Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and it's so good so see you here for today's lesson.

Today we're going to take the next step towards doing some fantastic writing in this unit by looking at a really important writing skill, being able to switch perspectives while we write.

I think you'll find this really useful, so let's get to work.

Today's lesson is called, Adopting different perspectives, and it comes from our unit called, "A Kind of Spark:" narrative writing.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to switch between third person and first person perspectives in writing and use a range of techniques to write a detailed internal monologue.

For this lesson, you may want to have access to the 2020 Knights Of edition of "A Kind of Spark," written by Elle McNicoll and Illustrated by Kay Wilson.

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

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by looking at how we can switch perspectives and writing, and then we'll move on to writing an internal monologue.

Now, the perspective of a piece of writing is the voice in which it's written.

So, through whose eyes are we seeing the action? Lots of narratives are written from a third person perspective, and that's the he/she/it or they perspective, and we're saying what other people are doing.

So for instance, "Nina turned on her camera: it was time for her to film a video." "The other children just stood and watched as Addie's book was destroyed." Here, we're not saying that we're involved in the scene.

We're saying what Nina's doing, what the children are doing, but we're not referring to ourselves, and that's what makes this a third person perspective.

But at other times we include ourselves in the action we're describing in a narrative, and that's the first person perspective.

And when we write in the first person, we often use the pronouns, I and we, and we'll still be commenting on what other people are doing, but we do it from our perspective in the I position.

So, for instance, "As I look up, I see Nina entering the room.

Her expression is full of worry.

My eyes widen as Keedie follows her in, looking fierce." So notice that not every sentence here is about me or Addie, in this case.

For instance, we've got the sense that "Her expression is full of worry," which is about Nina.

But the passage as a whole, is from my perspective, Addie's perspective, in this case.

We are saying, as Addie, what we see happen.

So when we decide whether a piece of writing is from the first person perspective or a third person perspective, we have to look at it as a whole and see whose perspective is this written from.

Because even a first person writing will contain sentences which are written about other people, such as, "Her expression is full of worry." So you've got to look carefully at the whole passage.

So let's test that.

Is each of these passages written in a first person or a third person perspective? Pause the video and see if you can work it out.

Well done, good job.

So, A, we've written, "Maybe she's right.

Maybe I am violent.

Maybe I don't belong at this school.

." We've got the first person there, we're writing from our perspective.

B says, "With a malevolent glint in her eye, Emily turned to face Addie, holding the remainder of the thesaurus." We've not included ourself in this at all, that's the third person perspective.

And C says, "Miss Murphy turned to face me with a look of pure loathing.

'You're a nasty piece of work,' she snarled." So because we use, me, there, that tells us this is from the first person perspective.

But remember as we said in the first person perspective, we're still able to say what other people are doing.

It's just written from our perspective as the I character in the narrative.

So how can you tell that this passage is written from a first person perspective? Pause the video and see if you can explain.

Well done, really good job.

Now, you might have spotted that only that word, me, that indicates to us that this is written from a first person perspective, and that comes right towards the end of the paragraph, doesn't it? And that word, me, tells us that all the events that have been described before that in this passage, are written from my perspective, Addie's perspective in this case.

So we have to look out for these clue words to tell us whose perspective it's being written from.

Really well done, if you spotted that word.

So within a piece of writing, we can actually switch perspectives between first person and third person.

So, for example, we could do it like this: "Addie watched as Mr. Macintosh unveiled the plaque.

He made a long, self-congratulatory speech, giving the distinct impression that it had been his idea all along." And then I've switched perspective to the first person.

"It doesn't matter.

I don't care who gets the credit as long as Maggie and Jean and Mary and all the others have their memorial.

As I look at the plaque and read it's ornate inscription, it's them I think of.

." So we've got one passage, or paragraph here, describing the events of the plaque being unveiled from a third person perspective.

I know, because it says Addie, and not me or I.

And then in this passage we've got Addie's views from a first person perspective using I, so we've switched perspective between these paragraphs.

So what might be the advantage of as we just saw, including both third person and first person perspectives in our writing? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done and good thinking.

So first of all, using that third person perspective allows us to describe events in detail as they happen to different people.

For instance, it lets us say things that happen to different characters from a kind of unbiased point of view.

This happened to Addie and this happened to Miss.

Murphy and we're not really taking a side, because we are just commenting or describing what's happened.

And then that third person perspective allows us to tell the reader a really wide range of information, maybe more than a first person perspective, because the first person perspective only tells us one character's point of view or one character's experience.

But on the other hand, using the first person allows us to really get deep into a particular character's views or thoughts about an event, including maybe even their inner thoughts that they don't say out loud and their really deep feelings.

And that helps us to really engage with one character really deeply.

So there are advantages to both third person and first person writing, and by switching perspective between them, maybe we can get the best out of both worlds.

So what other changes has been made between these two passages that we read earlier, and why might we be doing this? Pause the video and have a think.

Really good job, well done.

So you might have noticed that the first passage here is in the past tense, and the second one is in the present tense.

We've said in the first one, "Addie watched," past tense.

And the second one, "It doesn't matter," present tense.

So, why might we do that? Well, using the present tense in this first person paragraph helps us to show what that person is feeling right now in the very moment that they're speaking.

And that really helps us, and our reader, to empathise with their feelings, to know really deeply what are they feeling at this precise moment right now.

So we've switched both perspective from third person to first person and tense from past tense to present tense.

So we've seen that we can switch both perspective and tense in our passages.

So let's imagine what we want to write about the moment when Miss Murphy tears up Addie's work right at the start of Chapter 1 of the book.

So we could begin by describing what happens in the past tense from a third person perspective.

We could say things like, "Miss Murphy snatched Addie's work from her desk and held it in front of her." So I've described it from a third person perspective.

I haven't said, I, I've said Addie.

And then I could switch to describing Addie's thoughts in the present tense from a first person perspective in that precise same moment.

For instance, "I feel like I can hardly breathe." So, there in the first person, we're saying Addie's internal thoughts as this event unfolds.

So at which point in this passage does the switch occur from third person, past tense to first person, present tense? Read the passage carefully and see if you can decide where the switch takes place.

Well done, good job.

So, in reality, if we were writing, we would show the switch, wouldn't we, with a new paragraph, and it would come here.

So we can see we've got a third person past, tense paragraph, and then we've got a new paragraph which is in the first person and in the present tense.

So we've got both the third person and the first person perspective, and we've got that first person perspective in the present tense to show these are Addie's thoughts right now in this moment.

Really well done, if you spotted that switch in perspective and in tense as well, good job.

So let's do our first task in this lesson, we're gonna do a very short writing task.

We just saw two short paragraphs describing the same scene from two different perspectives.

I want you to take that same scene and write your own version using your own ideas, showing that switch in perspective.

So I want you to begin with a short paragraph in the past tense from a third person perspective.

And as you write that, try and use all the sentence types and description you'd normally use when you're writing a paragraph of a story.

And then, write a short paragraph to describe Addie's thoughts in the present tense from a first person perspective.

And there you're going to focus on Addie's feelings and thoughts and questions, like you saw in the example before.

Now this won't be your very best writing, because we're doing it cold.

We're coming in without having planned and without having spent lots of time generating vocabulary.

So your focus here is on the switch in perspective and the switch in tense.

Don't worry if it's not your very best quality and sense of types of variety of vocabulary, let's focus on the switch most of all.

So pause the video, and see if you can write those two short paragraphs, switching from third person, past tense to first person, present tense.

Have a go.

Well done, really good job.

Here's an example of the paragraphs you might have written.

I've started off with my third person, past tense paragraph.

"As Miss Murphy held Addie's work in front of her face, she scowled, rolling her eyes.

'Addie,' she began with a sarcastic chuckle, 'what on earth is this?' All around her, children giggled nervously.

Holding the story in front of her, Miss Murphy looks directly at Addie; then, she ripped it in two.

A few children gasped in shock." And now I'm switching to the first person, present tense.

"Just like that, my story is gone.

All the characters and all their adventures have just disappeared.

I hear the sound of the paper tearing, ringing in my ears, and I feel the eyes of every child in the room on me.

I wish the ground would swallow me up.

I want to be anywhere but here." So, notice how we've got one to two present tense, whereas in the previous paragraph, we said things like, "She ripped," past tense.

And we've gone from describing Addie in the third person using her name to using, I, to show this is now Addie's thoughts in the moment with the present tense showing us this is what she's thinking right now.

So hopefully you're starting to see how this can be a really useful technique to switch in and out of the character's perspective to see what different viewpoints are on these events.

Very well done for managing that switch really well.

So now we're going to move on to try to write an internal monologue.

Now as you will have seen in the example we just looked at and hopefully in your own writing, when we're writing from a past tenses, third person perspective, we use a normal range of language features that we've learned across the year in school.

So, for instance, if I look at this paragraph, which I've just shown you, we can see an adverbial complex sentence starting with, as, as a subordinated conjunction.

We can see non-finite -ing complex sentences where we've got -ing verbs, rolling and holding, starting a non-finite -ing clause.

We can see fronted adverbials of place, like, all around her, and we can see a semicolon here to connect to closely related sentences together.

So we've got a normal range of language features that we know.

So, let's see if you can find those language features.

I've done a similar paragraph here.

What language features can you spot in this paragraph? Pause the video and see what we can find.

Well done, good job.

Maybe you spotted a compound sentence here using, and.

Maybe you saw another non-finite -ing complex sentence, first of all using, crumpling, and then using, checking, as our -ing verbs.

Maybe you saw another fronted adverbial of place, all around Addie.

And finally, maybe a colon to introduce an explanation here.

So again, a wide range of language features being used as we'd hoped to include in all our writing.

Now, in our present tense, first person paragraph, we can do all of those things as well, but we're going to use internal monologue to show Addie's thoughts.

An internal monologue is the inner voice of a character.

So it's the thoughts they're having and not saying out loud, it's internal, because it's inside their head.

So not all first person writing is an internal monologue.

In an internal monologue, we're really focusing on the internal thoughts of the character.

And that means that it can sound like a stream of consciousness, like a stream of thoughts just coming and coming and coming, which can be complicated, and they will be private thoughts, because we're not showing them outside, we're not speaking them out loud.

And in some first person writing, we're not doing that.

Instead, we're just recounting, or retelling, or describing events that are happening or that have happened.

So there is a difference between first person writing and then within first person writing, we might see internal monologue, which is about the internal thoughts and the stream of thoughts that we're having in the precise moment.

So let's unpack that difference further: Here's an example of an internal monologue: "I want to reach up and just grab it! Grab my story from her hands.

I know I can't.

I mustn't.

Could I even do it? I'm hot, shaking.

fire in my eyes!" So, can you hear this sounds like, the complicated stream of thoughts in my head.

It's coming quite rapidly, isn't it? We've got quite short sentences even there.

I'm even interrupting my own thoughts, which is what we do when we think.

Here's an example of first person writing that is not an internal monologue.

So, for example, "Miss Murphy picks up my work and she holds it in front of her.

She rips it in two, crumpling the pieces and throwing them away." I can tell by that word, my, that this is first person writing, but here it sounds more like a recount, a retelling, of what's happening right now to me as the character, but it's not telling my internal thoughts about that moment.

So can you see the difference between a first person piece of writing and then a type of first person writing, which is internal monologue? So, what suggests to us that this is a piece of internal monologue? Pause the video and have a look.

Well done, good job.

So hopefully you spotted that this isn't really describing events, is it? It's Addie's internal thoughts, her internal response to what was described in a previous third person paragraph, in that paragraph where Miss Murphy ripped up the work.

And we can see examples of things she feels and hears and thinks as she reacts to what's happening around her.

But again, it's a stream of consciousness, it's a stream of thoughts that's going on through her head in quite a complicated and rapid way, and that's what's making it an internal monologue instead of just normal first person perspective writing.

Really well done if you spotted that difference.

So there are a few different techniques we can try and include in an internal monologue to make it really successful, to make it sound right.

So, we might start off by doing some repetition of words and phrases.

For instance, "I feel like I'm floating.

Away from Miss Murphy.

Away from Jenna.

Away from all these noises and voices!" I've repeated, away.

I could use informal sentence openers, words we don't usually put at the start of sentences.

For instance, "I want to speak.

But I don't have the words.

And anyway, she'd never listen." So, in our thoughts, we are sometimes much more informal than in our writing.

Now of course there is a twist here, because we are writing down what we are saying is thoughts.

So you've got to bear that in mind.

But we're trying to make it sound like these are just things which we were thinking.

So using informal sentence openers, like, but, and, and here, is a great way of doing that, because that's much more like we would think rather than we would write formally, and that's what we're trying to show, our inner thoughts.

Another technique would be contractions and ellipsis.

So you can see that here: "I look away, hoping my tears can't be seen.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

." So, we've got some repetition there again, haven't we? We've got the ellipsis there to show thoughts kind of fading out, which is something we do do when we think, our thoughts aren't always completed, so it's like, the thought has trailed off and then contractions like, can't, and I'm, are showing that we're being informal again, because these are our inner thoughts.

and we can also use rhetorical questions: "Why does she always do this?" "Why does she pick on me and just me?" "Why, why, why?" So, using these questions makes sense in an internal monologue, because we often ask ourselves questions in our thoughts, so that makes it sound really authentic too.

But as we said before, we can still, when we're writing internal monologue, use some of our normal sentence types and language features, but using these features I've just shown you, helps to make it slightly more authentic and sound slightly more like real thoughts that might be whirring through our head very rapidly.

So, which of these techniques can you see used in this passage of internal monologue? Pause the video and see if you can spot them.

Well done, a really good job.

So hopefully you spotted some repetition.

We've got, and, repeated here, haven't we? Maggie and Jean and Mary and all the others.

We've got some contractions like, don't.

We've got ellipsis here showing a trailing off of a thought.

We've got informal sentence openers like, and, and we've got a rhetorical question at the end here too.

All of these help to give us that informal tone, which is appropriate when we're writing down what we are saying is someone's internal thoughts, their internal monologue.

Really well done for spotting this.

Now, we often also include details about senses in an internal monologue, because that makes the reader really feel that they're immersed in our feelings, our perception, our view, of what's going on around us.

And that's particularly important when we're in role as Addie, because we know that she can feel overwhelmed by her senses at times, particularly in school.

So here's some examples of how I could do that in an internal monologue.

We could say, "The lights above me are too bright and they seem to be flickering rapidly." I've used the first person and the present tense there to show this is happening to me right now.

I could say, "It feels as if the walls are closing in around me, squeezing my lungs." I could say, "The noise of whispering seems deafening in my ears." I could say, "I want to speak, but my mouth is dry and my lips seems stuck shut." And finally I could say, "My heart is racing and my palms are slick with sweat." So all of these are showing feelings and senses from Addie's perspective in the moment, and they're appropriate to use in an internal monologue to really help immerse our reader in Addie's perspective, Addie's feelings, Addie's sensations in this moment.

So let's see if we can apply all these ideas now to a different scene in the story.

And this time we're going to focus on the moment when Addie's on that school trip, which comes up in Chapter 7.

And here, we see Addie feeling really overwhelmed by the thought of what happened to the witches here, at the tree where some of them were hung.

So, I'm gonna show you a past tense, third person paragraph to describe that scene.

It could go like this: "Mr. Patterson gestured up at the old, gnarled tree in the middle of the field.

'And it's here that the women were tortured and hanged,' he declared.

His eyes were shining and the children were giddy with excitement." We're now going to think of a short piece of internal monologue for Addie at this moment.

Now you might want to stop here and reread Chapter 7 to help you remember what Addie was thinking.

So, if you like, pause the video here, find Chapter 7, and reread it now.

So, based on what you've read in Chapter 7 and your knowledge of Addie at this point in the story, can you think of any examples of each technique you could include in your internal monologue at this point when Mr. Patterson's getting very excited about this tree, but we know Addie's reaction is much more negative.

So, for each of these techniques, can you think of an example for this point in the story.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done and great thinking.

So, here's some examples you might come up with.

Maybe for repetition, you've thought of something like this: "I can't stop thinking about the women who are killed here.

Killed for just being different.

Killed by their neighbours." So I've repeated killed there, a really negative word, which makes sense in the context of what Addie might be thinking in that moment.

For my openers, I might have said this: "Everyone else seems to think it's an exciting story.

But it was real.

And real people died." So using but, and, and, there, so short, informal sentences, make sense for an internal thought.

For my contractions and ellipsis, I came up with this: "I'm looking up at the tree and I can't stop seeing their faces.

their scared, confused faces.

." So again, that's also repetition, isn't it? But I can see contractions there, I'm and can't, and the ellipsis, to show interrupted or trailing of thoughts.

And for my rhetorical questions, "Why does no one seem to realise these women were real people? Why is Mr. Patterson grinning as he speaks?" So again, these are gonna be thoughts Addie's having in this moment as she watches Mr. Patterson, based on what we wrote in our third person paragraph that you just saw.

Really well done for your ideas there, great work.

So, what other ideas can you think of to show Addie's senses at this moment in an internal monologue? So using some of our senses, we don't need to use all of them.

What senses could we use at this point in the story, and how could we write them as an internal monologue? Pause the video, and see if you can come up with any ideas for how Addie's senses might be feeling as she stands in the field, listening to Mr. Patterson.

Have a go.

Well done, great job.

Maybe you came up with some ideas like these ones.

I started off with my hearing sense.

I've said, "Mr. Patterson's voice seems to fill the whole field, rattling my brain." Notice my present tense, seems and rattling.

Then I've said, "The tree seems to loom above me, vast and dark, far beyond its size." So I've used my seeing sense there.

Then I've got almost a touching sense.

Not quite, but you'll see what I mean.

I've written, "Tortured.

The word presses down on my lungs like a heavy weight." Now a word can't really press down, can it? You might have noticed that it's personification, well done.

But we've got a sensation here that we're feeling, it feels as if this word is doing that pressing.

And finally, I'm describing what my body's doing.

I've said, "I'm breathing hard, my heart is racing." So again, it's almost a sensation, isn't it? So I've used not all of my senses there.

I didn't use smelling, I didn't use tasting, because they weren't really appropriate for this part of the story.

But hopefully you came up with some good ideas for what Addie's senses might be in these moments.

Great work.

Let's do our final task for this session.

We're gonna put all of these ideas together to write a piece of internal monologue for Addie at this moment when she's seeing Mr. Patterson talk about this tree.

So remember, you're gonna choose the present tense and the first person, and you're going to try and show what Addie's thoughts and feelings in this moment are.

And you can use a range of the techniques we've discussed, like repetition, contractions and ellipsis, rhetorical questions, and those informal sentence openers.

And you also want to try and give some details about Addie's senses, showing that she feels overwhelmed by them in this moment? This won't be a long piece of writing, but try and write a few sentences to show the internal monologue for Addie in this moment, using some of these techniques.

Pause the video and have a try.

Fantastic work, well done.

Here's an example.

I've written: "I feel my hands trembling violently; I just can't keep them still.

How is everyone else listening so calmly? Don't they realise he's talking about real people? The word 'tortured' rings in my ears over and over like the beat of a drum.

But Mr. Patterson seems excited.

Excited by the thought of all this history.

But it's not just history; it's real life.

My chest feels heavy and I realise I'm panting for breath.

." So you've probably spotted, I've used first person and present tense all the way through there.

I'm sure you've done the same.

I've also got my senses, I'm trembling violently.

I've got a repetition of excited, Mr. Patterson seems excited.

Full stop.

Excited by this.

I've got ellipsis at the end there, to show trailing off of my thoughts.

I've got my contraction, don't, I've got a rhetorical question here, and I've got my informal sentence openers, like, but, to start this sentence here.

So I've used a range of those techniques to try and show authentic ideas for someone's thoughts in the moment.

And it's a stream of consciousness, because the thoughts are coming thick and fast, and we're trying to write down what those thoughts might really sound like.

Really well done for your great ideas here.

So let's recap our learning in this lesson.

We've said that when we write narratives, we often use a third person perspective to describe events, but we can also switch to a first person perspective in order to engage our reader with a particular character's experiences.

And one way of showing the first person perspective is to use internal monologue to show their inner thoughts.

And we've said that the internal monologue might include repetition, rhetorical questions, contractions, informal openers, and those sensory details as well.

Fantastic work on this lesson, you've done a really good job, and I hope you're gonna find this really useful going forward in this unit.

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

Goodbye.