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 editing and improving our journalistic reports.

So this is our chance to turn our good work into great work and make some improvements that are really going to impress our readers.

I think we're gonna do some great work today.

So let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called Self-Editing a Journalistic Report Based on "When the Sky Falls", and it comes to our unit called "When the Sky Falls" Narrative and Journalistic Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, you will have edited your own journalistic report based on "When the Sky Falls" aiming to improve the punctuation, test, cohesion, and vocabulary.

And of course, to complete this lesson, you will need to have with you your first draught of your journalistic report.

If you've got that, let's begin.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

A growth mindset is a desire to keep developing any skillset.

And text cohesion is how a text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve its text purpose.

Cohesive devices are language structures that develop text cohesion, and a formal tone is the effect created by using serious, factual language.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to self-edit our work through three different lenses.

So we're going to begin by self-editing for punctuation.

Then we'll self-edit for cohesion, and then we'll self-edit for vocabulary.

So by the end of the lesson, you will have checked your work through three times in three different ways, focusing on three different things to make sure we've checked everything that we need to do to create our very best piece of work.

So as you know, our first attempt at writing, the one we've got in front of us, our journalist report is a draught.

And because of that's our first attempt, it's not likely to be our very best piece of work.

And that is okay.

That is absolutely normal.

As we know, professional authors spend an awfully long time taking their first draught and turning it into a finished piece of work.

And we know that writing is a process.

It has many steps to it.

We start off by generating ideas and then we plan what we want to write, and then we write a first draught, which is what we've done so far.

So the steps that follow might be different depending on what we're trying to do with our piece of writing.

We'll almost always edit and improve our draught to get it as good as possible.

Sometimes we'll publish our work for an audience.

We might write it out in best, or we might present our work for an audience as a speaker and a debate.

But remember, every piece of work can always be improved.

And a growth mindset is really helpful here.

We have to be aware that we can always improve any skill we have.

We might have produced a great piece of writing, which you want to make into a fantastic piece of writing.

You might have produced a good piece of writing, which you want to make into a great piece of writing, but we have to always think we can make this slightly better in one or two ways.

You might not be making very big changes today, but hopefully a few small changes will be enough to take your writing from good to great, often great to fantastic.

So let's try and do that together.

Now, as you know, editing is a chance to do several different things.

It's a chance to spot some mistakes and fix them.

It's a chance to rephrase and rethink our first ideas.

And it's also a chance to find opportunities to use all the language features and skills we need to use to meet the purpose of our text successfully.

So we can do this by looking at our work, as we said, through three different lenses.

We can look at punctuation, sentence structure, and cohesive devices and vocabulary and spelling.

And by focusing on each of these lenses in turn we get closer to our very best work.

So who do you think has the right attitudes to editing? Is it Andy or Sam? And why? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good thinking.

So Andy says he already did his very best work when he made that first draught, so why keep rereading it? And Sam says she worked really hard on hers too, but she thinks she might be able to make a few things better because our first ideas aren't always our best ideas.

Well, we'd probably agree that Sam might have the best idea here because we all try hard on our first draught.

It's not like we've not tried to do a good job, but editing is like a fresh start for us.

We can look at our work with fresh eyes, with new eyes and think hard about how we might make it even better.

And it's not about making bad work good.

You might be taking your work, as I said, from good to great, or you might be taking it from great to amazing.

So we are not saying when we edit, you didn't try hard on your first draught.

We're saying you tried very hard and now we're going to look at it fresh and try and make it even better.

So what does Aisha mean by this? She says editing isn't just about spotting mistakes, it's about finding opportunities.

What do you think she means? Pause the video and have a think.

That's it.

Good thinking.

Here's what Alex said.

He says, we might spot some mistakes while we're editing, but we might not have made that many in our first draught.

We are also looking for chances to show off all the language features we know, like different sentence structures and different punctuation, anything that makes our writing clearer or more engaging for our reader.

So we are looking to spot mistakes.

We were also looking for these opportunities to use all our skills and to make our text as effective as possible for our reader.

So first we're gonna start off by checking our punctuation.

Now, as we said, we might have made some mistakes in the punctuation we've already used.

We might also have missed opportunities to use punctuation as a cohesive device to connect ideas together more effectively.

Let's look at this example.

The zoo will remain closed for the foreseeable future, however it welcomes any donations from the public.

Hmm, something's not right here.

You might have spotted that we've made a mistake in using a comma to connect what could be two complete sentences.

So we could have one sentence, the zoo will remain closed for the foreseeable future full stop.

However, it welcomes any donations from the public.

We can't connect two sentences with a comma.

We'd have to separate them with a full stop.

Or maybe we've missed an opportunity.

We've actually got the opportunity here to fix this by using a semicolon as a cohesive device to connect those two sentences together instead.

So it could look like this.

We've made a tiny change, haven't we? We've literally added one dot there in order to change that.

But we've now gone from a mistake to an opportunity to use that cohesive device to connect two very closely related sentences together to show actually these are very closely linked ideas and I'm connecting them for you, the reader, to show you how closely linked they are.

So we're looking for mistakes and opportunities.

So here are some of the pieces of punctuation you might need to check.

I won't show you all of them because you know lots of them already really well.

Commas have so many uses, it's difficult to get them all right.

One that we sometimes forget is around parenthesis.

So here we see Beatrice Blake comma, a council spokesperson comma responded to the event.

We've got great commas around that piece of parenthesis there.

Hyphens are often used to create compound adjectives like this, that badly damaged zoo buildings will require lots of investment.

Or here, Joseph said that he appreciated the wardens life=saving actions.

Badly and damaged has been connected to make a compound adjective and life and saving have been done in the same way, to make compound adjectives using hyphens.

Maybe you've got some of those you need to check as well.

And of course you might have the opportunity to add one in to show that you're, you have the skill to use a hyphen as well.

Semicolons, of course, are used to connect closely related sentences like this.

Palmer explained that the gorilla had not tried to escape semicolon.

Instead, it stood guard over him when he was injured.

Those two ideas are very closely connected.

So we've shown that link to our reader by using the semicolon.

And colons can be used in several ways.

We can use them to explain.

I'm still in shock, comma.

We've had Adonis for so long.

Mrs. Farrow, Mrs. F is explaining why she's in such shock.

And here we've got another explanation.

However, the drama was not over colon Maya then saw a gorilla looming through the smoke.

So there we've explained why the drama wasn't over yet.

Remember with a colon on either side of the colon, we should have a complete sentence.

And of course we still have to check for our full stops, capital status, and apostrophes and all those other uses of commas for instance, that you know as well.

Remember, we're looking for both mistakes and opportunities.

Now, direct speech is really important in our report, isn't it? And inverted commas can be used to show it in several different ways.

We know we can have speech first where the direct speech comes first, followed by the reporting clause.

And notice where the inverted commas are placed here around the direct speech.

And we have a comma here.

For example, before that reporting clause, it could sometimes be an exclamation mark or a question mark.

It can't be a full stop.

If we have speech second, then the reporting clause comes first.

We've got Mr. Mayo explained.

Here, it's followed by a comma.

And then we have our direct speech.

Inverted commas, notice how now we can put a full stop at the end of the direct speech, or it could be a question mark or an exclamation mark, but not this time, a comma.

And then we have speech interrupted where the reporting clause comes in the middle.

So notice how here, after that first piece of direct speech we go to, then we have the reporting clause he explained, followed by another.

And then we have our final piece of direct speech.

And this time we finish with a full stop.

Again, it could be a question mark or explanation mark, but not a comma because it's at the end of a sentence.

So we need to bear these complicated rules in mind as we check and correct our direct speech.

And you might find that you haven't used the full range of these forms of direct speech, in which case you might wanna take the opportunity to add one in.

Maybe you think you could try some speech interrupted and you haven't managed that yet.

That would be a great one to try and push yourself to try.

So here are some sentences where punctuation is missing.

Can you add the correct punctuation into each of these sentences? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Great thinking.

So for edits here, it says Mrs. Farley, the zoo's manager was present at the zoo last night.

Now that phrase the zoo's manager is actually a piece of parentheses, isn't it? So we could put in brackets, or we could put in commas like this.

For B, we've got a piece of speech interrupted and you might have noticed there's something missing.

We need some commas don't we? So you need a comma after this first piece of direct speech.

And then after the reporting clauses she added.

We've got that full stop at the incorrect because this is the end of a sentence.

It can't be a comma there.

And for C, we've got the wardens shot an out-of-control wolf so that outta control could be connected with hyphens to create a compound added to there to describe the wolf.

Really well done if you spotted those opportunities to use pieces of punctuation.

Now here's a whole passage with lots of missing punctuation.

Discuss with your partner where you can see some opportunities to add punctuation here, pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

There were loads weren't there? Now here are some places where the punctuation should be added and we'll look at what types of punctuation it should be later on.

So I won't tell you what to add just yet.

You would might have noticed you need something after Joseph Palmer.

And between 12 and year and old, we need something after wardens after actions and after incident.

And we need something around I and after Adonis here and something after said as well.

Now bet you've already thought what those should be.

We'll talk about those later on.

So let's do our first task of the session.

We're going to self-edit, just looking at punctuation.

So I want you to whisper your report aloud to yourself using a ruler to follow the lines down carefully so you don't miss anything out.

And you might want to say the punctuation as you write, as you speak.

So you can say comma, full stop and so on.

That will help you to really notice the punctuation you've already written.

And I want you looking only at punctuation to make any additions or changes that need to be made in your work in the same coloured pen.

And remember, you're looking for mistakes to correct, but also for opportunities to use the full range of punctuation that you know.

So as we saw, maybe there are two close related sentences which could be connected with a semicolon.

Maybe you've got an explanation which doesn't have a colon in.

Look for those opportunities to push yourself to use some of those pieces of punctuation that you know you can.

Pause the video and have a go at completing this task.

Well done.

Fantastic job.

Here's an example of the changes you might have made to the punctuation of the paragraph we looked at before.

You might notice first of all that I've added hyphens for 12-year-old and then I've got a long piece of parenthesis here.

The 12-year-old saved from the wolf by the warden's quick actions and I've got commas around that parenthesis.

For the warden's quick actions, the actions belong to the wardens.

So I've got an apostrophe of possession there.

Then I've got a semicolon to collect two closely related sentences.

And I've added in correct inverted commas around that first piece of direct speech.

And notice also it's speech interrupted.

So put after that reporting clause as well.

Now remember, sometimes different pieces of punctuation can be used in the same place.

So for instance, that semicolon could have been a colon as well too, because it's introducing explanation as well.

Now hopefully you didn't have as many changes to make as I did, but I hope you found some great opportunities to improve your punctuation there.

Really good job.

So now we're going to look at our work through our second lens.

We're going to be self-edit editing now for cohesion.

So what does cohesion mean? Well, having good text cohesion means making sure that ideas are connected appropriately and the text flows well.

And when when we edit our work, we might spot some mistakes in text cohesion.

The writing might not make sense.

That's really important, isn't it? To check that everything makes sense and we might have missed out some words and we might have used the wrong tense for some of our verbs.

And there might also as well as these mistakes be opportunities to improve our text cohesion.

For example, can we show the link between sentences with frontad adverbials? How does this sentence link to the last one? Can we connect ideas together using different sentence types within the same sentence? And as we discussed before, can we add punctuation that connects ideas more effectively together? So here's a passage that has good text cohesion.

What cohesive devices do you notice here? And what else adds cohesion? So remember, cohesive devices might be piece of punctuation, they might be sentence structures, they might be fronted adverbials.

What cohesive devices can you spot and what else has done here to add cohesion to this passage? Pause the video and see what you can spot.

Well done.

Great, thank you.

So hopefully you spotted some of these features.

We've got, for instance, a relative complex sentence.

We adds detail after that noun and Joseph Palmer, it tells us something about him without that having to be in a separate sentence so it's closer to him in the sentence.

We've also got that but used to create a compound sentence and that is used to show a contrast.

He did attend to guard the gorilla, but he was not unconscious.

So that's showing us the connection between those two ideas.

We've got this semicolon to connect these two closely related sentences.

He explained the gorilla hadn't tried to escape, instead it had stood guard over him.

Those are very closely related.

And by using the semicolon, we draw them together for our reader to show that connection between them.

We've got an adverbial complex sentence to connect two events.

It stood guard over him when he was injured.

So we're telling our reader this happened at the same time as this was happening.

And that helps our reader to understand how this piece of information are related.

You might have spotted also that the correct tense has been used throughout this passage.

We've not changed tenses unnecessarily and no words are missing.

We've got all our words in the correct place and of course it makes sense as a partly as a result of that.

Really well done for splitting some of these features.

Now we can spot mistakes and opportunities for improving cohesion by reading our work out loud.

Let's take this passage.

The boy attempted to stop the waters from the shooting.

They say they have choice.

The boy was 12-year-old Joseph Palmer.

Now I bet just from me reading that that out loud, you spotted some mistakes there.

The first sentence doesn't make sense, does it? The boy attempted to stop the wardens from the shooting doesn't sound right.

And the first two sentences are contrasting ideas, but we've not shown the that connection between them, the contrast between them.

The boy attempted to stop the wardens from shooting.

They say they have no choice.

There's a contrast there and we haven't shown it to our reader.

And we've got some additional information about Joseph's age that he was 12-year-old Joseph Palmer.

That doesn't need to be in a separate sentence.

And finally we have a missing word in a sentence as well.

So how can we fix the problems with this passage to improve the test cohesion? Think about what we've just said.

What improvements could we make? What should this passage look like with good test cohesion, pause video and have a think.

Well done.

Really good job.

Now, there are lots of different ways you could do this and I'm gonna show you just two examples.

Here's one.

Although the boy, 12-year-old Joseph Palmer attempted to stop the wardens from shooting, they say they had no choice.

So I've changed it to make it sense because it says no choice now and then it says stop the wardens from shooting.

So that makes sense as well now.

Now I've used although to show the contrast between the two ideas, and I've used parenthesis in around 12-year-old Joseph Palmer.

So that is in the same sentence.

Here's another alternative.

The boy, 12-year-old Joseph Palmer attempted to stop the wardens from shooting, but, they say they had no choice.

Again, it now makes sense.

I've added in no choice, but this time I've used a compound sentence using but to show the contrast.

And I've used parenthesis to gather that extra information about Joseph's age and name.

So those are just two ways you could have done that.

Both of these now have good text cohesion and they make sense and they're really effective at connecting the ideas together to help our readers to understand them better.

Showing that contrast helps our readers to see, oh wait, the wardens and Joseph had different viewpoints here.

And that's really helpful, really well done for your effort there.

So here's another passage which has poor text cohesion.

Can you discuss with your partner where you can see mistakes and opportunities to improve the text cohesion.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, really good thinking.

Maybe you spotted that the connection between the first two sentences isn't shown and the second sentence doesn't make sense.

It says there is not no danger to the public.

And that the last sentence gives extra information about the council that doesn't need to be in a separate sentence.

Maybe it could be combined with one of the previous sentences.

And the last sentence also has a missing word.

It says it had planned to execute gorilla in the coming days.

So lots of mistakes there and we'll talk about how we could fix them later on.

And also some opportunities as we saw to improve the cohesion further.

So now let's do our second task.

You're going to edit your narrative now looking only at text cohesion.

So again, whisper your point aloud to yourself using that ruler.

And this time look only at text cohesion as you make any changes that you need in that same coloured pen.

So I want you to look for mistakes in cohesion and any opportunities to improve your cohesion, aiming to use that wide range of cohesion devices.

And of course if you want to rewrite a whole sentence, you could do that by writing it below your work and using a star to show where it should be or whatever you normally do in your school.

And I want make sure you check for all of these.

Do you have any missing words, any missing cohesive devices? Does it make sense? And have you used the correct tense throughout? So pause the video here and have a go at checking your work for cohesion.

Really good job.

Well done.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made to improve the text cohesion of that passage we saw earlier.

First of all, maybe you took those two first sentences and connected them together using and as I've done here.

This is to show the connection between them.

They are closely related to each other because they build on each other.

Then I've taken that last sentence, had planned to execute the gorilla, I've added in that there in the coming days, and I've integrated it into the sentence that came before using a relative clause.

I've said the local council, which had planned to execute the gorilla in the coming days for public safety has also responded to the incident.

So those didn't need to be separate sentences.

We've connected them together in the same sentence using a relative complex sentence here.

So maybe you made some similar changes in your own work.

Really well done.

So ready to do our final piece of editing.

We're going to down self-edit for vocabulary.

And we're editing for vocabulary.

We want to make sure we're choosing appropriate language for our text.

And because we're writing a journalist report, which is a non-fiction text, we're aiming mostly for a formal tone in most parts of our text.

And that means we're using serious, factual language.

So what kind of language choices would we try and avoid in order to keep a formal tone? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you or a think on your end.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So hopefully you thought, well, we don't wanna use chatty language because that's more appropriate for spoken language like contractions and we won't be using imaginative or creative language like we would in a narrative.

So we're gonna stick to our serious factual language and avoid that kind of language in most of our report.

So which version below uses the most appropriate, formal tone for journalistic report? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Hopefully you thought about it as C.

We can see in A, we've described the boy as remarkable and Mrs. F as gruff.

And the city of London is wonderful.

That's too emotional, isn't it? That's too opinionated almost for a journalistic report.

And then B says, the boy is being looked after by Mr. Farrelly, who's his guardian.

Those are contractions which aren't really appropriate for our formal tone.

C has the formal tone, which is appropriate for our journalistic report.

Well done for spotting that.

So in order to build the formal tone that we use in our report, we can make some particular language choices.

And I can give you some ideas here which we haven't discussed previously.

First of all, we might want to swap some first person ideas for more formal alternatives when we're writing as the journalist, because we're trying to avoid including ourselves as the journalist in the report.

So instead of saying we know, we could say it is understood that.

We've changed from the first person to the third person there.

Instead of saying we believe we can say it is thought that.

And instead of saying, Mrs. Farrelly told me, we could say, Mrs. Farrelly explained that.

So once, try and remove these references to me and we, because when we're writing as the journalist, we are not referring to ourselves as part of the report.

And we can also swap some more informal vocabulary for some more formal choices.

For example, in instead of saying very sad, we could say deeply upset.

Instead of saying was there we could say was closely involved or was present at the scene.

And instead of saying really bad damage, we could say severe damage.

Can you see we're just making tiny changes to make things ever so slightly more formal and more appropriate for the tone of our report.

On the other hand, at points in our report, we're going to be quoting people's direct speech, aren't we? And that means our language there might be less formal and that might depend on who's speaking.

So for the perspectives where we're giving normal people's opinions, like Mrs. F and Joseph, we might see some of these features are spoken language.

We might see contractions, for instance.

I still can't believe it's happened, he added.

We might see informal sentence openers that we wouldn't normally see in formal writing.

Like Palmer explained, I went there to protect him, but it was no use.

And we might see the use of ellipsis to show interrupted or trailing off thoughts.

For instance, I can't believe it.

He was just so special, Palmer said.

All of those give an informal tone to the direct speech, which will be appropriate when normal people like Mrs. F and Joseph are speaking.

On the other hand, when we're quoting the council's spokesperson, they're speaking in an official role, aren't they? So there you might use a formal tone, even for their direct speech.

So we've said most of our report is going to have that formal tone.

Some people's direct speech like Joseph and Mrs. F, and perhaps the area warden would have a slightly more informal tone using some of these informal spoken language features we've just seen.

So what vocabulary choices in this passage show the difference in tone between Joseph's direct speech and the rest of the report? We can see this passage contains some sentences written as the journalist and a sentence where we've quoted Joseph's direct speech.

So what vocabulary choices are used to show that difference here between the direct speech and the rest of the report? Pause the video and see what you can spell.

Well done.

Really good job.

So hopefully you spoke to that in that first sentence, which is written as the journalist.

We've got no reference to the first person, the journalist isn't saying me or we.

They are not including themselves in that sentence.

And we've also got some quite formal language, like deeply distressed.

Then when we look at the direct speech, we can see contractions like it's, and we've got ellipsis after it's hard to explain to show that train of thought.

And we've also got more simple informal language like he just wanted, it's hard to explain.

Joseph isn't using complicated formal language because of course he's a 12-year-old who's speaking to this journalist using normal, spoken language.

So we're going to try and show that difference between the journalistic writing, which is going to have a formal tone and the informal tone of some of the direct speech in our report.

Really well done for spotting those differences.

So let's do our final task for the session.

We're going to finish by self-editing for vocabulary.

And of course we'll whisper our report to ourself one more time.

This time looking only at vocabulary, we're gonna make any changes or improvements that are needed focusing on these features.

First of all, a formal tone using serious factual language.

Have you included that in the appropriate parts of your text? Have you used a more informal tone in some direct speech section of the report where that's appropriate? For instance, for Joseph and for Mrs. F.

And if you want to change a word, you can request that with a ruler and write here above in the same colour pen.

And of course you can also use a diary to check any spellings you're unsure of if that's what you normally do in your school.

So pause the video and let's check our work for vocabulary.

Well done.

Really great job.

Now I'm going to show you here an example of what you might have had to do to make Joseph's direct speech slightly less formal.

I've got an example here of what he might have said in a very formal way.

Joseph explained, I attended the zoo in order to guard Adonis.

However, it soon became clear that this would be a challenge.

Unfortunately, I was unable to protect him.

Now those are fantastic sentences, but they were a little too formal for Joseph, aren't they? So you could have changed that to something like this.

Joseph explained.

I went there to help him, to guard him, but when I got there it was carnage.

I just couldn't protect him.

So you can see there, I've used contractions, I couldn't, I've used ellipses to show his trailing of thoughts.

I've used much simpler language overall and I've used some informal sentence openers like to guard him and but when I got there, that gives the effect of real spoken language, which is more appropriate to what Joseph might have said to the journalist.

Really well done if you managed to do something similar.

Great job.

So we've now edited for punctuation, cohesion, and vocabulary.

Just take a minute now to enjoy those changes and share your favourite change that you've made with your partner.

Pause video and have a go.

Well done.

Fantastic job.

I bet you made some really great improvements and I hope you feel really pleased with the changes that you've made.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that editing is an essential part of the writing process, during which we refine and improve our initial ideas.

And we know that we can check that punctuation has been used correctly following the rules that we've been taught.

We can check for cohesion by looking at the sentence structures we've used and connecting ideas more closely when needed with different cohesive devices.

And we can check our vocabulary to ensure it's appropriate to each part of the text we're writing, whether that's formal or informal.

Really well done for your effort in assessment and throughout this unit.

I hope you've really enjoyed writing about "When the Sky Falls" and that you've produced some work that you're really proud of.

I'd love to see you again in your future lesson.

Goodbye.