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

Today, we're going to apply all the learning we've been doing about act three, scene one of "Romeo and Juliet," and we're going to use it to write a detailed plan for our own narrative retelling of the duel scene.

Of course, a great plan makes it easy to write well, so let's work together to produce some fantastic planning today.

Today's lesson is called Planning the Duel Scene, and it comes from my unit called, "Shakespeare's Rome and Juliet: Diary and Narrative Writing." By the end of today's lesson, you'll have planned the structure and content of a piece of narrative writing showing the duel from act three, scene one of "Romeo and Juliet." I'd like to make sure that you organise your notes from this lesson in a really clear way that makes sense to you, and that you keep them safe for the next few lessons, where we'll be writing using those notes.

If you're ready, let's begin.

Here are our key words for today's lesson.

Action is events or things that are done by characters in a narrative, and description is where we use words to help someone Imagine what something is like.

Dialogue is a conversation between two or more people written in a text or story, and emotion is strong feelings that result from a person's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

Here's our lesson now for today, we're going to start off by planning the events up to Mercutio's death, and then we'll plan the events for duel scene that come after Mercutio's death.

So, we're going to write a narrative version of the duel scene in the climax of "Romeo and Juliet," and we're going to cover four key events in four separate paragraphs.

We'll start off by talking about Mercutio and Tybalt duelling, and then Mercutio in pain and dying.

Then we'll have Romeo reacting to that death, and we'll finish by Romeo and Tybalt duelling to the death.

Now, of course, this duel is part of the climax of "Romeo and Juliet", because it's a high point of drama and action in the narrative, so we must make it dramatic when we write, and that's what we're going to try and focus on as we plan, is thinking about how can you make our writing dramatic by planning out the details we're going to include in this narrative.

So, what are the characters and setting of our narrative going to be, and what happens just before, and just after, the scene we're describing? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good, thank you.

So, the characters will be Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio on the Montague side, and Tybalt on the Capulet side.

The setting will be either a street or a square in Verona, you can choose, and it's going to be on a hot summer's day.

What happens just before? Well, we've got Romeo and Juliet secretly getting married, and of course, Romeo trying to calm down Tybalt, because we're going to start from the point where Tybalt and Mercutio are beginning to fight.

And then just after, we've got Romeo running away, and the prince banishing him to Mantua.

So, we're not going to cover those events, or the ones that came before, we're going to start from where Mercutio and Tybalt are duelling, and we're going to finish where Tybalt is killed by Romeo.

So, there's the events we're going to focus on.

So, let's just lock those events we're going to focus on in our heads.

Can you retell out-loud the events that we'll be describing in our narrative version of this scene, starting from where Mercutio and Tybalt begin to duel? Pause video and have a go.

Well done.

Very good.

Here's what Andeep said.

He said, "Tybalt and Mercutio duel while Romeo tries to stop them, he gets in the way, and this leads to Mercutio being stabbed.

Then Mercutio says it's just a scratch, but he's badly hurt, and he dies, and Romeo is very angry.

Then when Tybalt returns, Romeo challenges him to a duel, and he ends up killing him in revenge for Mercutio's death." So, that's kind of the bare bones, isn't it, of the story we'll be telling, and we'll add in lots of details to make it really come to life for our reader.

Now, an effective narrative includes a range of different elements to really bring it to life.

It includes action and description, and dialogue and emotion.

So, an example of some action might be, "Romeo rushed towards Mercutio, and held his arms. At that moment, Tybalt struck." So we've got rushed, held, and struck, all showing us actions happening there.

We also include description.

So, for instance, "Mercutio's sharp rapier glittered in the bright sun of the city square, a bead of sweat dripped from his brow." So he described the rapier and the sunlight in that city square in order to add some detail to our reader's mental picture of what's happening.

We also include dialogue.

So, for instance, "Are you hurt?" gasped Benvolio.

"Ay, ay.

A scratch, a scratch!" replied Mercutio, wincing in pain.

And I've taken those words directly from the play itself.

And we also use emotion.

So, Romeo clenched his fists, and strode angrily towards Tybalt, who had been skulking in the shadows.

So, that clenching the fist, and the striding angrily, show Romeo's emotions.

Now, these different elements do overlap, so, in our emotions example, we are showing the emotion through actions, so we have crossover between these different elements, but we want try and include all of them in order to make a really rich narrative for our reader.

So, which element of the narrative is being shown in each of these examples? Is it action, dialogue, description, or emotion? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, great thinking.

So, the first one, I can see some inverted comments and direct speech, this must be dialogue.

Then here we've got Mercutio lunged at Tybalt, but the older man parried the attack.

Lunged and parried are both really strong actions, aren't they? For the next one we've got, as Romeo gazed down at Mercutio's lifeless corpse, he felt his blood seething with rage.

So seething with rage is obviously showing a strong emotion, isn't it? And then in the last one, we've got description of the scarlet blood, the dusty floor, and the baking city square, helping our reader build that clear mental image.

So, here's an example of a narrative paragraph which describes the events leading up to our scene.

So, we won't write this section, but this is what will come before it, let's read it.

It says "Tybalt swaggered towards Romeo sneering with disgust.

The midday sun beat down on the almost deserted city square.

Romeo, 'You're a villain!' he growled.

'You don't know me at all,' Romeo replied, turning to walk away.

Mercutio, who was astonished by Romeo's behaviour, turned to address him.

'Romeo, come and fight your enemy!' he cried.

As Romeo shook his head, Mercutio pulled his rapier from its scabbard, and he paced confidently towards Tybalt." So, how have we used each narrative element in that example? Where is the action, and description, and dialogue, and emotion? Pause video and have a look.

Well done, great ideas.

So, there's lots of action, for instance here, "Turned to address him." We've got some descriptions, like "The midday sun beat down." We've got some dialogue here where we see some direct speech.

And we've got emotions described, for instance, "Sneering with disgust." And there were many other examples in there too.

As I said, we wanna try and use all of these different elements in order to create a really rich narrative for our reader.

But in addition to those narrative elements, to really set the correct atmosphere, and to give our reader the best mental picture, we want to include a range of rich vocabulary in our scene as well.

So, you might want to use some of our duelling words that we learned in the previous lesson.

For instance, rapier, scabbard, lunged, thrust, slashed, parried, and feinted.

We also want to use some movement words, like scurried, staggered, skulked, and swaggered.

And some words to show emotions, so we could use, for tiredness, weary, fatigued, drenched in sweat, gasping for air, panting and flailing.

For pain we could use writhe in agony, screamed in anguish, gritted his teeth, groaned softly, contorted face, and grimace.

And for anger we could use incensed, full of rage, seething, clenched fists, flushed scarlet, and narrowed eyes.

And notice how I've used the past tense for verbs in these examples, because we're going to be writing in the past tense as well.

So, all of this vocabulary will really help to build that rich picture for our reader.

So, let's just check we understand those rich vocabulary words.

Can you choose one to fill each gap in this passage? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, good thinking.

Here are some ideas.

Some of these could be used in different places, here's how I would do it.

Tybalt lunged at Mercutio, who parried too late.

Dropping his glittering rapier, Mercutio grimaced in pain.

Staggering to the side of the street, he collapsed on the ground.

As he writhed in agony, Tybalt scurried off into the shadows.

But you could have chosen some different words there, or perhaps you sort have some in mind of your own that we haven't covered here, and that's great.

Really well done with your thoughts.

So, we've discussed those elements of a narrative, and our rich vocabulary, we're going to try and include all of that in our plan today.

So let's begin by thinking about the first event in our narrative, where Mercutio and Tybalt are duelling.

So, let's practise.

How might we use each of our narrative elements when describing this event? Where would we see action, or description, or dialogue, or emotion? Pause the video, and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, good ideas.

So, for action, you might have describing the duel, including Mercutio being stabbed.

For the description, you might describe the hot weather and Tybalt and Mercutio's weapons.

For dialogue, you might have describing Romeo trying to stop them fighting using his words.

And then for emotion, you might describe their tiredness, and their desperation to win.

So, we can see we've got lots of opportunities to use all of our narrative elements when we come in to plan this section.

So, how might we use each of these narrative elements in our second event, where Mercutio is in pain and dying? Pause the video, and have a think about what we might be describing under each heading.

Have a go.

Well done, good thinking.

For action, we could be describing Mercutio collapsing, or describing Tybalt running away.

For description, we could be describing Mercutio's injuries, and his appearance as he dies.

For dialogue, we could be describing Mercutio cursing the two houses before he dies.

And for emotion, we could be describing that pain that Mercutio is in as he dies as well, and we have loads of rich vocabulary we can use to do that.

Now we've talked about four narrative elements, haven't we? But it's the actions that will form the backbone of our plan, everything else will be built on them.

So, let's have a go at describing, in detail, the actions for each event when Mercutio and Tybalt are duelling, and when Mercutio is in pain and dying.

So take each of those events, and see if you can break it down into really small actions that different people are doing during that event.

Pause the video, and have a go.

Well done, great job.

So, for Mercutio and Tybalt duelling, you might have broken it down into these actions.

I've got Mercutio walked towards Tybalt, he raised his rapier, he lunged at Tybalt, Tybalt parried and made a riposte, Romeo pushed aside Mercutio's blade, and Tybalt lunged and stabbed him.

And then for Mercutio in pain and dying, I went for these actions.

I've got Mercutio dropped his rapier, Benvolio and Romeo rushed over to Mercutio, Mercutio clutched his wound, he staggered across the street, he fell to the ground, and he died.

So, see how I've broken down each of those events into really small actions? And we can build all of the other narrative elements onto those actions.

So, we've come up with lots of ideas, haven't we so far? When we plan, we need to build on these ideas, to make notes across all four elements for each event.

So we're going to include action, description, emotion, and dialogue.

And we're going to start off with the first event of Mercutio and Tybalt duelling.

So, I've left in our notes there for what we might be describing under each of those elements.

So, our notes are going to mix up those elements in a logical order, we won't necessarily do them in separate categories, we're going to mix them all up.

So, here's how we might start.

I've got Mercutio swaggered towards Tybalt, raised shimmering rapier, glinted in sun, Mercutio lunged towards Tybalt, Tybalt parried, and made a riposte to Mercutio's chest, and they were drenched in sweat and panting.

So, I've combined some of those different elements and I've put them in a logical order to show the steps, and notice how I've used some of those actions, and I've mixed in some of the other elements there.

So, can you see the different narrative elements in these first few notes I've made for this event? Where can you see action, description, emotion and dialogue? Pause the video and see what you can spot.

Well done.

Good spotting.

So, for actions, we've got lots, we've got Mercutio swaggering towards Tybalt, and for instance, Mercutio sure lunging towards Tybalt as well.

Lots of actions there.

For description, we've got things like glinted in the sun, we could also include the shimmering rapier there, couldn't we? And for emotion we've described how they were drenched in sweat, and panting to show their exhaustion.

I don't have any dialogue yet in this section, but I've only done the first part of my notes here.

So, speaking of dialogue, you might want to include real quotations in the text in your narrative, and that's okay.

So, who says each of these lines in the original script? Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

Good job.

So "Ay, ay.

A scratch, a scratch!" is of course, well done, Mercutio.

The second one is going to be Romeo.

Then we've got, well done, Benvolio.

And finally, this is going to be Mercutio dying words, where he says, "A plague o' both your houses." So you can use any of those when you come to write your plan, and use them in your own narrative when we come to write.

So, let's do our first task of the session, we're going to start off by writing notes to plan the first event in our narrative.

And we've got some notes here to help us already.

So, use the four elements on the left, and the ideas to help you, and try to include a range of that rich vocabulary we've discussed as well, to help add to the tense atmosphere.

Remember, you can mix up the elements into any logical order.

You can tell the action step by step, mixing in the emotion, the description, and the dialogue that you want to include.

And I want you to use notes, not full sentences that you saw me do.

And you can, of course, as I said, use dialogue from the original script.

So, pause the video, have a go at writing the notes for your plan for just this first event where Mercutio and Tybalt are duelling.

Have a go.

Well done, great job.

So, here are Jun's notes for the first event.

He's got, Mercutio swaggered towards Tybalt, he raised his shimmering rapier, it glinted in the sun, Mercutio lunged towards Tybalt, and Tybalt parried and made a riposte to Mercutio's chest, they were drenched in sweat and panting, and then Romeo said, "Stop, the Prince has forbidden it!" And then Romeo rushed towards Mercutio, and pushed his rapier aside, and then Tybalt lunged and stabbed Mercutio in the chest.

So, I added in that dialogue which was missing before, and I've extended the plan right to the point where Mercutio was stabbed.

Really well done for your fantastic notes for that first paragraph.

Let's continue on to the second one now.

So, let's write our notes for the second event.

Here, I've got on the left again, the notes for when Mercutio is dying and in pain.

So, use these to help you to create your notes.

Pause the video and have a go at writing the notes for the second section.

Well done, great work.

Let's look at Jun's notes again.

He said Mercutio dropped his rapier, he grimaced in pain, Tybalt saw that he'd won, and ran off into the shadows.

And Benvolio says, "Are you hurt?" And Mercutio says, "A scratch.

A scratch." He clutched his wound, the blood was pouring out, and he was covering his hands.

He staggered across the street, gritting his teeth, with his face contorted, he lets out this soft groan, and fell to the ground, and he says, "A plague on both your houses." And then finally, he's dead, and we could say his eyes go blank.

So we've tried to use lots of those different narrative elements there.

I can see some dialogue, I can see loads of emotions showing his pain there, and some anger as well in his emotions.

And I of course see some actions like dropping the rapier, and staggering across to the other side of the street.

And there's some description too, where we've got that soft groan and the blank eyes as well.

A description will also be able to be added in when we come to write.

Really well done for your fantastic notes there.

Great job.

So now we're ready to move on to planning the events that come after Mercutio's death.

So, we have to think about the third and fourth event now.

So, we've talked about the duel, and Mercutio in pain and dying, so we're now ready to talk about these two events.

Romeo reacting to the death, and Romeo and Tybalt duelling to the death.

So, what does Romeo do after Mercutio dies? And what about Tybalt? Pause the video, and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done.

Great job.

So, in the animated version, for instance, we saw Romeo cradling Mercutio's body, didn't we? And we can imagine Tybalt kind of lurking there in the shadows, and then of course, he comes over, and approaches Romeo to confront him.

So, we need to try and keep this tense atmosphere as we describe these two sections as well.

So, how do Romeo's emotions change during these events, when he's reacting to Mercutio's death, and then when he's dealing with Tybalt to the death? Pause video and decide how his emotions are different in those two sections.

Well done, good job.

So for the first event here, Romeo is going to be very sad, isn't he, about Mercutio's death.

And he'll then see Tybalt, and he'll get very angry, and he's going to want revenge for what Tybalt did to Mercutio.

Then when he's duelling, he'll still be very angry as he duels, but he may also grow very tired, and very desperate, as they fight for longer and longer.

So again, we're going to have to show these emotions really clearly for our reader.

And of course, we have to consider as well what the characters might say.

So, he might say each of these pieces of dialogue.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great job.

So, for a, we've got, "Romeo, get up! Here's Tybalt approaching!" That would be, well done, Benvolio.

We've got, "Mercutio's dead, and either you or I, or both, must follow him." That was Romeo, well done.

And then, "Romeo, run!" would probably have to be Benvolio, wouldn't it? So that might happen at the end of our narrative, where we've got Romeo running away.

So, let's focus on that third event in our narrative, we've got Romeo reacting to the death.

So, how might we use each narrative element for this event? What might we be describing under each of these headings? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, good thinking.

So, for action we could be describing Romeo cradling Mercutio's dead body.

For a description, we could be describing Mercutio's blood staining Romeo's clothes.

For the dialogue we could be describing Benvolio warning Romeo that Tybalt's approaching.

And for the emotion, we could be describing Romeo sad, and then very angry when he sees Tybalt.

So, loads of ideas that we can include for each element.

Now let's turn to that fourth event, how might each narrative element be used here? Pause the video and have a think.

Great ideas, well done.

So, for action, you could have describing the duel, of course, including Romeo's fatal blow to Tybalt, that's really important.

For the description, you could be describing the sound of their swords perhaps, or you could describe Tybalt's wound that he receives.

For the dialogue, you could be describing Romeo telling Tybalt that one or both of them must follow Mercutio to die.

And for emotion, you could be describing their anger, and their tiredness as they fight.

So, again, all these details will be really helpful when we come to plan, because they help us to give a really clear picture for our reader.

So, as we said before, the actions will form the backbone of our plan.

So can you have a go at breaking down in detail the actions that make up each of these events? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great thinking.

So, for Romeo reacting to the death, you could have Romeo froze on the spot, he fell to his knees and grabbed Mercutio's body, he heard Tybalt approaching, he got up, and then he paced towards Tybalt.

And finally, he drew his rapier.

And then for Romeo and Tybalt duelling to the death, you could have, they duelled all the way around the square, Romeo lunged, but Tybalt, parried, Tybalt thrusted, but Romeo feinted, and finally, Romeo lunged again, and struck, and Tybalt collapsed dead.

So, we've taken the event, we've broken it down step-by-step into the actions that make it up.

That's gonna really help us when we come to plan in a moment.

So, here we see again, Jun's notes for part of his plan for that third event, where Romeo is reacting to the death.

Can you see all four narrative elements in his notes here? Pause the video and see what you could spot.

Well done, great job.

So, have we got action? Yes, we do.

We've got Romeo falling to his knees, and rising to his feet, and so on.

We've got some descriptions, for instance the snow white clothes that are being stained with blood.

We've got some emotions, for instance, he wept uncontrollably to show his sadness, and then his body filled with rage to show his anger.

And we've got some dialogue here, where Benvolio says, "Get up! Tybalt's approaching!" So, even in this first part of Jun's plan, he's used those narrative elements to add all of that detail to the event that we're describing here.

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

I'd like you to now write your notes to plan the third event in our narrative, where Romeo is reacting to the death, using the notes on the left.

So, just like before, use these ideas on the left, and those four elements to help you with your plan, including that rich vocabulary that we've already discussed.

Remember to mix up the elements in any order that works for you, focusing on getting the action interspersed, mingled with the emotion, the description, and the dialogue, and, using your notes, not full sentences.

So, pause the video, and have a go at planning this third section.

Well done, great job.

Here are Jun's notes for this third event.

He's got Romeo frozen, then he fell to his knees and held the body, and he wept uncontrollably, with his tears mixing with blood there.

Then Mercutio's blood stained his snow white clothes, some description there.

And then we got some dialogue, "Get up! Tybalt's approaching!" And then we got some action, he rose to his feet, and he saw Tybalt skulking in the shadows.

And then we got some emotion, his body filled with rage, he wanted revenge.

Some description again, he flushed scarlet, which also shows emotion.

And he paced towards Tybalt, and he removed his rapier from its scabbard, finishing with some action there.

So, those are Jun's notes, and I bet yours are just as good, well done.

So now we're going to write our notes for the fourth and final event, where Romeo and Tybalt are duelling to the death, using these ideas about the four elements on the left to help you.

Pause the video, and have a go at writing your notes for this fourth section.

Well done, great job.

Here are Jun's notes for that fourth event, where Romeo and Tybalt are duelling.

He says, "Mercutio's dead.

You or I, or both of us, must follow him." Some dialogue from Romeo to start.

Then some emotion, he's incensed, and some action, they began to duel, their rapist crashed and clanged, some description there.

And then Romeo lunged, and Tybalt parried, some action.

And Tybalt thrust, then Romeo feinted.

Then they're panting, their eyes are narrowed, so we're showing emotion there.

Romeo lunged again, flailing his arms, and then he plunged his rapier into Tybalt's chest.

There was a jagged wound, oozing blood, some description.

And finally, he watched Tybalt crumple, and then we finished with some dialogue, where Benvolio says, "Romeo, run!" So we really tried there to include those different elements to really create a detailed picture for our reader.

Really well done for your effort there.

Let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We are writing a retelling of the duel scene in act three, scene one of "Romeo and Juliet," and we want a narrative to have a pacey, tense atmosphere.

We know that writing works best when we plan in advance the structure and the content we want to include.

Good narrative writing often combines elements of action, description, emotion, and dialogue.

And we planned how to include these elements in four paragraphs that tell the story of the two.

Really well done, for your effort this lesson, I hope you're really pleased with the plan you've produced, it's going to make your writing in the next lesson so much easier, and so much more effective.

Really well done.

I'd love to see you again in the next lesson.

Goodbye.