Lesson video

Hello there.

Great to see you today.

My name's Mr. Barnsley.

Thank you so much for joining me at today's lesson.

I'm really excited to continue doing some exploration of English language, and today we are gonna be focusing on structure, and thinking what is structure, and how do authors use it, and what's the effect of it? In today's lesson, we are gonna be using an extract from Murakami's "After Dark".

So we are gonna need access to this.

It is the opening paragraph of the opening chapter of the text "After Dark".

So do make sure you have a version of this in front of you.

Alright, I think it's time for us to begin.

Let's dive in.

So in today's lesson, you are gonna be able to identify and comment on the effect of interesting structural features in "After Dark".

So there are three key words we want to look out for, structure, really important one, and this is all about the way a text has been organised.

We're gonna be focusing on that word omniscient, which means all-knowing, and also conceptualise.

So it's the idea of forming a concept or an idea of something.

Another reason why that is a key word, is because in the first part of today's lesson, the first learning cycle, we're gonna understand what structure is.

We're gonna conceptualise this idea of structure.

And then, once we've really got our head around what structure might be, we're gonna explore this in an extract from "After Dark".

And it is that opening to chapter one.

You should have access to this to be able to make the most out of today's lesson.

Alright, let's dive in then by understanding what structure is.

So structure, we know from our keywords, refers to the way that a text has been organised.

And to really like get our head around how a text has been organised, there is are some questions that we might want to ask ourselves about the structure of a text.

We want to ask ourselves, whose perspective is the text being told from? What does the text choose to focus on on any one different point in the text? Is there any idea, or words, that are repeated throughout the text? What order does the writer introduce certain ideas in? Are the beginning and the end of the text linked in any way? What journey does the text go on? Does tension build throughout, or perhaps another feeling builds throughout the text? And are there any contrasts in the text? Are there any opposites that have been put in there, and why might they be in there? So in this first learning cycle, we're gonna really think about, generally, how we conceptualise different structures, as in what they might mean, what ideas they might create for us.

So over to you to get us started then.

Why might a writer choose to tell a story in the third person? Alright, I want you to think very carefully about this.

You can do this in pairs.

If you've got a partner, you can discuss with them.

But don't worry if you're working by yourself, you can just think through this independently.

But over to you now.

I want you to pause the video, think through this question, why might a writer choose to tell a story in the third person perspective? And then remember to press play when you've got some ideas.

Alright, pause the video, give it a go, and press play when you're done.

Welcome back.

I heard some great ideas there.

I heard lots of you talking about the use of third person giving us this holistic view.

We get to see the whole scene, okay? We're not just focusing on one person, or we're not inside one head.

We've been able to kind of look at things from the outside quite often.

And by adopting this, and sometimes we know Murakami does this from a bird's eye view, we can get better immersed in every aspect of the scene.

We're not just focusing on one small part.

We can see kind of the the full scale, the full scope, the bigger picture.

So that might be why a writer chooses to tell a story in the third person.

Why then might a writer choose to tell a story from the first person perspective? Again, over to you for this one.

If you've got a partner you can discuss with them.

Otherwise you can think through this independently.

But pause the video, think about this question, why might a writer choose to tell a story from the first person, and press play when you think you've got some ideas.

Over to you.

Great work there, and some fantastic work for those of you working in pairs, it was really great to see you adding and building onto each other's ideas.

But where you disagreed, it was really nice to hear people challenging each other respectfully.

That's what we like to see in pair discussion.

Great job.

Okay, let's collect some of the ideas, some of the things that you might have been saying then.

And again, I heard lots of you talking about this idea of connectivity, and perhaps a writer might choose to write from the first person 'cause it allows us, as the reader, to connect better with a specific character, and their specific feelings or emotions about a text or idea.

It really helps us understand the world from their point of view.

And often that can be really, really interesting for us, because we know everyone has different points of view on the world around them.

So to help us become more empathetic people, people who can put themselves in the shoes of others, reading text, reading stories, reading literary nonfiction, that have been written from first-person perspectives, really allows us to say, "Hey, I'm gonna try seeing the world from someone else's point of view here." So this can be a really, really useful perspective or tool that some authors may employ.

Alright, now I want us to think about this idea of repetition.

Why might a writer repeatedly use a word in a certain text? What might the effect of that be? We're not thinking about any specific text at the moment.

We're just thinking kind of generically, why might repetition be used by authors? Why might they repeat a certain word in a text? Alright, pause the video.

If you've got a partner, you can discuss with them.

If you're working by yourself, you can just think through this independently.

Alright, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

Some really nice ideas there, well done.

I heard lots of you talking about trying to really create a certain image in the reader's head, and a really particular image.

The image that maybe they want the reader to focus on the most.

But actually sometimes that repeated word can be very important in creating the tone of a piece, or revealing a message or a theme that is really, really central to that text.

Well done if you said something similar.

Of course you might have said something slightly different, and that's okay as well.

As long as you were really logical and you're taking it back to, okay, why might repetition be such a useful tool for writers to use.

Alright, I want us to pause for a moment before we continue with the rest of the lesson, and check to see how we're getting on.

So I want you to think about this question you can see on the screen.

Why might a writer use the first person perspective? Is it A, to give a holistic view of a scene? Is it B, to allow us to connect with a speaker, a specific character? Or is it C, to talk directly to the audience, to the reader? What do you think? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you think you've got the right answer.

Welcome back.

Really well done if you said B.

Yes, the first person perspective is all about allowing us to connect with a specific character.

Of course, if we're only seeing the world through the the eyes of one character, it's gonna be really difficult for us to get a holistic scene, to see the scope of the whole story, just from one character's perspective.

Now, I can see why you might have said C.

Obviously, using a first person perspective it means it's a lot easier, perhaps, for us to communicate directly with the speaker, with the reader, with an audience, but that doesn't mean that necessarily a first person perspective will do that.

It makes it easier to do it, but it doesn't mean that every text written from the first person perspective is going to be really talking directly to the audience.

What we're actually doing is connecting with that specific character.

And we as a reader might feel like they are talking directly to us, but actually the primary focus here is about connectivity with that specific character.

So well done if you said B.

Okay, I'm gonna hand over to you now for our first task in today's lesson.

You are gonna be reading the first paragraph of the opening from "After Dark" by Murakami.

Okay, I said at the beginning of the lesson, you are gonna need access to this, so do make sure you have access, you have a copy of this opening paragraph in front of you.

And now I want you to discuss the questions that we mentioned earlier, to help you really start to explore the structure of this text.

Whose perspective is this text being told from? What does the text choose to focus on at different points in that paragraph? Is there anything that's repeated in this text? What order does the writer introduce certain ideas in? What feelings are being developed as the text goes on? Are there any contrasts in this text, and are the beginning and the ending of the paragraph linked in any way? Okay, make sure you have your copy of "After Dark," or the opening paragraph, you have access to the opening paragraph, make sure that's in front of you.

And I want you to pause the video, and ask yourselves these questions.

If you've got a partner, you can do this via discussion.

Absolutely.

But don't worry if you're working by yourself, you can just take a moment to either just think through the answers, or even note them down if you wish.

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

Welcome back.

Fantastic to see such close reading of the text, and you asking these critical questions to each other, or to yourself.

Alright, let's just collect some of the fantastic ideas that might have been out there.

So here are some of the things that you might have said.

So you might have talked about how the text is told from an unknown, omniscient, third person perspective.

It's a bird's eye view.

We kind of assuming it's bird, but it's not a character that it feels like we're being particularly introduced to.

We know the text focus on different aspects of the city throughout the description.

You might have talked about the image of the city sending and collecting, these two words are repeated a few times in this paragraph.

We also know that the writer tells us something ominous is brewing by the end of the text.

Okay, so it's building up this sense of foreboding, that something ominous is on the horizon.

So therefore this sense of suspense and tension really seemed to grow as the text progresses.

And well done if you identified that.

So well done, if you start to think about how actually some of our preexisting ideas of the city at night, that actually we might expect a city to be, kind of much slower, much emptier than it is during the day.

Actually these seems to be quite at odds of how this city is behaving at night.

This feels like it's pulsating, it's alive.

And well done if you talked about the connectivity between the sentences here, and noticing that they're linked together by Murakami's use of extended metaphor.

That's fantastic if you noticed that connectivity from one sentence to the next.

Really, really well done.

Alright, I want you to now pause the video, and just take a moment to reflect on the discussions that you had, and see are these some of the ideas that you managed to discuss with your partner? If not, and you thought actually that's something we didn't cover, maybe I want to make a note of this, 'cause it might be really useful for me in the second part of today's lesson.

Alright, pause the video, reflect on the discussions that you had, and press play when you're ready to move on.

Okay, welcome back.

We did some fantastic work in the first learning cycle there, conceptualising this idea of structure, really thinking about what structure looks like, and what this might be telling us, the impact this might have on the reader.

Now we're gonna really start exploring this in relation to "After Dark".

And I'll say it one more time.

You are gonna need access to the opening paragraph in the opening chapter of Murakami's "After Dark" to be able to access the second part of the lesson.

Alright, let's move on.

So here are some of the things that the Oak pupils said about the structure in "After Dark." Lucas noticed that it was a bird's eye view, and he thought this was a really interesting perspective choice.

Jacob noticed that Murakami repeats the words sending and collecting, and Alex noticed that the way Murakami ends the extract was really quite standing, really stood out to him.

I wonder if you noticed anything similar to the Oak pupils there.

Right, let's remind ourselves then, quick check that we know what's going on.

"After Dark" is written from which perspective? A, first, B, second, or C, third.

Which do we think it is? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you think you've got the right answer.

Well done if you said third, and bonus points if you said the words omniscient, or if even if you said bird's eye, that's fantastic.

Alright, let's look at Jacob's idea in a little bit more detail.

He said that Murakami repeats the words sending and collecting.

So he's identified an interesting structural feature here, this use of repetition.

But we don't just want to say that we've seen it, that we know that Murakami uses it, we always want to be thinking about the why.

Why has Murakami used repetition here? What is the effect of this structural choice? So over to you for this one.

Why may Murakami have decided to repeat these specific words, sending and collecting, sending and collecting? Over to you for this one.

Pause the video.

If you've got a partner, you can discuss with them.

Otherwise you can just think through this independently.

Why has Murakami decided to repeat these words? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

Some really interesting ideas there.

Really creative inferences, great work.

I wonder if any of you said something similar to what you can see on the screen, that Murakami might have chosen these words, notice I use that tentative language, may or might, I'm not saying he definitely has, this is just my interpretation, he may have chosen to repeat these words to emphasise how dynamic the city is.

Every inch of the city is in this constant state of motion, sending something out, collecting it in, sending it out, collecting it in.

It creates this real sense of movement within the city.

It makes the city feel alive.

I wonder if you said anything similar to that.

Well done if you did.

Alright, let's have a look at Lucas's response here.

So Lucas said the bird's eye view is a very interesting perspective choice, because.

Let's have a think about why it was important for Murakami to use a bird's eye view to describe the city.

I've given you some sentence starts to help you with this discussion.

Murakami may have used a bird's eye view to describe the city, to give the reader an insight into, what's he wanting the reader to think about more, to learn about? It's important for the reader to understand the about the city, because.

Alright, over to you for this one.

Why do you think it was important for Murakami to use a bird's eye view to describe the city? Pause the video, discuss with a partner if you have one, or think through this independently, and then press play when you've got some ideas that you're ready to share.

Welcome back.

Again, lots of fantastic ideas, things that are really great to hear.

I'm just gonna shine a little bit of a spotlight on here, because we're actually gonna develop these responses very, very shortly in our next practise activity.

But I loved people talking about using that word holistic, to get a full view.

I like how some of you said it really captured how alive this city was, to be able to see it from lots of different angles.

And it really created this sense, I really liked those of you who were linking it to the extended metaphor of it being this living being.

And you could only really see that when you could see the arteries, the pulsing, when you could see all of the different elements working collectively, like a human body, like an organism might.

So some really, really nice ideas there.

Great work if you said anything similar.

Alright, I'm gonna hand over to you now for our final practise activity in today's lesson, and you are gonna extend the ideas below to comment on the effect of Murakami's structural features.

Now, very shortly, I'm gonna put some prompts on screen to help you write your response.

So I want you to extend Luke's idea that we've just discussed.

The bird's eye view is a very interesting perspective choice because, and I really want us to extend Alex's idea, who talked about the ending of the extracts and why it stood out.

So some prompts to help you.

How does the bird's eye view help to establish the tone? What does it give us more insight into? What details are revealed about the scene at the end? And what tone does the ending create? What might the reader be feeling by the end of the extract? Alright, over to you for this one.

I think it's time for you to pause the video, use all the information that you have on screen to help you develop your responses.

Alright, best of luck.

Pause the video, give it a go, and press play when you think you are ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Some fantastic independent work there.

It was great to see you writing about structure with such confidence.

Great job.

Right, before we finish for today's lesson, I want us to take one final moment to reflect on the work that we've written so far.

And we're gonna do that by comparing our work to some model answers.

Whenever we compare our work to model answers, what we need to be thinking about is how is my work similar to theirs? How is my work different to theirs? Is there any examples in this model answer that I really like, ideas that I hadn't thought about.

that maybe I could use to enhance, to improve the work that I've already done? Alright, let's look at the first one together then.

The bird's eye view is a very interesting perspective choice, because the third person allows us to gain a holistic view of the scene.

Through this omniscient perspective, we are able to witness the sheer scale of the city's dynamism.

It is clear every part of the city is in constant motion.

We also understand how each part of the city is interconnected.

Perhaps understanding this complexity of the city at the beginning of the novel sets a mysterious tone, which will be key in the unravelling of Murakami's story.

Alright, pause the video.

Think how is this similar to mine? How is it different to mine? What ideas do I like and could I use to enhance my own writing? Pause the video, and if you want to make some improvements to your own work, now's the time to do it.

Over to you.

Welcome back.

Now let's focus on the end of the extract then, shall we? So the way that Murakami ends the extract stands out to me because he gives the impression that something sinister is about to happen.

This allows the reader to make sense of the ominous way in which the city is presented as alive throughout the extract.

The ending of the extract reminds us the scene is taking place at nighttime, thus the events of the story could be far removed from the ordinary activity of the city.

The revelation of midnight approaching evokes a sense of suspense, as the reader is left to wonder about the sinister activity that may follow.

Okay, fantastic model there.

Let's pause the video, and think where is mine similar, where is mine different, and are there any ideas that I would like to use to enhance, to improve my own work? Alright, pause the video, time to reflect and improve, and press play when you're done.

Right, that's it.

Fantastic work today.

It's been really, really impressive to see you working so hard as we think about the idea, the concept of structure, and particularly how it shows up in "After Dark." On the screen you can see a summary of today's learning.

Let's quickly go through that together, so we can move on to the next lesson feeling really, really confident.

So we've learned that structure refers to the way a text has been organised.

We learned that different structural features can have different effects on the reader.

We learned about some interesting structural features in "After Dark," particularly the perspective choice, the use of repetition, and the creation of suspense.

And after identifying a structural feature in a text, it's really important that we always discuss this effect.

Alright, great work today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

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

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.