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

Now, today we're going to be continuing to read Phil Earle's fantastic World War II novel, "When the Sky Falls", and hopefully you've now read up to the end of chapter 10, and like me, you can't wait to see what happens next.

As ever, there are some emotional and upsetting scenes in this book, so if anything that you read upsets you, please make sure you discuss it with a trusted adult and make sure you've checked with an adult before you continue with this unit.

If you're ready, let's make a start.

Today's session is called Explaining Characters' Motives, and it comes from my unit called, "When the Sky Falls": Reading.

By the end of today's session, we'll be able to describe key events in chapters 11 and 12 and explain why characters have acted in particular ways.

For this lesson, you will need to have access to the 2021 Anderson Press edition of "When the Sky Falls" written by Phil Earl.

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

Here are our keywords for this today's lesson.

Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, smoothly, and with appropriate expression.

A motive is a person's reason for doing something, and if something is explicit, it's made clear.

When we infer, we draw conclusions from information and evidence in a text.

Here's our lesson now outline for today.

We're going to start off by reading and exploring chapters 11 and 12 of "When the Sky Falls", and then we'll explore characters' motives in those chapters.

So here's a summary of the events of chapters 3 to 10 that hopefully you've read before completing this lesson.

We saw that Mrs. F takes Joseph to work at the zoo where she works.

And here there are only a few animals left, but Joseph meets Adonis the Gorilla, who's terrifying of him, initially, and he sees Mrs. F calm Adonis down and feed him.

Then there's an air raid and they head to the Anderson shelter in the garden.

However, Mrs. F leaves to go to the zoo and Tweedy, who's her dog, runs out after her from the shelter.

So Joseph follows Tweedy to the zoo, but when he gets there, he finds Mrs. F pointing a rifle at Adonis and she sends Joseph to hide in the cellar for the night to be safe from the air raid.

Then Joseph confronts or stands up to Mrs. F about the rifle, but she doesn't explain why she was doing it and she storms off.

And then finally, Joseph comes eye-to-eye with Adonis who turns away from him at that moment.

And then Joseph grabs some rubble ready to throw at him, and that's where chapter 10 ends.

So what we're reading from there today, but first let's discuss some of these events in a bit more detail and see what you think about what's been happening in the story so far.

So do you think Joseph was right to follow Tweedy to the zoo during that air raid? Remember, that would be a dangerous situation.

So was he right to do it? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good ideas.

Maybe you agree that Aisha, she's said this.

"I don't think so.

I think Joseph only did it because he thought Mrs. F would be annoyed that he'd abandoned Tweedy.

He's thinking she cares more about the dog than him, which I don't think is necessarily true." Or maybe you agree as Sam she says, "Yes, it was a bit silly, but I blame Mrs. F.

She should have known Tweedy would follow her.

It's because she's been cold towards Joseph that he was so scared of making her angry and she should have explained more clearly." So some saying, well, she should have known that Tweedy would run away and she should have said to Joseph, even if Tweedy leaves, you should stay here to be safe.

So we're thinking maybe there's some lack of clarity in the instructions which has led to this difficult situation where Joseph ended up at the zoo, really well done for your ideas there.

So why do you think Mrs. F was pointing that rifle at Adonis when Joseph arrived at the zoo during the air raid? Pause the video and have a think.

It's difficult to know, isn't it? Maybe you agree with Lucas.

He says this, "I'm wondering if she thinks Adonis will be so distressed by the noises of the air raid that he might hurt himself and she might want to put him out of his misery by shooting him.

That seems very extreme though." Here's what Jen says, "I wonder if she thinks that the stress of the air raid might give Adonis the strength to escape his cage, which would mean the only valuable animal in the zoo would be gone.

So she's trying to keep him in his cage." So Jen's saying, well, maybe if she's threatening him with that rifle, he will stay in the cage instead of trying to escape because we could say the stress of that air raid might make him really, really overexcited, give him extra strength to get out of the cage.

So here she's trying to keep him so that he doesn't escape because he's the most valuable animal she's got.

Hmm, I wonder what you thought.

Great ideas.

So can you put these events in order to explain why Joseph picks up that rubble to throw at Adonis? Pause the video and have a go.

That's it.

Good thinking.

So first of all, we have Joseph and Adonis making eye contact and then Adonis turns away from Joseph.

And so Joseph feels that he's kind of been "judged" by the gorilla, doesn't he? So judged negatively and he wants to take revenge on him almost doesn't he, as revenge for feeling judged? So Alex says, "It seems like Adonis turning away from Joseph triggers lots of feelings from Joseph's past about being abandoned or misjudged, but I don't think Adonis intended to be unkind.

He's an animal." So Alex is saying it's obvious there's something else going on here.

It's not just that Adonis turned away from Joseph that made him want to take revenge.

That turning away is triggering all these memories from Joseph's past about things that have happened to him before where he's been judged negatively.

And that's what makes this so important to him, that Adonis has chosen to turn away from him.

It's a bit more than just the turning away, it's about his memories linked to that as well.

I wonder if you thought the same as Alex.

Now we're going to read chapter 11 and here's some vocabulary you're going to see along the way, here's a great word, scything.

If something moves in a scything manner, it's going sideways quickly like this.

A clipped voice is precise and quick, and if you're selective about what you do, you choose carefully.

If your voice is full of derision, you sound as if you're mocking someone.

And if you're inseparable from someone, you can't keep away from them.

If you acknowledge someone, you show that you see them.

And to sedate an animal means to put it to sleep temporarily.

So hopefully now you'll be able to understand these words when you see them.

So I'd like you to now have a go at reading chapter 11, pause the video and have a go.

Well done, fantastic reading.

Let's check our understanding.

Can you answer each of these questions about what you've read? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good ideas.

So A says, why does Joseph miss Adonis with the rubble? Well, it's because he's interrupted by Syd speaking, which distracts him.

For B, what happened to Adonis' son and his mate? This is very sad, isn't it? We know that his son Malachi died and that his mate was sent to another zoo.

And why couldn't Mrs. F help Malachi? Who was sick, the poorly little gorilla was sick, wasn't he? Well, it was because Adonis didn't understand she was trying to help and he wouldn't let her get close to Malachi.

So how has all this affected Adonis? Well, we know that he's very withdrawn now and he doesn't move or interact much.

So he's really gone downhill since he's horrible events have happened to him.

Really well done for getting this.

Now remember, if something is made explicit by an author, it means they tell us it.

Now we aren't told a lot about Syd explicitly.

So what can we infer, work out, by reading between the lines of what's said? We aren't told very much out loud explicitly.

What can we infer about Syd that isn't stated based on boyfriend so far? Pause the video and see what you can work out or infer based on your reading.

Well done.

Great ideas.

Laura said this, "We can infer that she's been talking to Mrs. F about Joseph because she knows his name and that things have been hard for him lately." So she's learned this from somewhere.

It's not told to us that they've had a conversation together, but we can infer they must have done because from what she says, "She already knows something about Joseph's situation." We've made an inference, we've worked out.

Anita says this, "We can infer that she has recently lost someone close to her because she says she's also had a hard time lately and she says losing someone is the worst possible thing.

We can also infer that she's closer to Mrs F than Joseph because she's clearly very grateful to her." So from the fact that she says losing someone is the worst thing possible and she's had a hard time lately, we can infer that she's probably lost someone close to her as well.

We've worked it out and we've worked out that she's got a close relationship to Mrs. F because she says how grateful she is to Mrs. F.

So there's not a lot made explicit, but based on what is made explicit, we can infer much more about Syd's character so far.

And of course we'll find out more as we continue reading.

So what's your first impression of Syd and how is it different from Joseph's first impression of Syd? Pause the video and have a think.

Good job.

Well done.

So Andeep says this, "I think Syd seems nice.

First of all, she stopped Joseph from throwing rubble at Adonis, which was good, but she also did it without shouting at him or telling him off.

And she seems to be really knowledgeable and caring about animals and she wants to help Joseph too.

So that's Andeep's first impression.

He's saying Syd seems like a really positive character who's caring, knowledgeable and wants to help Joseph.

But what is Joseph's first impression of Syd? Well, Andeep says, "Joseph seems to think she's just someone else trying to interfere with his life and stop him doing what he wants." And Andeep says, "I think maybe he's so used to being angry that he's forgotten that not everyone is out to get him." So like we said with Adonis, he's used to getting these negative judgments from people and he's not really sure necessarily how to react when someone like Syd comes along who isn't giving him lots of negative input.

She's giving him some positive ideas, isn't she? But he's not really sure how to deal with that.

And so he's reacting to her in the same negative way that he usually does.

So we've probably got a more positive impression of Syd and Joseph seems to have a slightly more negative one, but of course that could change as we read more.

Now we're going to read chapter 12 and here's some vocabulary you'll see in that chapter.

If you endure something you put up with it unwillingly.

So I endured a long run through the mud, means you didn't want to do it.

A prospect is a possibility or likelihood of something happening.

So I might say I was really looking forward to the prospect of getting ice cream at the beach.

So the possibility of that happening.

If something is scarce, there's very little of it available.

So lots of things were scarce during World War II of course, and a humiliation is an embarrassment.

If you rile someone, you are annoying them.

We might say, I was really riled up by what happened.

Your exterior can be your outward expression.

So they said he had a calm exterior, it means his face looked calm.

Disdain means disgust.

So she looked at me with disdain, means she was disgusted at me.

And eavesdropping you might know is listening in.

So I was eavesdropping on their conversation.

So some really good words there, which you'll see during this chapter.

So pause the video now and read chapter to 12 with your partner or on your own, have a go.

Well done, really good reading.

So are the statements below true or false based on what you just read? And if they are false, can you correct them with the correct information? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Great job.

So A says, Ms. F serves breakfast at a very specific time.

That was true, definitely.

Joseph is very wary of going to school.

Wary means you're anxious or concerned.

So yes, that's true too.

C says, Joseph is eager to follow Mrs F's instructions.

No, that's false, he deliberately waits a while before complaining, before doing what he's told.

And D says, Joseph hasn't been physically punished in the school before.

Again, that's false, he describes having been hit by teachers many times, unfortunately.

Really well done for getting this.

So Syd is positive about Mr. F so far, isn't she? And Joseph is very negative about Mrs. F.

So who do you think is right? What do you think about Mrs F so far? Is Syd right about her or is Joseph right about her? What's your opinion? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, really good ideas.

Sam says this, "I think she's just not used to talking to children.

She's quite rough and abrupt, but when you actually look at everything she says it's all very sensible, like making sure Joseph goes to school." So Sam says she has high expectations for Joseph, like a strict teacher who makes sure everyone does well in their class.

It's for your own good that she's behaving in this way.

So she also does things like getting her lunch ready, which shows that she has a caring side.

And Sam says, "I think she's just not used to having to show it." So she's kind of showing her caring nature by having these high expectations for Joseph of going to school and by doing things to help him, but she's not so good at showing that she cares through her expressions or what she says.

Maybe you agreed with Sam or maybe had a very different impression of Mrs. F.

But of course we'll keep changing our impression as we learn more about her.

So let's think more about Joseph's worries about going to school and let's find some evidence.

What evidence is there in chapter 12 that you just read that Joseph is anxious about going to school? What does the author tell us, which proves that he's anxious about going to school? Pause the video and see what evidence you can find by looking back through the chapter.

Well done.

Really good job.

Maybe you saw that on page 76.

We're told his heart is going fast.

We're also told that he tries to persuade Mrs. F that he doesn't need to go to school.

We saw on page 77 him eating that bread stuffing into his mouth to try and make it so he doesn't have to explain himself to Mrs. F, hoping that that will mean he doesn't have to go and he tries to encourage himself that it's going to be okay.

He's trying to make himself feel like he's going to be able to manage at school.

He reports on page 80, feeling increasingly anxious as he gets towards school and he starts to sweat at the memory of school.

So bad memories from his past at school are making him sweat.

They're so bad for him.

And that was on page 81.

So maybe you found some of those pieces of evidence, maybe you found some other ones as well.

Really good job.

So we've now read chapters 11 and 12 and we're going to practise now improving our reading fluency.

And a good way to improve fluency is through repeated rereading of a passage of text.

And you can try this at any time at home or at school.

So I'd like you to look just at page 75.

We're just going to read that one page and I want you to listen to your teacher, read this page out loud with really good fluency and expression.

And then I want you to read page 75 with your partner swapping at every full stop.

So your take turn each reading a sentence, and if you finish, go again until your teacher tells you to stop.

So you're gonna keep reading page 75 until your teacher tells you to stop swapping at each sentence.

Then your teacher's going to set you one minute timer.

And partner A is going to read the page out loud to see if they can finish that page in one minute as partner B follows down with a ruler.

And then you're going to repeat with partner B reading with a new one minute timer.

Now of course, don't worry if you don't manage to finish within the minute or if the person next to you is faster than you or if you are faster than them.

We're aiming to improve our own reading fluency and focus on getting better each time we read.

If you're doing this on your own, you might want to ask an adult who's with you to show you how they would read this passage or you could jump straight in to reading several times yourself and maybe you could time yourself to see if you can read more quickly each time.

Now remember not to read so fast so that the meaning of the text is lost.

We're trying to keep our reading at a pace where we can be understood whilst showing our fluency and expression.

So pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great job.

So how do you know if your fluency is improving based on what we just did? Well, Laura says this, "The first time I read the passage, I was pausing quite a bit and I had to concentrate hard.

And the second time I was reading more quickly and with fewer pauses and it sounded so good!" And that's what you will find.

The more times you read a passage, the more fluent you'll become and that will transfer over to your other reading because your brain is getting used to reading at our really fluent speed.

Izzy says this, "There were a few tricky words on this page, but once I got the hang of it, I was able to focus more on my expression.

I tried to show how annoyed Mrs. F was with Joseph being late for breakfast using my tone of voice!" So that's when reading out loud becomes really fun because we can use our voices to show characters emotions.

So once we've got the hang of reading the words, that's when we can make the text come alive to people who are listening to us by using our voice in these exciting and interesting ways.

Really well done for your effort there and improving your fluency.

And remember, you can take those tasks and do them with any piece of work in order to try and improve your fluency more.

So we've now read and explored chapters 11 and 12.

We're now going to focus in on thinking about characters' motives in these chapters.

So when we read, we're often thinking about characters' motives, and that means why are they doing what they're doing? Their motive is why are they doing it? So sometimes characters' motives are made explicit, they're made clear by the author.

The author tells us this person is doing this for this reason.

But sometimes we have to infer characters' motives.

We have to work them out from their behaviour, their thoughts, and their actions.

So can you think of a choice that you've made recently and what was your motive for acting that way? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done, good job.

Aisha said this, she said, "The other day I really didn't want to come into school.

And my motive for that was that I was really worried because I knew I hadn't practised my timetables and we had a test." So lots of our actions in life have a motive, don't they? They have a reason that we do them.

And I'm gonna think now about what different characters motives were in the chapters we've just read.

So let's look at page 75 again, that page we just read repeatedly to work on our fluency, and we can see some actions Joseph takes.

Let's explore his motives, his reasons behind those actions.

We saw that first of all, he waits a minute and a half before coming downstairs after Mrs. F calls him for breakfast, so what's Joseph's motive here? Well, in this case, the motive is made explicit.

The text tells us that Joseph's motive for this is that he doesn't want to appear to be following instructions, but he also doesn't want to be punished.

So he's got a motive for two parts of his behaviour, hasn't he? He is choosing to come downstairs because he doesn't want to be punished, but he's choosing to wait because he doesn't want to be seen to be following instructions.

And the author tells us all of that.

So his motives are made explicit, his motives are explained to us clearly in the text.

Here's another piece of Joseph's behaviour.

He gives a very small nod when Mrs. F explains about the timings of breakfast.

So the author doesn't tell us exactly why he gives that nod, but we can infer it, we can work it out based on what we know about Joseph.

So there's no explicit motive given, but we can infer that that small nod is because Joseph wants to show Mrs. F that he's heard without being too polite or friendly about it.

So he's not saying, yes, Mrs. F, I'll make sure that I come down and time in future, but instead he's giving this small nod and we can work out the reason for that small nod is because he wants to comply with her.

He wants to do what he's told so he doesn't get in trouble, but he doesn't want to appear too polite.

And we can infer that based on our knowledge of Joseph's character, our knowledge of what we've learned about him so far, we've been able to infer his motives.

So true or false? Authors always tell us what character's motives are.

Pause, video and decide.

Well done.

You're right, that is false.

So what's the best explanation for that? Pause the video and choose.

Well done.

You're right, it's B.

We can infer what characters' motives might be based on what we know about them.

Now we do bring our own experiences into making inferences, but we have to always think, hmm, what do I know about this character that helps me to be sure this is a good inference to be making? Now at times some motives might be made explicit while others are left for us to infer.

So let's think about Adonis' motives for not letting Mrs. F treat Malachi when he was sick.

So that was Adonis' son, wasn't it? Who sadly died.

So what were Adonis' motives behind not letting Mrs. F treat him? So some things are made explicit.

It's made explicit that Adonis just wanted to protect Malachi and he couldn't communicate with Mrs F.

So that's part of his motive for not letting her in, he wanted to protect Malachi.

And it's made explicit that Adonis didn't want to leave Malachi's side even for a second.

So those two things are made explicit, and those are part of Adonis' motives for not letting Mrs. F help, but we can also infer some more from them.

We can infer that Adonis was very worried about Malachi's health and was very upset that he couldn't help him.

And we can infer that Adonis didn't understand that Mrs. F might have the knowledge and skills that could help Malachi.

So we're told part of the motive and we can infer more based on what we're told.

So that gives us a really good picture of what Adonis' motives were in that situation for stopping Mrs. F from helping Malachi.

So let's practise that skill of working out motives and working out what we're explicitly and what we can infer about character's motives.

So have a look at these two scenarios and read to see if you can work out what the motive is and what is made explicit and what we can infer? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So the first one says, what was Joseph's grandmother's motive for sending him live with Mrs. F? And what is explicit and what can we infer? Well, it's made explicit that she couldn't cope with Joseph's behaviour.

So what can we infer from what she did and what's said there? We can infer that Joseph was behaving poorly and we can infer that his grandma thinks Mrs. F will be able to manage him better than she could.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have sent him to Mrs. F.

The second one says, what were parents' motives for keeping their children in the city despite the Blitz? What's explicit and what can we infer? Well, it's explicitly stated that some families felt they had to keep children at home to help care for relatives or to do work.

And we can infer that families felt they had no choice but to do this.

They felt that it was something that they had to do instead of sending their children out to the countryside.

So in both these cases we've been told some things explicitly and we've made some inferences based on what we've been told to give us a clear picture of the different motives of characters.

Really well done for your thoughts there.

So let's do our final task this lesson.

In chapter 12, we can see Joseph is very anxious about the idea of going to school and we already gathered evidence that shows that.

In fact, we see that he tries to avoid going altogether.

but Mrs. F makes him.

So based on what is made explicit and what we can infer, why doesn't Joseph want to go to school? What is his motive for trying not to go? We're going do a talking task this time and we're gonna have a discussion.

So I want you to take a few minutes to look through chapter 12 and gather evidence about Joseph's motives for not wanting to go to school, including things that are made explicit and the things you think you can infer based on what you're told.

So then I want you to explain as part of your class discussion what you believe Joseph's motives are for wanting to miss school, giving your evidence.

So you're going to discuss together what are his motives? What are his reasons for not wanting to go based on what's made explicit and what you can infer? So pause the video, have a look back through chapter 12 and then begin your class discussion about this question.

Well done.

Really good job.

Maybe your explanation sounded like Andeep's here.

Andeep says, "We are explicitly told on page 81 that Joseph has experienced been hit by teachers before as a punishment for his idiocy.

We are told on page 80 and 81 that he's been harassed by teachers for being incapable.

Based on this, we can infer that Joseph really struggles with schoolwork and that teachers have punished him for this.

So we can see a clear motive for him not to want to go to school.

He's worried about being humiliated and punished for finding work hard." So Andeep found some explicit things that are stated that he'd been punished before and harassed by teachers for struggling with schoolwork.

Based on that, he's inferred that Joseph must really struggle with schoolwork and that he's had some really bad experiences with punishment for this.

So to Andeep, Joseph motives for not wanting to go to school are really clear.

He's worried about struggling with the schoolwork and as a result of that, being punished really harshly by his teachers.

Really well done for your effort in trying to work out Joseph's motives there.

We'll find out later in the book if we're correct.

Let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that in chapters 11 and 12 we've met another important character, Syd, and we've discovered that Joseph has a real fear of going to school based on his experiences.

We know that when we're reading, we're often thinking about characters', motives, the reasons they do things.

And sometimes these motives are made explicit by the author, but at other times we have to infer what they might be based on what we're told, our knowledge of the character and our own experiences and knowledge.

Really well done for your effort in this session.

I hope you're enjoying this book as much as I am.

If you'd like to join me in the next session in this unit, then please make sure you've read up to the end of chapter 23 in the book by then.

I'd love to see you there.

Goodbye.