Lesson video

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

Now, we're going to have another chance to show off our writing skills today because we'll be writing some specific sections of our report, and I think we're gonna produce some brilliant work.

So, let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called Writing Further Specific Sections Of A Non-Chronological Report About A Penguin, for my unit called Pandas or Antarctic Animals: Non-Chronological Report.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to write the habitat and diet sections of a non-chronological report about macaroni penguins, using a range of cohesive devices.

Now, you may already have some notes about the macaroni penguin's habitat and diet from previous lessons, and if you do, you should make sure you've got them now.

If you don't, please don't worry, I'll provide you with some notes that you can use.

You might also want to have a copy of the cohesive devices bank from the additional materials for this lesson to help you to join ideas in different ways.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Text cohesion.

Cohesive devices.

Subheading.

And introductory sentence.

Well done.

So, text cohesion refers to how text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve the text's purpose.

Cohesive devices are language structures that contribute to text cohesion.

A subheading is a phrase, word or sentence used to introduce part of a text, and that sentence can be a question.

And an introductory sentence is a sentence used at the start of a paragraph.

So here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by writing the habitat section and then we'll go on to writing the diet section.

So today is a great chance to show off our writing skills and show how well we can use these cohesive devices to link our ideas together.

So, here are some notes for our next section, giving information about the macaroni penguin's habitat.

So, you might have some different notes and that's fine, you use them for this part of the lesson.

So we know they spend six months at sea and they live, they're native to the Southern Ocean, the ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

They come ashore to breed at 50 sites in Antarctica, South America and Africa.

Remember, during that time they're at sea, they don't come to land.

So they come to land to breed and to moult.

They make a shallow scrape, which is the name for their nest, and it's lined with rocks and grass, and they use it to incubate eggs.

The male and female take turns incubating while the other hunts.

And they live in these large, crowded colonies of 100,000 individuals or birds.

And they communicate with each other with noises and gestures.

Those noises can show aggression, they can help them find each other, and help them attract mates.

So, as I've kind of shown you already, each note there represents at least one complete sentence of information.

For instance, this might represent this idea.

The penguin's nest is a shallow dent called a scrape.

It's lined with rocks and grass.

And this is where they incubate their eggs.

So I've shown three sentences from that idea.

And maybe this one could be, the penguins can communicate with each other using noises and by making gestures with their flippers.

So, let's practise converting those notes out loud into complete sentences or ideas, so to remind you of the facts they represent.

Pause the video and see if you can do that to help lock these facts into your brain.

Have a go.

Well done, good effort, that's gonna really help you when you come to write.

So maybe you took this one and you said, the penguins come ashore to breed at 50 sites in Antarctica, South America and Africa.

Maybe you took this note and you said, the penguins come ashore to breed in large, crowded colonies of up to 100,000 birds.

Really good job, well done.

Okay, let's put some of those notes into use.

Can you match up the cause and effect from these ideas about macaroni penguins' habitats? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, good effort.

So for A, we would say, males and females take turns incubating the eggs so that each also has a chance to feed.

For B, we'd say, because the penguins gather in such huge colonies, they need to be able to communicate in order to find their family.

And for C, we'd say, macaroni penguins are well adapted for swimming.

As a result, they're able to spend six months of the year at sea.

Really well done for connecting up the cause and the effect there, well done.

So, now let's see if we can identify some of these cohesive devices.

And we've got the three different types of fronted adverbial we might use here.

So, can you match each sentence to the cohesive device it uses? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, right, so let's take a look.

In A, we've got amazingly, which is a viewpoint fronted adverbial.

It's me, the author, saying what I think of the fact that's going to come next.

For B, I've got furthermore, which is a formal fronted adverbial.

It's adding on to the previous sentence.

And for C, we've got as a consequence, a fronted adverbial of cause, which is showing cause and effect.

Good job, well done.

So when we're writing a specific section like this one, we want to follow some success criteria to ensure we write well.

So, ours will look like this today.

We'll have a subheading and an introductory sentence for our section.

And then we'll have a range of cohesive devices to connect the ideas together.

Maybe a complex sentence, fronted adverbials, parenthesis, and a compound sentence.

So following the success criteria, we'll make sure we write with good text cohesion.

And within each section we're going to start with an introductory sentence to show what the section is about, to give our reader the most general important information.

In this case, about the habitat.

And then we'll give more detailed information as we go through the paragraph.

And as we write, we'll tick off our success criteria.

So, here is an example passage about the habitat of the stag beetle.

Can you pause the video and read it through and decide how it has met our success criteria today? Have a go.

Well done, good reading.

So, let's have a look.

Do we have a subheading and an introductory sentence? Yes, we do, they're here.

So we've got our subheading as a question, and then we're saying in our first sentence, just very general information about where stag beetles are found.

They're found in southeast England, particularly in London.

We've got a complex sentence using when, and another using once, here.

We've also got so that as well, showing cause and effect in a complex sentence.

We've got fronted adverbials.

We have interestingly here.

We've got some parenthesis.

We have particularly in London, and we have which feeds on rotten wood.

And we have a compound sentence here, using but.

So we've ticked off all our success criteria there.

Really well done for spotting all those features.

So, which of the following would be a good introductory sentence for a paragraph about the penguins' habitats? Remembering the introductory sentence should give the most general important information to tell the reader the most vital thing they need to know.

Pause the video and decide which of these would work best.

Well done, okay, let's take a look.

For A, we've said macaroni penguins come ashore to breed.

Well that is important, but it's quite specific, so I wouldn't use that one.

For B, we said macaroni penguins make a shallow nest.

Well that doesn't really tell us exactly where they live.

It's kind of zoomed in on their breeding habits and where they breed.

So again, that's a bit too specific.

C is the best one 'cause it's more general.

It says macaroni penguins are native to the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

So we've given our reader the broad view of where they live in terms of the world, and then we can zoom in on things like where they breed and what they do when they breed.

Really well done if you spotted that difference.

So, as we know, we can improve our text cohesion by connecting pieces of information together using our cohesive devices.

So we've got our notes here again.

So, if we take these first two notes, we know they represent these facts.

They spend six months at sea in the Southern Ocean and they come ashore to breed at 50 sites in three continents.

But I haven't linked those pieces of information together, have I? They're separate.

So, I could use cohesive devices to link them together.

I could do a complex sentence with some parenthesis.

I could do it like this.

I could say the penguins spend six months at sea, in the Southern Ocean, coming ashore to breed at sites across three continents, Antarctica, South America and Africa.

So I've used two pieces of parenthesis there and I've got coming ashore, coming as my I-N-G verb, starting a non-finite I-N-G clause, which is a type of subordinate clause, to make that complex sentence.

So I've shown my reader the connection now, between all those pieces of information, by using my cohesion devices.

Here's another example.

Let's suppose I take this idea.

I could write it as three separate sentences like this.

They lay their eggs in a shallow scrape.

It is lined with rocks and grass.

This is where they incubate the eggs.

I've got three separate pieces of information.

I haven't shown my reader how they relate to one another.

So, I could use cohesive devices to show those connections.

I could use parenthesis in a compound sentence, like this.

The penguins lay their eggs in a shallow rock-lined scrape, nest, and incubate them here for several weeks.

So I've turned the nest into a parenthesis and I've got my compound sentence, using and there, to connect these pieces of information together.

So, I'd like you to try and practise that out loud now, using the cohesive devices bank if you have it with you.

Can you try and say these sentences out loud, creating sentences from the notes and connecting them together using different cohesive devices? You might want to try out a few different ideas until you settle on one you're happy with.

So, pause the video and try saying these out loud, connecting them with cohesive devices, have a go.

Well done, great effort.

That's gonna really help you when you come to write.

So, maybe you took this idea and you made it into a sentence which has fronted adverbials and a complex sentence, so two separate sentences.

I've said, interestingly, a viewpoint fronted adverbial, the male and female take turns incubating the eggs in the scrape.

And then I've got my complex sentence.

While one is sitting on the egg, the other is at sea foraging for food.

So that really helps my reader to understand how all this information links together.

Really well done for getting something similar.

So, let's start writing the habitat section together and we'll do that on the next page.

And here are the notes we're going to cover in our first part of this section.

Just the ones in purple, those first three.

You could choose different ones, and if so, that's totally fine.

So, we need to do all these things.

We need to write a subheading for our section and an introductory sentence giving that most general information.

Then we'll write the first few sentences of detailed information about the penguins' habitats using our cohesive devices.

And always, we can try saying a sentence out loud before we write it, writing it down, and then reading it back to ourselves to check that it makes sense.

So let's write the first part of our habitat section together.

Okay, so we have our success criteria here, and I've already written the subheading.

Where do macaroni penguins live? So, we're going to try and do the first half of our habitat section here.

Now, the most important sentence of all is our introductory sentence here because we need to give our reader the overview of the main point about where macaroni penguins live.

So, my first note here actually, is a little bit tricky because I've said here, six months at sea, but I'm not sure that's the most important point.

I think really this point, the Southern Ocean, is the most important part because that's where the macaroni penguins live.

So help me finish off this first sentence.

I could say, the macaroni penguin is native to, yeah, I could say the Southern Ocean.

Now, the Southern Ocean surrounds which continent? Well done, Antarctica.

So I could say, the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

'Cause that helps my reader to understand that this is the area of the world where the macaroni penguins live.

Okay, so, I think that's a really good introductory sentence 'cause it really tells my reader exactly where we're thinking of in the world.

Let's just read it back.

The macaroni penguin is native to the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

Oh, hang on, Antarctica is a proper noun, isn't it? The name of a continent.

So I'm going to need a capital A for that instead.

So let's add that in there.

Okay, right, I can tick this off now.

So let's look back at our plan notes here.

So, now I think I can use this note here, six months at sea.

Now, I think that's a kind of amazing thing, isn't it? So I think I'm going to use a viewpoint fronted adverbial to tell my reader that I think this is remarkable, that they spend six months at sea without ever touching land.

So, I think I could use, hmm, shall we go for incredibly, amazingly or interestingly here? Yeah, let's do amazingly because I think it really is quite amazing that an animal can live at sea without touching land for so long.

So I'm going to say, amazingly, it spends how long at sea? Yeah, well done, six months.

So I'm going to say it spends six months at sea.

In what period of time does it do that? Yeah, each year, isn't it? So I could say each year.

Now I'm thinking, can I connect that to this piece of information using a cohesive device? So, come ashore to breed.

I think I could continue this sentence and make it a complex sentence.

Maybe I could use an I-N-G verb to make a non-finite I-N-G clause.

So instead of come, it would be coming, wouldn't it? Yeah, well done.

So coming where? Help me out.

Good, yeah, coming ashore to breed.

Oh, I think we can actually even connect in all of the rest of this to this one sentence.

So coming ashore to breed where? Yeah, at 50 sites.

Oh, across how many continents is that? Yeah, one, two, three continents.

So I could say, hmm, would it be at three continents? Across three continents? Yeah, let's say across.

So, at three sites across three, sorry, 50 sites across three continents.

Mm, and how can I tell my reader what those continents are? Yeah, I think I could use parenthesis, couldn't I? So, I'm going to put a bracket, and I think I'll start a new line, and I'll say what those continents are.

I'm gonna say Antarctica with a capital A this time.

So I've got Antarctica, South America, capitals for both parts of the name, and, I need to write and even though I'm still in brackets, and Africa.

Okay, let's lock that in.

Oh, you've spotted it.

Yeah, I need my closing brackets there because it's a piece of parenthesis.

Right, that looks like a good sentence.

Shall we read it back? We've said, amazingly, it spends six months at sea each year, coming ashore to breed at 50 sites across three continents, Antarctica, South America and Africa.

Okay, that looks good.

So, which success criteria have I met there? Yeah, I've met loads.

I've got a complex sentence, because I've got coming ashore to breed at 50 sites across three continents as a subordinate clause, a non-finite I-N-G clause.

I've got my fronted adverbial, amazingly, a viewpoint fronted adverbial.

And we've got parenthesis here, Antarctica, South America, and Africa.

So, that was a sentence that was really successful.

Okay, we've just got one more note to cover.

Shallow scrape, rocks and grass, and then an arrow, incubate eggs.

Hmm, what was I talking about here? What was a scrape? Oh, yeah, it's their nest, isn't it? So, hmm, so we're talking about these sites so I think I'm going to say, here, and by here I mean at these sites, what does it make? I could say makes, or could I be more formal? Oh, yeah, I could say it creates, couldn't I? I could say it creates, it creates, yeah, it creates, not it create, yeah.

It creates a, oh, let's describe that nest.

What's their nest like? Hmm, yeah, it's lined with rocks and grass, but it's shallow, isn't it? Let's use that subject-specific description.

A shallow nest and, oh, what's that nest called? Yeah, a scrape, so why don't we put that in brackets as another piece of parenthesis, so, called a scrape.

And then I can say what it's lined with.

What is it lined with? Yeah, well done, lined with rocks and grass.

Okay, so let's just check that sentence.

I've said, here, it creates a shallow nest, called a scrape, lined with rocks and grass.

And that's good, but I'm still left with this fact, incubate eggs, hmm.

So how could I actually connect that up? Maybe I could use a compound sentence.

Ah, yeah, let's cross out that full stop and see if we can extend this sentence instead to connect these pieces of information together.

Should we use and, but, or or? Yeah, and, isn't it? And so I could say, lined with rocks and grass and uses this to do what with its eggs? Well done, to incubate, in-cu-bate are my three syllables, so I've got in-cu-bate.

Yeah, that looks good, its eggs.

Okay, so instead of having separate sentences, I've increased my text cohesion by connecting all of that together using my compound sentence, so I can tick that off.

Okay, let's read through our whole piece.

Read with me, let's go.

Where do macaroni penguins live? The macaroni penguin is native to the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

Amazingly, it spends six months at sea each year, coming ashore to breed at 50 sites across three continents, Antarctica, South America and Africa.

Here, it creates a shallow nest, called a scrape, lined with rocks and grass, and uses this to incubate its eggs.

Okay, I'm really happy with that, I think it looks good.

And we've met all of our success criteria here, and we've covered our three notes from our plan.

Okay, so now it's your turn.

Remember, we're going to use just those first three facts to start with, or whichever facts you've chosen for your own plan.

We're going to write the subheading, the introductory sentence, and those first few sentences connected with cohesive devices.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, brilliant effort, good job.

So, here's my example.

Let's see how I've met my success criteria.

I've got my subheading and introductory sentence.

I've said, the macaroni penguin is native to the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica.

I've kept it very general and that works well for my introductory sentence.

I'm sure you've got something similar.

I've got some complex sentences.

I've got coming, to create my non-finite I-N-G clause, I've got fronted adverbials, I've got incredibly, and I've got parenthesis, I've got Antarctica, South America and Africa and called a scrape, and I've got a compound sentence here, using and.

I'm sure you've managed to tick off lots of success criteria too.

If you don't have them all yet, don't panic.

You've got the next part of this section to try and hit any you might have missed.

Really well done for your efforts so far, let's keep it up.

So now let's complete our detailed information about the penguins' habitats.

So I've got my last three facts of my plan here to complete.

You might have different ones to complete and that's fine.

So, using your cohesive devices bank, if you have it, let's see if you can decide which cohesive devices you want to use to connect up this information.

Say each sentence out loud, write it and check it back.

So, pause the video and see if you can complete your habitat section now, remembering it is not a new paragraph, we're continuing that previous paragraph.

Have a go.

Well done, really good effort.

So, here's what I wrote.

I'm sure you've got something just as good, or maybe much better, let's have a look.

I wrote, interestingly, both male and female macaroni penguins take turns incubating the egg.

While one is sitting on the egg, unable to feed, the other is at sea foraging for food and building up its fat reserves.

The penguins are sociable creatures and they live in vast, crowded colonies with up to 100,000 birds.

They communicate using noises so that they can find each other, show aggression and find mates.

So, have I met my success criteria? I don't have a subheading, of course, because this is the end of the paragraph and not the beginning.

But I do have a complex sentence, I have while.

I've also got so that, showing cause and effect here.

I've got fronted adverbials, I've got interestingly here.

And I've got some parenthesis, unable to feed and with up to 100,000 birds.

And I have a compound sentence, using and here.

So hopefully, you've been able to tick off any success criteria which you hadn't in your first part.

And I hope you're really proud of the habitat section you've now produced, great job.

So, we're now ready to write the diet section of our report.

So here are some notes for our next section, giving information about the penguins' diets.

Now, I'm keeping this section fairly short, so I'm just having a few notes.

You might have more and you might want to make this section longer.

That's totally fine.

So I've said, the majority of their diet is krill, and they eat some fish and squid.

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

2 million tonnes a year.

That's for the whole species, isn't it? And then, they forage from dawn until dusk, and we know they can dive for up to 20 to 80 metres in depth and they can do that for two to three minutes.

So, as we know, each of these notes represents a full piece of information.

For instance, this one might represent the majority of the penguins' diet is krill.

They also eat some small fish and squid.

And this one might represent the penguins forage from door until dusk.

They dive to depths of 80 metres.

They can go three minutes without breathing.

So just like we did before, let's see if we can practise saying out loud each note as a complete sentence, or more than one sentence, to remind you of the fact it represents.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, good job.

So, maybe you took this one and you said the macaroni penguin species consumes more seafood in total than any other species of seabird.

They consume 9.

2 million tonnes of krill and other seafood each year.

So we've reminded ourselves of what these facts represent, but we haven't yet connected these ideas using cohesive devices, that's our next step.

So, we know that we can use more than one cohesive device in one sentence to show connections between information, and you may well have done that already.

So, here's a note about macaroni penguins' diet.

We've got forage dawn till dusk, dive to 20 to 80 metres for two to three minutes.

So we could write this in different ways using different cohesive devices.

So look at this example.

I've actually got three different pieces of parenthesis here in one sentence.

I've said the penguins, which forage from dawn till dusk, are capable of diving extremely deep into the ocean, up to 80 metres, for extended periods of time, up to three minutes.

So three pieces of cohesive device, if you like, in that one sentence to show the relationships between that information.

Or I could do it this way.

Here, I've got two separate sentences with fronted adverbials.

I've said, impressively, the penguins forage for food from dawn till dusk, diving, there's a complex sentence, to depths of up to 80 metres to find food.

In addition, my fronted adverbial, they're able to dive for up to three minutes without breathing.

So I've used three cohesive devices here to connect the same information in a different way.

So this is what's gonna make your writing stand out from other people's around you, is the different ways you connect this information together.

So we've got some examples there of how you could do it in really interesting ways.

So let's see if you can try that now.

We've got another note.

Majority of diet equals krill, plus fish and squid.

So how can we connect this information using more than one cohesive device? Try and say a sentence, or maybe a passage, that does this.

Have a go.

Well done, good effort.

So maybe you came up with something like this.

I've got here a complex sentence with some parenthesis.

I've said, although the majority of the penguin's diet is krill, it also consumes small quantities of other sea creatures, such as fish and squid.

And here I've got some parenthesis and then I've got a fronted adverbial, and then a complex sentence.

So I've said, krill, a tiny crustacean, makes up the bulk of the macaroni penguin's diet.

However, it also consumes other creatures, including fish and squid.

So again, this is where you get to play around with these ideas.

If you use your own ideas for cohesive devices, your work is gonna really stand out from other people's.

Really well done for your ideas there.

So here's our example paragraph about the stag beetle's diet.

Pause the video, read this carefully, and see if you can explain how it's met today's success criteria, have a go.

Well done, good job.

So, we've got our subheading and introductory sentence here.

And we've given here the most general fact we can about the stag beetle's diet.

We've got a complex sentence, using when, and we've got using to create a non-finite I-N-G clause.

We've also got fronted adverbials.

We've got interestingly and as a result, and amazingly.

We've got some parenthesis.

We've got rotting here, and we've got to lengths of up to 11 centimetres as well.

We've got a compound sentence here, using and.

Well done for spotting all those features in this example paragraph.

Hopefully, we'll be able to write something just as good or even better.

Okay, let's write our paragraph about the diet of the macaroni penguin.

And we're going to do this all in one go, so just one paragraph at the same time.

So, I've just got my three notes here I'm going to use.

You might have different notes and that's completely fine.

You might want to add more detail.

So what we need to do is write a subheading for this section, an introductory sentence about the general information about their diet, and then a few sentences of detailed information about the penguin's diet using our cohesive devices.

And you could use your cohesive devices bank to help you if you would like.

So, pause the video and let's see if we can link our information together in really inventive and imaginative ways, have a go.

Well done, great job.

So, here's what I wrote for this section.

Maybe you have something similar.

I've written my subheading, what do macaroni penguins eat? And I've got my introductory sentence.

The macaroni penguin's diet is largely composed of krill, although it eats some small fish and squid.

Then I've written, amazingly, the penguins consume more food in total than any other seabird on earth, 9.

2 million tonnes a year.

Foraging from dawn till dusk, the penguin can dive to depths of 80 metres, and it is able to go three minutes without taking a breath.

So do I have a complex sentence? Yes, I do.

I've got although here.

And I've also got foraging as my non-finite I-N-G clause.

I've got a fronted adverbial, I have amazingly.

And I've got some parenthesis, 9.

2 million tonnes a year.

And finally, I've got a compound sentence using and at the end here.

So, hopefully you've managed to create something similar.

Maybe you've gone into more detail than me about the interesting facts about the macaroni penguins' diet.

Fantastic work, well done.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that when we write the specific sections of our report, we start with a subheading that can be a question.

We've said that each specific section begins with an introductory sentence explaining the main point of the paragraph, and this is followed by the more detailed information about the theme of the paragraph.

And we said that within each section we connect information within and between sentences using a range of cohesive devices in order to improve text cohesion.

Really well done for your effort in this lesson.

I hope that you're really pleased with the sections that you've produced.

Really good work, and I hope to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.