Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham.

I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today we're going to be taking our next step towards writing a diary entry in role as Juliet by planning the content and structure of our diary entry.

I think we'll do some fantastic work today.

So let's begin.

Today's lesson is called planning Juliet's diary entries, and it comes from our unit called Shakespeare's "Romero and Juliet" diary and narrative writing.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll have planned the structure and content of Juliet's imagined diary entries after meeting Romeo.

And for this lesson, you will want to have with you the vocabulary generated in the previous lesson.

If you're ready, let's get started.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

The past tense is used to tell the reader that action happened before now, and the present tense tells the reader the action is happening now.

Events are things that happen to a person or a character, and emotions are strong feelings experienced by a character in response to their experiences.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by spending some time preparing to plan and generating ideas, and then we'll move on to planning our diary entries in role as Juliet.

As you know, we've been looking carefully at the first stage of Romeo and Juliet's romance in Shakespeare's play.

So let's summarise what's happened.

We know that Juliet is approached by a stranger at her family's ball.

He's charming and handsome and they talk and they kiss.

And then Juliet's called away to speak to her mother and the man leaves, and Juliet finds out through her nurse that it was Romeo Montague.

Later that night, Romeo comes to her house and they talk and they agree to marry the next day.

So we are going to write in role as Juliet describing these events and her emotions in response to them in her own diary.

So can you retell the events from Juliet's perspective, from seeing Romeo to agreeing to marry him? Don't worry about her emotions for now.

Just focus on the events.

What would she say has happened from seeing Romeo to agreeing to marry him? Pause the video and have a go explaining in the role as Juliet what's happened to you since first seeing Romeo, all the way up to agreeing to marry him.

Have a go.

Well done.

Great job.

Here's what you might have said in role as Juliet.

Laura said, "First I saw Romeo approaching me.

Then, we chatted together and he kissed me.

I got called away by my mother and when I got back, he was gone.

I sent my nurse to find out who he was and she told me he was Romeo Montague.

I went home after the ball and I was talking to myself on my balcony.

Suddenly, I heard Romeo below.

We confessed our love to each other and we agreed to marry the next day." Now, notice there we've told the events but not any emotions in response to them.

So when we come to write, we'll need to a lot more of describing these events in more detail, but also in describing the emotions that we feel in response to them.

But we've done a really good job of recapping those events.

Well done.

So we're going to be writing Juliet's diary entries reflecting on her first experiences with Romeo, and we're gonna do it in two diary entries.

Entry one will be written at home after the ball has ended.

So the ball's finished and we've come home and we're writing in our diary.

Then entry two is going to be written after the balcony scene, so later the same night.

So what will have changed for Juliet between these two events between entry one and entry two? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you, or a think on your own.

Well done.

Good ideas.

So first of all, when she writes the first entry, Juliet's going to be feeling downhearted, isn't she? She's fallen in love with Romeo at the ball, but she knows it'll be hard to be with him because of the feud between her family and his.

But then when it comes to entry two, Juliet's going to be feeling overjoyed, isn't she? Romeo's come to find her and they've agreed to marry.

So entry one will be written from a much more negative perspective, and entry two will be written from a much more positive perspective.

But remember, entry one will still describe Juliet's positive first impressions of Romeo because that's a really important part of her retelling the events of the book.

So diaries, of course, reflect, as we've said, on past events.

So what events will Juliet be reflecting on in each of these diary entries? For entry one written at home after the ball has ended, what events will she be telling us about? And in entry two, written after the balcony scene, what new events will she be recapping as she writes her diary? Pause the video and have a careful think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So for entry one, she'll be telling us about meeting the stranger, kissing him, learning he's Romeo Montague, and then realising she's fallen in love with an enemy, or an enemy of her family at least.

Then for entry two, the update, she's gonna be telling us about speaking on the balcony, about seeing Romeo below, confessing their love to each other, and of course agreeing to marry.

So she'll have a different set of events that she's telling us in each of those two diary entries.

Now it's important to remember that a diary entry usually includes details in both the past tense and the present tense.

Let's look at a sample of Romeo's diary.

He says, "Dear diary, I can't believe what happened tonight.

My heart is racing as I'm writing this.

It's all so unbelievable.

I keep pinching myself.

It all started when we got to the ball.

I was still moping about Rosaline, but then I saw the most beautiful woman from across the room.

I could hardly believe my eyes." So Romeo is writing on the same night, we can tell.

So we can see here that the first section describes what he's doing and feeling in the present, and then the second section does the same thing for the past.

We can see these present tense verbs in the first section, "is racing," "it's" meaning "it is." And then in the second section, "started" and "saw" in the past tense.

So in his first paragraph, Romeo has described how he's feeling and what he's doing right now in the present.

Then in the second paragraph, he's telling us the events that led up to this, what happened at the ball.

So just like Romeo's, our diary entry will include elements of both past and present tense.

We'll start off with Juliet sitting in bed maybe, or at her desk if you prefer, writing in her diary, describing how she feels right now in the present tense, having come home from the ball.

Then she's going to retell the events of the party at the ball, describing meeting a man, and that will have to be in the past tense, won't it, because she's describing past events.

And then she'll describe discovering he's a Montague, using, again, the past tense because it's a past event.

But then we'll have our update in her diary describing what happened on the balcony in the past tense, and saying how she feels now in the present tense.

So we're going to put all of those three parts in entry one, and then this part will be entry two.

So we can see that both entry one and entry two will include some details in the past tense to say what happened in the past, and some details in the present tense to say what we, as Juliet, are doing and feeling now in the present.

So can you put these sections of Juliet's diary entries in the order they appear in our piece of work? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Really good job.

So we'll start off by having Juliet sitting at home upset about what's happened.

Then she'll be reflecting on meeting Romeo at the party, so that will be in the past tense.

Then she's going to reflect on learning that he's a Montague, again in the past tense.

And then we're going to have her update to her diary where she's reflecting on the balcony scene in the past tense, and saying how happy she is in the present tense.

So again, elements in the past tense and elements in the present tense.

Really well done for getting those in order.

So as well as combining past and present tense, a diary entry also combines things that happen, events and actions, with thoughts and emotions.

So we can think of it as events, and our emotions and thoughts in response to them.

So if you look again at Romeo's diary, we can see examples of events like this one.

This is an event or an action, something that happened.

"I saw the most beautiful woman from across the room." It's also got "I was awestruck" as an example of an emotion, a feeling caused by the events, caused by seeing that beautiful woman.

And it's also got, for instance, "It's all so unbelievable," which is a thought, an idea that's prompted by the events.

So we have some description of events, and then emotions and thoughts in response to those events.

And that's what we do in a diary, isn't it? We say what's happened and say how we feel about what's happened.

We have events and emotions.

So we know the events that happened to Juliet on this night, but how did she feel at each point? Have a go now at describing your emotions in role as Juliet for each of these moments in her night.

So you can say, "When I first saw the man, I felt this." Pause the video and have a go completing each sentence.

Well done.

Great job.

So maybe you said, "When I first saw the man, I was mesmerised.

I couldn't look away." "When he kissed me, I was exhilarated.

My heart was racing." "When I found out he was a Montague, I was completely inconsolable." "When I got home, I felt desolate and I cried for hours." "When I saw him in the orchard, I was overjoyed.

My heart felt full." And "When he agreed to marry me, I was ecstatic and too thrilled to sleep." So you'll have noticed there, there's a mixture of just saying the emotions, like "I was mesmerised," and then some additional details using show not tell, like, "I couldn't look away." I'm showing the emotion without saying it there.

So I've mixed them up there to show Juliet's emotions.

Really well done for your ideas there.

So we talked about Juliet's emotions, but we'll also want to show her thoughts at different points.

So what might her thoughts be at each of these points? We could use, couldn't we, phrases like "I knew," "I wondered," "I realised," and so on, to show what Juliet's thoughts were.

Pause the video and have a go completing each sentence to show Juliet's thoughts.

Good job.

Well done.

So we could say, "When I first saw the man, I knew I had to talk to him." "When he kissed me, I realised I was falling in love." "When I found out he was a Montague, I couldn't believe my bad luck." "When I saw him in the orchard, I realised he was taking a huge risk." And "When he agreed to marry me, I knew it was worth the risk." So I've used those sentence starters like "I knew," "I wondered," "I realised," "I believed," "I couldn't believe" to help me to show Juliet's thoughts in each of those moments.

Really well done for your ideas.

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

And we're not going to write anything here, we're still preparing to plan.

Now we're going to structure our diary like this.

We're going to have a paragraph one where we say how you feel now sitting at home after the ball.

Then paragraph two is going to describe in the past tense meeting Romeo at the ball.

Then paragraph three will describe learning that Romeo's are Montague, and paragraph four will be the update to include what happened on the balcony.

So I want you to rehearse now out loud what you might say in role as Juliet for each section.

I want you to include events that you experience, emotions and things you think.

For example, you could start like this with paragraph one.

You could say, "As I sit here in bed writing, there are tears streaming down my face." So I've said what I'm doing, I'm sitting in bed, as well as my emotions, "my tears are streaming down my face" is an example of show not tell, isn't it? It's showing that I'm very upset.

So have a go at saying out loud what you might say each of these four points to prepare you to plan your diary in the next part of our lesson.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Great job.

Here's an example of what you might have said at each stage.

For paragraph one, when I'm sitting at home describing my feelings, I might have said this.

"As I sit here in bed, I feel completely desolate.

How is it possible that the first time I fall in love is with a Montague? My parents would be furious if they found out.

It just can't ever happen." So she's saying, I don't think this relationship is even possible.

Then I'm going to describe meeting Romeo at the ball.

I could say, "It all started at the ball.

I was minding my own business, when suddenly a handsome man approached me confidently across the dance floor.

He had a mesmerising smile.

Before I knew it, we were kissing." So I've described meeting Romeo for that first time.

Then I'm going to describe learning that Romeo is a Montague.

So maybe I said this, "Once I got back from talking to mother, the man had gone.

I asked Nurse to find out who he was and it turned out he was a Montague.

My heart dropped instantly and I felt my face grow red." And then I'm gonna do my updates, so this is after the balcony scene now.

So I could say this, "Something incredible just happened.

Romeo came to the house to see me.

We talked for hours and we're going to get married tomorrow.

I can hardly breathe, I'm so excited." So there I've described the things that happened on the balcony, and then my emotional reactions to them right now as I write.

Really well done there for your ideas.

No matter how detailed they were, they're going to really help you when you come to plan in a moment.

So well done for thinking hard about this to start with.

Great job.

So now that we've prepared to plan, let's get on to planning the diary entries we're going to write.

So we're now ready to plan our diary entries in the role as Juliet, and we're going to write a plan for each paragraph following the structure of four paragraphs we can see on the left.

And within each paragraph, we'll write notes to plan the following: first of all, events that are happening or that Juliet is retelling from the past, and emotions that Juliet feels and thoughts that she has.

And we'll have to vary between the past tense and the present tense, depending on whether we're describing things happening now or things that have happened in the past.

So let's take a look at how a diary entry could be planned.

So let's work backwards.

Here's an example of Romeo's diary entry.

He's written, "I can't believe what happened tonight.

My heart is racing as I'm writing this.

It's all so unbelievable.

I keep pinching myself and I can hardly think straight.

I just want to see her again as soon as I can.

I know she's a Capulet, but I can't help how I feel." So what might Romeo's note have been to write that diary? Well, he will have written notes about the events that are covered.

So the events are actions, really pinching himself, and writing this diary.

So not a lot of events in that section.

But there's lots of emotions and thoughts, for instance, he mentioned his heart racing and then loads of thoughts.

"I can't believe it.

I can hardly think straight.

I just wanna see her.

It's unbelievable.

I know she's a Capulet, but I can't help how I feel." So loads of notes there to describe emotions and thoughts, and then a couple of events as well.

Now, we'll probably have more events in ours, but this is an example of the notes we might be writing in order to create a really good diary entry.

So what might the plan have looked like for this paragraph of Romeo's diary? He's written, "It all started when we snuck into the Capulet ball.

I was still moping about Rosaline, but Mercutio made me go.

And thank goodness he did.

Almost immediately, I saw an extraordinarily beautiful woman standing across the room.

I knew I had to speak to her." So what events might he note down? And what emotions and thoughts may have noted down for his plan for this paragraph? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So the events might just be he snuck into the ball, Mercutio made him go, and he saw the beautiful woman.

And then for emotions and thoughts he could have written, he was still moping about Rosaline.

"Thank goodness he made me go," that's a thought, isn't it? And then, "I knew I had to speak to her," another thought.

So we've got some notes there, which could have created this paragraph.

So that's what your plan might look like.

So our diaries are also going to include a range of rich vocabulary, as well as these events and emotions, and we've already practised using this.

So we might use vocabulary to describe Romeo.

We might describe him as having chiselled features, a flawless complexion, a mesmerising smile, impeccable manners.

He might have approached confidently.

That's something he does, isn't it? He might have knelt humbly.

He might have spoken charmingly, and he might have kissed softly.

And we've also learned some rich vocabulary to describe Juliet's emotions.

We could say she's ecstatic, or yearning, or exhilarated, or desolate, or inconsolable, or melancholy, so some positive and some negative, depending what we're writing about.

And we know we can also show not tell emotions by describing what our body's doing without saying what the emotion is.

So loads of vocabulary can use here to show both descriptions of Romeo and descriptions of Juliet's feelings and emotions.

So can you match the paragraph to the emotions Juliet might feel in that paragraph? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good work.

So for paragraph one, sitting at home after the ball, it might be this, "I feel completely desolate.

This will never work." For maybe paragraph two, she could have said, "As I looked at his chiselled features, I was filled with yearning." So that's when she first sees him and she kisses him, and she wants to see him again.

For paragraph three maybe we could say, "When she said his name, my heart nearly stopped." So that's showing Juliet's shock when she learns that he's a Montague.

And for paragraph four, the update, it could be, "I'm just ecstatic, we're getting married." So I've got a thought there as well as an emotion, ecstatic.

So we've matched those up to show how Juliet's emotions will change throughout her diary entries.

Well done.

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

The most important part when we're going to plan our diary entries in role as Juliet for these four paragraphs.

So I want you to write notes for each paragraph describing the following: events that are happening now, or that Juliet is retelling from the past.

Emotions that Juliet feels and thoughts that she has.

And remember to include ideas for rich vocabulary, using your notes from the last lesson if you need to, and show not tell for emotions as well, which again are in your notes from the last lesson.

So pause the video and have a go at writing your notes for each paragraph to show the events, emotions, thoughts and vocabulary you want to use to describe what Juliet is experiencing at each of these points.

Have a go.

Well done.

Great job.

So here are some ideas on the notes you might have written for paragraph one.

I've written, "Sitting in my bed writing, tears staining the page." "Completely desolate, filled with melancholy." There's an emotion.

"How can my first love be a Montague?" "Know we'll never be together, feel so alone." Those are both thoughts, aren't they? Then for the second paragraph, she's going back and she's using the past tense to say how she met Romeo.

So I could say, "Started at the ball, was dancing alone.

Saw a man approaching confidently." I'm giving her first impressions of Romeo.

"Had flawless complexion, mesmerising smile, spoke charmingly, then kissed me softly." Again, more first impressions showing how positive she feels using that rich vocabulary.

Then I'm gonna say her emotions, "completely exhilarated," and then another event, "mother called me away." Then for paragraph three, we're learning about.

Then in paragraph three, she's gonna tell us about learning that he's a Montague.

So we could say, asked Nurse to find out who he was, and then it turned out he was a Montague.

So those were events, aren't they? And then her feelings, her emotions.

"Completely devastated, heart dropped, gasped.

My only love from my only hate." That's a thought I've stolen from Shakespeare's own language.

And another thought, "I knew it was too late.

I was already in love." And again, we saw that in the original play script, didn't we? Then for the update, we've got lots to cover, haven't we? What happened at the balcony? And how am I feeling now? So I could say, "Something incredible has happened, Romeo came to the garden, we spoke for hours and agreed to marry." All of those were events, aren't they? Something incredible is kind of an emotional reaction as well.

And then my emotions.

"My heart is racing, I can hardly think, completely ecstatic, can't believe we're going to be together." So some thoughts and emotions there.

And finally, "Tomorrow will be the best day of my life." Final thought to finish on to show you there's excitement about the day to come.

So I haven't got a huge amount of notes for each paragraph, just three or four bullet points to show some actions and events, some emotions and thoughts, and some rich vocabulary I'm going to use in each of those sections to show Juliet's experiences at each point.

Really well done for your ideas as well.

So let's summarise our learning this lesson.

We've said that a diary entry reflects on past experiences and can provide present details as well.

We know it describes the events characters have experienced, as well as the emotions and thoughts they have in response to those events.

Our diary entries and role as Juliet will explore her meeting with Romeo at the ball and the balcony scene.

The entries will therefore switch between past and present tense.

And planning the content of a diary entry including details about the events and emotions will make it much easier to write.

And I really hope that you'll find that in the next lesson.

Make sure you bring your plan with you.

I'd love to see you there when we'll begin writing our diary entry.

Goodbye.