Lesson video

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

In this lesson, we're going to follow three steps to edit our non-chronological reports about macaroni penguins.

So this is a chance to really impress our audience with the accuracy of our work and make some big improvements.

Let's make a step.

Today's lesson is called peers's editing and non-chronological reports from my unit called Pandas or Antarctic Animals non-chronological report.

Our lesson outcome for today is I can edit my own and my peers non-chronological report about macaroni penguins.

So because we'll be editing in this lesson, if you have written your reports about macaroni penguins, you'll need to have that with you.

If you don't, please don't worry, you can always edit the examples I show you in the video instead.

I'll be showing you how to edit focusing on one particular paragraph of the report.

But your teacher might ask you to edit the whole report, and that's fine because the three checks we go through will work perfectly for that purpose as well.

Also, if you don't have a peer to edit with today, that's totally fine.

Please don't worry, all of the checks we do, you can do just as well on your own if you need to.

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

Editing, punctuation, cohesion and vocabulary.

Well done, editing is the process of revising and refining a piece of writing, focusing on improving its punctuation, sentence structures and language.

Punctuation is a set of standardised symbols and marks used in written language to structure sentences.

Text cohesion refers to how a text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve the text purpose, and vocabulary refers to the language choices made by the writer.

Here's our outline for today, we're going to go through a series of three checks for our writing to try and improve it.

We'll start off by peer editing for punctuation.

Then we'll be editing for cohesion, and finally we'll be editing for vocabulary.

Let's get to work.

So when we finish the draught, we know that we edit to improve our work.

This is a chance to rethink, rephrase, and reconsider our first ideas, and remember, every piece of work can always be improved.

So editing a piece of work involves checking several things.

We'll check the punctuation.

We'll check our sentence structure and our cohesive devices.

We'll check vocabulary and spelling and editing is about polishing our work so it really shows up our skills.

Remember, we want our audience to enjoy our writing and not be interrupted by silly mistakes or errors that we've made, which we could fix.

So we're going to try and fix those errors today to make sure our writing is really impressive for our audience.

So true or false, if you're asked to edit your work, it means it's full of mistakes, pause, video and have a think.

Well done, you're right, that is false.

Why is that false? Pause the video and decide.

Yeah, you're right, the answer is B.

Editing is something all writers do because there's a chance to improve their work and make it better.

Any book we read has probably gone through months and months of editing to make it really, really impressive and make it as enjoyable as possible for us, the reader.

So we've got to do the same thing for our readers.

So first we're going to check our punctuation and we're just going to recap now a few of the pieces of punctuation we might spot in our report, or we might need to add to our report as we check it.

So we know commas are one type of punctuation with lots of different uses.

They could be used to demarcate or show clauses and phrases.

For instance, because it cannot move, comma, the penguin must survive on its fat stores because of this, krill numbers are declining.

So here we've got a adverbial clause in the first example and then a fronted adverbial and a second example, which is just a phrase, and each time they're followed by a comma.

We know that commas also separate pairs of adjectives.

For instance, the penguin has a thick, orange, brown bill.

And bracket and commas can be used to show parenthesis, for instance, the penguins, which eat mostly krill, spend months at sea each year or with brackets, The penguin has excellent vision, bracket, to help it escape its predators close brackets.

And remember, for parenthesis, we always have punctuation either side of the piece of parenthesis.

Full stops are a really useful piece of punctuation as we all know.

They separate sentences and help us to avoid run-on sentences where we've merged sentences together, which should be separate.

So here's a run-on sentence.

The penguin has tightly-packed feathers this helps it to stay warm.

I bet you've already spotted where the full stop should go.

We should place it here.

The penguin has tightly packed feathers, full stop.

Then a capital T to start the new sentence.

This helps it to stay warm.

We know apostrophes are also very important to show possession of a noun by another noun.

For instance, the penguins diet is almost exclusively composed of krill.

Here we're saying the diet belonging to the penguin as a singular noun as a species.

But we could also say macaroni penguins,' plural, muscles can absorb oxygen.

We might also need a question mark after a subheading in our report because sometimes those subheadings are a sentence, which is a question.

So let's practise that.

Can you add the missing punctuation into each of these sentences? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, great effort.

So for A, we need to add an apostrophe for possession after macaroni penguins.

For B, we need a comma after that fronted adverbial, because of this.

For C, we need a full stop and a capital letter 'cause that was a run on sentence.

And for D, we could use bracket to show the parenthesis from the family Eudyptes.

Really well done for spotting all this.

So here is an example of the habitat section of a non-chronological report about penguins, and it has lots of missing punctuation.

So let's practise finding it, just like you would if you are editing your own work.

So discuss with a partner or on your own if you need to.

Where can you see punctuation mistakes in this passage? Maybe there's some punctuation that needs to be added in.

Pause the video and see how many places you can spot, but need some editing, have a go.

Really well done, I bet you found loads.

So here are some places where punctuation should be added, and I'm not going to share with you now what punctuation I would add.

Let's just see if we agree on where it needs to be placed.

So something needs to be added here, doesn't it, at the end of this subheading? Something after the word incredibly and something before the word coming.

We need something around these words, Antarctica, south America and Africa, ]and something between shallow and grass.

We need something after, interestingly and after this word egg with in that sentence that starts with the subordinating conjunction while, so I bet you've already got an idea in your head of what punctuation needs to be added in each of those places.

But really well done for spotting so many errors, which will help you when you come to correct your own work, well done.

So let's do our first task with assessment.

We're going to peer edit, that means edit with a partner, the habitat section of our report, looking only at punctuation.

Now, as I said, if your teacher's asked you to edit the whole report, that is fine, or maybe you don't have a partner today, and you're editing on your own, that's also fine.

But here's how we do it, if we do have a partner.

You're going to work in a pair as partner A and partner B.

You're going to place A's work on top of A's work and find their habitat section or whichever section your teachers ask you to edit.

And A should follow with a ruler as B reads the paragraph aloud.

so B, it's reading A's work.

And then looking only at punctuation, make any additions or changes that need to be made in A's work together and then of course, repeat with B's work.

So you're going to check for all these pieces of punctuation, for commas, for brackets, for full stops and apostrophes.

So pause the video and work with your partner to try and edit for punctuation, have a go.

Well done, hopefully found some places where you'd missed a B's punctuation and you are able to catch it with your partner's help, really well done.

So I'm going to show you that passage from before with the corrections made.

So, of course, after this subheading, we needed that question mark, didn't we? Incredibly, as a fronted adverbial, so it needs a comma.

And I've chosen to put brackets around Antarctica, south America and Africa, which is a piece of parenthesis.

Here, I needed a comma between shallow and grass and rock-line because those are adjectives that need separating.

I need a comma after interestingly, my viewpoint, fronted adverbial, and we've got wild one is sitting on the egg as a fronted adverbial clause, which needs a comma after it as well.

Now, I'm sure you didn't have quite as many errors as I had in mind, but hopefully we're able to catch something to just improve your text ever so slightly, really well done.

So we are now going to move on to editing for cohesion.

So we know that a non-chronological report should have good text cohesion, that means that the text flows and is easy to read for our reader, but also that we shown the connections between pieces of information in the text.

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

We can first of all think have we used a range of sentence structures that connect the ideas in different ways.

It would be boring for our reader if all our sentences follow the same structure.

So we want to vary it in different ways.

So we could use parenthesis fronted adverbials and compounds and complex sentences as different cohesive devices to connect information in different ways.

We also have to try and add in any missing words, which you might have omitted as we wrote, or we might need to remove some extra ones we shouldn't have written.

And finally, we need to check most important of all, does our writing make sense? So here's an example of the editing we might do for cohesion.

So here is my paragraph again about habitats for macaroni penguins.

So as I'm reading this, I might think, hmm, there's a missing word here.

The macaroni penguin is native to the southern ocean, that Antarctica, something's missing.

Now, I've got some poor cohesion here.

I've said it's been six months a year at sea.

It comes a short breed.

I haven't connected those two facts in any way, even though they're related.

So I'd call that some poor cohesion.

There's also poor cohesion here, in these last two sentences.

I've said it uses the nest to incubating its eggs.

This means keeping them warm.

I think those two pieces of information could be connected.

And you probably spotted it as I read that incubating here does not make sense.

So I can make some changes.

I might write this instead.

I've added that missing word that's surrounds Antarctica.

I've used cohesive devices to better connect these two sentences.

Now, it says it spends six months of the year at sea, coming ashore to breed.

I've taken two pieces of information, combined them into one sentence to improve my test cohesion.

And I've done the same thing in the last two sentences from the previous example.

Now, it says it uses the nest to incubate-warm-it eggs.

So instead of having a separate sentence saying, incubate means keep warm, I've just put the word warm in parenthesis and it does the same thing for my reader, and it means they don't have to be interrupted by yet another sentence to read.

Instead, we've made it easier for them by combining those piece of information using the cohesive device.

So have a look at these three passages, can you try and improve the cohesion of each passage? And you may have to add cohesive devices or missing words in order to do that.

So we're all going to do this in different ways, but think carefully about how you could improve the cohesion of each of these passages, have a go.

Well done, great effort.

So yours will look different to mine, but maybe you said something like this.

For the first example, you can see there's two sentences at the minute, and I'm going to combine them into one sentence using parenthesis.

The penguins consume more food in total than any other seabird, 9.

2 million tonnes a year.

In B, there are three separate sentences at the minute.

I'm going to combine them into one.

I'm saying foraging from dawn until dusk, that's my non-chronological clause.

The penguin who dive to depths of 80 metres and, compound sentence, it can go three minutes without taking a breath.

So we took three sentences that were linked and we've combined them together using our cohesive devices.

And for C, I've got two sentences, and at this time I've combined them into one using a complex sentence.

Because the penguin has a rough tongue, it can grip onto its slippery prey.

Now, you don't always have to merge things into one sentence.

You might be able to keep them separate and connect them using fronted adverbials instead and that is totally fine.

We just want to show the connections between these pieces of information.

Really good job in that task.

So as we've just discussed, we often want to connect ideas more closely to promote cohesion, and we can do it using different cohesive devices.

So let's imagine we have these two pieces of information.

Efforts have been made to protect the penguins, but the population is still falling.

So we can join these ideas using compound and complex sentences, parenthesis and fronted adverbials or as cohesive devices.

For instance, I could make a compound sentence efforts be made to protect the penguins, but their population is still falling.

I could do it as a complex sentence, although efforts have been made to protect the penguins, their numbers are still falling.

I could make it with some parenthesis.

Zoologists, who are trying to protect the penguins, have failed to stop the numbers falling.

And finally, I could do this with a fronted adverbial.

I could say considerable conservation efforts have been made, however, the penguin population is falling.

So you can see there are many different ways of showing connections between pieces of information and they all help to improve our text cohesion.

So here is another passage with poor text cohesion.

Can you discuss with your partner where you could improve the cohesion in this passage? So you might decide to combine some sentences together with different cohesive devices, or you might decide to link those sentences separately with fronted adverbials.

So pause the video and decide how you would improve the text cohesion in this passage, have a go.

Well done, great effort.

Now again, I'm not gonna show you exactly the changes I would make, but we know that some of these sentences could be joined to make complex and compound sentences and other ideas could be linked using fronted adverbials So I'm sure you've got some great ideas for that already, well done.

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

We're now going to peer edit the habitat section or whichever section your teacher has asked you to do, looking only at cohesion.

So just we did before, We're going to work as a pair as A and B.

A's work goes on top of B's, and A's going to follow with a ruler as B reads that paragraph.

And this time you're looking only at cohesion and you're going to make any additions or changes that need to be made to A's work, and then of course swap and repeat.

So this time you're going to check for missing words, missing cohesive devices, and most of all, checking that it makes sense.

So pause the video and work with your partner to try and edit that piece of work.

Really good job, well done.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made, and I've done this using the paragraph I showed you before.

So I've added in a fronted adverbials at the start, interestingly.

And now I've used several cohesive devices here to combine some information.

I've said, while one parent sits on the egg unable to feed, the other is at sea foraging for food and building up its fat reserves.

Here I've used some parenthesis, the penguins sociable creatures, and they live in vast, crowded colonies of up to 100,000 birds.

And finally, I've connected some information using a complex sentence, they communicate using noises so that they can find each other, show aggression and find mates.

And I've also corrected some mistakes where things didn't make sense there.

Hopefully again, you had fewer changes to make, but hopefully you've managed to ramp up your work slightly to really improve it and polish it for your audience, really well done.

So it's time for the final part of our lesson.

We're going to look at how we can peer edit for vocabulary.

So if we were editing a narrative, a story, we would often want to try and make our writing more imaginative and more descriptive.

But when we're editing a non chronological report, we have different questions in mind.

We are thinking is the language formal enough, serious and factual enough? Have we varied the way we've referred to the subject of the report? In this case, penguins, and have we used subject specific vocabulary? So we'll avoid using language like this.

We wouldn't say cute, adorable, or delightful when describing the penguins 'cause that's too informal.

We won't use contractions like can't, aren't and isn't.

'cause again, that's too informal and we won't say things like, you won't believe, because we aren't addressing the reader directly in this report.

So here's an example of how we might edit to improve vocabulary.

I've got a passage here which isn't quite the right tone.

Let's read it.

It says, did you know macaroni penguins are endangered? There's fewer krill 'cause of climate change.

So they're not getting anything to eat.

Now, I understand what that means.

It's not a problem with understanding, the problem here is the tone, isn't it? So here we're being too informal and we're addressing our reader directly, which we're not going to do.

Here, we've used a contraction there's which is again, too informal.

And this contraction as well, they're, not appropriate for our texts we're writing, and not getting anything to eat, if not subject specific is it? We know some words to describe things that penguins eat and things that animals eat, which would be more subject-specific.

So instead I might write this, notably, I've used a fronted adverbials, macaroni penguins are considered a vulnerable species.

Because of climate change, there are now fewer krill in the oceans.

Consequently, the macaroni penguin may struggle to obtain enough food to survive.

So I'm much more formal here, much more serious and factual.

I've used my cohesive devices like we discussed before.

I've removed those contractions.

I'm no longer talking directly to the reader, and I'm using more subject specific vocabulary like obtain food here, vulnerable species and climate change and other subject specific words.

So you can see the tone has changed a huge amount and this is the kind of tone we're aiming for.

So which version of this passage uses the most appropriate vocabulary for an non-chronological report? Pause video and have a think Well done, I'm sure you spotted that the answer is B.

A is just too informal, isn't it? Words like gobble don't really have a place in an non-chronological report.

And we don't say things like the penguins love things because we don't really know what their emotions are in relation to krill may be.

We just know that they eat it.

And for C, we've used some contractions there and we're addressing our reader, which isn't the right tone for our report.

So B is by far the most informal tone with its factual and serious language it's used.

So there's lots of formal subject, specific language you might want to include in our report.

So we might use some more formal and alternatives for common words we know.

So instead of eat, we might say consume, instead of live, we could say reside or inhabit, instead of chatty, we call them sociable.

Instead of places they may be habitats or areas instead of completely, you might say exclusively, exclusively or almost exclusively krill.

We might say instead of rare, vulnerable, and instead of food, we call it nutrients or food intake.

Instead of a drop in the numbers, we could talk about a decline.

So making those changes will shift our report in a formal direction.

And we could also use different ways of referring to penguins.

We could call them these birds or this fascinating creature or this vulnerable species.

And these keep a formal tone, while maintaining our reader's interest.

And we can also use a thesaurus with care, to select some appropriate alternatives to words we want to use.

So how can we improve each of these examples by using more appropriate for vocabulary? Pause the video and think what changes you would make to each of these.

Well done, good thinking.

So for A, I'm afraid the penguins are in real trouble.

We wouldn't use, I'm, here because that's a contraction and it's talking a bit too personally.

Instead you might say the macaroni penguin is a risk of extinction in the years to come.

For B, we've said there are loads of these penguins, but they're getting less common.

Again, we've got a contraction there and loads is very informal, isn't it? So you might say the macaroni penguin is the most common penguin species, but it's numbers are falling.

And for C, we said, believe it or not, these penguins sometimes swallow rocks, yes, rocks, and no one even knows why.

Again, this is quite informal and chatty.

So instead we might see something like, interestingly, these unique birds occasionally swallow small stones for unknown reasons.

So again, we've shifted our language from informal to formal in keeping with the tone of a non-chronological report, really well done for your ideas there.

So here's an example of a passage which does not have the appropriate tone for an non-chronological report.

Again, I'd like you to discuss with your partner what problems you see with the vocabulary in this passage and what changes might you want to make.

Pause the video and have a think well done, good thinking.

So hopefully you spotted some examples of informal language being used.

Again, I won't correct them, but let's see if we agreed on where it's gone wrong.

So we've got loves paddling, crazily, bobbing on the waves, washes up on a beach all over the place, rocky little, it's and then sits on, all of those could be improved, can't they, to make them more formal and more subject specific as well.

Really well done for spotting all those.

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

We're going to peer edit the habitat section of our report, looking only at vocabulary or whichever section your teacher has asked you to do.

So we're going to follow the same steps as before, but remember this time we're looking only at vocabulary and we're going to make any additions or changes that need to be made to A's work and then to B's work.

So we're going to check for formal language, a subject specific vocabulary, and to make sure we've used varied language to refer to the penguins.

So pause the video and see what changes you can make.

Well done, good job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made.

I've done this using the paragraph I showed you before.

So I've said is native to, and I've said surrounds, I've said amazingly, instead of crazily, and I've said foraging at sea.

I've said comes ashore and the sites are across three continents.

I've said, a rock-lined nest and then incubate instead of sits on at the end there.

So I've increased my formality and I've used some good subject-specific vocabulary.

I'm sure you were able to make some fantastic changes as well, well done.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

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

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

We learned that we can check the cohesion by looking at the sentence structures we've used and connecting the ideas more closely where needed.

And we've learned we can check our vocabulary to ensure it's formal and subject-specific.

You've done a fantastic job in this lesson, editing and improving your work, and I hope you're really pleased with the improvements you've been able to make.

I'm sure your reader will be when they come to read your work.

Fantastic work and I hope to see you again in a future lesson, goodbye.