Lesson video

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

Today, we'll be writing the conclusion to our report, so it's a great chance to show up the last of our brilliant penguin knowledge.

Let's get to work.

Today's lesson is called writing the conclusion of a non-chronological report about a penguin, and it comes from a unit called Pandas or Antarctic Animals Non-Chronological Reports.

By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to write the conclusion of a non-chronological report about macaroni penguins.

Now today's lesson builds on knowledge about threats to macaroni penguins that you might have learned about in a previous lesson.

So if you have your notes from that lesson, make sure you've got them to hand today.

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

You might also want to have access to the cohesive devices bank you'll find in the additional materials for this lesson, Here are our keywords for today's lesson, My turn, your turn, conclusion.

Subheading, introductory sentence, cohesive devices, and editing, well done.

So a conclusion is the closing paragraph of a non-fiction text.

And a subheading is a phrase, word, or sentence used to introduce a section of a text.

An introductory sentence is a sentence used at the start of a paragraph, and cohesive devices are language structures that develop text cohesion.

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

So here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by writing the conclusion to our report, and then we'll move on to looking at some editing skills we can use to improve our writing.

So in this lesson, we're going to begin by writing our conclusion.

And remember, here's the basic structure of a non-chronological report.

We start with a general introduction, then we have paragraphs around specific themes, and finally, a general conclusion.

And in our case, the conclusion talks about the threats to the penguins in general.

Now, of course, conclusions can take many different forms in different texts, but our conclusion will move away from looking at a specific aspect of the penguin to looking at their future and the threats they face.

So our conclusion's going to cover several key points about the threats to penguins.

Is going to think about what's the current status of the macaroni penguin? Is it endangered? What threats did penguins face in the past and what happened as a result? What conservation efforts have been made to increase the penguin population, and did they work? And finally, what problems do macaroni penguins still face, their current problems that they face? So we'll continue to use cohesive devices such as parenthesis, compound, and complex sentences, and fronted adverbials to connect up all our ideas as we answer these questions.

So what cohesive devices do you see highlighted in each passage? Pause the video and see if you can describe them.

Well done, good thinking.

So in A, we've got "However, which is a formal fronted adverbial that shows a contrast with the previous sentence.

In B, we've got "meaning," which is an "ing" verb, starting a non-finite "ing" clause to create a complex sentence because it's joined with a main clause.

In C, we've got parenthesis in brackets (driven by carbon emissions.

) And indeed we've got "Consequently," which is a fronted adverbial of cause, as well done to show cause and effect, really well done.

So here are some notes about the threats to penguins, and they're organised by theme.

Now, if you've got your own notes, you can look at those now as well.

So I'm going to flesh out our notes into complete ideas here.

So the current status of the macaroni penguin is that we've got 18 million adult penguins, which is actually, the most common penguin in the whole world.

But it's one of only two penguin species that's considered vulnerable to extinction.

And that's because half of the penguin population of macaroni penguins has been lost since 1970, in some places, that's only 50 years.

The past problems were that commercial fishing started in the Southern Ocean, that led to a decline in fish and krill levels, and that led to a decline in the penguin population.

The conservation efforts that have been made for macaroni penguins are monitoring programmes at their breeding sites, so zoologists, animal scientists, are researching what's going on with the penguins.

And then many of the islands where they live are now protected reserves, so humans can't visit them.

And then the current problems they face are linked to climate change.

So obviously, human activity is causing climate change, and that causes the sea to be warmed up, that means fewer krill around in the coasts, and that means less food for the penguins.

And obviously, less food means declining penguin numbers.

So just like I just did, can you practise saying these notes out loud as complete sentences to show that you understand what each note represents? This will really help you when you come to write.

So pause the video, and say these notes aloud in complete sentences, have a go.

Well done, good job! So I'm not gonna go through all of them, but maybe you took a note like this one, fewer krill near coasts, leads to less food for penguins, and you said something like fewer krill near the coast means less food for penguins.

So well done for practising those out loud 'cause that will help you so much when you come to write.

So I wonder if you can match the statements about penguins to the most appropriate labels on the right-hand side.

Pause the video, and have a go.

Okay, let's take a look.

A says "Fishing led to a huge fall in the number of penguins," so that is the past problem of the macaroni penguins.

For B, we've got the penguins are considered vulnerable to extinction, that's their current status.

For C, we've got climate change is reducing the amount of krill, that's a current problem, and some breeding grounds are in protected reserves is the conservation efforts for the macaroni penguins.

Well done for matching those up correctly, good work.

So when we write our conclusion, we'll want to follow some success criteria to ensure we write well.

So we'll have a subheading, an introductory sentence, and we'll use some cohesive devices, as well to connect up our information, and you can see them there.

So following these, will make sure we write text with good cohesion, and we want to include a subheading, and an introductory sentence so that our reader knows what the conclusion is going to be about.

Because not all conclusions are about threats, are they? They're not all about looking to the future of an animal, so we need to make clear that we're talking about the fact that these macaroni penguins are in trouble, in the start, in the introductory sentence of our conclusion.

And we'll want to address all the questions we just saw and we discussed earlier about the threats to penguins.

So here you can see an example conclusion from a text about stag beetles.

So I'd like to pause the video and read this carefully and explain how does this conclusion meet today's success criteria? Have a go.

Well done, good job.

So yes, we do have a subheading.

"What does the future hold for the stag beetle?" And we have an introductory sentence, which is setting the scene for what is the problem here? "The stag beetle is a protected species in the UK because of its low numbers.

So we're telling our reader straight away, this conclusion is about the problem that the stag beetle faces.

Have we got a complex sentence? Yes, we have, "Although" here, and we've got fronted adverbials, like, "As a result, we've got a piece of parenthesis, we've got (according to recent studies), and we have a compound sentence using "and" here, so we've met our success criteria and we've answered those questions about the current status, past problems, current problems, and conservation efforts for the stag beetle.

So we'll try and do the same when we write about the penguins.

So we know that we can improve text cohesion by connecting information together using different cohesive devices.

And on the left, you can see, I've shortened our notes a little bit, but they still contain all that information to prompt our memory of these facts.

So if I take this first piece of information here, this first note all about the current status, I know that it stands for the sentences of information.

There are 18 million macaroni penguins.

They're vulnerable to extinction.

Half the population has been lost since the 1970s, but at the minute, they're three separate sentences with no connections between them, there's no cohesion.

So instead, I could write them like this.

I could use a complex sentence and a fronted adverbial in a new sentence.

So I could say, "Although there are 18 million macaroni penguins in the wild, half the population has been lost over the last 50 years.

As a consequence, they're considered vulnerable to extinction." So now we've used those cohesive devices, it's so much easier for my reader to understand the connection between those three pieces of information.

So can you do the same thing now, using the cohesive devices bank if you'd like to? Try and use different cohesive devices out loud, saying these ideas in complete sentences, joined together with different fronted adverbials.

Practising this now out loud, will help you so much when you come to write.

So pause the video and have a try.

Well done, so maybe you took this section about the past problems, and you decided to say it like this, using some fronted adverbials and a compound sentence.

"In the past, commercial fishing began in the Southern Ocean.

As a result of this, fish and krill numbers fell.

Consequently, the penguins had less food and their numbers declined too." So instantly, this is a really clear sequence of events using those causal.

fronted adverbials of cause to show the connections between these events.

Pretty well done if you managed to connect up some of those ideas out loud already, good work.

So let's start writing the conclusion together, we'll do that on the next slide, but we're just going to cover the first two bullet points in this section, the current status, and the past problems. So we'll need to do all these things.

We'll need to write a subheading for this conclusion.

Write an introductory sentence for that section, summarising what's the key issue here, and then the first few sentences of detailed information about the threats to penguins using our cohesive devices to do that.

So let's have a go at writing the first part of our conclusion together.

Okay, we've got our success criteria here and we are ready to start writing our conclusion.

Now we're just going to start off, remember, with the current status and the past problem, for the first half of the conclusion here.

So I've got my subheading already written, "What does the future hold for macaroni penguins?" And I need to think about this introductory sentence.

And here, we're just gonna set the scene by talking about the current status of the penguins.

So I've started off with, "Although," to create a complex sentence, and that tells me I'm making a contrast, doesn't it, if I'm using it, "Although?" So let's see what the contrast could be.

I've written, "Although there are 18 million adult macaroni penguins in the wild," what's the problem? We know that that's the most number of any penguin, isn't it? But there's a problem, isn't there? Yeah, so they've lost this 50% of the population since the 1970s.

So that could be our contrast, couldn't it? Now, before we do that, why don't we add a bit of parenthesis here because we know this is more than any other penguin.

So we could add a parenthesis here saying, "more than," how would we write it? "more than any," yeah, I think we need that subject-specific word species, don't we? "More than any other penguin species." What do we need at the end of my parenthesis? Yeah, I've gotta close those brackets.

Now this is finally the end of that frontal proverbial clause, so I'm gonna put the comma there, and then we can do the contrasting side, can't we? So we can use this fact? Hmm, how would we put this? 50% of the population has died since 1970s.

That's not very formal, is it? Yeah, let's use has been lost.

So we can say, "50% of the population has been lost since the 1970s." Okay, so we've explained to our reader why there's a problem, why there's a concern about macaroni penguins.

They are the most common in the world, but they've lost 50% of their population, we're showing that contrast.

So let's just check off our success criteria.

We've got, "Although," to create a complex sentence, we've used our parenthesis here as well.

And this is our introductory sentence, and we've got our subheading.

So we've ticked off three already.

Right, so we've covered the first couple of ideas here, but we've missed out this idea of them being vulnerable.

But that links to this loss, doesn't it? That's the reason that they're vulnerable.

So we could use a fronted adverbial, of course, couldn't we? So should we say, "Due to this," or "consequently?" Yeah, let's do "Due to this." So it's because they've lost that 50% that they're considered vulnerable.

So I'm going to say, Due to this it is now considered a vulnerable species." Or we could say a species vulnerable to, yeah, extinction, well done.

Let's say that, because if we just say a vulnerable species, our reader might not really understand what we mean, but if we say, "A species vulnerable to extinction," then that's really clear, isn't it? "extinction," Okay, let's just read that sentence back, ready? "Due to this, it is now considered a species vulnerable to extinction." I like that, but wait, I've forgotten my comment, haven't I? After my fronted adverbial, yeah, now it's good.

So we've got our fronted adverbial ticked off as well.

Okay, so we've now completed our current status.

So now we've got to explain the past problems. Why has it ended up in this state? Now this isn't a new paragraph, we're gonna continue on.

So what were the past problems? Well, there was commercial fishing and that led to less fish and krill, hmm, so we could link those two facts together with a cohesive device, couldn't we? And we haven't used our compound sentence yet, so let's try that.

So we could say, "Commercial fishing was introduced and would it be, but, and or, or, there were less fish and krill? Yeah, it'd be and, wouldn't it? So I could say, "Commercial fishing," that means fishing for business, doesn't it? So, "Commercial fishing was introduced," where was it introduced? Yeah, it would be to the Southern Ocean, wouldn't it? So, "Commercial fishing was introduced to the Southern Ocean, and," now I need a complete main clause after this, don't I? And less fish/krill, what do I mean by that? Yeah, I could say, "And there were less fish and krill," or I could be a bit more formal, "I could say, "and levels of fish and krill," did what? Yeah, well done, I could say, "Levels of fish and krill fell." Okay, let's read that sentence back.

I've said commercial fishing was introduced to southern ocean and levels of fish and krill fell." Oh wait, Southern Ocean is a proper noun, isn't it? It's the name of an ocean.

So I'm going to have to correct that, I'm going to need capital letters for both Southern and Ocean, but I've spotted another problem, I think, I haven't told my reader that this is something that's a past problem.

So I actually think that I need to add in, a little fronted adverbial here, and I can say, "In the past," And then I think my reader will understand that I'm talking about these past problems. So I'm going to cross out that capital C as well, and will have to squeeze in a small c there.

Okay, let's read it back.

"In the past, commercial fishing was introduced to the Southern Ocean, and levels of fish and krill fell.

Okay, I'm happy with that now.

So we can tick off our compound sentence.

Right, our final note is just this one word, we said, "That led to a decline." So what we mean is because there's less fish and krill, the number of penguins has declined or fell.

So we could use another fronted adverbial, of course, couldn't we? We've used, "Due to this," what shall we use this time? Yeah, let's do, "As as a result." So we could say, "As a result," and we mean as a result of the fish and krill levels falling.

So we could say, "As a result, the number of macaroni penguins," did what? Yeah, we could say, "fell," but we've used that already.

What would be another word? Yeah, "Declined," well done.

So, "As a result, the number of macaroni penguins declined." Well, I wonder if we could use an adverb to describe how it declined.

It's declined by 50%, so maybe we could say, "Substantially" or "Dramatically," what do you think? Yeah, let's go for dramatically.

Now we don't wanna be too emotional in a report, but I think dramatically is an appropriate word to use here.

Okay, let's lock that in with a full step.

Okay, so we've used another fronted adverbial there.

Let's read our whole passage through to see if it makes sense.

Let's read aloud, ready? "What does the future hold from macaroni penguins? Although there are 18 million adult macaroni penguins in the wild (more than any other penguin species), 50% of the population has been lost since the 1970s.

Due to this, it's now considered a species vulnerable to extinction.

In the past, commercial fishing was introduced to the Southern Ocean and levels of fish and krill fell.

As a result, the number of macaroni penguins declined dramatically.

Okay, I think we've done a great job of meeting our success criteria there, and we've covered both of these notes.

Now you've seen me do it, now it's your turn to try and do the same thing with your first section of your conclusion, have a go.

Okay, now you try it, you'll get to write the first part of the conclusion like you've just seen me do.

So you can use these notes or you can use notes of your own, but we're just going to do the first half of our conclusion.

So remember, you'll need to write your subheading, your introductory sentence, and then the first few sentences of detailed information about the threats to penguins focusing on using those cohesive devices.

And remember, you can refer to the cohesive devices bank from the additional materials to this lesson if that would help you.

So pause the video, and see what you can do.

Well done, fantastic job.

So here's an example of the conclusion.

I'm going to see if I've met my success criteria, as I'm sure you have as well.

So I do have a subheading.

"What does the future hold for macaroni penguins?" And an introductory sentence.

And mine's quite long.

I've got, "Although there are 18 million adult macaroni penguins in the wild (more than any other penguin species), 50% of the population has been lost since the 1970s." So I've set the scene immediately to my reader that this is the issue, this is the problem the penguins face, I've got a complex sentence using, "Although," and I've got a fronted adverbials, "Due to this," and "As a consequence of this." I have some parenthesis, (more than any other penguin species.

) And I've got a compound sentence here using "and." So I've met all my success criteria there.

If you've missed one or two here, don't panic, you've got half the conclusion still to write, so try and include those in the next section.

A really brilliant job so far, let's keep it up.

So we're going to write the remainder of the conclusion using these notes about the conservation efforts and the current problems that about the penguins face.

So you're going to decide, which cohesive devices you'll use to connect the information.

Say each sentence text out loud if that helps you, write each sentence, and then read it back to check that it's correct.

So pause the video and see if you can complete your conclusion using these ideas to help you, have a go.

Well done, fantastic effort.

So here's what I wrote for the rest of the conclusion.

I said, "Because of this, zoologists (animal scientists) established monitoring programmes at macaroni penguin breeding sites and many Antarctic islands were made into protected reserves, meaning that humans could not access the colonies there.

However, the number of penguins continues to fall." Notice how I say "continues" in the present there because it's a current problem.

"Furthermore, the penguins face a new threat.

As climate change warms the seas, krill numbers are falling.

As a result, the macaroni penguin remains in danger of extinction." So let's see what I've done.

No subheading here, because it's the second part of my paragraph, but I do have a complex sentence, I have "meaning" here.

I've also got "As" here as starting off an adverbials clause.

I've got some fronted adverbials, I have, "Because of this, However, Furthermore," and, "As a result." I've got some parenthesis (animal scientists) here and I've got a compound sentence using "and" Again, don't worry if you've missed one of those 'cause hopefully, you included it in the first part of your conclusion.

We don't always have to use every cohesive device in every part of our text.

Hopefully, you've produced a brilliant piece of work there, and I'm sure you're really proud of what you've done, well done.

So we've now written the conclusion, which means we completed our whole non-chronological report.

We're going to focus now on some editing skills that we can use to improve it even further.

So we've written the complete draught of an non-chronological report about the macaroni penguin, and when we finish the draught, we edit to improve our work.

And this is a chance to rethink, rephrase, and reconsider our first ideas.

And remember, every piece of work can always be improved, no matter how talented a writer we are, we can always make it slightly better.

So editing a piece of work involves checking several different things.

We might check for punctuation, for sentence structures, and cohesive devices, and for vocabulary, and spelling.

If we can check for all those things, then we'll make a really good job of improving our text, and making it as good as it possibly can be.

So it's easy to make punctuation errors in our first draughts.

So we're going to review a few punctuation rules that might help us when we come to check.

So each of these sentences has a piece of punctuation missing.

The penguins mostly live off krill but they all set eat squid and fish.

Can you spot it? Yeah, we should have a comma before but, or, or in a compound sentence.

So it should look like this.

Here we've said, "The penguin which grows to around 70 centimetres weighs around 3.

5 kilos." I bet you've noticed this is a piece of parenthesis, a relative clause, which grows to around 70 centimetres, so it should have commas on either side like this.

Here we've said, "As a result of this the penguin population fell by around 50%." There's a fronted adverbial there, isn't there? So we need a comma after the fronted adverbial.

And finally, "It has breeding sites on three continents Antarctica, South America and Africa." That's also a piece of parenthesis, isn't it? So we'd need brackets around this one to show it's separate from the rest of the sentence and could be removed.

So can you add the missing punctuation to each of these sentences? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, let's take a look.

So in A, we've got a fronted adverbial clause, so we need a comma after species, to show the end of that fronted adverbial clause.

In B, we've got a fronted adverbial, so we need a comma after that.

And C, we've got some parenthesis, (70 centimetres).

So we've got either brackets or commas on either side.

And then in D, we've got another piece of parenthesis, this time, a relative clause, and we tend to use commas to punctuate a relative clause like this.

Really well done if you spotted those missing pieces of punctuation and edited to improve them, good work.

So we also have to check our sentence structures are correct when we edit, and we want to be sure we've taken opportunities to use cohesive devices.

So let's look at these two separate facts.

The penguins must fast for several weeks.

They use up their fat stores.

Well, we could use a fronted adverbial to connect those ideas.

We could say, "Due to this, they use up their fat stores." Here's another example.

We've got two separate ideas.

The penguins make a shallow nest for their eggs.

It is called a scrape.

Well, we could use parenthesis here, couldn't we? We could say, "The penguins make a shallow nest (called a 'scrape') for their eggs.

The value, there's a slightly different mistake here, see if you can spot it.

The penguin spends six months at sea it comes ashore to breed in a huge colony.

Hmm, well, we should separate these sentences with a full stop.

This is a run-on sentence.

And that's when we combine or merge sentences together, which should be separate.

So it should look like this.

We need a full stop and a capital letter to demarcate or show the two separate sentences.

So have a look at these three passages below.

How can we add cohesive devices and punctuation to correct these sentence structures? Pause the video, and see what you can do.

Well done, good effort, let's take a look at some ideas.

Now you could have used different ideas to me and that's fine, but we've got to think what we're trying to improve here.

So in the first one, I've got two separate sentences, and I can see that there's a contrast between them.

The penguin mostly eats krill.

It sometimes eats other things.

So I'm going to use, "However," as a fronted adverbial for that second sentence to draw my reader's attention to the contrast between the two ideas.

In B, I've got two separate sentences, but they are linked by cause and effect.

So I could connect them into one complex sentence using "Because." Because the penguins' muscles can store oxygen, they can dive for up to three minutes." You could have done it with a fronted adverbial of cause as well if you've got the right way round.

For C, let's see what sounds wrong here.

The macaroni penguin is a flightless bird it is a member of the Eudyptes family of crested penguins.

I bet you spotted, that was a run-on sentence, so where should the full stop go? It would go after bird, and then we need a capital letter for that new sentence.

Really good job, correcting those mistakes.

So finally, when we edit, we can check that we've used a rich and interesting vocabulary and that we've used correct spelling.

So have we used a formal tone? Have we used variety when we're talking about the subject of the report, the penguin? Have we spelled correctly? And have we used subject-specific vocabulary? These are all questions to think about as we edit our work.

So let's look at this example.

"The macaroni penguin has a pudgy layer of fat all over its cute body.

This helps inshulate the macaroni penguin.

I bet you've already spotted some mistakes there.

We've got this word "pudgy," which is too informal for a non-oncological report.

And "fat" is not subject-specific, We have a better word for that, we'll talk about that in a second.

"Cute" is also a bit too informal, it's almost sort of narrative, isn't it? It sounds like I'm giving my opinion of the penguin, but really I want to state facts about it.

And then "inshulate," I think you've spotted the spelling there.

And we've also got repetition of the words macaroni penguin, which might be fine, but we could think of some alternatives.

So we could change it like this.

Instead of "fat," I've said "blubber." I've said, instead of "cute," I've said "streamlined." And then instead of repeating macaroni penguin, I've said "the bird." And I've removed that word "insulate" completely, and said, "As a result of this, the bird is able to stay warm in its cold habitat." So I've increased the formality of the tone, I've made a formal tone from what was a very informal tone, and this is more appropriate for a non-chronological report.

So let's see if you can do the same thing.

Here's a passage that needs improving for its vocabulary and spelling.

Pause the video and see if you can make any changes and corrections to make this closer to the formal tone that we want to see, have a go.

Okay, let's take a look.

Now, maybe you spotted these words at the start "I know," are very informal.

It's almost like I'm giving my opinion of the author, which I don't need to do in this report.

Then I've got the word "crazily," which is very informal, and I've got the word "penguins" repeated again here, so I could have some variety there.

And then this word "exctinct" is not spelled correctly, is it? And finally, I've got the words "in trouble," and, "they could go," which are quite informal for our report.

So instead, we could say, "There are more than 18 million macaroni penguins.

However, these fascinating birds are still considered vulnerable to extinction.

So instead of saying "they could go extinct," I said, "they're considered vulnerable to extinction," which is much more formal, and we're being much more subject-specific and precise with our language.

So I bet you thought of some great ways of changing that passage as well, well done.

So let's do our final task for this session.

I've written a passage here, which is the first draught of a section about the penguin's diet and it needs some improvements.

So I'd like you to rewrite the passage, improving the following things, the punctuation, the sentence structures, and the use of cohesive devices, and the vocabulary, and spelling.

So make whatever changes you think are appropriate to create the really formal tone of a non-chronological report.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great effort.

So here's an example of how that paragraph could be edited.

I could start off by getting rid of just "Penguin's," and making it, "The macaroni penguin's diet." Instead of "mostly," I've written "largely," and I've added some parenthesis to describe the krill.

I've got rid completely of this sentence where I'm asking the reader a question because that's not something we would do in an non-chronological report.

So here, instead of using, "Funnily enough," I've written "However," and I've corrected that spelling of squid as well.

I've corrected the spelling of amazingly, and I've added some parenthesis (as a whole species), to make it really clear to my reader what we mean.

And here I've joined these sentences together using "and" as a cohesive device, and I've corrected "breathe" to "breathing" to make sure this makes sense.

So those are just some of the changes you could have made to improve that passage.

I'm sure you use did a fantastic job of that as well.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've learned that the conclusion is the closing paragraph of a non-fiction text, which deals with more general information.

A conclusion still makes use of a subheading, an introductory sentence, and cohesive devices.

We've learned that after we finished a first draught of a text, we can begin editing it to improve it.

And we've learned that our editing must consider vocabulary choices, sentence structures, punctuation, and spelling.

Really well done for all your effort in this lesson, I'm sure you've produced a piece of work that you can be really proud of.

So well done, and I hope to see you again in a future lesson, goodbye.