Lesson video

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

We're going to be learning some really rich vocabulary today, and looking at some important historical features of Victorian England.

I think you're going to find it really interesting, and I'm really looking forward to teaching you today.

Let's get to work.

Today's lesson is called Exploring Vocabulary for a Setting Description in "Sherlock Holmes," and it comes from my unit called "Sherlock Holmes," Descriptive and Letter Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to explore vocabulary that relates to Victorian London, and suggest ways of including it in setting descriptions.

So in today's lesson, we're going to be taking our first steps towards writing a setting description based on Victorian London as a setting for "Sherlock Holmes." Now, developing our understanding of vocabulary and building up a bank of great words to use is a really important step in the writing process.

So you might want to keep a note of any words you learn in this lesson in order to use later on in your writing.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Setting description.

Historical context.

Fronted adverbial.

And preposition phrase.

Well done.

So a setting description is a detailed description of the location where a narrative is set.

And the historical context of a narrative is the events, lifestyle and living conditions that existed at a particular time in history.

And a fronted adverbial is a sentence starter followed by a comma.

Finally, a preposition phrase is a phrase composed of a preposition and a noun phrase that follows it.

So here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by looking at some vocabulary to show the historical context of our setting description of Victorian London, then we'll move on to looking at some rich vocabulary that we can use for the same setting, and finally we'll look at different ways of saying where in a setting description.

Let's get to work.

So we're going to write a setting description of Victorian London and of Sherlock Holmes' study at 221b Baker Street.

So a setting description can start from a bird's eye view, high above a place and end up in a specific room.

Here's the example of what I mean.

"In the sky, bright white clouds scurry across the blue.

Below them, emerald fields spread out in a glorious patchwork as mud stained sheep grazed silently around an ancient church.

The school huddles, a mess of stone-built buildings, against the wall of the churchyard.

Inside, a class of children listens intently as their teacher reads expressively to them." And I'm sure you've done that lots at your school.

So, did you see there how we started with a bird's eye view talking about the clouds, then we talked about the field zooming in further, then the church, then the school, and finally zooming in to the most specific place, the very room where the children are sitting.

So we've started at a big view, and we've gone more and more specific.

We've zoomed in.

And we're gonna do the same thing with our second description, starting with Victorian London and zooming in to Sherlock Holmes' study.

So in that example, there were very few clues about when the description was taking place.

There was lots of where, wasn't there? Loads of description of the setting, but it wasn't really clear when the description was taking place.

Now, we want our reader in our setting description to know that we're writing about Victorian London.

So we want to drop clues about the historical context about when this is happening.

So to do that, we should avoid descriptions which are, here's a great word, anachronistic.

Can you say that? Well done.

Anachronistic, which means they're out of keeping with the time period.

So we could say, "A cobbled street filled with horses' braying." That is in-keeping with the time period of Victorian London.

But we couldn't say, "A tarmac-covered street lined with cars." Now, actually tarmac was invented during Victorian times, but the lined with cars wouldn't really work in a Victorian London setting.

We couldn't say, "A small supermarket with fluorescent lights." And we could say, "A small butcher shop lit by gas lamps." So they wouldn't have had supermarkets back then, but they would've had smaller shops where you could buy different things, and definitely they would've had some gas lamps, even though they also had a few electric lights already.

So we have to make sure we are not being anachronistic.

We are keeping to that time period to show our reader that historical context in our description.

So let's have a think.

I've got the same or a section of that same passage I showed you earlier.

How might we change this passage to make clear that it's set in the present day? What details could we add to drop hints to our reader about the historical context of the setting being the present day, being modern times? Pause the video and think, what would you add in? Well done, good thinking.

So maybe you thought of some things like this, and I've put them in purple.

You could say, "In the sky, bright white clouds scurry across the blue as aeroplanes streak past, buzzing quietly." We could describe glass walls in the school, and we could say that it's "next to the busy sports centre." And then in the classroom, we could talk about the children or the teacher reading "from a bright screen." So all of those clues will tell my reader, oh, this is happening in modern times.

This can't be set in Victorian times.

So we've really dropped some really little hints which tell our reader straight away when this is set.

So we're gonna try and do the same thing in our own writing.

Good job.

So we need to show that the historical context of our setting description is Victorian London.

And to do this, we can refer to some items that are specific to this context, and you'll be able to think of loads of these, and you might want to do some research of your own.

But you could think of things like a penny farthing.

If you mention a penny farthing, this amazing bicycle with its huge front wheel and its small back wheel, then people know straight away, oh, you're talking about Victorian times.

Maybe you could mention a horse-drawn tram or a horse-drawn omnibus, fantastic word, which is like an early version of a bus, which you could pay to go on, and then it's drawn by a horse through the streets, so you don't have to walk.

Maybe you could mention gas lamps.

Now these were still very common in Victorian London, even though some electric lights did exist at that time as well.

So we've got some hints there to our reader that we're in Victorian times.

Here are some more features of London we could include to show that historical context.

You could talk about cobbled or stone lined streets.

You could talk about smog, because that was a very big problem, which is like a smoky haze that hangs over a city caused by pollution.

Very unpleasant to be in.

You could also see street children, which might be called urchins.

You could talk about pickpockets, because pickpocketing was a really common crime in Victorian London.

You could talk about those open sewers running down the streets, where you've got human waste running through the streets.

You could talk about horse manure.

You've got hundreds of horses going through the street, there's gonna be manure everywhere.

And you could even do some research on your own to find some more historical features we can mention to show our reader this context.

So have a look at this drawing of a street in Victorian London, and this would be a street in the slums in a very poor area of the city.

So what can you see that hints at the historical context of the picture? Let's think of things which we could use in our own writing.

Pause the video and think of all the things you spot which show that this is quite specific to Victorian London.

Have a think.

Well done.

You're thinking.

So maybe you spotted the horse and carriage there in the background.

Maybe you spotted all these street children, or we could call them urchins.

There's smog kind of hanging in the background there in the sky.

We've got people sitting on the street.

We've got a gas lamp, we've got crowded housing, like in the slums. We've got some animals in the street.

I don't know if you noticed that little goat there in the corner.

And we've got the cobbled street as well.

So lots of features here which hint at a particular time period.

Now, that might not be particularly precise.

It might not be possible for our reader to know exactly when we're talking about.

But these all hint to the reader that these are, this setting is set sometime in the distant past, or sometime quite a long time ago.

This wouldn't be a description of the modern day, and that's a really important thing we need to do.

Really well done if you spotted lots of those features.

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

I've written a passage where I am speaking as Dr.

Watson describing walking towards Holmes's house through Victorian London.

I'd like you to pause the video and see if you can complete the gaps in the description using items which show the historical context of Victorian London, and I've given you a list there to help you out.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Great job.

So here's the passage with those words added.

We could say, "As I strolled down the cobbled street towards Holmes' flat, a man cycling on a penny farthing nearly knocked me down.

Shaking my head, I stepped over a pile of horse manure left by the creature guiding a packed omnibus down the road.

A gaggle of urchins begged me for food, but I turned away, choking on the thick smog that hung in the air.

As night fell, a man came to light the gas lamps, much to my relief." I wonder if Watson's a bit concerned about the risk of crime in Victorian London at night there.

Really well done for matching those up.

We've now got loads of words we can drop into our description to give our reader loads of clues that we are talking about Victorian London.

These will be really helpful to us.

Good work.

So we've done some vocabulary to show our historical context.

Now we're going to look at some really rich vocabulary we can use when referring to Victorian London.

So when we write our setting description, we'll want to be able to show those huge contrasts in Victorian London.

Remember that the wealthy had access to museums and theatres, and those new forms of transport, like the underground.

And other people lived in overcrowded, dangerous and dirty slums, like the one we saw in the picture before.

So because we're starting with that bird's eye view and zooming in, then we can describe both of these parts of London, the very wealthy parts and the very poor parts.

And that's going to be really interesting for our reader to see that contrast.

So let's learn some rich vocabulary to describe the wealthy areas of Victorian London, thinking about what the streets would've been like there and what the buildings might have been like.

So, we've got a picture to help us and a new word, which is serene.

Well done.

So you can see she's doing some yoga there in our picture.

So if something is serene, it is calm or peaceful or untroubled.

So the streets of the wealthy parts of London might be quite serene.

We can also use this word, imposing.

My turn, your turn.

Imposing.

Well done.

So look at that building in the picture, it is huge and towering over the characters there.

So it's an imposing building, that means it's grand or impressive, or it's towering over you.

So those new buildings, like the museums and the theatres might be very imposing, mightn't they, in Victorian London.

So we can make the following word pairs with these words.

Let's try and say them.

We could say serene streets.

We could say serene suburbs.

That's the outside bits of cities.

We could say serene pace of life.

Well done.

Then we could talk about imposing buildings, and we could say imposing houses, because maybe the wealthy people in Victorian London had very big houses as well.

And we could finally say imposing architecture.

Well done.

So really fancy buildings, we might talk about their architecture, the way they're designed.

So all of these would help us to show the wealth of this part of London, where maybe some very rich people are living, and we've got some very fancy buildings going on.

So serene and imposing are two great words to use.

However, remember that even wealthy people in Victorian London would've had to deal with that smog, the smoke hanging over the cities, and with crime.

So we could use some rich vocabulary here as well.

We could use this word impenetrable.

Well done.

So impenetrable means impossible to get through or see through.

So we can see our character there can't get through that pathway.

And we might also have this great word, skulk.

Well done.

Can you see the tiger there about to pounce? So it's staying hidden in order to attack.

If you're skulking, you're hiding ready to pounce, ready to come out.

So we could make these word pairs to describe elements of Victorian London.

We could talk about impenetrable smog.

Well done.

Or even impenetrable clouds of smoke.

Well done.

And with skulk, that's a verb, so we could say that pickpockets skulk.

Maybe they're in some dark alleyways, or even criminals skulk in dark alleyways.

Well done.

So we've got some really good words here to describe some of the more difficult parts of Victorian London as well.

The impenetrable smog and maybe suspicious criminal people skulking in the dark, ready to pounce.

So great words to use as well.

So let's match these up.

I've got those words on the left hand side.

Can you match the words to the phrases and clauses on the right to create some descriptions of Victorian London? See which ones match up best.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good job.

So for A, we would say impenetrable smog that darkens the sky.

For B, imposing buildings looming impressively.

For C, serene, well done, streets lined with leafy trees.

And finally, D, skulk in the shadows.

So maybe that's a criminal or a gang of ruffians skulking in the shadows about to commit a crime.

So those will be fantastic phrases to include in our description, wouldn't they? So lock those away in your brain, ready to use later on.

Let's learn some more words.

So let's now consider those busy, crowded slums. So what words could we use that relate to them? Well, here's a great one.

We've got havoc.

So if something causes havoc, you know it's causing a huge disruption.

So havoc is confusion, it's disorder, things being out of place and it's chaos.

So maybe your teacher would walk into the classroom and say, "This is absolute havoc, it's in chaos." Hopefully not very often.

We might also use this great word, which is dilapidated.

Well done.

Once more, dilapidated.

Well done.

So look at that picture there.

That house is almost falling apart, isn't it? If something's dilapidated, it means it's in a state of ruin or disrepair.

It's broken, so things are in a very poor condition.

So we can imagine that those very busy streets might be havoc, mightn't they? And they might be in a state of havoc.

And the buildings themselves could be very, very dilapidated.

So we've got some descriptions here we can use as well.

We could talk about dilapidated houses.

We could say dilapidated streets.

We could talk about the havoc of the slum, or we could say it's a scene of total havoc.

Well done.

So these are going to be really helpful descriptions for making our reader really understand what the streets of those slums might be like.

So lock these words away as well.

So people in the slums we know would not have had a proper sewage system.

So we need some words to describe the horrible smell they might have been experiencing every day.

So here's a great word, it's nauseating.

Well done.

Look how disgusting that smell is coming up there.

So a nauseating smell is one that's disgusting.

It makes you feel sick.

If you are nauseated, you feel sick.

So nauseating is a smell that is sickening.

And here's another great word, which is stench.

Well done.

So a stench is a very strong and unpleasant smell.

So again, we could make some word pairs.

We could pair them together.

We could say a nauseating stench.

So that might be the smell of human waste or rotting food in the streets of a slum.

We could say a nauseating scent.

Well done, another terrible smell.

We could talk about a nauseating odour, or a vile stench, or a putrid stench.

So there's some great word pairs there to use to describe those really unpleasant smells.

So again, these are gonna be really useful for painting that picture for our reader of just how difficult life would've been in the slums for people in Victorian London.

So let's do the same thing again.

Can you match up those words on the left to the phrases and clauses on the right to create some descriptions of Victorian London? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Good job.

So for A, we would say the nauseating scent of rotten vegetables.

We could say for B, the stench of horse manure in the streets.

For C, we could say the havoc of the bustling slums. And for D, dilapidated houses overflowing with people.

We've done a really good job there of matching those up.

Well done.

Okay, let's put this rich vocabulary to use.

You have your vocabulary words down the right hand side of the screen here, and now I've done a description of walking through Victorian London again.

I'd like you to complete the gaps in the description using the most appropriate vocabulary to describe this Victorian city.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Great job.

So here's the passage with the correct words added.

I would say, "To my left, imposing museums and theatres line the serene, tree-lined streets.

In the sky, an impenetrable smog hides the sun.

As I walk closer to the noisy havoc of the slums, the nauseating scent of rotten food hits me, along with the stench of human waste.

On every side, dilapidated buildings loom over me, overflowing with ragged, hungry-looking children.

Criminal skulk in the dark alleyways, ready to leap out at a moment's notice." So we've really used the rich vocabulary there to paint a brilliant picture for our reader of what this must be like in Victorian London.

Great work.

Okay, so now we're going to focus on saying where.

So it's different ways of saying where things are in our setting description.

So a setting description is likely to include very specific fronted adverbials of place to show the reader where things are.

So if you look at our example from before, we have, "In the sky, bright white clouds scurry across the blue." We have "Below them" and we have "inside." Three different fronted adverbials of place.

So in each case, the fronted adverbial of place says where the rest of the sentence is occurring.

So the clouds are in the sky.

And it's followed by a comma, and what comes after the comma could be a sentence on its own.

For instance, the first one, a sentence could be "Bright white clouds scurry across the blue." That's fine.

We've added the fronted adverbial in front of it to show where that's happening.

So what fronted adverbials of place do you know? I've given you three.

Can you think of any more? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you or think on your own.

Well done.

There are loads of really good ones we could use.

So there are many different fronted adverbials of place.

There might be some which are phrases, groups of words which don't contain a verb.

We've got, "in the distance," "on one side," "on the other," "far away," "on every side." We might have some single words like inside, everywhere, there, here and outside.

And we might have some clauses, groups of words that do contain a third, like "as far as the eye can see," "wherever you look," "wherever you cast your eyes." But we can also create specific fronted adverbials that reflect our specific setting and even our specific time period.

So for instance, I could say "on every street corner," "in the smog-filled sky," "on one side of the city," "all through the slums," "all over the dirty streets," and "in every overcrowded house." These are all being more specific about what's going to follow the comma in the rest of the sentence.

So fronted adverbials of place like these are gonna be really useful in our setting description.

So using the list on the right hand side, can you choose an appropriate fronted adverbial of place to show where each sentence could be occurring and to fill the gap? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Good job.

So for A, I would say, "In the smog filled sky, murky clouds of smoke loom threateningly." In B, I would have, "On one side of the city, serene streets lined with trees snake past imposing buildings." And for C, "Down every alleyway, gangs of ruffians skulk, sharpening their knives." Really well done if you've got those.

So we can also use preposition phrases to show where things are in our setting description.

So we can see some here.

We've got "across the blue," "in a glorious patchwork," "against the wall of the church yard," and "to them." Now, these aren't at the start of a sentence.

You can see they are either in the middle or at the end of a sentence instead.

So in each case, a preposition of place, that's words like in, on, across, through, against, over, that show us where something is, is placed in front of a noun, a noun phrase or a pronoun.

So in the first one we have "across" as the preposition, and then the noun phrase, "the blue." In the second we've got "in" as the preposition, and then "a glorious patchwork" as the noun phrase.

And the final one, we've got "to" as the preposition and "them" as a pronoun that follows it.

So the preposition links the noun phrase or the noun or the pronoun to the rest of the sentence to say where.

And the preposition and the noun phrase together are called a preposition phrase.

So there are limitless possibilities for creating preposition phrases to say where things are in a setting description.

We have to take a preposition of place, like in, on, across, at, through, beside, between or under, then we have to take a noun phrase, or a pronoun or a noun.

So I've got lots here.

And then we join them together to make a preposition phrase.

So we've got "in the bustling streets," "on every corner," "across the muddy road," "at the edge of the slum," "through the dark city," "beside the imposing museum," "between the dilapidated houses," and "under piles of rotten food." So that's just a few of the ideas we could have there.

You may have noticed as well that lots of fronted adverbials we saw before are also preposition phrases.

I could start a sentence, couldn't I, by saying "on every corner," comma, and it could be a fronted adverbial.

So lots of preposition phrases can be put at the start of a sentence as a fronted adverbial of place as well.

So let's practise using these preposition phrases to say where things are.

Can you choose an appropriate preposition phrase on the list to show where each sentence could be occurring? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Good job.

So for A, I would say "Hungry urchins search for tasty morsels to eat in piles of rotten food." For B I'd say, "At nightfall, the gas-lamp lighter moves down the dark street, lighting each lamp." They had to be lit by hand.

And for C, I would say, "Elegant gentleman stroll past imposing museums, while a mile away children starve in the slums." So each time we've got a preposition followed by a noun phrase to make a preposition phrase to say where this is happening.

Really well done for matching those up.

Okay, let's do our final task this lesson, and this one's going to be really important when we come to write.

I'd like you to generate your own list of fronted adverbials of place and preposition phrases that are specific to the setting of Victorian London.

So here are some ideas to start you off.

For my fronted adverbials of place I've got, "on every street corner," "in the smog-filled sky," "on one side of the city," "all through the slums," and "all over the dirty streets." These are linked to that setting of Victorian London.

And the same way, it can have preposition phrases like "in the bustling streets," "through the dark city," "on every corner," "beside the imposing museum," "between the dilapidated houses." So all of these help us to build that description by being specific to the setting of Victorian London.

So I'd use to generate your own list of fronted adverbials of place and the preposition phrases.

And if you can, try to use some of that historical vocabulary from this lesson, or even some of the rich vocabulary we talked about for describing different parts of the city.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, fantastic effort.

So here are some more of those fronted adverbials of place and preposition phrases you might have come up with.

I came up with, "On the serene streets on one side of the city," "in the dilapidated alleyways on the other," "on every hungry face." And for my preposition phrases I have, "in the light of the gas lamp," "next to a pile of horse manure," "across the cobbled street," "down a narrow alley," "into a waiting omnibus." So each time there I've got my preposition followed by a noun phrase.

And you may want to keep these safe to use when you write your setting description because we've been really specific to our setting, which is really helpful when we come to write.

Really well done.

So let's summarise our learning in this session.

We've learned that when we're writing a setting description, we can mention items from the appropriate time period in order to show the historical context in which we're writing.

We learned that we can use rich vocabulary to show the contrast between wealthy and poor areas of Victorian London.

And we learned that we can use fronted adverbials and preposition phrases as part of setting descriptions to show where items and actions take place.

You've done a fantastic job in this lesson building a massive bank of vocabulary for us to use when we come to write a setting description.

I think you're going to find it really helpful when you come to do that.

Great effort.

Well done.

And I hope to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.