Lesson video

Hello there.

Mr. Barnsley here.

Great to see you today.

Thank you for joining me.

I'm really excited today 'cause we are gonna be continuing our study of English language, and today, we're focusing on structure.

You may have done some work on structure before.

We're gonna continue that work, but we're gonna apply our knowledge and our understanding of structure to an unseen extract, to an extract we are seeing for the first time today.

Now, the extract that you are gonna need is José Saramago's "Blindness." You are gonna need the first two paragraphs of the first chapter.

So do make sure you have access to that.

That is José Saramago's "Blindness," the first two paragraphs of the first chapter.

Make sure you've got access 'cause we're gonna need to look at this text in today's lesson.

All right, I'm really excited for us to get started.

So let's dive in.

Let's have a look at today's outcome then, shall we? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to confidently write a piece of structural analysis of an unseen fiction text.

So some key words to look out for, one, is time conjunction.

And these are words that help us connect clauses, connect ideas, by indicating a time relationship between them.

We're also gonna be looking at this word, suspense.

And this is a state of anxious uncertainty about what might happen.

I also want us to keep an eye out for the word, withhold, and this means to refrain, to stop from giving, all right? All of these words, we're gonna keep an eye out for, because they're gonna be really important throughout today's lesson.

So today, we're looking at writing a bit of structural analysis in a really confident way.

So first, we're gonna explore an unseen text.

This should be the first time you've seen this text.

Hopefully, it's the first time you've seen this text.

It is the text, "Blindness." You are gonna need access to this.

It's the opening first two paragraphs of the text.

So, do make sure, as I said at the beginning, make sure you've got access to this.

We're gonna explore how the author structures the opening two paragraphs, and in the second learning cycle, we're all gonna be think about how we write about structure, and how we do that in a really confident way.

But let's start by looking at the structure in this unseen text, "Blindness." So let's quickly remind ourselves, when we talk about a text structure, what is it that we mean? Over to you for this one, so pause the video.

If you've got a partner, you can talk through this with them.

Otherwise you can just think through this independently.

All right, what do we mean when we talk of a text structure? Pause the video, have a think, have a discuss, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Over to you.

Welcome back, some great ideas, and I could see lots of you going back maybe to previous lessons and thinking, "Okay, what does it mean when we've talked about structure?" So I heard lots of you talking about it referring to a way that a story is organised and a way that is presented to a reader.

So when we're looking for interesting examples of structure, what is it that we're actually looking for? Again, over to you for this one.

If you've got a partner to talk with them.

Otherwise, just think about this question independently.

What does it mean or what kind of interesting examples of structure might we be looking for? Pause the video, over to you, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Lots of lots of great ideas there.

I could hear you really going if you are working pairs, going back and forth, naming as many things you could.

So some things that you might have spoken about, and of course, you might have said other things, but I heard lots of people talking about the opening and closing, and whether there's any relationship between them.

I heard people talking about contrast, where we might have contrasting images within the text.

Shift to focus, maybe it's between one paragraph and the next.

What is the right to focusing on at any one time, and why? Why focus on that? The pace, okay? And that can often be linked to sentence structure.

Are we moving through this text? It's a sense of kind of rapid pace created or has the pace of the text been slowed down? How, and why? I heard lots of people talking about dialogue, and are we using speech between characters? What's the impact of that? Why has the writer chosen to have that character to say that word at that one moment in time? And I heard, really nice, I heard some of you using this keyword, withholding, stopping giving.

This information, like very often when we read a text, we're not given all the information at the beginning, A, 'cause that can feel really overloading.

But B, there is this really, it can be really interesting to only give the reader, to only learn a few things step by step and start to build this bigger picture slowly.

So here are just some of the things that you might have said that you look for or you could look for when you're doing a structural analysis.

Well done if you've said these things, but of course, you might have said some slightly different things as well, and that's fine too.

All right, let's stop for a moment, and check to see how we're getting on.

If a key piece of information is only revealed at the end of an extract, which structural technique has been used? Is it, A, dialogue, B, withholding information, or C, a slow pace.

Pause the video, have a think and press play if you think you've got an idea.

Really well done if you said B, that is withholding that information, and that can be a really interesting structural technique, not to give away everything right at the beginning of an extract.

Right, it's over to you now to do some independent reading.

As I mentioned, you're gonna need the first two paragraphs of chapter one of blindness.

I want you to read this independently, and actually, I think you're probably best reading it more than once, maybe two or even three times.

But I'm gonna put some questions on the screen that I want you to keep at the forefront of your mind to really help you check that you are understanding what you're reading.

So some questions that you might want to ask yourself, what is happening at the beginning of the text? What happens as the text develops, and what is revealed at the end of the text? So it's over to you now to pause the video, read through these two paragraphs carefully, and answer these questions to yourself to check that you are understanding.

All right, pause the video, do some reading, and press play when you are done.

Welcome back, some really fantastic independent reading there, that was great to see.

Let's pause for a moment to do a quick check for understanding to see how we are getting on and see if we manage to understand that text.

So I want you to ask, answer this question for me.

How does the focus of the extract change between the first and the second paragraph? Is it, A, the green light comes on and the cars start to move? Is it, B, the red light comes on and the cars stop? Or is it, C, it is revealed that one man in the traffic is blind.

What happens between the first and second paragraph? Right, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got an idea.

Welcome back, and really well done if you said, A, the light goes green and the cars start to move.

Okay, hopefully, we're feeling confident about what we've read.

Now, let's move on.

So we're gonna move on to our first task of today's lesson, and we're gonna do this as a discussion if you have a partner.

If you're working by yourself, you can think through this independently, or you might even wish to make a few notes.

But I want us to now think about what do you find interesting structurally within this blindness extract? So what structural features stand out to you? And I've got some prompts to help you with your discussion.

You can think about what structural features stood out to you the most in the text.

You can think about what effect that they had on you.

And you can even think about why Saramago, the writer, has used them.

Now, on the screen, I've given you some reminders of some of the structural features you may wish to look out for, openings and closings, contrasts, focus shifts, the pace of the text, any dialogue or any withholding information.

They're just some of the things that you can look for.

So if you've got a partner, discuss with them what did you find interesting structurally about this extract? If you're working by yourself, just think through this independently, and make some notes if you wish.

All right, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, some really fantastic discussions there.

And I just want to shine a light on some of the brilliant things that I heard some of you talking about.

So I heard some of you talking about how the scene begins with quite wide focus of the traffic before narrowing onto that one specific vehicle.

Lots of you talked about that shift in focus and tone from paragraph one to paragraph two, that moment when the lights turn green and the cars should start to be moving.

Lots of you talked about longer sentences being separated by commas, and it really kind of, I heard you saying, "It builds up the anticipation." We're building towards this climactic reveal at the end of the extract.

And lots of you talked about how the writer really withheld that information until the end.

They withhold the fact that this character has suddenly gone blind, right until the end of that extract.

So some really interesting conversations I heard, of course, you might have been identifying other things in there as well, and that's fantastic too, really well done.

All right, it's now time for us to start thinking about how we write about structure.

So we've thought about what structure or what structural choices Saramgo's made in "Blindness." Now, we're gonna think about how we write about these in a really confident way.

So let's have a look at one of our own peoples, Alex, said.

Alex said, "The ordering of ideas in "Blindness," is the most interesting structural feature.

It's really clever how Saramago reveals the character's blindness at the end." All right, that's what stood out to Alex.

That's one of the conversations he had.

Let's have a think about though.

So what Alex has done here is, he's really identified what he found was interesting, an interesting structural feature.

So the next question that he should be asking himself is, okay, well why? Why did the writer decide to organise the extract in this way? So Alex does, he asks himself that question, but what does he say? Well, he says, "I would not be drawn to read on had I known the character was blind from the beginning.

It would not have been interesting at all." So Alex is arguing that actually him trying to work out what was going on, what was going wrong, was the thing that led him to continue to want to read on, okay? And if he had known that this character was blind right from the very first line, there wouldn't have necessarily been the tension there that there was in the way that the piece had been written.

So I think we can say that this is a valid point of Alex's, but I think we should look at rephrasing it to make it more specific to Saramago's intentions as a writer.

So why then, why would a reader not necessarily been drawn to read on had the text been ordered in this way, do you think? Over to you, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

Some really interesting discussions, they're challenging questions.

So well done for giving this a go.

So I want to shine a little bit of a spotlight on some of the great things that I heard some of you saying.

I heard people saying, "If Saramago, the author, had told the reader at the beginning that the man was blind, there might have been that lack of suspense for the reader.

By withholding information, we build intrigue and tension in the reader as they desperately seek to find out why the man behind the wheel remains kind of trapped in this dangerous situation," okay? So it's all about suspense, all about withholding information to create that suspense.

Well done if you'd said something similar.

Okay, so true or false then.

Being told the narrator was blind at the beginning of the extract, could have meant less tension was created.

Is that true or false? Okay, true or false? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got an idea.

Yeah, well done if you said that was true, let's justify that.

By withholding the information, it builds more tension as we are unsure of why the man is in the situation.

Or B, it would've meant that we focus more on the setting and less on the action.

Which do you think those is the best way of justifying our answer? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you think you've got the right answer.

Yeah, well done if you said A, that withholding the information builds more tension, it builds the suspense.

So one way to explore how suspense builds throughout an extract is by analysing what the writer focus on at the beginning, the middle, and the end.

So we want to think about why does Saramago begin the extract by describing the amber light? What's the importance, the significance of that? At what point does tension begin to build and how does the right to achieve this? And why do you think Saramago reveals that the man is blind at the very end? They're the questions we want to be asking ourselves, and they're the questions we are gonna be asking ourselves later in the lesson.

But we can turn our ideas and our answers into really effective written analysis by using time conjunctions.

So once we've answered those questions and we've got some ideas we want to talk about, we need to think about how we structure our response about structure.

And one way we can do that is through time conjunctions.

So time conjunctions are words that connect clauses by indicating time relationships between them.

So here are some examples of conjunctions that you could use depending on what you're writing about.

So if you are writing about the beginning of the text, you can use words like firstly or initially.

If you're writing about a shift in focus in the story, you could say suddenly or immediately or eventually.

If you talk about the middle of the text, you could talk about next.

You could use time conjunction, which is next, after, then.

And if you're talking about the end of the text, finally, what a great time conjunction finally is.

So it's over to you now to have a go at analysing the structure of the "Blindness" extract.

I want you to take one sentence from each bullet point to help you do this.

You're gonna complete these sentences, and this will allow you to take some of those ideas that we discussed together.

Take some of the independent thought that you've been doing about the writer's choices, and turn this into a short but really confidently written summary analysis of the writer's structural choices.

So, I can start your text by saying Saramago introduces or initially, or at the beginning of the extract, when you move to the middle of the extract, you could use next, or Saramago then builds.

And then when we're talking about the end of the extract, when we find out that the man is blind, we might want to use that time conjunction, finally.

So a reminder, some of the structural features you might want to talk about in your response, openings and closings, contrasts, focus shifts, pace, dialogue, withholding information.

So this really needs to bring together everything that we have covered in today's lesson.

So it's over to you now, pause the video.

I know you can do this.

I know you can do a fantastic job.

All right, pause the video, give it a go, and press play when you think you have done.

Welcome back, it was really pleasing to see you writing with such confidence there, structure can sometimes feel like a difficult thing to write about.

So it was great to see you writing with such confidence using the discussions that we've had in today's lesson.

Fantastic job.

All right, I want to share some ideas with you.

I think, it's really great that we always reflect on our own work, and one way we can do that is by comparing to other pieces of writing.

This isn't to say this is the only right answer that you can see on the screen, but it is useful for us to compare our work to the writing of others.

So let's read this paragraph together then, shall we? "Saramago introduces 'Blindness' by describing a traffic incident in which one character is unable to interpret their surroundings.

Saramago builds suspense as chaos and hysteria grows around the man, all the while the reader is ignorant to the health or mental state of the man.

Finally, Saramago offers a climax: the man behind the wheel of the stationary car is blind." All right, let's have a think about which phrases demonstrate that the student is talking about the effect of the structure.

Why don't you pause the video and think which phrases really show the student is talking about the effect of the structure? They're not just listing what happens, they think about the impact of it.

Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you can identify those phrases.

Yeah, welcome back.

Well done if you picked out any of these.

Saramago builds suspense, all the while the reader is ignorant, offers a climax.

You can see really starting to think about why the writers made the choices that he has.

So now I want you to reread your work, and I want you to highlight any phrases that show you really clearly discussed the effect of the structure in this text.

All right, pause the video, over to you, and press play when you think you're done.

Okay, that's it.

Well done, we've reached the end of today's lesson.

You have done really, really well today.

It's been a pleasure learning alongside you.

On the screen, you can see a summary of all the learning that we have covered in today's lesson.

We're gonna go through that together so you feel really confident before you move on to your next lesson.

So today that we've learned that considering the ordering of ideas is important when analysing the structure of a text.

We've learned in this specific text that the author purposefully withholds information to build suspense and intrigue.

We should always be asking ourselves why a writer chooses to structure their writing in the way that they did, okay? We always want to talk about the effect, the impact.

And finally, we've learned that time conjunctions can be really helpful in helping us write effective structural analysis.

All right, fantastic work today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

It's been a pleasure.

I really hope to see you again in one of our lessons in the future.

All right, have a great day with the rest of your day, however you're choosing to spend it.

And I hope to see you all soon, bye-bye.