Lesson video

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

Today we're going to be editing and improving the section of the buildup that we've written based on "A Kind of Spark" by Elle McNicoll.

So this is your chance to take the great work you've already done and turn it into some really fantastic work.

Let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called self editing, the buildup of "A Kind of Spark," and it comes from a unit called "A Kind of Spark" Narrative Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, you will have edited your own buildup of "A Kind of Spark", aiming to improve the punctuation, text cohesion, and vocabulary.

Now for this lesson, you will need to have with you your first draught of the buildup that you've written over the last two lessons.

And if you haven't completed those lessons, then you'll want to do that first.

If it's normal for you in your classroom, you might want to also have access to a dictionary.

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

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

Cohesive devices are language structures that develop text cohesion.

And text cohesion is how our text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve its text purpose.

And a growth mindset is a desire to keep developing any skillset.

And here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by self editing for punctuation, then we'll move on to cohesion and finally, vocabulary.

So when we finish the draught, as we have done for our buildup, we edit it to improve our work.

So today, we're going to be editing our buildup of "A Kind of Spark," and we're going to be self-editing today, which means you're going to be doing it on your own and not with a partner.

So it's independent work.

And this is our chance to rethink and rephrase and reconsider our first ideas that we put into our first draught.

And remember, every piece of work can always be improved as any professional author will tell you.

And we want to try and approach this editing process with a really positive mindset.

And we can think of it as a growth mindset, and that's where we're really thinking we can improve the skills that we have.

So even if we think we've done a really good piece of work, we can try and improve it and get even better.

So how would you rate your current buildup out of 10, the one you've written in your first draught? And what do you think you could do to get it up to a 10? And remember, that's a 10 for you.

And your 10 might be different to the person next to you.

It might be different to other people in your class, but what could you do to get your piece of writing up to a 10 for you? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you, or have a think on your own.

Well done, good thinking.

So it doesn't matter, does it? What we rated our original buildup.

Our aim in this lesson is to try and get that number higher, to get it closer to where you think your buildup could be your very best work.

So editing our work in order to improve it involves checking several things.

We check our punctuation, we check our sentence structure, and our cohesive devices, and we check the vocabulary and spelling.

And editing is really about polishing our work, isn't it? So it really shows up our skills and shows our very best outcomes.

And sometimes we'll be correcting mistakes, things we got wrong, things we missed, but sometimes we'll be making great work that we've already produced into amazing work.

Maybe it's already good, but we wanna make it even better.

And sometimes we're making amazing work into really amazing work.

So wherever you think you are with your piece of work, we're going to try and work in this lesson to make it even better using our growth mindset.

Set your thoughts.

Editing is for people whose writing is full of mistakes.

Pause the video and decide.

Well done, good job.

Of course, that's false.

So can you justify that? Why is that false? Pause the video and decide.

Good job, well done, it's A.

So even our very good work can be made better, can't it? And we want to make sure we feel like it's our very, very best piece of work.

So that's what we're going to try and do in this lesson.

Well done.

So first, we're going to focus on punctuation.

So let's go through a few different pieces of punctuation and how we know we should use them.

Because remember, we need to try and follow the rules that we've been taught.

So we know that commas can be used to demarcate or show the boundaries of clauses and phrases.

So if we look at this sentence, The tree, which dominated the whole field, loomed over Addie.

We have a relative clause, don't we? Interrupting the main clause there, which dominated the field, and we know it has commas on either side.

Here, we've got suddenly the car stalled, we have a fronted adverbial followed by a comma.

And then here we've got a fronted adverbial clause.

And I started the sentence it says, "As the camera rolled, I tried my best to keep smiling." And when the fronted adverbial clause comes first, we follow it by a comma as we do here.

Now, there are lots of other uses for commas, which I'm sure you know, but those are some we need to remember.

We also know that we can use hyphens to join two words to create compound adjectives.

So if we look at this one, we have Keedie sat in the too-bright lecture hall on a too-small chair.

So we've got there too-bright and too-small as compound adjectives created by using a hyphen.

So you might spot one where you've missed a hyphen in your work.

We also know we can use dashes for dramatic effect.

Like in this example, Mr. Patterson spoke excitedly, almost joyfully about the gruesome events.

So there, those words, almost joyfully, could be removed from that sentence, but we've added them in for dramatic effect, and they kind of emphasise what came before.

The fact that he spoke excitedly, we've almost repeated that idea in a slightly different way to add dramatic effect.

And we have a dash of either side of that piece of information we've dropped into the sentence.

So those are some rules we need to remember.

Now, you might have noticed the examples I've used in this slide are not related to what you wrote in your buildup.

I've tried to use different examples from different parts of the text in this lesson, but you are going to be still editing the writing you did in the previous lessons.

Now of course, another piece of punctuation we need is a semicolon.

And as you know, a semicolon can be used to join what would be two complete sentences into one sentence, and they can also be used between detailed items in a list that follows a column.

Let's look at both types.

Here we've got Emily spotted Addie in the corner of the bookshop; instantly she gasped and dashed out of the door.

There we've got what could be two complete sentences, which are closely related, joined together with that semicolon.

Now here's one with a list.

Everything in the library was better: The wide open space, the calm hushed voices, and kind, gentle Mr. Allison.

Notice how each item in that list already has a comma inside it.

Wide, open, calm, hushed, kind, gentle.

So we couldn't separate the items in the list using commas.

So we've used semicolon instead to separate those items in a list.

And notice unlike when we use commas, we do have a semicolon before the and at the end of the list.

We can also use a colon.

Now we've seen one use of the colon there to introduce a list.

And we know that colons can be used to introduce a list as we've seen, or a question or an explanation.

Here's one that introduces an explanation.

She wiped her tear-stained face with a crumpled tissue: her eyes were red and sore from crying.

So what comes after the colon explains why she's wiping her face with the tissue.

The colon introduces the explanation.

What comes on either side of the colon could be a complete sentence.

We've just connected them together with that colon.

Here's one for a question.

One question kept returning to Addie's mind: why did no one seem to see these women as real people? Again, what's on either side of the colon could be a sentence on its own.

We've connected them together using the colon.

So maybe you need to add one into your writing as well.

Now we know that inverted commas are vital for showing direct speech, and we know we can use them in a range of ways.

Here's one example where the reporting clause, where we say who's speaking, interrupt the direct speech, it says, "Keedie will be okay", Nina whispered, "but she needs some rest." Notice how we have a comma at the end of the first piece of direct speech after okay, and a comma here after the reporting clause, after whispered.

And notice how the second piece of direct speech, because it's been interrupted, doesn't have a capital letter, but we always need some punctuation before we close our final inverted commas at the end of the direct speech.

Here's a more simple example where we've got the speech first.

"She needs to rest," said Nina quietly.

And again, we always need some punctuation before that closing inverted coma.

And here I've gone for a comma because I'm not asking a question and I'm not showing a strong emotion as it would do with an exclamation mark.

Here's an example whether reporting clause comes first and the speech comes second.

Ms. Murphy bellowed, "Am I making myself understood?" Here the direct speech answer with a question because Ms. Murphy is asking a question, and here the reporting clause is followed by a comma.

So we have to remember the different rules for the different ways of writing direct speech.

Finally, remember that apostrophes can be used to show both possession and contraction.

And they come up a lot in our writing, particularly perhaps in our internal monologue sections of this text.

Here's one that's used for possession in the third person.

Ms. Murphy held up Addie's work as she looked at it scornfully.

The work belongs to Addie.

Addie doesn't already end in S.

So we have to add apostrophe S to show the possession.

There's nothing that matter is a contraction, isn't it? Here we've got there is contracted to theirs because Keedie is speaking.

So she's using informal language because she's talking out loud as we normally would.

So let's look out for both those ways of using apostrophes in our writing.

So let's practise.

Can you add the missing punctuation to each of these sentences? And remember there might be different options that work.

There's not always only one way of punctuating a sentence.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good thinking.

So the first one, we need to add in some punctuation, don't we? Because Nina is talking here.

It said Nina.

So we've got some speech interrupted again, we could write like this.

I've opened my inverted commas and then I've closed 'em after the first piece of speech.

But I've used a comma before that.

Then I've got a comma after my reporting clause.

I've opened the the speech again using inverted commas, and I've got a full stop at the end.

For the second example we've got all those starting in adverbial complex sentence.

So we need to have a comma after the adverbial clause, it would go here and then I'd put a colon at the end here, although she looked confused, the woman in the office was helpful: And then I'm explaining in what way was she helpful? Well, she directed Addie to Keedie's lecture hall.

So that's a good way of using a colon.

Now I could have used a full stop there and that would've been fine too, but you might want to push yourself to try and use a colon where it's appropriate.

And then see there's lots of places we could add some punctuation here.

Tear-stained could be a compound adjective, couldn't it? So we could put hyphen there.

And then if you look at the second part of the sentence, it says Keedie had been arguing, really arguing before she walked in.

Do you notice how there we are restating something for dramatic effect, really arguing.

So I think we wanna put that in dashes.

And we could also connect these two sentences using a semicolon to show they're closely related.

The first one is talking about Nina's tear-stained face.

And the second one is talking about what that tear-stained face relates to the argument she's been having with Keedie.

So that's a good way of using a semicolon.

And we've got a hyphen and dashes there as well.

Really well done.

If you spotted some of those places, her punctuation could be added.

So let's have a look at whole passage now from a different part of the text.

Can you discuss with a partner where you can see punctuation mistakes in this passage? Where do you think punctuation needs to be added? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good effort.

So I'm going to show you some places where the punctuation could be added, and we'll discuss later which punctuation is needed in each place.

So maybe you spotted there's something needed after quiet here and around who is the school librarian? Maybe spotted, we need something before he here, after broodly and between leather and bound.

We need something before I'm here and something inside it's there.

We need something around so much quieter and we need something before the in the tension.

So hopefully you spotted loads of those places where punctuation could be added, and we'll look later at what punctuation we might need in each particular case.

Really well done.

So let's do our first task of this lesson.

We're going to edit our narrative looking only at punctuation.

So here's how we'll do it.

I want you to whisper your narrative aloud to yourself using a ruler to follow the lines carefully, to make sure you don't miss a single one.

And as you go, you might want to say the punctuation that you see.

For instance, you might say out loud coma, colon and so on.

And looking only at the punctuation, I want to make any additions or any changes that you need to make in your work following the rules we've discussed and any others that you've learned during this year.

And remember, varying our punctuation is another way of engaging our reader.

Just like we'd use a variety of language and a variety of sentence structures, we can use a variety of punctuation to keep our reader excited.

So you might already have a piece of punctuation that is perfectly good, but you might want to add another piece or vary your punctuation or change a piece of punctuation to add a bit of variety, really making sure though you are not making something less clear or more confusing for your reader.

We need to keep following the rules, but making sure we've got some variety in our punctuation as well.

So pause the video and see if you can edit your work for punctuation.

Really good job, well done.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made to the punctuation of that paragraph we looked at before.

So I've got a comma to separate, quiet and calm.

I've got commas around the relative clause who are the school librarian, and I've used a semicolon to connect those sentences.

I've got a hyphen to make the compound adjective leather bound.

And I fixed my speech punctuation here for my direct speech to make sure I've got a full stop after he beams. And then I've opened my direct speech again there.

I've got an apostrophe for contraction and its, and I've got dashes around so much quieter.

And finally, I have a colon to introduce the explanation.

The tension is leaving my body as well.

Really well done for the changes you made to your punctuation.

I'm sure you didn't make as many as I did there, but hopefully you've managed to add some variety or just to make sure that every piece of punctuation follows the rules that you've been taught.

Really well done.

So we've edited our work for punctuation.

Now let's edit it for cohesion.

So what is cohesion? Well, having good text cohesion means making sure that ideas are connected appropriately and our text flows well.

So when we edit our work, we can check for this cohesion in a few different ways.

First of all, we need to check, have we used a range of cohesive devices? And by that we just mean the language features that help us to connect ideas together.

For instance, fronted adverbials, which connect two different sentences together, compounded and complex sentences which connect ideas within sentences.

Colons that introduce explanations, questions and lists as we've discussed.

Semicolons that link sentences together to show that they're closely related.

And there are many more of these cohesive devices that we can use.

Any feature that helps us to show the relationship between ideas or pieces of information, adds to our text cohesion.

So those are just a few of the examples that we can use.

So here's a passage which has good text cohesion.

What cohesive devices do you notice in this passage? Pause the video and have a look.

Well done, good job.

So hopefully spotted.

We've got a colon there to introduce an explanation which shows the reason why Addie is rushing to the library.

Then we've got a non-finite ING clause starting with pushing, pushing open the door.

And that helps us to connect two actions together.

Pushing open the door is connected to she paced towards the desk.

And then we've got a semicolon to connect to close related sentences.

We've got pushing open the door, she paced towards the desk; Mr. Allison smiled down at her happily.

And that shows those actions are close related and happening rapidly.

Really well done if you spotted those cohesive devices that add to the cohesion of this passage.

Now we also need to consider some other aspects of test cohesion as we edit.

For instance, have we added in any missing words? And have we removed any words that we don't need any extra ones? Also, does our writing make sense? That's the most important thing of all, isn't it? Is it clear what we meant? And part of that is have we used the correct tense throughout each paragraph? Remember, we are switching perspective and switching tense during our buildup.

So we have to watch out for that carefully.

Now if we just read in our heads, we sometimes miss things like that.

So reading aloud, if your teacher is happy for you to do it is a much better way of spotting mistakes like this.

So here's an example.

I've written I rush the library.

I was desperate to find out more.

Can you spot a mistake there? Maybe you've seen that one of those verbs in the wrong tense.

I've done a good job in keeping I.

I'm still in the first person, but the tense has changed.

I've gone from rush towards, so I need to change it like this.

I rush to the library.

I am desperate to find out more to keep both of those in the present tense.

Now we're gonna have to check for that really carefully in our writing because we've been switching a lot between different tenses and perspectives.

So watch out for that as you edit.

So can you try and improve the text cohesion of each of these passages by checking for the things we discussed? It might be missing words, it might be changes in tense and person that we don't need.

Or maybe they're just ideas which could be better connected together.

We might all have different answers for this.

That's okay.

But what changes would you make to these passages to improve the test cohesion? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So for the first one, we've got three short separate sentences.

We could combine them, couldn't we? To increase the text cohesion like this?.

I could say as Keedie is walking behind me, I pretend to be a witch casting spells on her.

So now I've got an adverbial complex sentence starting with as.

And I've linked up to make it also a non-finite ING complex sentence because I've got casting starting my non-finite ING clause there.

For B, we've got Addie thought about Maggie.

Maggie is admitted to something she has not done.

Maggie is admitted.

Doesn't sound right, does it? So we could change it like this.

Addie thought about Maggie who had admitted to something she had not done.

So I've improved the cohesion by connecting the ideas using a relative clause here, but have also had to change the tense of that verb.

For C, we've got dad called Nina down for tea.

I heard her stop filming.

She comes down the stairs.

Again, I think we've got the tense of it muddled there, haven't we? Let's see how we can change it.

I could say dad called Nina down for tea; I heard her stop filming and she came down the stairs.

So we've used the correct tense came, and then we've connected the ideas together a bit better using our semicolon and to make a compound sentence to make the cohesion and flow much better.

So that's the kind of changes we might be looking to make as we edit.

So have a look at this passage and discuss with a partner where you can improve the cohesion within it.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So hopefully you spotted out there are some verbs and the wrong tense that need to be fixed.

There are pairs of separate sentences that could be connected into individual sentences to show the relationships between other ideas as we saw in the previous examples.

And there is a missing word as well.

So these are the kind of things we want to look out for as we're checking our own work.

First, do our second task for the session.

We're going to edit for text cohesion.

So just like we did before, I want to whisper your narrative aloud to yourself, using a ruler to follow the lines.

And this time looking only at text cohesion, I want you to make any changes that are needed.

If you want to rewrite a whole sentence, you could do this below your work and use a star to show where it should go.

And I want to check of course that you've used a wide range of cohesive devices.

So looking for missing words, looking for missing cohesive devices and above all looking for sense.

Does it make sense? And part of that, of course is have you use the right tense and the right person for the part of the text that we're writing.

Pause the video and do your check for text cohesion.

Well done, really good job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made to improve the text cohesion of the paragraph we saw earlier.

Here's the paragraph as it was.

Maybe we could change it like this.

I've written when I get inside the university building, that's my missing word, I realise I've changed the tense.

It's much bigger than I remember.

Noticing a sign that says "Administrative Office", I head, check the tense again, towards it.

Although the woman inside is confused, she is helpful.

So if we look at that last sentence, we've taken two separate ideas and combined them using although to show that they contrast with one another.

And that's what we mean by improving text cohesion.

We're showing the way ideas relate to each other.

And of course we also spoke to some areas in our tense, which we have to correct.

Really well done with your effort in checking your text cohesion.

So now we're going to edit for vocabulary.

Now, when the editing for vocabulary, we want to make sure we're choosing engaging and appropriate language that fits to the part of the text that we're writing.

And remember, we are writing from two different perspectives.

We have a third person perspective describing an event and a first person perspective that shows Addie's internal monologue.

So how might our language and for vocabulary choices be different in these two different perspectives? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, you're right.

Our third person paragraphs might be a bit more formal and a bit more descriptive than our first person paragraphs.

And we need to consider this when we're editing to make sure that our language choices, our vocabulary choices match to the type of paragraph we're writing.

Is it a third person or an internal monologue paragraph? And is our vocabulary appropriate to each of those? So here's an example of a third person paragraph that has that engaging descriptive vocabulary that we'd expect.

With a flourish, Mr. Macintosh drew back a crimson, velvet curtain to reveal a small, brass plaque; on its surface, a methods have been carefully etched.

We can see we've got interesting nouns and verbs like surface is noun and reveal and etched verbs.

We can see we've got specific adjectives that we've chosen like crimson and brass, and we can see adverbs and fronted adverbial with a flourish and carefully.

And all of these help to create that detailed image for our reader of the scene we describing.

And that's what we'd expect if we're writing in the third person.

So which version below uses the most appropriate vocabulary for a third person description of an event, pause video and decide.

Well done.

Hopefully you spoke to the A and C.

This one has much more descriptive vocabulary.

It's much more formal and it's giving us a better picture of the event we're describing.

And that's what we're aiming for in our third person writing.

Now, when we write from the first person perspective in our internal monologue, we know we might use slightly more informal language.

So let's look at this example.

I see Nina sitting at the table in tears.

What's going on? Has something happened? I rushed towards her, hoping it's not too late for me to help.

Now it's still really good writing, but it's slightly more informal.

So we can see contractions like it's and what's, and we've used simpler language, which has fewer adjectives and adverbs.

We can still use them, but we might use fewer than in our third person paragraphs.

And we're being less descriptive, aren't we? Because we're focusing more on Addie's thoughts and feelings, which is appropriate because we're writing internal monologue, which is the thoughts that are going on inside her head at that moment.

So this helps our reader to develop that really clear idea of what's going on in Addie's head.

And remember, they've already seen a description of the event because this is coming after our third person paragraph.

So they don't need another description of what's happened.

What they want to know in this paragraph is what does Addie feel and think about it.

So internal monologue will have a more informal tone, more informal vocabulary that reflects that purpose.

So what vocabulary choices in this piece of internal monologue help to show that it's more informal? Pause video and have a think.

well done, good thinking.

So maybe spotted, we've got some contractions like it's, somethings and she's.

We've got simple language, like really not.

And we've got an informal sentence opener there.

We're starting a sentence with but which we wouldn't usually do in the third person.

And we've got no description here, have we? Of people and places we are just telling the reader, Addie's internal thoughts, which is appropriate for the type of writing we're doing.

Really well done for spotting this.

So let's do our final task assessment.

We're going to edit our narrative looking only at vocabulary.

So again, whisper your narrative aloud using your ruler.

And this time looking only at vocabulary, we're gonna make any changes that are needed focusing on these features.

We need to make sure we've got descriptive language and details in our third person sections and informal language in our internal monologue.

Of course, if you want to change a word, you can cross it out with a ruler and write it above.

And if it's what you'd normally do in class, you can use a dictionary to check any spellings that you are unsure of.

So pause the video here and have a go at checking your text for vocabulary this time.

Well done, really good job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made to a third person passage to add some descriptive detail.

Here's how it was to start with for me.

When Addie came in from school, dad was cooking pasta on the stovetop.

He threw a piece onto the ceiling to see if it was cooked.

That's good writing, but it's not very descriptive.

Let's see how I could edit it to improve it.

I could write this.

When Addie trudged through the door, I've used trudged as a more powerful verb.

Dad was stood at the stove, stirring a bubbling pot of nearly cooked pasta.

I've given more detail about what he's cooking.

With a grin towards Addie.

I've described dad's actions.

He threw a single, slippery piece.

I've described the pasta.

Onto the ceiling to check if it was ready.

So I've just added some extra descriptive detail that gives my reader a better picture of what's going on in this scenario.

Really well done for the changes you made in the same way.

So we've now edited our work for punctuation, cohesion, and vocabulary.

So hopefully that piece of work that started off maybe a little bit below 10, you've pushed your number up towards 10 by making some changes and some improvements.

Really well done.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that editing is an essential part of the writing process during which we refine and improve our ideas.

We know that we can check that punctuation has been used correctly following the rules that we've been taught.

We know we can check the cohesion by looking at the sentence structures we've used and connecting ideas more closely where needed with different cohesive devices.

And we know that we can check our vocabulary to ensure it's appropriate to each part of the text we're writing.

I hope you're really pleased with the changes you've made today and with the finished piece of writing that you've now produced.

Really well done.

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

Goodbye.