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

Today, we're going to start work on a different style of writing, a journalistic report, which is the kind of writing you might find in a newspaper or an online news website.

And in the rest of this unit, we're going to work on writing a journalistic report inspired by events in "When the Sky Falls." I think you're going to really enjoy this, so let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called Generating Ideas For a Journalistic Report based on "When the Sky Falls," and it comes from a unit called, "When the Sky Falls: Narrative and Journalistic Writing." By the end of today's lesson, you will have summarised the events of the resolution of "When the Sky Falls" and gathered different perspectives on the events in role as a journalist.

Now, as with all our writing lessons in this unit, you will have to have finished reading the book "When the Sky Falls" by Phil Earle before you begin.

If you have done, let's make a start.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

A journalistic report is a non-fiction text that informs the reader about an event, and factual information is information that is true or proven.

A perspective is someone's view of events, and the resolution is the part of a narrative where problems are resolved.

Here's our lesson outline for today, because it starts off by gathering factual information that we could use in a journalistic report based on "When the Sky Falls," and then we'll be gathering different perspectives on a particular event in the story.

So as you may know, a journalistic report is a non-fiction text, and it aims to report news events with up-to-date information.

We might find them in newspapers, in magazines, or in online news websites.

So what structure do they follow? Well, they usually start with a headline that summarises the whole story in a very short way.

Then it has an introduction that gives factual information about what's happened, why it's happened, who's involved, where the events occurred and when they occurred.

And then the main paragraphs that follow the introduction usually give different perspectives on the events, including quotations from different people and some additional facts.

So those different perspectives might come from different people, or even different organisations who have a connection to the events that are being described in the journalistic report.

And then we'll usually finish with a conclusion that gives the latest, the most up-to-date factual information and maybe include the official position perhaps from the government, or another responsible organisation, and talks about what will happen next.

So what's going to be the next steps in this story as it develops in the days that follow? So let's recap that structure.

What do we find in each section of the journalist report? Match the statements to the sections.

Pause the video, and have a go.

Well done, great job.

So the headline is that very brief summary of what happened.

The introduction gives the key details about what, why, who, where, and when.

The main paragraphs give us different perspective from the event with some extra factual details as well.

And the conclusion tells us the latest information, the official position perhaps from the government, and what will happen next.

Now, not all journalistic reports in practise follow the exact same structure.

It might depend what's being reported on.

But we are going to follow this structure in the rest of our unit.

So as we've discussed, journalistic reports contain both factual information that's proven to be true, and different perspectives, people's views of an event.

So here's an example based on a different event from World War II of a section of a journalistic report.

It says, "Yesterday, the evacuation of children from Britain's cities began.

The evacuation, which is being termed Operation Pied Piper, aims to remove 1.

5 million children from the danger of Nazi air raids.

A Ministry of Health spokesperson stated today, 'We understand this will be deeply distressing for parents, but we are certain this is in the best interest of children.

'" So notice how there's factual information about the evacuation.

It began yesterday.

It's being called Operation Pied Piper.

It aims to remove 1.

5 million children.

But we also have the perspective of a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

They are saying, "We understand this will be distressing, but it's in the best interest of children." So in the same paragraph here, we have a mixture of factual information and different perspectives.

And journalistic reports tend to combine both of those.

Now, it's important to bear in mind, perspectives can still be true.

This information inside the perspective of the Ministry of Health spokesperson might be true, but we're presenting it as their perspective, their view of the events.

So what's the benefit of including both the actual information and these different perspectives within a journalist report? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Great work.

So maybe you said this like Izzy.

"Well, the reader wants to know exactly what happened, the who, what, where, when, why, and so on.

So we need to have that detailed factual information.

But they also want to know what different people think about it, particularly people who saw the event, or people who were responsible like the government, for what's happened.

So we need to include different perspectives as well." So the factual information gives us the information about what's happened, and the perspectives give us different people's views of what happened.

And most readers want to know both of those things, which is why journalistic reports contain both.

Really well done for your ideas there.

So although a journalistic report is a non-fiction text, we can write one inspired by a narrative, and that's what we're going to do in the rest of this unit.

So we're going to write a journalistic report inspired by the events of the resolution in "When the Sky Falls." So what is the resolution in "When the Sky Falls?" And why might it be an appropriate subject for a journalistic report, bearing in mind where we might see one of those reports.

Pause the video and have a chat with the person next to you, or think on your own.

Well done, good job.

So hopefully you remembered that the resolution is where Adonis is killed by the air raid wardens and Mrs. F and Joseph are united in their grief at the end of the book.

So it's not necessarily a happy resolution.

We can see there's very sad events there, but the problems in the book are resolved by that outcome.

We can see the problem of what was going to happen to Adonis is resolved because unfortunately, he's killed before that can happen.

And we can see that in Mrs. F and Joseph's ending there.

They're kind of resolving the difficulties they've had in their relationship, and Joseph's difficulties in trusting anyone at all.

We can see that those are resolved problems at the end of the book because they're united by their grief about Adonis.

So is this appropriate to put in a journalistic report? Well, I think yes, because there's obviously lots of bad things that happen in the war.

But the death of a zoo's most prized animal in this way would be significant enough to be reported on.

You might remember from previous sessions, that actually at London Zoo, for instance, during the war, they remained open during the war.

They were bombed several times, but no animal was ever killed.

So the fact that a very prized gorilla was killed would probably be newsworthy at the time of the war, even though we've got a lot of human suffering happening, this would still be an event worth reporting on.

So we're going to use it as a subject of our journalistic report.

So the main event of this resolution, Adonis' death, is appropriate to include in a journalistic report.

But not every event that's mentioned in the narrative in the book will be appropriate to include.

Let's think about why.

Well, journalistic reports are written to inform people about important events.

And this means they need to include relevant factual information so that the audience understands those events.

But they're less likely to include really personal information, or emotional responses to events in the same way that a narrative does.

They might include some people's responses, where they say how upset they were by events, but it'll be done in a different way to what we see in a narrative.

And usually those emotions will be in much less depth than we get in a book.

But we will have to include details from "When the Sky Falls" that come before the resolution as well as background information that the reader needs.

So what was happening before Adonis died that led to the events around that resolution.

So which of these events from the resolution would be appropriate to include in a journalistic report? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good thinking.

So Mrs. F comforting Joseph after Adonis' death probably wouldn't be included because it's a very personal and emotional situation, but also not a huge important event of significance that the reader needs to know.

For B, the zoo was hit in the air raid.

Yes, they definitely need to know that, don't they? 'Cause that's the context for the air raid wardens turning up, for Adonis escaping, that has vital background information.

The air raid wardens shooting Adonis dead, it's definitely crucial, as that's the key point of this resolution.

And Joseph wept bitterly afterwards.

No, that's probably a bit too emotional, a bit too personal for us to include.

Now you will see personal things in journalistic reports, but in this case, we probably want to focus on the events that have happened.

And although the different perspectives might tell us that people were upset by these events, we won't focus on the same detail on their emotions as we would do if we were writing a narrative.

Really well done with spotting them.

So let's get in role as a journalist in 1941.

Your editor sends you the following note.

And that's the person in charge of your newspaper.

They say this, "Hello, I've heard that a prized gorilla was killed last night by air raid wardens at the North London Zoo during an air raid.

I believe it's run by a Mrs. Farrelly, and apparently a young boy was there too.

Can you investigate and write me an article ready for tonight's newspaper? Many thanks!" So we've got a note the day after it's happened.

So it happened last night, and we're receiving this note the following morning, but we need to have an article ready for the newspaper that's being printed tonight.

Because we're saying this is a daily newspaper, which means there's one which printed every day, which is true of lots of newspapers.

So we've got to investigate this situation and see if you can write an article, ready for the newspaper tonight.

So what questions do you think your readers will want to know the answers to about this event? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great ideas.

So maybe you thought of some, like this.

Why was the gorilla shot? What exactly happened last night at the zoo? What was the gorilla's name? How has the zoo been affected by the war in general? What is this Mrs. Farrelly like, and how did she end up running the zoo? Who was the boy that was involved in the situation? And how was the zoo damaged by the air raid? Now we might not choose to answer all those questions in our article, in our journalistic report, but these are the kind of questions that our reader might want to know the answer to.

So we might want to think about what information could we include that's going to answer those questions.

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

Now all of these questions we've just discussed can be answered by us based on our reading of the book, based on our knowledge of what we've already read.

And these are going to form the facts of our report.

So let's make some notes about the factual information our report will be based on, ready to write the article for our editor.

So we need to decide on the factual information your reader will want to know about what happened at the zoo last night.

And I want you to write bullet point notes to show this information based on your reading of "When the Sky Falls." You know these events because you've read the book.

And you might want to add your own details about the day it occurred, the name of the zoo and so on.

So you can choose a date, you can choose a name for the zoo, and so on.

That's up to you.

And I want you to use the questions in the previous slide to help you if needed, but you might have your own ideas what factual information you think your reader will want to know about these events.

So pause the video and make some bullet point notes to show the factual information about the incident at the zoo that you think you reader will want to know.

Well done.

Great work.

So here's an example of the notes you might have written for the factual information you want to include in your report.

You might have written gorilla equals Adonis, that's his name.

Shot because he'd escaped from his enclosure due to damage to the zoo during air raid.

Now that's really important is that your reader must know that, otherwise his whole story won't make any sense.

I've put many hits on zoo during the raid, several buildings burned down.

That's important too.

Air raid wardens arrived at zoo to assess damage, saw boy, Joseph Palmer, age 12, about to be attacked by wolf.

Shot it, then saw gorilla and shot him in the chest.

We need to know this information about the wolf and the arrival of the air raid wardens too, don't we? We can't just go straight to the fact that Adonis was killed.

Your reader will need to understand what was going on leading up to that.

Why were they there? And what did they see when they arrived? And what was Joseph's role in all of this too? Then I've got Mrs. Farrelly equals in charge of zoo.

Her family has run for years.

Mrs. Farrelly and Joseph Palmer tried to save the gorilla, but they were unsuccessful.

And zoo has been closed during war and most animals sent away or killed.

Now again, we might not end up using all of this information in our journalistic report, but now we've got a great idea of some of the factual information that we want to include to give our reader a clear picture of what happened there.

Really well done for making such good notes there.

That's going to really help you going forward to write your journalistic report.

So we've gathered some factual information about the events that happened at the zoo during the resolution of the story, when Adonis was shot.

We're now going to gather different perspectives on these events, just like a journalist would do, if they were writing their own journalistic report.

So the main paragraphs of a journalistic report often contain different perspectives on the events being described, as we already said.

In fact, the same information can sometimes be presented as factual information or as a perspective.

It's up to us to decide.

Here's an example.

"Wardens said that when they arrived, they saw a wolf heading towards a young boy." Here I've said, "Said that." So I'm presenting this as a perspective.

We're saying this is the warden's view, which may or may not be factual.

We're presenting it as their perspective.

But I could present the information like this.

"When wardens arrived at the zoo, they spotted a wolf heading for a young boy." This time I haven't said, "Said that." I've just said, "When wardens arrived, they spotted the boy." So this is presented as factual information.

We are saying this is definitely true.

Now it's up to you to decide when you're writing your report, which piece of information you'll present as factual, and which you'll present as perspectives.

But notice how presenting them differently does give a different impression of the information.

If you present it as factual information, we are saying it's definitely true.

If we are presenting it as a perspective, we are saying this is what that person said.

And that changes how the reader views the information slightly.

That's just something to bear in mind as we write.

So we can show perspectives using both reported and direct speech.

You might know what those are already.

Let's just recap.

So here's an example.

"Andy Mayo, an air raid warden, said, 'As soon as we got there, we saw a starved-looking wolf heading towards Joseph.

'" I can see this as a perspective, instead of factual information, because we are presenting it as Andy Mayo's view.

But I can also see we've used direct speech here.

We're saying that these are the exact words that are said and we're shown that using inverted commas around the words.

If we put something in inverted commas, we are saying he used these exact words when he spoke.

The alternative looks like this.

"Andy Mayo, an air aid warden, said that when he arrived at the zoo, he saw a starved-looking wolf heading towards Joseph Palmer, 12." Here, we've used reported speech to show the perspective.

We're saying what the person said without using their exact words.

So we're not saying that these are the exact words that Andy may have used.

We are saying this is the general idea of what he said, and we're presenting accurately what he said, but I'm not saying that these are the exact words that we've used.

And notice we have not used inverted commas.

So we use inverted commas when we're saying these are the exact words he used.

We are not using inverted commas, we're using a reported speech when we're summarising the view and not using the exact words he said.

So can you match each of these examples to the correct label? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So A says the zoo's prized gorilla, Adonis, was killed last night by air raid wardens.

Hmm.

That's just factual information in there.

We're saying that is definitely true.

B says, Mrs. Farrelly, the zoo's manager, said that the council had planned to kill the gorilla in any case.

So we haven't used inverted commas here.

So it's giving someone's perspective, Mrs. Farrelly's perspective, Mrs. F.

But we're not using her exact words.

So this is perspective using reported speech.

And then I know this is direct speech because we've used inverted commas.

So here we are saying the exact words she said were, "I hope the council's happy now.

They got what they wanted." So notice the difference between those two ways of presenting the perspective.

Really well done matching this up correctly.

Now we've already recorded the factual information we needed in the first part of this lesson.

So we're now going to start gathering different perspectives on the event to fill in those main paragraphs of our journalistic report.

So who might you want to talk to as a journalist, in order to gain their perspective on what happened at the zoo? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you or think on your own.

Well done.

Great ideas.

Maybe you'd like to get the perspective of the air raid wardens who were there.

Maybe you'd like to get Mrs. F's perspective, or Joseph's perspective, if Mrs. F will allow it.

And the council's perspective maybe, because they'd been planning to shoot Adonis, and of course they're responsible for a local area in general.

So we could gather all of those perspectives to get lots and lots of detail for our reader about the events that happened, and even about what's gonna happen going forward as well.

And of course, the council's perspective, as the people in charge of the local area, might be the official perspective that we put in our conclusion.

So can you match each person to the reason you might want to interview them and gain their perspective for your journalistic report? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good ideas.

So you might want to get the air raid warden's views because we want to find out why killing Adonis was necessary.

We might speak to Joseph to find out if he's grateful to the wardens for saving him from the wolf and the gorilla.

We wanted to speak to the council to find out whether they plan to help rebuild the zoo.

And we wanted to speak to Mrs. F to find out more about Adonis, the zoo, and how she feels about Adonis' death.

So when we talk to these people, those are the kind of questions we'll be asking them to find out their perspective on these events.

So I want you to discuss now what questions you would ask as a journalist to each of these people in order to understand their perspective.

So imagine you're the journalist, you're speaking to the air raid warden, to Mrs. F, to Joseph, and to the council.

What questions would you ask to each in order to try and understand what they experience, but also what they think about the events that happened? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good ideas.

So for the air raid wardens, maybe you came with these questions.

What led you to the zoo? Do you regret what you did? For Mrs F, you could say, "Tell us about the gorilla and running the zoo during the war.

How are you feeling? Do you understand the warden's actions?" For Joseph, you could say, "What's your connection to the events? Who do you blame for the gorilla's death?" And for the council, when will the zoo be rebuilt? And are you satisfied now that the gorilla is dead? So all of these questions will help you as a journalist to gather these different people's perspective on the events that have happened.

Really good ideas, well done.

Let's do our final task for this lesson.

And I'm going to do some role play in groups of five.

I want to have one person as the journalist and the others are gonna take on one of the perspectives below that we've discussed.

So the journalist will ask each person below for a statement, and they can use some of the questions we just discussed as well.

When that person hesitates, or needs a new idea, you as a journalist can jump in and suggest a question that might get some more speech out of them, some more ideas from them.

And each person is gonna react in role as their character using your own ideas, your understanding of characters from the book, like Mrs. F and Joseph.

But also I've given you some ideas below to help you as well.

So the air raid warden might want to talk about how they arrived during the raid and saw the wolf, and had to do this for safety, that they had to shoot Adonis for safety.

And they're sorry, but they had no choice.

Joseph might want to explain what happened.

He might want to explain that Adonis was an amazing creature and say that he wish it hadn't ended like this.

Mrs. F might want to say she understood why they did it, that running the zoo has been hard and that she'd like some privacy.

And the council spokesperson might say they're sorry it ended this way, but Adonis was a danger to the public.

And they might want to say that they'll help to rebuild the zoo.

Now, you might have different things you want to say in role.

Please add those in as well.

I've just given you a few ideas to get you started.

And if you're struggling for ideas, the journalist is going to jump in and ask you some more questions to help you think about what you might want to say.

So pause the video and have a go at your role play in groups of five.

Think about how each person's going to speak, what they will say in role as a statement about what's happened at the zoo.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great job.

So here are some examples of what each person might have said in role.

And I've written these out as a statement, rather than an interview, because I want to give an idea of what they might have said in total.

Now of course your journalist will have jumped in and out, asking questions and adding to the discussion.

But I'm just gonna present them as a statement each.

So for the air raid warden, maybe they said this.

"When we got there, there was so much damage.

Fires everywhere and buildings in ruins.

And then we saw this starved-looking wolf heading towards Joseph.

We shot it straight away.

Then, the gorilla appeared.

The boy tried to stop us, but we had to shoot it.

Our job is to keep the public safe, so we had no choice!" Then maybe for Mrs. F, she might have said this, "I know the wardens have a job to do, and I know they shot Adonis to keep people safe.

I've been ready to do the same thing for months.

But it's still a shock.

I've had him for years and he'd been through a lot recently.

The whole zoo has.

It's been a nightmare keeping things going during the war.

I've barely any animals left." Maybe Joseph said something like this.

"I just can't believe he's gone.

He was just so special.

It's impossible to explain.

When I met him, I thought he was so scary, but he was so gentle.

I'd come to guard his cage, but then a bomb knocked me out and destroyed his cage.

He just wanted to protect me and now he's gone.

He shouldn't have had to die." And then the council spokesperson might have said this.

"We were very sorry to hear about the damage to the zoo during last night's raid.

We'll be very happy to support Mrs. Farrelly in rebuilding this vital local resource at an appropriate time in the future.

While the circumstances of the gorilla's death are unfortunate, it was a danger to the public.

The right decision was made by the wardens." And you might be able to spot there the difference in tone and language between Joseph's response and the council's response.

So hopefully you might just show that in yours as well.

So we've got loads of ideas now for the different perspectives we might want to include in our journalistic report.

And of course, we've gathered factual information as well about what happened.

Really well done for your work.

So summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that a journalistic report is a non-fiction text that follows a particular structure.

And journalistic reports contain a mixture of factual information and individuals' perspectives on events.

We've said that different perspectives can be presented in different ways, including using direct and reported speech.

And we know that journalists can obtain different perspectives by conducting interviews with a range of parties.

That means different people.

And we've used role play to explore those different perspectives.

Really well done for your effort this lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

We'll be using all the ideas we've generated today to inform our planning for our piece of writing.

So I'd love to see you again in the next lesson to have a go at doing that.

Goodbye.