Lesson video

Hi everybody, and welcome to Lesson Number 8 today.

We have been working so hard over the last few lessons to generate some amazing vocabulary, learn more about different sentence types and learn about different aspects of punctuation and grammar.

Today, we're going to tie that learning together to begin writing our setting description.

And I'm so excited for what our outcomes are going to be, let's go.

Our learning objective today is to write a setting description.

It's Lesson Number 8 of 10, so let's get going.

Our agenda for our learning today.

Firstly, we're going to remind ourselves of what prepositional phrases are and how we can use them effectively.

Then we're going to read a model outcome.

And finally, we're going to write our own opening paragraph of our setting description.

For our writing warmup today, we are going to be learning about prepositional phrases.

We are writing a setting description of Victorian London.

Can you remember what a prepositional phrase is? Have some thinking time? This might help you.

Can you remember what a prepositional phrase is? Say it out loud to your computer if you can.

A prepositional phrase tells us the position of a noun.

It tells us where something is doing something or something is happening.

Which of these is the prepositional phrase? Behind the clouds or shouting loudly.

You've got five seconds to point at the one you think is the prepositional phrase.

Five, four, three, two, one, behind the clouds, well done.

It's telling us where, it's giving us the position of something.

The word behind is a locational word.

So it gives us away a bit of a clue that this is a prepositional phrase.

Next, which is the prepositional phrase? The chaotic, bustling crowds, or down a cobbled street.

In five seconds, point to the one you think is a prepositional phrase, five, four, three, two, one.

Absolutely, well done, down a cobbled street is a prepositional phrase.

It gives us the location of something.

Now, your first activity.

I would like you to add a prepositional phrase to my sentence.

So I've got a main clause here, a simple sentence.

The golden sun began to rise.

Now I would like to add some detail to that sentence.

I want to tell my reader where the golden sun began to rise.

So that will mean that I need you to add a prepositional phrase, to tell my reader where the golden sun began to rise.

Pause the video now while you have a think then I would like you to say your full sentence out loud to your screen.

Pause the video now.

Okay everyone, I bet you've all got some absolutely fantastic prepositional phrases.

Here are a couple that I had.

In the sky above, the golden sun began to rise.

Above the sleeping city, the golden sun began to rise.

Here's another one.

Behind the dreary clouds, the golden sun began to rise.

Remember it's a full sentence, I've got to have my capital letter and my full stop.

I added my prepositional phrases to the front of my sentence.

This means they are prepositional openers.

I have opened my sentence with a prepositional phrase.

So a prepositional phrase can be a really great way to begin a new sentence.

Now we're going to read through a model outcome.

This is an example that I wrote to give you an idea of the kind of outcome we are going to produce at the end of this lesson.

First, I'm going to read this paragraph aloud and I'd like you to follow along with me.

You can point at the words on the screen, as I say them and read them with me if you would like.

As the sun rose over Victorian London, a cough of smoke engulfed the city.

The air hung heavily above the houses, blanketing them.

The spires of iconic buildings on London's skyline pierced the smog like glass.

The streets below were alive with commotion and bustling crowds.

Worker children marched to their exhausting jobs, vendors set up their markets for the day and the air was filled with the sound of horse-drawn carriages cluttering along the coupled streets.

Now, here's our paragraph again, but I thought there were a few tricky words in there.

So I've highlighted them.

I've embolded them to make them stand out.

And we're going to go through those words together to make sure that we all understand exactly what they mean.

So I've highlighted these words, engulfed, spires, smog, commotion, vendors, horse-drawn carriages, and cobbled streets.

Let's take each sentence at a time and work out what each of these tricky words means.

So let's reread this sentence together.

You join in with me this time.

As the sun rose over Victorian London, a cough of smoke engulfed the city.

The air hung heavily above the houses, blanketing them.

What do you think that word engulfed means? So why don't we choose a strategy here where we read around the word engulfed and see whether we could come up with another word that has a similar meaning.

So as the sun rose over Victorian London, a cough of smoke, the city.

Have a think.

What word or words could we put in there that would mean the same thing? Make sure you share them out loud with me.

That's fantastic, I'm hearing some really excellent suggestions from you.

Here's my suggestion.

We could have substituted the word engulfed with words like covered or wrapped around.

Let's read it together.

As the sun rose over Victorian London, a cough of smoke covered the city or as the sun rose over Victorian London, a cough of smoke wrapped around the city.

The air hung heavily above the houses, blanketing them.

Well done everybody, let's move to the next sentence.

The spires of iconic buildings on London's skyline pierced the smog like glass.

Let's talk about this word, spires.

My turn, spires, your turn, super.

So spires, I can tell by the colour of them that they are nouns, let's have a look at some spires.

Oh, okay, maybe you've seen something like this before as well.

So they are like pointed roofs, often of very old buildings.

London is full of old buildings, which have spires.

So the spires of iconic buildings on London's skyline pierced the smog like glass.

This word iconic, can you see a word inside the word iconic? Have a quick look.

Well done if you spotted it.

The word iconic includes the word icon.

Someone who is an icon is a very famous or well known person.

So if we describe the buildings as iconic, it means they are really famous or well-known.

The streets below were alive with commotion and bustling crowds.

Worker children marched to their exhausting jobs, vendors set up their markets for the day, and the air was filled with the sound of horse-drawn carriages clattering along the cobbled streets.

Now we're going to talk about the word commotion in a moment, but here we've got a couple of really lovely images from the Victorian era to help us understand what vendors were.

Here is an image of a lady at a Victorian stall.

The lady standing behind the stall is a vendor.

It's her stall, she's the person selling goods on the stall.

And here is a really cool picture of some horses pulling along a horse-drawn carriage and I can almost hear the clattering of the horses hooves along those cobbled streets that we can see in that photograph.

So pause the video now if you would like to spend a little bit more time looking carefully at those two photographs.

Here are two Mrs. Wordsmith words.

Now, one of them we've already met before.

Bustling, your turn.

We might imagine a bustling crowd or a bustling market.

Now, with bustling we could also use words like commotion.

My turn, commotion, your turn, excellent.

A synonym or a word that means the same thing as commotion might be chaos or mayhem.

So there's lots of action going on around you and it might feel really chaotic.

Now, we are going to write the opening paragraph of our setting description.

What should we include in an opening paragraph? Have a think.

If you're not sure, think about what we have covered in our unit so far.

You might even want to jot some ideas down and pause the video while you do that.

Okay everyone, hopefully we've all had a really good think about what we should include in our writing.

What new skills we've been learning in this unit that we can showcase in this paragraph.

Firstly, prepositional phrases.

They tell us the location of something or they tell us where something is happening.

Next, we need some descriptive vocabulary, nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

Finally, we are writing a setting description based in Victorian London, so we also need to include historical clues.

Have a think about what clues you could give your reader to let them know that your story is set in Victorian London.

Have some thinking time quickly.

I'm going to share what I was thinking you could include.

So we might describe gas lamps or lanterns, horse-drawn carriages thundering through the streets, cobbled streets and market stalls where vendors were shouting noisily to attract shoppers towards them.

These three elements are going to form our Success Criteria.

Our success criteria are really, really important.

They are the building blocks that we're going to use to help us write our very, very best piece of writing.

Now I would like you to pause this video while you write down your success criteria.

You will really need these to help you produce your very best writing.

So your checklist, you need to write down, number one, prepositional openers.

Number two, descriptive vocabulary, and you can write down nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, to remind you if you like and number three historical clues, and you might write down a couple of reminders or clues that you would like to give your reader.

Once you've done that, you can click play again.

Okay everyone, now we've talked about our success criteria.

We know what to include in our paragraph, and now we need to think about how we are going to structure it.

What order are we going to tell our story in? Where were your first building vocabulary? We started in the sky above.

We began with an aerial view of London, which means we started in the sky.

These two images, I think are a really good starting point.

First of all, we might talk about London and the view from above.

We might also describe the River Thames, which you'd be able to see from the sky above.

That's our first point.

Where do you think we would go then? If you can think back to some of the vocabulary that we mind mapped and the images that we used.

Well done if you've spotted it.

Next, we're going to come down to street level.

So then we are going to describe London streets.

We're going to begin with our reader up in the sky then we're going to bring our reader down to the streets below.

And finally that image that we began to mind map in our generating vocabulary lesson.

We're going to finish with a description of Sherlock Holmes' front door.

Now we are not going inside the front door because we haven't seen what's in there yet.

That's going to be our next lesson, but we are going to finish with a description of the outside or the exterior of Sherlock's house.

Just like we can see in this image.

So all three of these parts, London from above, London streets and Sherlock's house, they are going to be our writing focus today.

So everyone, we're writing the opening paragraph of our setting description and we're beginning with describing London from above.

Here are my images of London from above, the aerial view and the River Thames.

Here are some vocabulary that I think might be useful that we've heard from Mrs. Wordsmith.

And here are some examples of prepositional openers that I think might be useful.

Now, remember your mind maps that we've been working on throughout this unit, it's essential that you've got those in front of you because they have already got all of the vocabulary that you need.

Now, you just need to think about how you're going to bring that vocabulary all together to write some sentences.

But before you can write, you really need to start by talking out loud.

So look at prepositional opener, choose one that you like on your mind map.

Choose some vocabulary that you really like, and then stop and think about how you're going to bring that vocabulary together and say your full sentence.

Pause the video now while you do that.

Okay everyone, so we should all have said our first sentence out loud.

I'm going to show you my first sentence.

I've also got a word bank here with some key vocabulary that you might find helpful.

So towering buildings, a smog-covered city, the snaking River Thames, or the spires pierced the sky.

Here's my sentence.

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

Now, I've highlighted in navy blue my, behind the grey clouds, because it's a prepositional opener.

That's one of my success criteria.

So it's really important that I remember to use those.

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

So again, thinking all the time about my success criteria, I've got two prepositional openers here, I can tell coz they're in navy blue and then I've got some descriptive vocabulary.

That was another one of my success criteria, imposing buildings towered over the streets.

Now I want you to write your sentence about London from above, so pause the video in a moment.

Think about your success criteria, your prepositional opener, some descriptive vocabulary and are you going to give a historical clue in the sentence? Now you do not need to meet all three success criteria in every single sentence, but by the end of this paragraph, we want to have at least included each one, at least one time.

And remember to have your mind map right next to you, to help you with your writing, off you go.

Okay everyone, so hopefully we've all started by describing London from above.

Now the next section of our paragraph is going to be describing London streets.

I've got some prepositional openers on the left hand side of your screen.

These are some suggested prepositional openers that you could use, but look at your mind map.

Look what you plan to use and why don't you try using your own ideas instead? I bet they're so creative.

So let's have a quick look at our mind maps.

I think this would be a really excellent time to give away some historical clues.

What things were taking place on the streets of London that would have been special to the Victorian era and we may not really see in modern London.

Here's an example of a sentence that I wrote.

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

Now remember I've got my prepositional opener, must have a comma with it.

So make sure that if you are writing a prepositional opener to start your sentence, you remember your comma.

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

And I can see my pink high level adjective, manic, and my verb, my green verb is cluttered.

Now, have I included any historical clues as well for my reader.

See whether you can find any.

Well done if you spotted these three.

So market vendors, horse-drawn carriages and cobbled streets, they're all historical clues.

Those are things that would have been taking place on the streets of London.

Now, you don't have to use the exact same clues as me.

Why don't you talk about maybe the slums of Victorian London, if that's something you had included in your mind map? So now I want you to write about London streets.

You could write one sentence or maybe two or even three sentences using that vocabulary you've already mind mapped from previous lessons.

Remember your success criteria.

Have you included a prepositional opener? Have you included some high level descriptive vocabulary? And have you taken this opportunity to include some historical clues? If you haven't yet met one of the success criteria from your previous couple of sentences, now really focus on any criteria you have not yet met and make sure to meet them in this part of the paragraph if you can, off you go.

Okay everyone, we are now at the final part of our writing task.

We are now going to describe Sherlock's house.

You have got your mind map full of vocabulary from our last vocab lesson about this image.

I have some more prepositional openers here, amidst the chaos of the streets stood a.

and then what adjectives might you use to describe the house? Down a narrow, cobbled alley was a.

Now how would we describe this building? Down a narrow, cobbled alley stood a dilapidated, shabby house.

That was from my mind map from our previous lesson.

How have you described Sherlock's house? As ghostly shadows flickered against the walls, a flame danced in the gas lamp above the door.

So now I've gone in with a little bit more detail.

I've brought my reader's attention to the ghostly shadows and the flame dancing above the door.

Why don't you go into a little bit more detail now.

Once you've introduced the house, pick out specific features of the house to really hook your reader in and want to find out what goes on behind that heavy ancient door.

So now it is your turn to write about Sherlock's house.

When you have paused this video, I want you to have a quick check of your success criteria again.

Keep those three success criteria in mind, your prepositional openers, your descriptive vocab and your historical clues.

And off you go.

Okay everyone, now that we've all written our opening paragraph, that's not as completely finished just yet.

We are now going to spend a couple of moments, just having a quick read of what we've written so far and making sure that we have met our success criteria.

Now is a really good opportunity as well, to check for little mistakes, like forgetting our capital letters and full stops or checking our spellings.

So I'm going to read through my whole paragraph first, then you are going to read through your paragraph that you have written.

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 clattered 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.

Before we go through and check our success criteria really carefully, I would like you to pause this video and just reread your paragraph to make sure you've spelled your words correctly and you've remembered your punctuation like capital letters and full stops.

Pause the video now while do you do that? Okay everyone, so I know we've all just gone through and we've re-read our opening paragraph.

I bet you are so proud of what you've written because I'm sure it is fantastic and I can't wait to read it.

Now, the final step of our lesson is to just double check that we have met our success criteria.

So I would like you to number where you have met your success criteria in your writing.

I don't want you to number every single time you've done something, but I would like you to find one example of each of your success criteria and number it.

So prepositional openers was success criteria number one, and then I've gone through and found one example of a prepositional opener and put the number one beside it.

So behind the grey clouds, as you can see, I put number one beside that, because it's evidence that I've ticked off my prepositional openers.

Then I've gone to number two, descriptive vocabulary.

So I find an adjective I was really proud of.

In fact, it's a whole sentence that I'm really proud of the description I used.

Ghostly shadows flickered as a flame danced in the gas lamp above the door.

I'm really impressed with my ambitious vocabulary choices there, so I have chosen to use that sentence as my example of where I've used descriptive vocabulary.

I have numbered that sentence number two.

And finally, for number three, we've already talked about some of the historical clues I'd included.

So I've just gone to where I wrote market vendors and numbered it with number three, as evidence of where I've included a historical clue for my reader.

I want you now to pause the video so that you can reread your writing and check that you've met your success criteria.

Find one example of each and number where you've met it in your writing.

Here's your checklist, prepositional openers, descriptive vocabulary and historical clues.

Once you've done that, you can press play.

Okay everyone, that brings us to the end of our lesson.

Well done for working so, so hard and I can't wait for our next lesson.

Well done everyone.