verb which means it's clause.

Beyond the chaos of the market is a phrase.

There's no verb in there.

And finally, passers-by rushed past the ancient, tiring front door.

This is a clause.

Can you spot the verb? Point to it really quickly.

Well done! The verb is rushed.

The passers-by rushed past the ancient, tiring front door.

Well done.

Okay, so the next stage of our lesson, we are going to re-read our writing so far.

If you need to pause the video to go and grab your writing from our last lesson and to go and do that.

If you've got it, then we're ready to go.

Here is my opening paragraph.

We're going to read through this one together and then you can read through your own writing.

Behind the grey clouds, the sun slowly rose over the polluted city of London.

From above, boats could be seen winding their way along the River Thames and imposing buildings towered over the streets.

On the streets below, the air was filled with the manic shouting of market vendors as horse-drawn carriages cluttered along the cobbled streets.

Down a narrow, cobbled alley stood a dilapidated, shabby house.

As ghostly shadows flickered against the walls, a flame danced in the gas lamp above the door.

So I can see here, from our previous lesson, I'd highlighted some of my prepositional phrases in navy; behind the grey clouds, from above, on the streets below.

My high-level adjectives were pink, my high-level verbs are green, and my noun, not all of them, but some of my nouns are this greeny-blue colour.

Then my historical clues to give away the fact that this is set in Victorian London are in this light green colour.

You don't have to have used colours to highlight yours, but you remember in our writing lesson, we numbered our success criteria.

We put a number one beside where we'd met success criteria number one, and number two beside where we'd met success criteria two, and the number three beside an example of where we've met success criteria three.

Now, I would like you to pause the video so that you can re-read your writing from lesson eight.

Can you spot where you met your success criteria? So you should have already numbered it at the end of our last lesson.

But if you didn't do that, maybe you could do that now.

So number one is propositional openers, number two was descriptive vocabulary, and number three is historical clues.

Pause the video while you do that now.

Okay, everyone.

So at the end of our last lesson, we left off by describing Sherlock's front door.

Here's just a little short couple of sentences to describe that front door and set the scene before we enter the building.

I'm going to read it loud first and then you can pause the video and re-read it after me if you would like.

Amidst the mayhem of the chaotic street stood a solitary house.

Passers-by barely glanced at it as it stood, unnoticed.

Dilapidated steps led up to an imposing, oak front door and the sash windows were coated by a thick layer of dust.

So one word that might be a little bit unfamiliar to you would be solitary, just meaning alone.

So this house stood on its own in the street.

So I'm hoping with these couple of sentences, I've made my reader feel really curious and want to find out who owns this house and what might be inside.

Now, we're going to take our reader inside the house.

This is number 221b Baker Street.

My turn.

221b Baker Street.

Your turn.

Great.

Also known as Sherlock's house.

Are you ready to enter the house? Yes? No? Are you not sure? Well, the time has come to go inside.

I hope you're ready.

Now, we're going to look at an image and generate vocabulary about one of the rooms inside Sherlock's house.

So this is an image of Sherlock's office.

I want you to just pause the video and take as long as you need to really look in detail at this office.

There are lots of things inside the office.

You can now take some time to set up your mind map.

So drawing your circle in the centre of your page and your title, which is Sherlock's Office, in the centre of the circle, and you can begin to mind map some of the things you can see thinking of adjectives and nouns, particularly.

If you would like a little bit more guidance, here are some headings you might want to use.

So what can you see? What can you hear? And what is the atmosphere like? So what can you see? Choose two or three things in particular to describe.

There are loads of things in this room.

We would be writing forever if we went into loads of detail about absolutely everything.

Choose two or three things that you are going to describe in detail so your reader can really clearly picture them in their mind.

You might want to describe, for example, the fire in the fireplace, because we could describe what it looks like, but it also makes a noise.

You might describe some verbs or some adjectives to describe the sounds that the fire makes.

Now we know that Sherlock's office is nearby to lots of market streets, so we might be able to hear some of the noise from the busy markets outside.

We might be able to describe some of the paintings which hung on the wall.

Or there are heavy curtains with rich patterns on them.

Does this room look like a particularly clean, and orderly, and tidy room? Or perhaps it's quite cluttered and it's brimming with interesting objects? The air might be heavy with dust.

So again, you can pause this video while you choose two or three things to describe the objects.

You can describe some of the sounds that can be heard.

Remember, we're not bringing our characters into this room yet.

We're just describing the room.

And finally, when you've describe what you can see and hear, what about the atmosphere? How does it feel in this room if you were to step inside? Pause the video now while you begin your mind map.

Okay, everyone.

I bet we've got some incredible vocabulary already.

Hopefully, you've spent at least five minutes looking carefully at this image and mind mapping what you can see, what you can hear, and what the atmosphere of this room is.

Now, I'm going to give you some of my suggestions.

So perhaps we might have been able to see some old leather-bound books, which were brimming with knowledge.

Brimming means filled with, almost overflowing with knowledge.

Now, if I look very, very carefully, I can see the reflection of those old leather-bound books in the mirror.

What can I hear? I could refer to the fire crackling quietly, making that lovely, gentle, soft, crackling sounds.

What's the atmosphere of this room? The room was filled with quiet anticipation, waiting for the next mystery to present itself.

I have personified my room here.

I've made it sound as if it is a human or as if it's got human qualities, as if it's alive, as if the room itself is excited.

The word anticipation means excitement.

So I'm making it seem as if Sherlock's office is alive, and ready, and waiting for the next crime to solve.

Maybe you would like to make by some of my ideas.

You can pause the video while you do that.

Here are some more ideas that I had that you might find useful.

I could refer to the antique, ornate furniture.

My turn.

antique, ornate furniture Your turn.

Well done.

So antique, this is a French word.

It means if we would use this as an adjective to refer to something that is quite old but really well-made and quite precious.

So perhaps a piece of furniture that we might see in the room.

I might describe, for example, the antique chairs or an ornate fireplace, meaning it's really being carefully made and designed, and it's got really delicate, intricate, complex design.

So this fireplace looks ornate.

I could refer to the ticking of the ancient clock.

Ancient meaning old.

There's a clock on the mantelpiece.

It's ticking softly.

We might say it's rhythmically ticking because it ticks in the same rhythm, constantly ticking away the seconds.

And another atmosphere phrase, magic hung in the air like a spell.

So making my reader feel like there's magic in the air of this office, I've also spotted some extra objects in this room that you might want to refer to.

Look at this wooden violin.

We could almost also describe the violin as having been ornately carved.

You might describe these patterned cushions lying on the old armchair.

Pause the video now if you would like to add any more vocabulary to your mind map.

So here's Mrs. Wordsmith again, here to save us with some excellent vocabulary which we could use to add to our mind maps.

The first word is cluttered.

Your turn.

Excellent.

This is an adjective meaning messy or littered, like a room with clothes and toys thrown all over the place.

So we know that Sherlock's office was cluttered by looking at that image.

It's not cluttered in the way we might think of in this picture, such as a messy bedroom with socks all over the floor, but it was cluttered with lots of precious, ornate, antique objects.

Poky.

Your Turn.

Great.

This is another house word.

It's an adjective, meaning tiny or cramped, like a cupboard under the stairs where there is barely room to squeeze inside.

So we could describe Sherlock's office as poky.

It's not huge and it's made even more cramped because of the amount of objects, the number of objects, which are crammed inside it.

So here are some word banks I've put together with some really high-level vocabulary, which you might find useful.

We're going to talk in a little bit more detail about some of these words' meanings in our next lesson, but you could add it to your word bank now anyway.

So words meaning calm, to create that calm, peaceful atmosphere inside the office of Sherlock Holmes.

Haven.

Your turn.

Retreat.

Your turn.

Welcoming.

Your turn.

Peaceful.

Your turn.

Tranquil.

Your turn.

Flickered.

Your turn.

Super.

So we're going to talk very briefly about a couple of these words.

Haven basically means a safe place or a quiet place to hide away from all of the chaos going on around you.

So we know that there was lots of chaos on the streets of London outside.

Once you step through the door of number 221b Baker Street, it was like a haven from all of the hysteria and commotion on the streets outside.

The word tranquil.

This is a peaceful or a calm word.

Next we've got fire words.

Now, we know that there was a fire burning in the fireplace.

I think it would be a really missed opportunity not to go into some lovely description about that fire because we could talk about the way it looked, the heat coming off it, how it creates an atmosphere in the room, and the sounds that it made as well.

So some fire words.

Flickered.

Your turn.

Roaring fire.

Your turn.

Dimly-lit.

Your turn.

Bathed in the glow of the fire.

Your turn.

Super.

What do you think might have been bathed in the glow of the fire? Have some thinking time.

Hmm.

Yes, well done! You're right! The whole room would have been bathed in the glow of the fire.

Now if you think about the word bathed, we kind of think of a bath, don't we? Warm water.

Something quite warming, relaxing, calming.

In the exact same way, we can describe the light of the fire.

It bathed the room in this warm glow.

And finally, we've got some room words.

Cluttered.

Your turn.

Cosy.

Your turn.

Brimming with antique objects or artefacts.

Your turn.

Ornate furniture.

Your turn.

Fantastic! So we knew the word brimming means full, overflowing with.

So it was overflowing with, it was full of, it was brimming with antique, which means old, precious objects or artefacts.

Okay, everybody.

Now, I would like you to pause this video while you add some of your new vocabulary to your mind map.

You do not need to include every single word here, but maybe choose two or three words that you particularly like from each column.

So two or three calm words, two or three fire words, and two or three room words.

Now bear in mind some of these are phrases as well.

And add them to your mind map, and then you can resume the video once you're finished.

Okay everybody, that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

Well done! I am so impressed with the high-level ambitious vocabulary that we've been adding to our mind maps.

This is going to be such an amazing resource for you to use in your next lesson.

This vocabulary today is going to help us to produce some incredible writing outcomes in our next lesson.