Lesson video

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

Today we're going to be taking the next step towards our goal of writing part of the story of "Beowulf" by learning to retell a section of this story using a text map.

This is going to be so useful to us when we come to write, and I think you're going to really enjoy it, so let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called, "Retelling the Story of 'Beowulf and the Dragon,'" and it comes from a unit called, "'Beowulf': Narrative Writing." By the end of today's lesson, you will have created a detailed text map of the story of "Beowulf and the Dragon", and you will have used this to already retell the buildup, climax, and resolution of this story.

Now for this lesson you will need to have access to the 2013 Oxford Children's Classics edition of "Beowulf", written by Kevin Crossley-Holland and illustrated by Charles Keeping.

If you have that with you, let's begin.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

Events are plot points or things that happen in a story or text, and a text map is a visual representation of a series of events where pictures represent events.

Storytelling is saying an oral version of a story out loud, perhaps using notes or a text map to help.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by creating a text map, and then we'll be using that text map to retell this story.

So we've said that the plot of the whole story of "Beowulf" that we've read is made up of three mini-stories.

The first one is the mini-story of Beowulf and Grendel, then we have the mini-story of Beowulf and Grendel's mother, and finally, the mini-story of Beowulf and the Dragon.

And each mini-story follows this structure.

It has an opening, where we establish the setting and time and place.

It has a buildup, where the problems are introduced and tension rises.

It has a climax, which is the highest point of the action and tension.

And it has a resolution, where the problems are resolved.

And in the next few lessons of this unit, we are going to be writing our own narrative version of the mini-story of "Beowulf and the Dragon," so that third one which comes towards the end of the book.

And it follows the same structure, of course.

So we have the opening where Beowulf is now the elderly king of the Geats, he's been king for 50 years.

Then we have the buildup, where a dragon attacks the stronghold and Beowulf is determined to defeat it himself.

And we know Wiglaf is not happy about that decision.

Then we have the climax where he goes to fight the dragon.

He tries to kill it, but he can't, and he ends up clamped in the dragon's jaws.

And then we have the resolution, where Wiglaf stabs the dragon, making it drop Beowulf, who then kills it.

So here are two events.

One is the climax, one is the resolution.

What makes this the climax and what makes this the resolution in that mini-story? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great thinking.

So for the climax, this is the highest point of the action and the tension in the story.

We don't know whether Beowulf is going to make it out of the dragon's jaws alive.

So this is an extremely tense point in the story.

We don't know if he'll live or die.

And for the resolution, well, this is where the problem of the dragon being in Geatland is resolved.

It won't be able to harm the village any longer when it's dead.

So the problem that ran through this mini-story was that the dragon had come, and now the problem is resolved.

It's gone away because of Wiglaf and Beowulf's actions.

(indistinct) Now our narrative retelling is going to focus not on the opening, but on the buildup, climax, and resolution of the story of Beowulf and the dragon.

And we'll want to tell these events in a very detailed way, to make them dramatic and exciting for our reader.

Now, so that we're really confident of the events we're going to be writing, let's listen to them one more time from the book.

So I'd like you now to listen to your teacher read from page 38 to the word "still" on page 42.

Or of course, you can read to yourself if you'd like.

Pause the video and do that now.

Well done.

Good listening.

So why would we stop at this point in the book? Why would we stop at this word "still" on page 42? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you, or a think on your own.

Well done.

Good thinking.

Well the reason we'll stop here is because this is the resolution of the mini-story involving the dragon.

The problem of the dragon is resolved at this point, because the dragon is now dead.

It is lying still on the ground after they've killed it.

So at this moment, we can say that that mini-story is finished because the problem of the dragon has been resolved with its death.

So do you agree with Lucas, and why or why not? He says, "Hang on, how can it be a resolution to a problem when Beowulf dies just afterwards? That feels like a pretty big problem in itself." So Lucas is saying, well this can't be the resolution, because the problems in the story continue with Beowulf's death.

Pause the video and have a think.

Do you agree with Lucas or not, and why? Well done, good discussion.

Here's what Aisha said.

"We can think of the dragon's death as the resolution of the mini-story involving the dragon.

But you're right, it's not the end of the whole story.

Beowulf getting a hero's burial resolves the big problem in the whole story, which was his worry that he might be forgotten in death." So we said, didn't we, that Beowulf has a whole story, and then underneath that, three mini-stories.

We are talking about the mini-story of Beowulf and the dragon.

It's not the whole story that's being resolved here.

It's the problem in that mini-story.

And the problem in that mini-story is the dragon's presence, and that problem is resolved when the dragon dies.

Okay, so now we've heard that story a second time.

We need to start preparing to learn how to retell it.

So the first thing we have to do is try to say the main events out loud in a group.

So we need to work in a pair or a group and use a pencil as a talking stick.

So whoever's holding the talking stick, holding the pencil, is the one speaking.

So you get to pass the pencil around the group, and when you hold it, you say one event in the story.

And if you don't remember the next event, just ask for help from your team.

I want you to keep the sentences you're saying simple.

For instance, you could just say, "The dragon burned down the Geat stronghold." And I want you to start from that point where the dragon burns down the stronghold.

And don't worry about using descriptive language for this.

We're just retelling the events of the story.

This is our first step towards learning how to retell it in a really interesting way.

So I want you to use the third person for this.

So you're going to say he, or Beowulf, and you're going to speak in the past tense, just like in my example with the dragon there.

So pause the video here and have a go in your group at retelling the main events from the point where the dragon burns down the stronghold that started the buildup, with your group, working with that talking stick to help you.

Pause video and have a go.

Well done, great job.

Here are some of the events you might have chosen to tell in your group.

The dragon came at night and burned down the stronghold.

Beowulf saw the damage and decided to fight the dragon.

Wiglaf protested that he was too old.

Beowulf took some men to the dragon's cave.

He made the dragon come out by shouting and banging his sword.

The dragon came out, but Beowulf's sword didn't work against it.

The dragon breathed fire.

The other men ran away, but Wiglaf came to help.

Beowulf stuck his sword in the dragon's head and it broke.

The dragon grabbed him.

Wiglaf stabbed it in the belly, and Beowulf slit its throat.

So I haven't used any descriptive language there, have I? I've just told the events that happened from the buildup to the resolution of the story of Beowulf and the dragon.

Really well done for doing that so well.

We're going to build on that now throughout the lesson.

So before we write, we want to be really confident in knowing these events really well.

And one way of doing this is to use a text map, and you can see an example here.

I've got some pictures, I've got some letters, and I've got some full stops in there too.

So we use pictures to represent key events in a story, and we use full stops, or you could use arrows, to separate out the events.

And notice how we're not trying to be artistic.

These pictures are not detailed, and they're not artistic.

They are just simple sketches, and they make sense to me.

You're looking at this and you're thinking, "What do these pictures mean?" But because I drew them, I know what events they represent, and that's the point of a text map.

So we're not trying to learn particular words off by heart here.

We're trying to learn the sequence of events so that we can remember it.

So don't panic, we're not representing particular words and pictures.

We are representing events using our pictures here.

So here's an example of a text map for the first few events in the story of Beowulf and the Dragon.

Now I've got my pictures here, which work for me.

Your pictures might of course look different.

So the pictures are arranged into groups using full stops.

So I've got one event, then a full stop, then another event, then another full stop.

And I've used D, the letter D here, to mean "dragon", to avoid having to draw a dragon every time I refer to it, because that would be very time consuming.

Notice how each group of pictures is going to represent a small event in the story.

And let me show you now what events I've represented.

So here I've got, "At night the dragon came to the Geat stronghold." I've got that moon for "at night", D for the dragon, and then the arrow to show it's coming to the Geat stronghold, which I've just represented as two little houses.

And for this one I've said, "breathed fire on houses, reduced to ashes." So again, I've got the flames and the house, and the arrow to show what happens next, which is the smouldering ashes there in my second picture.

So I've used simple pictures to represent these ideas from the story.

So which events in the story might be represented by these parts of my text map? Now this is difficult, because you haven't drawn this text map, I have, but can you work out what I might be trying to represent here? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Great job.

So I've got that sun rising and then an eye looking at some smouldering ruins.

So I've got, "The next day, when the sun rose, they saw the devastated stronghold," and then I've got those burned fields there on the right hand side.

And then for my second note there, I've got Beowulf calling a meeting.

So I've got B for Beowulf, and then the arrow to show a meeting, and I've got him saying, "We must defeat the dragon." So I've used a speech bubble, and then I've got his sword and the D for dragon there.

So notice I've used B for Beowulf again here, to avoid having to draw him.

That would be really complicated if I had to draw the dragon and Beowulf all the way through the story, 'cause they come up so often.

So it's totally fine to use letters and words where you need to, in order to avoid having to draw very complicated difficult things.

So I'd like you to now draw your own text map for the key events in the story.

And you can see the start of mine below here.

So you're going to start from the dragon burning the stronghold, and end with its death, just like we just retold in our groups.

And each picture should only take you a few seconds to draw.

Remember, this is not an art lesson, this is to help you remember these events.

You're going to use full stops to separate events, or you can use arrows if you prefer.

And it's fine, as I said, to include a few words you'll find helpful, as well as maybe the letters B, W for Wiglaf, and D for Dragon, if that's helpful to you.

So pause the video and have a go at drawing your text map from the point the dragon destroys the stronghold all the way to the end where the dragon is killed.

Have a go.

Well done.

Fantastic job.

Here's an example of how the whole text map might look.

Now I won't go through every picture I've drawn here, because what matters is that your text map makes sense to you.

So make sure that you are confident that you've represented all the key events in this story.

Just notice how I've got my events separated with my full stops, and notice I've used the letters B and D and W to represent those characters to avoid having to draw them.

Really well done for making your text map so detailed there.

Good job.

So you've done a great job creating that text map.

Now let's use it.

So now that we've drawn the text map, we need to learn how to use it to retell this story in a much more detailed way than we've done so far.

Now a text map can help us do two main things.

It can help us to learn the events we're going to write, and we can also use it as a way of doing some storytelling.

And if we do both these things using a text map before we come to write, it makes the writing process much easier, and it means our brains have much more room in them for us to do some fantastic detailed writing, because the events are already locked in, ready for us to use.

And because we'll have already told the story out loud many times, we just have to write it down, using all the writing skills we've learned.

So we've made it much easier for ourselves if we follow these steps with our text map.

So true or false? Using a text map is a way of giving an artistic response to a story that we've read.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good job.

That is of course false.

Why is that false? Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

Good job.

A text map is a way of representing events of a story in pictures, allowing us to learn those events really well, and to learn to tell them out loud as a story before we start to write.

It's not important if your pictures aren't pretty, it's not important if you don't think that they represent the story very well.

What matters is that to you, you can look at those pictures and see which events in the story they connect to.

So well done for making your pictures simple and getting them done fast, because what we're focusing on here is making sure that we use them to retell this story many times before we come to write (indistinct).

So let's use our text map to learn the events, first of all, that we're going to write.

So here's a section of my text map from the start of the story.

I want you to look at your text map and point to each sentence, each section in between your full stops, and say what part of the story it refers to.

And you can use the words, "This is where," to start your sentence.

So if I take this event here, I could say, "This is where Beowulf and his men put on their armour and went to Eagleness." So notice I've got Beowulf and two other men, I've got an arrow to show "putting on", and then a badly drawn helmet there, and then an arrow to show them going to Eagleness.

I've written the word Eagleness, because I might not remember that word.

So I'm going to point to the picture and say, "This is where this happens." So pause the video and have a go at doing that for your whole text map.

Fantastic job.

Well done.

So here are some more examples of things you might have said.

I could have taken this picture, and I might have said, "This is where Wiglaf is shocked that Beowulf wants to fight the dragon, but Beowulf says he's the only one who can do it." So I've got letter W for Wiglaf, his shocked face, and then B for Beowulf, and then I've drawn him with shining lights around him to suggest he's saying, "I'm the only one, I'm the special one who can do this." Then I've got this event, and here I'm saying, "This is where Beowulf is near the dragon's cave and he shouts loudly, and he bangs his sword on the ground to make it come out." Notice how I still haven't used any particularly descriptive language here.

I'm just saying what these events are.

Really well done for doing that so well for your text map.

So now we're really clear on those events, we can start to use our text map, and do some proper storytelling.

So here we can say each group of pictures as one or more than one sentence, and we'll try to use slightly more descriptive language this time.

And we want to make it sound now like we're telling a story.

So far we've just been listing things that have happened.

That's not how stories sound usually, is it? They're a bit more descriptive, and a bit more interestingly told.

So it won't be perfect, because we're doing it off the top of our heads, but it will improve every time we do it.

So I can take my two events here, and tell them much more like a story this time.

Here's how it might sound.

"At night, the dragon swooped down towards the Geat stronghold.

It breathed hot fire into the little houses, and they were turned into ashes." So I've been more descriptive now, haven't I? I've started by saying "at night".

I've said "swooped down".

I've said "breathed hot fire onto the little houses".

So it's more descriptive, it sounds more like a story.

I'm not trying to use here all of the writing skills that I know, all of the different sentence types that I know, all of the different grammar features that I'm able to use.

I'm just trying to tell it so it sounds like a story.

So how might you do that for this part of the text map? How could you tell this part of the text map aloud as a story? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, great effort.

So maybe you said something like this.

"The next morning, the Geats saw the way the stronghold had been destroyed, and the fields had been turned to ashes.

Beowulf called a meeting of all his warriors.

'We have to defeat this dragon,' he bellowed." So again, it sounds more like a story now.

Is it the most detailed story in the world? No, but we've told it as if we're trying to tell an interesting, more descriptive story.

Really well done for doing that so well.

So let's do our second task here.

I'd like you to use your text map now to practise your storytelling.

You're going to point to each sentence as you say the part of the story it represents, as a complete sentence, or perhaps more than one sentence.

And I want you to try to make it sound like a story by adding some description where you can.

And I want you to repeat this as many times as you can, because you'll get better and more detailed and more descriptive every time.

So here's another example of mine.

I've got the section where Wiglaf is arguing with Beowulf.

I've said, "Wiglaf was horrified, because he knew how old Beowulf was now, but Beowulf was determined.

He said he was the only warrior with the skills to fight the dragon." Now notice there that I've taken this one section of my text map and I've made it three sentences.

So don't think that you've got to fit all of the events from that picture into one sentence.

You can expand it out as much as you need to.

So pause the video here and have a go at storytelling using your own text map, and telling these events like a story in a more detailed and descriptive way, if you can.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, fantastic job.

Now I've told up to the part where Beowulf is saying he's the only one who could do it.

I'm going to show you how the rest of my text map might sound told as a story.

So for this section, I'm saying, "That afternoon, Beowulf and his men put on their armour and headed nervously to Eagleness.

Soon, Beowulf stood above the entrance to the dragon's cave.

He was full of anger and he shouted loudly, banging his sword on the rocks.

Before long, smoke came out of the cave, and the dragon slithered out." So you can see I've got to that point in my pictures where I've got the smoke coming from that cave, and I've got an arrow leading to that letter D to show the dragon slithering out.

Then I said, "Beowulf tried to stab it with his sword, but it was no use." That's where I've got my cross.

"Immediately, the dragon breathed fire, and Beowulf had to hide behind his metal shield." Here's how the next section might look if I was saying my text map out loud in the storytelling form.

"Beowulf's men were horrified, and they rushed away.

Wiglaf was furious with them, and he called them cowards as he rushed to help Beowulf.

As he ran, his wooden shield caught fire, and he had to dive behind Beowulf's iron shield instead.

Then, Beowulf stabbed the dragon deep into the skull, but his sword got stuck, and it snapped in two.

The fearsome dragon grabbed Beowulf in its jagged teeth, and he was soon drenched in blood." So you can see I've got at the end of my text map there, the letter B for Beowulf, and then some drops of blood to show him being drenched in blood there.

Okay, and here's how the final part of my text map might be said out loud as a story.

"At that moment, Wiglaf grabbed his sword, and he thrust it into the dragon's belly.

Straight away, the monster dropped Beowulf to the ground.

He grabbed the small, sharp knife from his belt, and he reached up and slit the dragon's throat.

The dragon stopped moving, and then it fell down, dead." So I've tried to add a little bit more detail as I've told my story, and I've tried to tell it in a way that's interesting and dramatic.

But I haven't yet done all of the detail I could want to include.

That's what will come when we come to write.

But in order to make our writing so much easier, practising telling this story using our text map is going to be so useful.

So I'd like you to try and practise storytelling using your text map as much as you can before the next lesson, because it will make your planning and writing so much easier, because you will already have all of these events really locked into your head.

Really well done for your effort on that task.

Great job.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said we're going to be writing a narrative retelling of the buildup, climax, and resolution of the mini-story of Beowulf and the dragon.

And before we do that, we have to be really confident about the events we'll be writing about.

And a good way to do this is to use a text map representing key events in pictures.

And we know we can use the text map to learn the events we'll be writing, and then to practise storytelling using them.

And this will make the writing process much easier.

Really well done for all your effort in this lesson.

I hope you're really pleased with the text map you produced, and that you're confident that you can say your whole story as a story, based on that text map.

As I said, the more you practise with that text map, the easier it'll become to write this story when we come to do that.

So do go ahead and practise if you can.

Goodbye!.