Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today, we're going to continue reading Elle McNicoll's brilliant book, "A Kind of Spark", and we'll find out what Addie is inspired to do after learning about the Scottish witch trails.

I'm sure you're really keen to read on, just like me, so let's get going.

Today's lesson is called Inferring Characters' Thoughts and Motives, and it comes from our unit called "A Kind of Spark": Reading.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to infer characters' thoughts and motives based on their actions and the words they say.

Now, for this lesson, you're going to need to have access to the 2020 Knights Of edition of "A Kind of Spark", written by Elle McNicoll and illustrated by Kay Wilson, and we're going to start reading today from chapter four.

So, if you haven't yet read up to the end of chapter three, you might want to pause the video now and do that before you continue.

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

Here are our keywords for today's lesson, my turn, your turn.

Infer, empathise, and motive.

Well done.

So, when we infer, we use clues from within a text to draw conclusions, and when we empathise, we're getting inside a character's head to try and understand their feelings and their points of view, and a person's motive is their reason for doing something.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by trying to infer characters' thoughts, and then we'll move on to inferring their motives.

So, as you know, "A Kind of Spark" is written by Elle McNicoll, and it's written in the first person from the point of view of a girl called Addie, and so far, we've learned the following from the text up to the end of chapter three.

We've learned that Addie is autistic and lives with her sisters, Nina and Keedie, and her mum and dad.

We know that Keedie is also autistic and has a close relationship with Addie.

We know that Addie's teacher, Miss Murphy, treats her unkindly, but the school librarian, Mr. Allison, is kind to her, and we know that Addie has learned in school that long ago, several hundred years ago, women in her village were executed for being witches, and she thinks that this was unfair.

And Addie has begun to make friends with Audrey, who's a girl who's new to her school, who's moved from London to her village, which is near Edinburgh.

So, in this lesson, we're going to start reading from chapter four, and there's some vocabulary we're going to see in this chapter which is really interesting, so let's take a look at it.

We've got the word "bemused".

If you're bemused, you're confused or you're puzzled.

We've got this great word, "curfew", and a curfew is when you have to leave a certain area after a certain time and go back home.

If something is aquiver, it's shaken, and a plaque is a notice that says what happened in a particular location.

So, where you live, there might be a plaque somewhere that commemorates a certain person or a certain event that happened there.

If you tarnish something, you ruin or damage it.

So, often, we say someone's tarnishing their reputation by doing something bad, and if a door is ajar, it's open a small way.

If you do something with trepidation, you do it nervously, so maybe you stepped into the dark cave full of trepidation.

So, now we've covered that vocab.

Let's see if you can read from the start of chapter four to the star on page 34.

Pause the video and have a read.

Well done, great reading.

So, based on what you've just read, which statements here are correct and can you correct any incorrect statements that you see? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So, A says, "The whole family attends the committee meeting," that is correct.

B says, "Addie is the first member of the public to be called." No, she's not.

There are other people called first regarding the park and geese.

Lots of people come forward as well.

C says, "The committee has several young members." No, absolutely not.

All the committee members are Addie's grandparents' age.

They're much older than she is.

D says, "Addie requests a memorial to the executed witches." That is correct, isn't it? Well done, great job if you got this.

So, how do you think each character below has behaved in this chapter so far at the meeting, and what's your evidence? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great job.

So, maybe you might agree with me, that Addie's done a great job so far.

We could say she explained her views really clearly, she stayed calm even though she had to wait such a long time to be told no.

She's done a great job, hasn't she? What about Nina? Well, maybe you said, "I wondered why she'd come at all.

She assumed that Addie would be saying something silly, which was unfair, so she's not behaved in the best way." What about mum and dad? I think they did a good job.

I could say it was really nice for them to come after a long day at work, and even though they were tired, they were still good-natured, and dad was cracking jokes, wasn't he? So, they were supportive of Addie even though they were so tired.

Really well done for your ideas.

Now, do you agree with Laura? She says, "I don't think Keedie helped Addie with the way she behaved at the meeting." Pause the video and explain whether you agree with Laura or not.

Well done, good thinking.

So, maybe agree with Jim.

He says, "I agree! Addie was doing a great job, but Keedie made it about herself, and she was being too confrontational," a bit too aggressive, but maybe you agree with Sophia.

She says, "Keedie's arguments were correct! She was frustrated that the committee had dismissed Addie's ideas, which she had explained so well." And, "It's hard to see someone you care about get hurt!" So, that would explain why Keedie was speaking in the way she did.

She was so frustrated that the committee was ignoring the good arguments that Addie was making.

Really well done for your ideas.

Now, we know that we can infer, work out, characters' inner thoughts based on their actions, so we can try and work out what they might be thinking inside.

Now, we won't be a hundred percent accurate, but we can try and work out based on what they do and what they say, and that involves also empathising with the character, doesn't it? Putting ourselves in their place and imagining what they might think and what they might feel.

So, let's look at Nina's action here.

Nina is hiding her face in a big scarf in the meeting, isn't she? So, from that, we can infer, work out, deduce, that she's embarrassed to be seen at the meeting with her family.

So, now let's try and infer from that what her inner thoughts might be, what might be going on in her head.

Maybe we could infer that her inner thoughts might sound like this.

I'm speaking as if I'm Nina when I say these inner thoughts 'cause I'm saying that these are the inner thoughts I've inferred that Nina might be thinking.

So, I've said, "Why do we have to be at this meeting anyway? It's just going to be a load of people moaning about pointless things.

I'd much rather be at home replying to my followers.

Addie's bound to say something silly and Keedie will make a big scene as usual." So, I've tried to infer, from what I know about Nina's character, what she might be thinking as she covers her face with that scarf in the meeting, and I've spoken as if I am Nina because I'm trying to show what I think is going on in Nina's head.

So, based on what they say and do and using your empathy skills, what can we infer that mum and dad might be thinking as they wait for the meeting to start? I'd like you to answer as if you were them using "I", just like I did for Nina.

So, we know that mum is yawning and dad is joking about having to be there.

What might they be thinking? What might their inner thoughts be? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great job.

So, from the fact that mum's yawning and dad's joking about having to be there, we can infer that they'd probably rather be elsewhere, but they're supporting their daughter.

So, what might their inner thoughts be? Well, maybe it might go like this.

"I hope this doesn't go on too long.

No doubt they'll all be moaning about those geese again.

I'm glad Addie's got something she's passionate about, though.

It'd be nice if Nina could do the same.

Goodness me, I can barely keep my eyes open!" So, I've tried to show there the mixture of being supportive and the tiredness that they're feeling as well, so these are some of the inner thoughts that I've inferred from mum and dad's actions.

I don't know if they're a hundred percent accurate, do I? But I've based them on my empathy and my inference from what they're doing.

Really well done with your ideas there.

Now, we know that Mr. Macintosh is chairing the meeting, so let's look at his words and actions and try to infer what his inner thoughts might be.

So, we know that he closes his eyes in "trepidation" when Addie makes her suggestion, so kind of wary of what she's gonna say.

He is silent after she explains it, and he won't look at Addie as he explains why he's rejected her idea, and he says he's worried about damage to the village's reputation.

So, those are the things he says and does.

What can we infer about what he might be thinking? Maybe he's thinking this, "Not another ridiculous suggestion.

Who is this strange child anyway? It was all hundreds of years ago; it's not like I was in charge then! We don't want to scare tourists off with talk of witches!" So, I tried to infer, using my empathy skills and based on what Mr. Macintosh has said and done, what his inner thoughts might be.

So, can you do the same now for Keedie? Based on these actions of Keedie's, what can we infer about what her inner thoughts might be, and then I want you to try and say them in character using "I".

So, we know that she sighs and interrupts some other suggestions that are made at the meeting, she nudges Addie when it's time for her to speak, she tells Mr. Macintosh why she disagrees with his reasons for objecting the plaque, and she squeezes Addie's hand after she finishes speaking.

So, based on all of those actions and things Keedie does and says, what can we infer about what her inner thoughts might be? See if you can answer in role, giving Keedie's inner thoughts.

Have a go.

Well done, great job.

Maybe Keedie's thinking something like this, "After all these stupid ideas, they finally hear a good one and they can't see it! These people wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them in the face.

I just hope Addie isn't too upset by it all.

She did so well!" So, I've tried to show the mixture of Keedie's frustration with what the meeting was like, her frustration that they don't recognise how good Addie's idea is, and her care and compassion for Addie, who she obviously cares about a lot.

Really well done for your ideas, too.

So, let's do our first task for this lesson, and we're going to do some role-play in groups of four.

Now, if you're on your own, you can just do all four parts yourself, that's absolutely fine.

So, you're going to take on the four roles I'm going to show you and create a freeze-frame of what's happening as Addie speaks at the meeting.

So, we've got Addie, Keedie, Mr. Macintosh, and Nina, and I want you to try and show the character's feelings that you have inferred from the text in their body language.

So, the position of your body should match what you've inferred about the character, about what the character's feeling at that point, and I want you to be ready to use your empathy skills to speak in role as your character when you're asked to do so.

So, all four of you are going to speak in role as your character, saying those inner thoughts that you have inferred based on what your character does and says in the text.

So, you're going to try and make sure you base your performance on what's in the text and not just your imagination, but you're going to use your empathy skills to imagine a little bit about what they're saying.

But we're not making this up, we're not guessing.

We're inferring, which means we're taking the evidence from the text and working out what we think, our best estimate for what their inner thoughts might be.

So, pause the video and have a go at that drama task.

Well done, brilliant job, I hope you enjoyed that.

So, here are some ideas about what the characters may have said in role, and I wonder if you can guess which character I'm referring to.

So, one of the characters might have said this, "I really thought they would listen to my ideas! I guess I must have said them wrongly somehow." Who would that be? Well done, Addie.

What about this one? "Addie did everything right and they won't pay any attention because she's autistic." Who should that one be? Yeah, it sounds like Keedie to me.

What about this one? "I can't bear all these interruptions! For once can't we have a meeting that's just normal?" Who might that be? Yeah, Mr. Macintosh, and, "This is so embarrassing! Why can't Keedie just keep her mouth shut?" Who would that be? Yeah, that sounds like Nina, doesn't it? Really well done for the way you spoke in role there, showing those inner thoughts.

Great job.

Now I'd like you to listen as your teacher reads to the end of chapter four, or if you're doing this at home, you can read to the end of chapter four yourself.

Pause the video and have a listen or a read.

Okay, now we're going to move on to the second part of our lesson, where we're going to look at inferring characters' motives, the reasons why they do things.

So, in the second part of chapter four, we saw the following events.

We saw the family try to comfort Addie after the meeting.

We know that she didn't get what she wanted, she didn't get the memorial approved, so they're trying to comfort her for that.

And Nina invites Addie to be in one of her beauty videos, and even though Addie's uncomfortable with being so close to the camera and being touched in the way that she is, she stays in the video because she rarely gets to bond with Nina in this way.

So, she thinks it's worthwhile doing it because she gets to have this close time with her sister.

So, why do you think Nina invited Addie to help her? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, good ideas.

Maybe you agree with Alex.

Alex said, "I think Nina wants more views and she thinks Addie will be interesting for her viewers.

But maybe she was also impressed with how Addie performed at the meeting?" We can't say for sure because the book is written from Addie's perspective and not Nina's, so we're trying to infer, why might Nina have done that, based on what we know about her character.

Really well done for your thoughts there.

So, we're now going to read chapter five.

Now, chapter five contains some details about a quite distressing event, and we're going to need to know some vocabulary to really understand what's going on here.

Let's have a look.

So, for an autistic person, a meltdown is an intense physical and emotional response to a stressful situation, and if a person restrains you, they're holding you down against your will.

So, you don't want to be held down, and the person is holding you down.

If someone's face is contorted, it's twisted, and we often say someone's face might be contorted with rage or anger.

If you're convulsing, your whole body is shaking against your will.

If an autistic person stims, they're making certain movements or sounds to calm themselves down or to express themselves, and they might be repetitive movements or repetitive sounds, and antics are silly things you do to draw attention to yourself.

So, now that we've learned those words, I'd like you to have a go at reading chapter five.

Pause the video and have a read.

Well done, really good reading.

So, we just learned quite a distressing, upsetting story, didn't we, about something that happened in the past for Keedie, Addie, and Nina, so let's check our understanding.

Are these statements below true or false? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, really good job.

So, A says, "Keedie has told everyone at university about her autism." No, that's false.

B says, "Addie is pretending to be a witch as she walks through the woods." That's true.

C says, "Jenna used to do lots of things that Addie liked doing when they were friends." No, that's false, isn't it? Jenna didn't really adapt her friendship to suit Addie.

It was the other way around.

And D says, "Mr. Macintosh thinks that Addie is just doing what Keedie asks her to do." That is true.

So, Mr. Macintosh thinks that Keedie is almost like controlling Addie, which we know is not the case.

This was all Addie's idea.

Really well done for your answers there.

So, a lot of things happened in this chapter.

I wonder if you can put the events in order, starting with number one.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So, it started off with Addie and Keedie walking in the woods, and then Addie was remembering that distressing, upsetting incident with Mrs. Craig.

Then they were discussing Addie's friendship with Jenna, and Addie was telling Keedie about Maggie, who was one of the women who was accused of witchcraft those many years ago in the village, and finally, they met Mr. Macintosh, who again rejected Addie's idea.

Really well done if you got those in the right order.

So, let's focus on those pages, 39 to 40, where that instant with Mrs. Craig is described.

So, how did it feel to read this passage, and did it remind you of any other parts of the book? 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, maybe you agreed with Izzy.

She said, "I found this really upsetting to read.

The idea that an adult would treat a child this way is just awful." And, of course, "Hurting children," in this way, "is illegal." Sam said this, "This reminds me of what Miss Murphy did," because "she took a child's actions personally when they were a result of their autism." Right at the start of the book, when she ripped up that work, she was taking it personally, wasn't she, as if Addie was going out of her way to upset Miss Murphy when, in fact, that wasn't the case at all.

So, there is a slight similarity there as well.

Really well done for your thoughts there.

So, let's imagine you are Addie's mum or dad and you come home after that situation with Mrs. Craig.

What would you want to say to Mrs. Craig if you were in that position? Pause the video and have a think ad try to answer, again, using "I" as if you are Addie's mum or dad.

Have a go.

Well done, really good thinking.

Maybe you'd say something like this, "How dare you attack my daughter! You know that Addie and Keedie are autistic; sometimes they need some extra time to process things or some space to calm down, and some foods are hard for them to eat.

They're not being fussy or spoiled, they're just being themselves; you took it personally and bullied them for it! I'm not surprised Addie snapped, seeing her sister having a meltdown that you caused.

You will certainly never see them again!" Really well done for answering that in role.

It's a tricky situation, and we would want to try and show all those emotions that mum and dad might be feeling and the explanation they might give for why it's so upsetting, what Mrs. Craig has done.

Good work.

So, as well as inferring characters' thoughts, as we've done before, we can try and infer their motives to work out why they do the things they do.

So, if we take this situation from the incident with Mrs. Craig, we have Nina covering Addie's ears, so let's think about her motive.

Why is Nina doing that? Well, we could say she doesn't want Addie to hear what her parent and Mrs. Craig are saying in case it upsets her further.

Let's think about this situation.

Keedie, after the incident with Mrs. Craig, doesn't come out of her room for days.

What's Keedie's motive there? Why is she doing that? Well, we could infer that she's very upset by what's happened and she can't face seeing other people for a long time after the incident.

So, the motives that we've shown here are the reasons for people doing things.

We've shown the reason for Nina covering Addie's ears, her motive, and Keedie's motive for staying in her bedroom.

Now, most things we do in life have motives, but remember, that doesn't mean that everything we do is right.

It just means that's the reason we do it.

The reason might not be a good reason, and the thing we do might not be a good thing.

So, for instance, what Mrs. Craig did would be a good example of that.

She might have had a motive for doing it.

That doesn't make it correct.

So, let's think about that more deeply.

We're going to do a question now which requires us to really think hard about something quite difficult, what might have been Mrs. Craig's motives for acting like she did? I want you to think really carefully about this question.

We're not saying, are we, that Mrs. Craig had a good reason for doing it, but what might have been her motives for acting in the way she did in that situation? Pause the video and have a careful think.

Well done, I love how maturely you thought about that.

Maybe we can tell from the way that Mrs. Craig speaks to Keedie, it feels like Mrs. Craig didn't see her as being worthy of respect, so that's part of her motivation for why she acted in the way she did.

We can see that Mrs. Craig seems to see Keedie's inability to eat the food she's made as a personal attack on her when we know it's not.

It's part of Keedie's autism.

We know that Mrs. Craig seems to feel like Keedie is just being naughty because she calls her a "brat" when, in fact, she's having a meltdown, again, as part of autism.

And Mrs. Craig doesn't seem to know how to cope with the situation, and she's blaming Keedie for her own difficulty in dealing with the situation.

So, all of these are parts of Mrs. Craig's motives for doing what she did in that situation.

As we said, that doesn't make it right, but these might be the reasons behind what she did.

Really well done for thinking about that so carefully, good job.

Now, elsewhere in the chapter, we saw Keedie and Addie discussing Addie's relationship with Jenna.

What was Keedie's motive for describing Jenna as a leaf? Pause the video and decide which is the best explanation of Keedie's motive for using that term.

Well done, really good job.

Is it that she wants to show Addie that Jenna is small like a leaf? No.

Is it that she wants to show Addie that friendship is important because friends last forever? No, definitely not, it's the last one, isn't it? She wants to show Addie that Jenna was just a temporary part of her life and she wasn't supposed to be there forever.

Just like a leaf gets blown away, Jenna won't be there forever.

She's just temporary and not permanent in Addie's life.

Really well done if you spotted that.

So, now let's think about Addie's motives.

Why is Addie so motivated to get a memorial made for the women wrongly executed for being witches? Well, here are some of Addie's actions and thoughts and feelings from which we might be able to infer, work out, her motives, her reasons, for wanting this memorial.

We know that she's very distressed when she first hears about the unfairness of what happened to the women, and we know that she rushes to the library to research them as soon as she hears about the witches, and she then contributes to the village meeting, and we know that she says the witches are the only thing that she can think about.

So, can you use these actions, thoughts, and feelings to infer Addie's motives and write an explanation for why she's so committed to this memorial? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, really good thinking.

So, here are some of the ideas you might have come up with.

Maybe you said, "I think Addie's an empathetic person, and she can't bear the idea that women would be suffering as a result of who they were." So, she almost feels like she can put herself in their place and feel this pain that they would've felt.

Maybe you said, "I think Addie's motivated by the injustice," the unfairness, "of the situation; it was so unfair that the women couldn't prove that they weren't witches!" Or maybe you said, "Maybe Addie sees something of the way she is treated in the way that the witches were treated.

They were outsiders, who were misunderstood or found it hard to explain themselves, just like her." So, maybe Addie sees some connection between the treatment of the witches and the treatment that she experiences, for instance, at the hands of Miss Murphy, and Mrs. Craig as well.

Now, that last example isn't something Addie herself has said out loud necessarily.

We've inferred it based on her actions.

So, sometimes characters might be motivated by motives that they haven't even yet realised for themselves, and we as readers might be able to have a view of the situation that gives us an idea of what those motives might be beyond what the character themselves has said, so that's something to watch out for as we read.

So, let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that when we read, we can infer what characters might be thinking and feeling based on their actions and words, and we've said that this also requires us to use empathy to put ourselves in their place.

We know that we can infer characters' motives from their actions and what they say, and sometimes we can see that a character's motives might not be the ones they themselves are aware of.

They might be motivated in ways they haven't yet realised for themselves.

Really well done for your effort in this lesson.

I hope you're enjoying this book as much as I am.

I'd love to see you again in the next lesson.

If you'd like to join me, please make sure you've read up to the end of chapter eight by that point.

I'll see you there, goodbye.