Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham.

I'm so glad to see you here for today's lesson.

And today we're going to be starting a new writing unit.

We're going to write a narrative anti-journalistic report in this unit based on the book When the Sky Falls, written by Phil Earle.

I think we're going to produce some fantastic writing in this unit, so let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called Understanding the Structure and Historical Context of When the Sky Falls, and it comes from our unit called When the Sky Falls, Narrative and Journalistic Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, we will have identified the structure of the story in When the Sky Falls and described the historical context of the climax of the book.

Now, before you start this lesson, you will need to have read the book When the Sky Falls, written by Phil Earle and you might want to do that using our reading unit called Reading When the Sky Falls.

If you're ready, let's begin.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

The climax is the point in the narrative where the suspense and excitement reach their highest point.

And the resolution is the point where the problems in a story are resolved.

And the historical context is the background information that existed at a specific period in history.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by looking at the structure of the story in When the Sky Falls, and then we'll move on to looking at the historical context at the climax of the story.

So now that we've read When the Sky Falls, we can think about how the story is structured.

So let's start off by thinking about how we could summarise this story in four key points.

Pause the video, turn to your partner and see if together you can summarise the story in four points only.

Have a go.

Well done.

Good job.

So we've taken a lot of events and we've tried to compress it into just four points for our summary.

Here's what I put.

I said, Joseph arrives in the city and meets Mrs. F, who runs a zoo which contains Adonis the gorilla.

And Joseph gets on badly with both of them, with Mrs. F and with Adonis.

Then Joseph's difficulties with reading lead to problems at school.

Then I've got Joseph's father is killed, and he discovers that Mrs. F has tragedy in her past too, and their relationship slowly begins to improve.

And then finally, Joseph bonds with Adonis, and when the zoo is bombed, Joseph rushes to guard his cage.

Adonis saves his life before he, Adonis, is shot to death.

So I've used a few events in each of those points, haven't I? But I'm trying to show four of the main developments that we have in our story.

Really well done for your ideas for that summary too.

So can you put these events in order from one to five as they occur in the book? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Good job.

Hopefully you started with this one.

We've got Joseph tries to throw a rock at Adonis, but he's interrupted by Syd.

Then we had this one.

Joseph manages to get Adonis to take food from his hand.

Then we've got Joseph enters Adonis' cage and Adonis pats him on the head.

Then we have Joseph is hurt during the air raid and Adonis helps him.

And then we've got Joseph stands in front of Adonis to try and stop him being shot.

So I picked out events there which really focus on the relationship between Joseph and Adonis.

And you'll see why later on in this lesson.

Really well done for getting those in the correct order.

So which relationship do you think is the most important one in When the Sky Falls and why? Which two characters' relationship is the most important one? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

Here's what Laura said.

I think it's the relationship between Joseph and Adonis.

This is what allows Joseph to see that not everyone is against him and that if he is caring, others will be caring in return.

So Laura is saying the relationship between Joseph and Adonis is important because it's the one that really changes how Joseph sees other people.

Here's what Jacob said.

He said, I think it's his relationship with Mrs F.

She shows him what it's like to have someone who won't give up on you and they both benefit from this relationship.

So we can see that relationships in general are a huge part of the story, aren't they? So whichever you thought was most important, we know that all of these relationships and the way they change and develop is really the heart of this book.

So just like a long movie or a long TV series might have several plot lines that run through it, and not just one story, we know that because this is a long book, it has several key plot lines that run through it as well.

For instance, we could pick out Joseph's anger and his difficulty in having good relationships.

We could pick out his reading difficulties as a plot line.

We've got the Second World War and Joseph's separation from his dad as a really key plot line.

We've got the zoo's difficulties and the council's decision to kill Adonis.

And we've got Mrs. F's kind of cold behaviour and how it links to her past.

And we've got Joseph's changing attitudes towards the zoo and towards Adonis.

And maybe you can think of other ones too.

But all of these are key threads of the story where we see change happening over the course of the book.

So in this book we do not just have one storyline, one plot line, we have these multiple plot lines threaded all the way through the book.

So which plot line in When the Sky Falls did you think was most important to the story out of these three and why? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

Here's what Sam said.

She said, I think A, which is Joseph's changing attitudes towards the zoo and towards Adonis.

So Sam says she thinks A because it's Joseph's relationship with Adonis which saves his life in the end and which leads to the high point of the drama of the story, the scenes around Adonis's death.

So Sam's kind of suggesting that all the way through the story, as Joseph's attitudes towards the zoo and Adonis change, that's building towards this crescendo, this hugely dramatic point where we have Adonis's death and the events all around that.

You might have had a different view and that's totally fine.

What we're trying to do is to think, hmm, what are the different plot lines and how do they contribute to the drama of the book as a whole? Good work.

So we know that stories often follow a structure like this.

We have an opening where the writer describes the setting and the characters.

We have a buildup where problems are introduced and tension rises.

And problems might be barriers for the characters in achieving happiness, or they might be difficulties that are thrown in their way.

Then we have the climax, the high point of the action and the tension.

And finally, the resolution where the problems are resolved.

Now, that doesn't mean it's necessarily a happy ending, but it means that those problems are shown to end.

So we can see that the height of the bars in this story staircase shows the rising tension.

We rise up towards the climax, which is the highest bar because it's the highest point of tension in the story.

And then that drops off towards the resolution because at least some of the tension in the story is resolved, possibly in a negative way.

It might not be a happy ending, but the tension is resolved because we see the outcome of that climax.

So which of these events do you think would be part of the opening to When the Sky Falls? Remembering the opening is when the writer's describing the setting and the characters.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So A, yes, it would be part of this opening because here Joseph is describing the setting, the city.

B says Mrs. F explains the rules of the house.

Well, yeah, that's part of us being introduced to Mrs. F and the way that she behaves.

And then C is definitely part of the opening because this is where we're describing Adonis, who becomes one of the main characters of the book.

For D, Joseph being caned by Mr. Gryce for cheating in the test is not part of the opening, because by that point we already know Mr. Gryce well and Joseph well, and we know about his difficulties in school well by that point already, so we can't include that in part of the opening.

And remember, the opening gives us introductions to characters and settings that help us to create mental pictures of them for the rest of the story, which of course might change as we learn new information.

Really well done there.

So the buildup, as we said, is where problems are introduced in the story.

And we can think of problems that are issues that need to be solved or are barriers that are in the way of the main characters being happy or being content.

So what problems do you think there are in this book? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you or a think on your own.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So we're looking for barriers that are placed in Joseph's way or Mrs. F's way or Adonis's way and issues that need to be solved.

So, for instance, we could say, Joseph struggling to get along with people and to control his anger and Joseph not being able to read and being bullied.

We could say Mrs. F keeping her past a secret and it making her angry.

We could say the constant background of the war and the air raids, Joseph being separated from his dad and losing him ultimately.

And the situation with Adonis and the council.

All of these are problems introduced by the writer to create barriers for our characters to be happy and problems that need to be resolved.

Very well done if you identified some of those.

So all these problems in the build-up really raise the tension, don't they? As each problem is introduced, the tension rises and the drama increases, and it's raising towards the climax, which is the high point of the action and the tension.

So in When the Sky Falls, which events do you think make up the climax and why? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, great thinking.

We could disagree on this, couldn't we? But Jun says this.

I think the climax is where Joseph has to run to the zoo during the air raid because Mrs. F is drunk.

He then has to be incredibly brave as bombs fall around him and he has to deal with being seriously injured and being at risk from the wolves.

And there's also a risk that Adonis might hurt him.

So it's very tense.

So you can probably agree that this is one of the most dramatic points in the book, isn't it? He's running through an air raid, which is incredibly dangerous.

Then he faces the threat of bombing at the zoo, which is dangerous.

He faces the risk of the wolves, which is incredibly dangerous.

And there's also a risk before we know what happens, that Adonis could be a danger to him as well.

And then we've got the added danger of the people coming to the zoo with their guns to shoot Adonis, because we know Joseph could have got hurt in that as well.

So we could argue that this series of events that Jun describes is definitely part of the climax in When the Sky Falls.

So during the climax, the reader is very tense and worried.

What are we worried about at each of these points? What questions are we asking ourselves as we read these sections of this story? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So as Joseph runs through the air raid towards the zoo, we might be thinking this.

Will he make it alive? What if a bomb drops on him? What will he do when he gets to the zoo? Will it be destroyed? Will Adonis still be there? Those questions are running through our minds, and that's part of the tension of the climax.

B is the point where Joseph lies injured in the zoo, and he's going in and out of consciousness.

So what are we thinking as the reader? We might be thinking, will he be okay? How bad is his injury? Has Adonis escaped? Will he hurt Joseph or will he help him? Will Joseph have to shoot adonis? So again, the fact that we've got all these questions running through our minds suggests we've got a very high point of drama and tension going on at this moment.

Really well done for identifying some of our thoughts as a reader at each of those points.

So if the air raid on the zoo is the climax, then what must be the resolution in When the Sky Falls? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good ideas.

So we can say that Adonis's death and the scene where Mrs. F and Joseph are crying together at the end of the book form the resolution of the overall story.

However, because this is a long story, there are lots of kind of mini resolutions where different problems are resolved.

So here are two examples.

We can say the problem of Mr. Gryce's aggressive behaviour is resolved when Mrs. F comes to the school.

But we don't hear of that again because she sorts out the problem.

And we could say the problem of Mrs. F dealing with her past is resolved when she opens up to Joseph about it.

So because we've got this long book with multiple plot lines, as we said before, some of those plot lines, some of those problems are going to be resolved earlier on in the book.

We can say that the story as a whole is resolved by the ending of the book, where we have Adonis's death and Mrs. F and Joseph comforting each other.

So we call that the resolution of the book.

So what problems do you think are resolved in that resolution? What problems are resolved in this situation where Adonis' death happens and Joseph and Mrs. F are crying together? What is the resolution doing? How does it wrap up any problems in the story? So what problems are resolved by those events? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Great attempt.

So maybe he says something like this.

Aisha says, I think it resolves the problem of Joseph struggling to trust people.

He and Adonis showed their care for each other.

And we can see that he now finally trusts Mrs. F as well.

So it's almost like the whole book we've seen Joseph struggling with relationships with other people.

And now in this resolution, he sees that he could trust Mrs. F and also that he was able to trust Adonis as well before his death.

Here's what Alex says.

He says, it also resolved the problem of Adonis being at risk from the council.

Unfortunately, he's now dead.

So that's no longer an issue that needs to be dealt with.

So that's a good example of how a resolution might not be a happy ending.

They're not the same thing, are they? The problem of Adonis being potentially shot by the council is resolved in this scene, but it's not resolved in a good way.

It's resolved by him dying by a different means.

Really well done for your ideas there too.

Now let's do our first task for this lesson, and in this task we're just going to be talking.

So in our writing in this unit, our two writing outcomes, our narrative and our journalistic report, we're going to be focusing on the events of the climax and the resolution.

So in order to prepare ourselves, let's try retelling these events out loud.

I want you to start from the point where Joseph leaves Mrs. F in the shelter and starts running through the air raid, and finish at the end of the story.

I want you to try and tell the events as a story, using the third person and as much description as you can out loud.

And you could start with Joseph telling Mrs. F, I'll be back soon, I promise.

So I want you to say this out loud to your partner.

You might decide to swap events and take turns, each saying a different event.

You might want to work in a group with a talking stick like a pencil, going around the group, sharing an event each.

Or you might just want to do it in a pair.

So pause the video and see if you can tell the story from the point where Joseph leaves Mrs. F in the shelter to the end of the story.

Have a go.

Really well done.

So maybe you covered some of these points in your retelling of the story.

Joseph dashing through the air raid with those bombs close by.

Joseph scaling the zoo fence and getting the rifle and trying to aim it at the cage.

Joseph being knocked down by an explosion and going in and out of consciousness and waking up to see the cage broken and Adonis approaching towards him.

You might have covered Adonis helping Joseph by standing guard over him and then removing that rubble that was trapping Joseph's leg.

You might have had the men, the wardens, entering the zoo and training their guns on Adonis and Joseph standing in front of Adonis and the men shooting him anyway.

And you might have had Mrs. F and Joseph trying to save Adonis and finally them failing and crying together.

Now, we won't be using all of these events in our writing in this unit, but it's really good to have them locked in our brains by orally rehearsing them in this way.

So if you found that tricky, have another go at orally retelling this section of the story until you're really happy you know these events inside out.

Really well done for your work there.

So now we're going to focus on the historical context of the climax of the book.

We've already said that Joseph's experience of the air raid on his way to and at the zoo is the climax of the story, the high point of the action and the tension.

And when we write about this section of the story, we need to understand the historical context, which is the air raids, the Blitz in World War II.

Now, Nazi Germany bombed many urban areas of Britain in 1940 and 1941 in what was called the Blitz.

And that comes from the term Blitzkrieg, which is the German for lightning war.

And London was attacked 71 times in this way.

And urban areas were targeted because they included important infrastructure like factories and docks.

And more than 40,000 civilians, that means people who aren't in the army, were killed as a result of this bombing.

And more than a million houses in London alone were destroyed or damaged.

And many other cities in Britain also faced similar damage.

So let's zoom in on that word Blitz.

Why do you think the word used to describe the bombing of cities was based on the German term for lightning war? What's the connection there? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So here's what Sophia said.

Well, lightning comes from the air like the bombers did.

Also, it's very bright, which makes sense.

The explosions and the fires they cause would light up the sky.

And finally, lightning comes quickly and you don't know where it will hit.

In the same way, people would have had very little warning of the bombers coming and they would never have known exactly where they'd hit.

So Sophia's drawing links between the idea of lightning being bright and sudden, and coming from the sky and the way the bombers struck in a similar way.

So that helps us understand the connection between the idea of lightning war and the way the bombing occurred.

Really well done for your thoughts.

So what was it like to live through the Blitz? Well, let's examine some factual information.

First of all, what would people have done when the Blitz began? Well, sirens would have sounded to warn people of the air raid being about to happen, and people had Morrison or Anderson shelters in their houses, or they took shelter in underground stations if they happened to live in London.

And a Morrison shelter was usually just under a big strong table, and an Anderson shelter would have been in your back garden, like the one in the book.

And what was the bombing like? Well, thousands of incendiary bombs were dropped and they were bombs that caused fires to start.

And these actually destroyed more buildings than normal bombs that simply explode.

And they had to be put out very quickly as well.

So people have had to run and try and put out these incendiary bombs to stop fires from spreading through the city.

So people also took steps to try and prevent the damage from bombings being so great.

So at night, the blackout was used and people covered their windows and streetlights were turned off to make it harder for enemy aircraft to find targets.

You can imagine if you've got lots of lights blazing, then as planes fly in from another country, they would have easily seen those lights and it would have helped them to navigate and to find their targets.

And finally, who was helping? Well, air raid wardens, fire watchers, people spotting these incendiary bombs and the fires they cause, and ambulance and police teams all did their best to help limit the damage.

They would have been running through the raids to try and find where the incendiary bombs had hit, try and put out those fires before they spread, just as one example.

Obviously, ambulance workers would have been trying to collect injured people and take them to safety.

So which of the following might you have done during the Blitz? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So yes, you would have covered your windows with thick black curtains.

Yes, you would have taken shelter in an Anderson shelter in the back garden.

Yes, you would have watched for fires in order to help try and put them out.

And no, you would not have peeled back those curtains because you would have risked letting light out and that would have made it easier for the bombers to see targets and to navigate their way.

Really well done.

So unlike the zoo in When the Sky Falls, London Zoo actually stayed open for most of the war.

But what challenges do you think the zoo might have faced while trying to stay open during World War II? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good ideas.

Maybe you thought of some of these.

First of all, they would have definitely had some staff shortages because many men, of course, had been conscripted, sent off to fight in the army.

They would have also had shortages of materials like glass and petrol because they were really needed for the war effort.

So people wouldn't be able to spare those.

They would also face problems with food.

We know that food was rationed for humans and it would have therefore been a big challenge to feed the animals.

Now, things like vegetables weren't rationed.

But of course, if the zoo is in the city, they might have limited access to that as well.

And there was a threat of air raids regularly from August 1940, which, of course, could kill some animals, but they could also damage the zoo buildings.

And people might have been scared to gather in large groups to visit the zoo in case they were seen as a target.

That might have stopped people from coming, which would, of course, meant less money for the zoo, less money to feed animals and would have again made it harder for the zoos to stay open.

So we actually know a lot about how London Zoo dealt with the war.

So here's some factual information about what they did.

First of all, the most valuable animals were shipped to zoos in the countryside for safety, including chimps, giant pandas, elephants and an ostrich.

And we know that's described in When the Sky Falls as well.

We know that to save petrol, camels and llamas were actually used to transport food around the zoo and the public was asked to collect food like acorns to feed some animals.

So humans don't eat acorns, but people could collect them and they'd be sent to the zoo and the animals would have something to eat.

Also, all the poisonous animals were killed by the zoo because they were worried that they might escape if the zoo was bombed and harm people.

So we can see they were really cautious about the possibility of animals escaping in the event of a raid.

And finally, London Zoo was actually bombed several times, including by incendiary bombs during the war.

And once a zebra managed to escape, but no animals actually were injured during the war at all.

So they did a really good job of protecting the animals.

So now let's zoom in on one of the key points of our climax, Joseph running through the air raid towards the zoo to guard Adonis.

What might that have been like for Joseph? What might he have experienced as he ran through those streets? We could say that he might have heard the planes getting closer and the explosions from the bombs, and he might have heard crackling flames and shouting all around.

He might have seen the flames and explosions lighting up the sky, as well as buildings ablaze that were being turned into rubble when they were hit, and he might have seen debris blocking his way.

He might have felt the ground shake with each explosion, as well as the vibrations from falling rubble and buildings collapsing.

And he may have felt the heat of the flames and the wind of the bombers.

And finally, he may have smelt burning materials all around him.

So we're imagining here how Joseph's different senses experience this horrible situation of running through the air raid towards the zoo.

Now, it's easy to think of that as an exciting situation.

But what do you think it would have actually been like? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good idea.

Here's what Andeep says.

I think it would have just been unimaginably terrifying.

The thought of seeing buildings exploding and on fire all around and being completely powerless.

It would have been just horrific.

And here's what Laura says.

It really does sound like hell on Earth.

Imagine running and not knowing if you might be hit at any moment.

Also, you might have heard people in pain around you.

It's so sad.

So you've got to remember that we're talking about things that real people might have experienced here.

So we've got to make sure we're thinking carefully about what their real emotions might be like.

And that's going to help us do our best writing and to show respect for the suffering that people might have experienced.

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

I want to try and show the tension and fear of this part of the climax in a piece of artwork.

So you're going to create an artwork depicting or showing Joseph running through the air raid towards the zoo.

And I want you to choose art materials you think are appropriate for that.

You might find that pastels work well to show the background details here.

I want to focus on trying to show the chaos and the horror of the scene.

And you might choose to be quite abstract in order to show the pandemonium, which is a word for chaos.

I want you to think about the things we described Joseph seeing and hearing and think about how you could show these in your artwork.

And when you're finished, why don't you hold a silent gallery in your class where you all silently walk around and have a look at each other's pictures.

And you might want to share after that things you particularly liked in people's pieces of work.

So pause the video and have a go at making a piece of artwork that shows the scene where Joseph runs through the air raid towards the zoo.

Have a go.

Well done, really good job.

Now you can see that I've cheated here and I've used a piece of AI artwork instead of drawing my own.

But in my picture here, you can see we've got Joseph running through the streets.

We see debris everywhere and we have buildings ablaze as well in the background.

So hopefully you've managed to capture some of those details in your own piece of artwork.

I'd like to keep that safe because it'll be so useful to you when we come to do our writing based on this section.

Really well done.

Let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that When the Sky Falls is a lengthy book which has many plot lines and which introduces many problems, and these are resolved at different points throughout the book.

However, taking the book as a whole, we can identify Joseph's final trip to the zoo as the climax and the death of Adonis in the following scenes as the resolution.

And finally, in order to write well about these scenes, we need to show an understanding of the historical context of the Blitz, and producing artwork, like we've just done, can be a way for us to consider the horrors of war.

Really well done if you have in this lesson.

I hope you really feel like you've got a good understanding of the structure of the plot and of the ideas around the climax and the resolution of the story.

Really good work, and I'd love to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.