Lesson video

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

Now, we have lots of knowledge now about Charles Darwin's life and about his theory of evolution by natural selection.

So we're going to be taking the next step today towards writing a biography about him by planning our writing.

I'll be here to help you the whole way through.

Let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called, "Planning a biography about Charles Darwin's life and theory of evolution" and it comes from a unit called, "Charles Darwin, Biographical Writing".

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to plan the structure and content of our biography about Charles Darwin's life and theory of evolution and be able to practise using a range of cohesive devices.

Now, you may have a text map of Darwin's life that you drew in a previous lesson.

If you do, make sure you have that with you.

If you don't, please don't worry, I'll be providing one for you in the video for this lesson.

Now, we're going to keep a hold of the plan we're writing today to use in later lessons to write our biography, so let's make sure it's a really good one.

Here are keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Theme.

Text map.

Notes.

Subject-specific vocabulary.

And cohesive devices.

Well done.

So a theme is a central idea that the writer intends the audience to engage deeply with and a text map is a visual representation of a series of events where pictures represent events.

Notes are ideas recorded without using complete sentences.

Subject-specific vocabulary is vocabulary we use when writing about a particular subject.

And cohesive devices are language structures that develop text cohesion.

That means the way our ideas and writing flow together and are connected together well.

So here's our lesson now outline for today.

We're going to start off by doing the planning of our biography using subjects-specific vocabulary and then we'll move on to exploring some cohesive devices we could use when we come to write.

So we've explored Darwin's life and his theory of evolution by natural selection in preparation for writing his biography.

So I'd like you first to look back at your text map of Darwin's life or use the one below and see if you can say that text map out loud.

Remember, we've separated the events using full stops.

See if you can say each of them as a complete sentence.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great job and remember, the more that you rehearse that text map and the more confident you are in saying it as complete sentences, the easier your writing is going to be.

So the ideas from a text map will form the first three paragraphs of our biography of Darwin.

These ones, we'll have a paragraph about his early life, a paragraph about his time at university and the voyage of the Beagle and finally a paragraph about the Galapagos Islands and his visit there and what he noticed there.

So these three paragraphs will each focus on a theme, a key part of Darwin's life.

And the paragraphs as you can see are in chronological order and they're leading towards Darwin's key discovery, his key idea, the theory of evolution.

And in the final paragraph, that's where we're going to talk about the theory of evolution.

So I have a fourth paragraph, which all about Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and about how he's remembered today.

So we'll have four paragraphs in total.

The first three are covered by our text map and the last one is going to be about Darwin's theory.

So can you see where each of those three themes is shown on this text map? Pause the video and see if you can match up the images to the themes.

Have a go.

Well done, good work.

So hopefully you spotted that his early life is covered here and we can see up to the liking being outside in the countryside, collecting things, university and the Beagle is covered here, finishing with him gathering those 5,000 specimens and pages and pages of notes.

And then here we have the events of the Galapagos voyage or the Galapagos trip.

Really well done if you managed to spot those different themes within the text map and I'm sure you can see them in your own text map as well.

Now, when we plan our writing about Darwin's life, we'll want to use subject-specific vocabulary to show our meaning.

So these are words which are specific to the subject of science or exploration or to his studies or to the theory of evolution itself.

So let's explore some subject-specific vocabulary that relates to science.

We've got this word naturalist.

A naturalist is a person who studies plants and animals, like Darwin.

We've got specimens, specimens are samples which could be dead or alive of plants and animals that a naturalists might collect.

A scientist looks carefully at the world making observations.

I'm sure you've done that in science lessons too.

Now, sometimes scientists make discoveries by finding out things that weren't known before.

And a theory is a set of ideas to explain why something happens.

So for instance, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection explains how animals have come to be well-adapted to their environments.

So can you use the subject-specific vocabulary to complete this passage? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So let's fill in the blanks.

We've got, "Darwin was a keen naturalist even in his early life.

On board the Beagle, he collected 5,000 animal and plant specimens and made thousands of pages of notes about his, well done, observations.

These formed the basis of his theory of evolution by natural selection, a discovery which changed the way people saw the world.

Fantastic job, well done.

So here are some more pieces of subject-specific vocabulary we might want to use in our biography of Darwin.

We might want to use the word species and a species is a group of living things that can breed with each other.

An archipelago is a group of islands, like the Galapagos or the British Isles.

So we live in an archipelago and the Galapagos Islands is an archipelago too, not just one island, but a group of islands.

At university, people engage in academic studies where they learn about subjects in depth.

So at university, Darwin's academic studies were to do with medicine and to do with studying to be a vicar.

Entomology is the study of insects, which we know is one of Darwin's main hobbies.

And here's a great word, if you circumnavigate the globe, you go all the way around it.

So the Beagle circumnavigated the world.

An endemic species is one that is unique to that place, like many of the species in the Galapagos Islands.

So we could say the species is endemic to that place if it's not found anywhere else.

So can you complete these sentences using the pieces of subject-specific vocabulary we've just discussed? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, good job.

So for A, we would say, "Darwin did not enjoy his academic studies, but he had a passion for entomology." For B, we could say, "The Beagle circumnavigated the globe, stopping at the Galapagos archipelago." In the Galapagos, Darwin observed many endemic species, got two words there, such as the giant tortoise.

Really well done if you've got this.

So we're now ready to write notes for our plan based on our text map and our understanding of Darwin's theory.

And we can write notes for each themed paragraph using that subject-specific vocabulary that we've just learned where appropriate and you might have some subject-specific vocabulary of your own you'd like to put in as well.

So here we've got the section of our text map which shows Darwin's early life.

I'm going to show you how I can make it notes in our plan.

So I'm gonna take that first picture and I'm gonna write this note.

Born 1809, privileged slash wealthy family.

It's a note, not sentences.

I'm gonna take the next picture.

Father doctor, mother family fortune.

The next picture would be six Darwin children, large house, The Mount.

So I've just made notes using the first three parts of that text map.

So you've seen me do it, can you now complete the notes for the early life paragraph using the text map completing the events I've circled there? Pause the video and decide what notes would you say for this section.

Have a go.

Well done, great effort.

So maybe you started off by saying, "Loved doing science experiments, garden shed with brother." Maybe you said, "Mother died, eight, sent to boarding school." And for the last one, wanted to be outside collecting and observing.

So I've managed to get these subject-specific vocabulary in there right to the end.

Notice that we've not used complete sentences here.

We are using our text map to make notes to support our writing.

We will turn these into complete sentences later on.

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

Using your text map or mine if you don't have it with you and the subject specific vocabulary, which I've got on the right-hand side here, can you make notes for the first three paragraphs of your biography? You need some notes for his early life, some notes for his time at university and on the Beagle and some notes for the Galapagos.

So pause the video and let's make some notes using that text map and this vocabulary.

Have a go.

Well done, brilliant job.

So here's an example of the notes you might have made and look how I've separated them out into the three themes for our three first paragraphs.

So for early life, we've already seen these notes.

For university and the Beagle, I put these, sent Edinburgh, medicine, didn't enjoy, sent Cambridge, vicar, didn't enjoy academic studies, focused on entomology.

Then I've put 1831 after university, joined HMS Beagle, circumnavigated, 5,000 specimens and thousands of pages of observations.

So in that paragraph I got to use a lot more subject-specific vocabulary, because this isn't about his early life.

This is now starting to be about his achievements and his interest in science, which is going to be where that subject-specific vocabulary is much more relevant.

Now the Galapagos.

I wrote Beagle visited G, meaning Galapagos archipelago, on way home off South America, excited, active volcano, five weeks collecting specimens, many endemic species including giant tortoise, ate in soup and collected finches, noticed different beaks, wondered why.

So even though these are not complete sentences, I think I've got a really good basis now which I can then use to write from in future lessons.

I'm sure you've done a really good job as well, well done.

So we now need to plan our final paragraph which is about Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and about his impact on the modern world.

So we've planned our first three paragraphs using the text map.

For this final paragraph, we don't have our text map to help us.

So let's remember a few important points.

First of all, Darwin returned from the Galapagos and he thought about what he'd observed, didn't he? And he realised that those finches must have evolved to be adapted to each island and he theorised that natural selection was what drove this.

And then he published his ideas in "On The Origin of Species" and we know he's now seen as the father of evolution or of evolutionary theory.

So let's just recap how evolution by natural selection works.

Can you put these events in order to describe how the birds on some of those islands evolved larger beaks over many generations? Pause video and have a go.

Well done, really good.

So hopefully you started here.

If an island has fruit with large seeds, birds with small beaks struggle to get enough food and then birds with slightly larger beaks are more successful at getting food than these small-beaked birds.

Then the larger-beaked birds live longer and reproduce more and their offspring inherit their larger beaks.

And then after many generations of the larger-beaked birds being more successful, the species on the island evolves to be large-beaked.

Hopefully you got those in the right order.

Remember, this process takes an enormous amount of time, so even though we've summarised it very quickly, all of this is happening over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.

So let's write some notes for our final paragraph and to help us here, we're going to use some questions to structure our ideas.

So this final paragraph is about Darwin's theory.

So I've written this.

What did Darwin do when he returned from the Galapagos? And your notes are going to answer that question.

Secondly, what did he realise about the finches he'd seen? And that's where you've got the opportunity to explain how they evolved.

And finally, what did he do with these ideas and what was the impact? So that second question is going to be the one where you've got the chance to put your notes down about how evolution by natural selection works.

So you might want to use the explanation we've just put in order as your idea to flesh out in your notes there.

So you've got some subject-specific vocabulary at the bottom you want to use, pause the video and see if you can write your notes for this section.

Well done.

So here's an example of the notes you might have made for this final paragraph and if you want to make any changes now, then it's okay to do that.

So first of all, what did Darwin do when he returned from the Galapagos? Well, he thought about his observations and he examined his specimens.

And then what did he realise about the finches he'd seen? He realised they must have evolved to be adapted to each island.

And then here's where I've described really briefly the process.

So if the island had large seeds, that would mean the birds with small beaks struggle, the large-beaked birds would be more successful.

So the offspring would inherit large beaks and they'd evolve over many generations to have larger beaks.

So what did he do with these ideas and what was the impact? Well, he published this theory, which was called natural selection in "On The Origin of Species".

And then it was considered groundbreaking.

It was the first attempt to explain evolution.

And then finally, he's remembered as the father of evolution and he's famous for his contribution to science.

So we've done a really good job there of setting out the ideas behind the theory of evolution and about Darwin's impact very briefly in our notes there.

Again, we will make these into beautiful sentences when we come to write later.

Really well done.

So now we've done a brilliant job of planning our biography.

We can turn now to looking at some cohesive devices we can use when we come to write it.

So we have our notes that plan out our biography and we can turn now to thinking about how we can connect these ideas together.

And we can use a range of cohesive devices to join ideas together or to show the relationship between them.

So that can be punctuation, colons to explain and semicolons to connect related sentences.

It could be different sentence types, complex sentences which have a main clause and a subordinate clause or compound sentences which are composed of two or more main clauses joined together.

Or we might use parenthesis, we could use relative clauses and we could use brackets as well.

And we can also use fronted adverbials to begin sentences as a cohesive device.

So we've got loads of different ways of connecting ideas and bringing ideas together into sentences.

So let's look at some of these cohesive devices in turn.

First of all, colons are a piece of punctuation that can be used to introduce an explanation, joining two complete sentences together.

And what's on either side of the colon is capable of being a complete sentence on its own.

For instance, Darwin was thrilled, colon, he was desperate to see an active volcano.

So the second part explains why Darwin was thrilled, explains the part that come before the colon.

And both sides there could be a complete sentence on their own.

Here's another one.

Darwin's theory is groundbreaking, colon, it was the first serious attempt to explain how animals could have evolved.

Again, two complete sentences joined by a colon.

We could use semicolons as well as a cohesive device.

They can be used to join two related sentences together.

For instance, Darwin did poorly at school, he preferred being outside in nature.

They could have been sentences that were separate, but because they're closely related, we've joined them with a semicolon.

Here's another one.

Finches with larger beaks would be more successful, as a result they'll be able to reproduce more.

So again, closely related sentences linked together by that semicolon.

We've increased our text cohesion by showing our reader that these are closely related.

So which sentences here use colons and semicolons correctly to join two complete sentences together? Pause the video and have a look.

Well done, good job.

So A says, "His childhood was not easy, colon, his mother died when he was eight." That works because the second part explains the first part, doesn't it? B is not correct, because during the voyage is not a complete sentence before that semicolon.

C is not correct, because here the second part does not explain the first.

The fact that they made tortoise soup doesn't explain why they stayed for five weeks.

So that is not a correct use of a colon.

D is correct, because we got two closely related sentences joined by a semicolon.

Really well done if you got this.

So we've talked about punctuation as a cohesive device.

Now let's turn to fronted adverbials and we can use lots of different types of fronted adverbials in our biography as cohesive devices.

For instance, we could use fronted adverbials of time, for instance, as it sailed home many years later, soon after, eventually.

And we can see fronted adverbials can be clauses like the first example.

They can be phrases or they can be single words.

They're always a sentence starter followed by a comma.

We can also use fronted adverbials of cause to link ideas together.

So we could do consequently, due to this, as a result, because of this.

So that's showing us that the sentence that came before is the cause and the sentence that starts with this frontad adverbial is the effect.

So something happened and then consequently, the next thing happened.

We can also use fronted adverbials of place to show where things are.

We could use on land, there, here or back in England.

And finally we can use formal fronted adverbials to show but or and for instance, however, and despite this show but so this happened, however this contrasting thing happened.

We can use in addition to this or furthermore to show and.

So this happened in addition to this, another linked thing that builds on that first thing happened as well.

And finally, we can use moreover and also to show and as well.

So we've got a huge range of fronted adverbials here.

All of them start sentences.

All of them are followed by a comma, but they link together ideas in different ways.

So can you choose an appropriate fronted adverbial to fill each of these gaps from the list on the right-hand side? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, so hopefully you came up with some ideas like this.

For A, I'd say, "Larger-beaked finches would reproduce more.

Eventually, the species would evolve a larger beak." He did not enjoy medicine.

As a result, he transferred to Cambridge to study to be a vicar.

Darwin was born into a wealthy family.

However, his childhood also had some difficulties.

The Beagle visited the Galapagos.

Here, Darwin saw many endemic species.

So let's just look at B and C in more detail.

B uses a fronted adverbial of cause.

We've got the fact that he didn't enjoy medicine is the cause and the effect is that he transferred to Cambridge to study to be a vicar.

And then for C were showing a contrast.

He was born into a wealthy family on the one hand, however, on the other hand, he had some difficulties in his childhood as well.

So we can use these fronted adverbials to connect ideas and show our reader how they relate to one another.

So another cohesive device we can use is a compound sentence.

And here two complete sentences are joined using a coordinating conjunction, and, but or or.

For instance, his father was a doctor, his mother had a vast family fortune.

Two separate sentences, we can connect them like this.

His father was a doctor and his mother had a vast family fortune.

We've used and as a coordinating conjunction to create a compound sentence and improve our text cohesion.

Here's another example.

He was sent to study medicine.

He did not enjoy it at all.

I bet you've already thought how to connect those.

We could say, "He was sent to study medicine, but he did not enjoy it at all." Notice how we've used a comma before but and not beforehand.

When we use the coordinated conjunctions but and or, we put a comma in front of them.

And we've talked about compound sentences, complex sentences are of course sentences that contain a main clause and a subordinate clause, and these are another cohesive device.

Now, there are several types of complex sentence.

We can use a subordinating conjunction to start an adverbial clause in what we call an adverbial complex sentence.

For instance, when is a subordinating conjunction here.

So we got when he left university, he was invited to join the HMS Beagle's voyage.

And I've highlighted the adverbial clause there in the adverbial complex sentence.

We've connected two ideas together using that subordinating conjunction.

Here's another one.

Darwin liked Cambridge because he was able to focus on entomology.

So the subordinating conjunction here is because, starting that adverbial clause, it's linked to the main clause, Darwin liked Cambridge, to make an adverbial complex sentence.

Now, there's another type of complex sentence I want to use, which is a non-finite complex sentence.

And that has a non-finite -ing clause that starts with a verb in its -ing form.

So for instance, thinking is a verb in its -ing form and it starts the non-finite -ing clause, "Thinking about the finches." And we've joined it to our main clause, Darwin came to an important conclusion, to create this non-finite complex sentence.

Thinking about the finches, Darwin came to an important conclusion.

Here's another one.

He did poorly at school, preferring to be outside collecting specimens.

Preferring as a verb in its -ing form starting that non-finite -ing clause and this time it's come after a main clause.

Notice how for both these examples, the boundary between the main clause and the non-finite -ing clause is shown by a comma.

And that's really important to remember.

And each time here with all these types of complex sentence, that subordinate clause needs the main clause to make sense.

So can you choose the appropriate word to complete each compound or complex sentence from the three on the right-hand side? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great job.

So for A, we'd say, "As the beagle sailed back towards England, it visited the Galapagos archipelago." That's an arb complex sentence, because as is acting as a subordinating conjunction there.

For B, we would say but.

So the crew admired the giant tortoises, but this did not stop them eating their meat.

So that is a compound sentence using but as a coordinating conjunction.

And C has noticing.

Noticing that the finches' beaks were well-adapted to their diet, Darwin wondered why.

Here we've got a non-finite complex sentence with noticing starting that non-finite -ing clause at the start there and with the comma at the end of that non-finite -ing clause.

Really well done for matching those up.

Now, our final type of cohesive device is parenthesis and relative clauses, and these are great ways of adding extra information into a sentence to improve our test cohesion.

So we can use a relative clause to create a relative complex sentence.

Here are two ideas.

The voyage took Darwin all around the world, it lasted five years.

We can make a relative complex sentence like this.

The voyage, which lasted five years, took Darwin all around the world.

Can you see we've taken that second sentence and made it a relative clause, which lasted five years, and we've inserted it in the middle of the main clause, interrupting that main clause to add some extra information into it.

We could remove that relative clause and the sentence would still make sense.

So we've added it in in the middle there.

We can also use brackets to add in parenthesis.

We could take these two ideas.

They visited the Galapagos.

This is a group of islands off South America.

Here it is with brackets to show parenthesis.

They visited the Galapagos (a group of islands off South America).

Notice how there's a bracket on either side here, one before that full stop at the end as well.

We could remove this parenthesis and the sentence would still make sense, but we've improved our text cohesion by adding in this extra information into the same sentence instead of having it in a separate sentence.

So how could we combine these pairs of ideas using parenthesis or a relative clause as a cohesive device? Pause the video and think how you could do it.

Well done, really good job.

So for A, we could write, "At Cambridge, Darwin could focus on entomology, which was one of his favourite hobbies." So here I've put the relative clause at the end of the sentence after entomology, because that's the noun it's telling us more about.

What about B? We could say, "Darwin presented his theory, (called natural selection) to the world.

So here it's the theory that we're adding more information about.

So I put the piece of parenthesis and brackets after that word theory.

Really well done if you came up with something similar, but there are different options here, so yours might be slightly different.

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

I've got some pairs of ideas in the table here.

I'd like you to connect each set of ideas together using the cohesive devices that I've listed.

Now, you won't be able to use them all.

You need to select one which you think works really well to connect the pair of ideas together.

Now remember, that might not mean putting them in the same sentence.

You might want to use a fronted adverbial at the start of the second sentence and keep them as separate sentences, but you might want to use a cohesive device to connect these two ideas into one sentence.

It's up to you.

Pause the video and see what you can do.

Well done, really good effort there.

So here are some examples of how you may have connected the ideas using cohesive devices and remember, there are many alternatives.

That's what's really good about knowing so many cohesive devices.

We can always choose which we think is the best or most effective one in each situation.

So for the first one, I did this.

I used a non-finite -ing clause to make a non-finite complex sentence.

I said, "Darwin returned to England in 1836, throwing himself into understanding what he'd seen." For the second one, I used a piece of parenthesis in brackets, I've said, "Charles Darwin (an English naturalist) is best known for his contribution to the theory of evolution." So in this last one, I've got three pieces of information and I've actually used three cohesive devices.

Let's have a look.

I've said, "Darwin was sent to Edinburgh to study medicine, semicolon, however, he did not enjoy it.

As a result, he was sent to Cambridge to study to become a vicar." So I have my semicolon, a formal fronted adverbial, however, and a fronted adverbial of cause, as a result, to show the close relationship and the connections between those ideas.

Really well done for how you did that as well.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We said that we can use a text map to support our planning and it helps us to make notes about the content we want to include in our writing.

We said that we can plan to include subject-specific vocabulary to enhance or improve our writing.

And we said that we can connect ideas using a range of cohesive devices when we write.

And these help our writing to flow well and allow our meaning to be really clear for our reader.

Really well done for your effort in this lesson.

I hope you're really pleased with the plan you've produced and that you're going to hang onto it so that we can write with it in a future lesson.

I'd love to see you then.

Goodbye.