Lesson video

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

Today, we're going to be thinking in role as Juliet generating some exciting vocabulary as our first step towards writing a diary entry where she reflects on her experiences of meeting Romeo.

This session is going to really help you to produce some great work later in the unit.

So, let's get to work.

Today's lesson is called generating vocabulary for Juliet's diary entry, and it comes from our unit called Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," Diary and Narrative Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, you will have generated vocabulary that precisely matches Juliet's first impressions of Romeo and her feelings about him at different points.

Now, we will also be watching a clip from an animated version of "Romeo and Juliet" in this lesson and is taken from the film "Shakespeare, the Animated Tales, Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare Animated Films and Christmas Films. Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

A diary is a book in which a person keeps a daily record of events, experiences, and emotions.

A thesaurus is a book listing the synonyms of words.

Emotions are strong feelings that result from a person's circumstances, mood or relationships with others.

And show-not-tell is a writing technique for showing a character's feelings with description of their actions, body language, and facial expressions.

Here's our lesson now over today.

We're going to start off by generating some vocabulary to show Juliet's first impressions, and then we'll move on to finding some vocabulary to show Juliet's emotions.

So, in our first piece of writing for this unit, we are going to take on the role of Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet," and we're going to write a diary entry in role as Juliet written when she gets home from her family's ball.

So, what has happened to Juliet at this point from her viewpoint? Pause the video and talk to the person next to you.

Have a think on your own.

Well done, good thinking.

So, first of all, she was approached, wasn't she, from her perspective by a stranger at the ball.

And she talked to him and she kissed him.

And then she discovered that the stranger was Romeo Montague, an enemy of her family.

So, that puts her in a difficult position, doesn't it? She's kissed this man, but he's from the enemy family.

So, we saw Juliet saying the following lines after learning that the stranger was a Montague.

"My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy." So, what would Juliet's feelings about what's happened to her so far? Pause video and see if you can remember how she's feeling based on the text that we see here.

Well done, good thinking.

So, she's frustrated, first of all, isn't she? That the person she's fallen in love with, the first ever person she's fallen in love with, turns out to be a member of the enemy, of the family her family has been feuding with for years.

However, she's saying it's too late to turn back now.

She's already fallen in love with him despite the barrier between them.

So, too early seen, unknown, and known too late.

She didn't know him when she saw him.

Now, she knows who he is.

It's too late.

She's already in love with him and her only love, her first love has come from, sprung from her only hate, the hatred her family bears for the Montague family.

So, she's in a difficult position where she's got this contradiction between how she feels about Romeo and the situation involving her whole family.

So, our diary entry is going to cover some of those events we've just described.

So, in that diary entry, we're going to want to show her first impressions of Romeo.

First of all, what did he look like? How did he behave and speak, and what did he do? We're going to want to undercover all of those in Juliet's diary entry 'cause she's reflecting on what's just happened to her at the ball.

So, today, we're going to come up with some rich vocabulary to describe these first impressions.

So, let's help ourselves out by watching again that moment where Romeo and Juliet first meet at the Capulet ball.

So, based on what you've just seen, which of the following are likely to be first impressions that Juliet has of Romeo? Pause video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So, she probably thought he was handsome and confident and charming and devoted and well-spoken.

So, we've got some great ideas there for some of her first impressions.

She probably didn't think he was rude.

He didn't seem poorly dressed because he's from a wealthy family like she is, and he didn't seem nervous.

He confidently went across the ball and spoke to her there.

So, you probably noticed that all those first impressions were very positive, weren't they? We need to show that Juliet finds Romeo attractive when she first sees him.

So, we need to describe him positively.

So, what descriptions could we give of Romeo that show that Juliet finds him attractive? And you might want to use adjectives to describe nouns like bright eyes.

Pause the video and have a check to the person next to you about descriptions Juliet might make of Romeo that are positive when she's describing meeting him for the first time.

Well done, good ideas.

Maybe you said things like this.

Clear skin, flowing hair, deep brown eyes, fine clothing, proud bearing, that's how you stand, and broad shoulders and even delicate features maybe.

So, we've given some positive descriptions there of Romeo that Juliet might make to show she's got a positive first impression.

She's attracted to him as soon as she sees him based only on his physical appearance here.

So, let's learn now some rich vocabulary to help us show Juliet's positive first impressions of Romeo even more clearly than we've just done.

If someone's face or their body is chiselled, it's strongly and clearly defined.

Flawless means perfect.

And if something is mesmerising, it captures your attention completely.

Impeccable means perfect with no bad parts.

So, we can use these words to make word pairs.

We could describe Romeo's chiselled jawline, his chiselled features, his flawless complexion, meaning his skin, his flawless appearance, his mesmerising eyes, his mesmerising smile, his impeccable manners, and his impeccable clothing.

So, we've got loads of positive descriptions there using our rich vocabulary here to show Juliet's really good first impression of Romeo.

So, which sentences use that rich vocabulary correctly? And can you correct any which are used incorrectly? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Really good thinking.

So, does it make sense to say, "I gazed into his chiselled eyes?" No, that doesn't work.

We could say instead, "I gazed at his chiselled features.

I gazed into his mesmerising eyes." Yes, it does.

Well done.

"I was struck by his impeccable manners." Yeah, that one works.

And, "I was flawless for his manners." No, that's not right.

We would say, "His manners were flawless." So, we've used a rich vocabulary words there to describe Romeo in a really positive way.

Well done.

So, we can also use a thesaurus to help us generate rich vocabulary to describe Romeo.

And a thesaurus, I'm sure you know, is a book that provides synonyms for a given word.

And synonyms are words that have the same or a similar meaning to the word you're looking up.

So, if I look up the word handsome, I might find these, attractive, smooth, elegant, lovely, smart, dapper, noble, and spruce.

Now, not all the synonyms that we find in thesaurus will be right for our context.

So, we need to think carefully about the tone of our text.

So, let's try out a couple which we found there in the thesaurus next to handsome.

I could say, "A smooth stranger pushed through the crowd." I've used that instead of handsome, or I could say, "An elegant stranger pushed through the crowd." Which one works? Well, it's definitely elegant, isn't it? That one makes sense in the context of this sentence that I'm writing.

So, you have to look in the thesaurus and then decide which ones work for the context I'm using.

So, let's now practise using a thesaurus.

I want to see if you can use one to find synonyms of the words in the table, charming, polite, and man.

And then I want you to think which of them are most appropriate for Juliet's description of Romeo for all context.

Pause the video and see what synonyms you can find.

Well done, good thinking.

So, maybe for charming, you found cute, engaging, glamorous, and absorbing.

Maybe for polite, you found courteous, neighbourly, good natured, and well-behaved.

And maybe for man, you found dude, fellow, gentleman, and guy.

So, which ones work for our context? Well, I think these synonyms are the ones we fit well with our context.

I've got engaging, absorbing, courteous, good natured fellow and gentleman.

But it's up to you as the writer to choose which words you think work best in the circumstances, in the context you are writing in.

So, a thesaurus can be really useful, but we have to use them with care and choose the right words for our context.

Well done.

Now, we also need to consider verbs and adverbs that show what Juliet saw Romeo doing.

In her diary, she's gonna describe his appearance, her first impressions of him, but she'll also describe what he's doing.

So, we need to have words ready to describe that.

So what things does Romeo do? Think back to the video and make a list of verbs with your partner.

Pause video and have a go.

Well done, maybe we could say he approached, strode, knelt, spoke, kissed, and touched.

So, he approached from across the ballroom, he strode towards her.

He knelt down in front of her, he spoke to her, he kissed her, and he touched her.

So, we can then pair these with adverbs to make word pairs to say how they've been done.

We could say, approached confidently, strode boldly, knelt gently, spoke charmingly, kissed passionately, and touched softly.

So, those adverbs really help us to show how those verbs are being done and they all build towards that impression of Romeo.

He's someone who is confident, he's someone who's bold, he's gentle, he's charming, and he's passionate as well.

We've used the adverbs to create an impression of how he does the verbs in order to give this positive impression of him as a person from Juliet's perspective.

So, can you choose adverbs that are appropriate to fill these gaps? They might be ones you've just seen, or they might be ones you've thought of for yourself.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So, we could say he strode confidently towards me across the ballroom.

Notice how I've written these sentences from Juliet's perspective using the first person using me.

Then I could say, He touched his palm fondly against mine.

You could have said gently or softly.

Then for C, I've said, As he kissed me tenderly I felt full of joy.

He could have said passionately.

And then for D, I've put he knelt solemnly.

That means kind of seriously in front of me speaking softly, but lots of different adverbs would work there as well.

But well done for thinking carefully about how Romeo might have done these verbs from Juliet's perspective to build towards that positive impression we have of him.

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

I want you to generate your own ideas for ambitious vocabulary to describe Juliet's positive impressions of Romeo.

So, we're going to build a bank of descriptions here.

First of all, we'll think of some phrases to describe her first impressions of Romeo.

So, you might want to mention him generally what he seems like, his looks, like his hair, his eyes, his complexion, his build and his clothing, and the way he acts.

You could mention things like chiselled features, handsome gentleman.

Those kind of phrases are gonna really help us later when we come to write.

So, let's build a really good bank of those phrases.

Then we're going to need to make some verbs and adverbs to describe what he does.

So, you might want to mention how he walks, how he talks, the things he does.

So, things like strode over confidently, knelt elegantly beside me.

So, you should have two lists, one of her first impressions and one of verbs and adverbs to describe the things that he does.

So, pause the video and have a go at generating a really good bank of this ambitious vocabulary.

Well done.

Really good job.

First of all, let's gather some phrases to describe Juliet's first impressions of Romeo.

First of all, we could say he's a handsome stranger, impeccable clothing, flawless complexion, chiselled build, good natured gentleman, mesmerising smile, and proud bearing.

Those are really good phrases to describe his appearance and his manner and the way he is as a person.

Then we have verbs and adverbs to describe what he does.

We could say approached confidently, spoke charmingly, pressed his palm gently, knelt humbly, kissed softly, and touched tenderly.

Notice how all of these descriptions in both columns are really positive, aren't they? Because Juliet's first impression of Romeo is very positive, both about his appearance and how he is as a person and how he acts and what he does.

So, when she's describing her first impressions, her first meeting with him, she's going to use loads of positive descriptions.

And now you've got a fantastic bank of vocabulary to create those positive impressions when you come to write.

So, make sure you keep those safe until the next lesson, well done.

So, we come up with lots of vocabulary to describe Juliet's first impressions of Romeo.

Now, let's create some vocabulary to describe Juliet's emotions.

So as you know, a diary will often focus on character's emotions because it's their chance to write how they really feel.

Remember the intended reader of a diary is just yourself.

So, you can really spill out all your emotions into the diary, and that's a place where they'll be safe and other people aren't going to read them.

So, what might be Juliet's emotions at these two different points, when she kisses Romeo and then when she finds out from her nurse that he's a Montague.

How might her emotions be different in those two places? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done.

Good job.

So, when she kisses Romeo, it's gonna be a really positive experience, isn't it? She's gonna be delighted and excited because she's falling in love.

And then when she finds out that he's a Montague, it's going to be a much more negative experience.

She might be even devastated because she might realise, "Well, I can't do this.

I can't fall in love with an enemy.

I can't be with someone who's from the opposing family." So, she's going to be much more negative when she finds out that news.

So, we need to generate rich vocabulary now to describe these emotions, and we can also show-not-tell how Juliet's feeling, and we'll talk more about that later on.

So, let's learn some rich vocabulary to help us show Juliet's positive and negative emotions at those two different points.

So, let's do some positive ones.

If you are ecstatic, you are filled with complete joy.

And if you're yearning, you are longing for something.

If you are exhilarated, you're extremely excited.

Now, some more negative ones.

If you are desolate, you're very sad and depressed.

If you're inconsolable, you're so upset, you can't be comforted.

And if you are melancholy, you are sad and thoughtful.

So, you've got some really rich vocabulary on both positive and negative.

Side tip.

Let's just test it out.

I wonder if you can use each of these in a sentence maybe to describe Juliet's feelings.

You could say, Juliet was desolate when this happened, or Juliet was exhilarated when this happened.

Pause the video and have a go with your partner.

Words are great ideas.

So, you could say Juliet was ecstatic when Romeo kissed her.

And you could say Juliet was inconsolable when she found out that Romeo was a Montague.

We had good ideas.

So, can you match the rich vocabulary to the situation Juliet might use them in to describe her emotions? Is it when she sees Romeo and kisses him or is it when she finds out he's a Montague? Pause the video and see if you can match them up.

Well done, good job.

So, for this first event, when she sees Romeo and kisses him, we could use these words, exhilarated, yearning, and ecstatic, positive words.

So, she's yearning to see him again because he's kissed her already.

And then for the second event, when she finds out he's a Montague, we could use these ones.

She feels desolate, inconsolable, and melancholy.

So, she's got negative feelings because she knows now there's a huge barrier in the way of them being together.

So, I've got four of those rich recovery words here.

Can you choose a word from each list to fill each gap? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good job.

So for A, we'd say, When he kissed me, I felt completely exhilarated, really excited.

Now, I'm filled with a sense of melancholy.

I feel completely desolate.

He's a Montague.

So, she's realised that's a big problem and I yearn to be with him, but it's impossible.

Remember, yearn means you really long for it.

You want it to happen, but she's saying I can't do it because he's from the opposite, from the enemy family.

Really well done for matching this up.

Now, we've seen lots of words there to describe Juliet's emotions, haven't we? But as well as just describing them, we can use show-not-tell to show those emotions through her actions.

So, instead of just saying Juliet's feeling melancholy or desolate or sad, then we can show it through what she does with her body.

So, if you're happy, then you might laugh and smile or relax your posture or give good eye contact.

But if you're sad, you might cry and slump down and lose your appetite and feel tired and slow.

So, I could tell from someone's body and what they're doing with their body and their actions, their emotion without being told it.

And that's what we mean by show-not-tell.

We describe what someone's doing in order to show their emotion.

Now remember, we are writing a diary from Juliet's perspective.

So, Juliet is going to be describing her own actions to show-not-tell her emotions.

So, she's going to be saying, "I was doing these things," and then that will show us the emotion that she's feeling.

So, how can you use show-not-tell to show Juliet's emotions in each of these situations? What would her body be doing? What would her body language be as we chatted together, Romeo and I as Juliet, when the nurse told me he was a Montague? And now, as I write my diary at home, what might my body be doing to show the emotions that I'm feeling each of these points? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great thinking.

So, as we chatted, it's gonna be positive, isn't it? So, we could say, my heart's racing, my eyes are locked on him, butterflies are in my stomach, and then my pulse is quickening.

So, all positive things which showing excitement and a bit of exhilaration and maybe some nervousness as well there too.

What about when the nurse told me he was a Montague? Well, I could say I felt my stomach drop, I let out a gasp, I felt as if my heart had stopped, I felt dizzy.

So, those are shock feelings, aren't they? So, my body's doing all of these things.

I don't need to say Juliet was shocked.

I can show it through what we're describing her body doing.

And then what about now as I write in my diary at home, well, maybe I've kind of come down a bit, but I'm kind of sad and frustrated now.

So, I could say there are tears pouring down my face, I feel too weak to move, or I have no desire to eat or to leave my bed.

So, we're showing that she feels really upset that she's got this big problem now, which is that she's in love with Romeo, but that he is a Montague.

So, in each case we've used show-not-tell, showing what Juliet's body is doing in order to show her emotions without telling the emotion, without saying she's sad, she's excited, she's shocked.

So, that's what show-not-tell involves.

Really well done for your ideas there.

So, so far we've imagined Juliet writing in a diary when she gets home from the ball.

So, she's reflecting on the things that happened at the ball, but we know that's not the end of the story.

So, now let's imagine that Juliet completes another diary entry just after the balcony scene.

So, what will her emotions be now after what's happened on the balcony? Pause the video and have a chat with the person next to you.

Well done, good thinking.

So, she's just got great news, hasn't she? She's just agreed to marry Romeo.

So in this entry, she's going to be incredibly happy.

She's decided to put all her concerns to one side and to marry Romeo, and she's going to be extremely excited.

She can't wait for that wedding tomorrow.

So, there's going to be a total change, isn't it? She was very upset that there's this big barrier in her way and now that barrier's disappeared and she's decided to ignore her concerns and to marry Romeo the next day.

So, we've got a new sense of emotions now to describe, haven't we? So, can you think of any ideas to describe Juliet's emotions? How would we say what she's feeling? And then any ideas to show-not-tell those feelings? So, what might her body be doing to show those feelings? So, we're gonna think about both sides.

What could we say her feelings are and how could we show-not-tell them using what her body is doing? Pause the video and see what I did.

You can come up with in both columns.

Well done, great ideas.

So, how are we going to describe these emotions? Well, we could say I'm thrilled beyond belief.

I'm in total ecstasy.

I'm completely exhilarated.

I feel as if my heart might burst with joy.

Really positive descriptions of the emotions.

So there, I am telling the emotion, aren't I? I'm saying what the emotion is.

So, what about show-not-tell? What's my body going to be doing? Well, I could say I can't sleep.

I can't stop smiling.

I keep replaying our conversation in my head and I'm desperate to tell someone about it.

So, all of those show those emotions without telling them and we can use both.

They're both good.

So, great ideas there, which we can use in our writing.

So, let's do our final task for this lesson.

We're going to write down ideas to describe Juliet's emotions at different points.

First of all, as we chatted together and kissed, when Nurse told me he was a Montague, now, as I writer in my diary at home, and after we'd agreed to marry, so after the balcony scene there.

So, we've got four different events.

We've discussed them all and we've already come up with some great ideas.

So, now, it's your turn to gather the ones you want to use and remember to include that rich vocabulary we've discussed as well as your show-not-tell ideas.

So, you could have words that just describe the emotion, that tell the emotion, and you could have ideas for show-not-tell where you're saying, what's my body doing that shows us that emotion.

So, both of those are good.

Let's get some ideas for both of them.

So, pause the video and see what you can come up with in each column.

Have a go.

Well done, fantastic job.

So, here are some ideas for the vocabulary you might have used to show Julia's emotions.

So, what about as we chatted together and kissed? I could say my heart was racing, my pulse was quickening.

I couldn't take my eyes off him.

I felt like never before and I felt like I was walking on air.

For when the nurse told me he was a Montague, I could say my heart dropped in my chest, I could hardly breathe, I yearned to see him again, I gasped quietly and I gazed after him.

Then first I'm writing in my diary, I could say I feel desolate and alone and completely inconsolable.

There are tears staining my face.

I'm having to hide my tears from my nurse and I'm sitting alone in my room.

And finally, after we'd agreed to marry, after the balcony scene, I could say I'm completely ecstatic, I'm exhilarated.

I can't stop imagining the wedding tomorrow and my head is buzzing with excitement.

So we've done a good job there of showing all the changing emotions that Juliet experiences throughout this very short period of time in this really important part of the play.

And all these emotions will play a huge part of Juliet's diary as well as those first impressions we've generated as well.

So, summarise our learning in this lesson.

We said that based on our knowledge of "Romeo and Juliet," we can write a diary entry in role as Juliet describing her first experiences with Romeo.

We know that a thesaurus can be used to find rich synonyms. However, we must choose synonyms that work for our text.

We know we can use rich vocabulary to describe Juliet's first impressions of Romeo, including his appearance and behaviour.

And we can use rich vocabulary and show-not-tell to describe Juliet's emotions at different points, including when she meets Romeo, when she learns he's a Montague and after she agrees to marry him.

Really good job in this session.

You've done a great job of generating some fantastic vocabulary.

Let's put it to use in the next lesson.

I'd love to see you there.

Goodbye.