Lesson video

Hello everyone, my name's Ms. Kella and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm so glad that you could join me.

In this session, we are going to be exploring how to use hyperbole, a really useful rhetorical device that you can use to elevate your opinion writing.

So let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to use hyperbole in opinion writing to engage readers and craft a relatable written voice.

So let's explore today's keywords.

We have hyperbole, opinion writing, rhetorical question, colloquial and empathise.

Now do pause the video here if you need to and make sure that you are really familiar with the meanings of these keywords because we are going to be encountering them quite frequently in today's lesson.

But I would just like to draw your attention to that word there at the bottom, empathise, because I think it has a very, very specific meaning, particularly when we are thinking about empathy in relation to reading a persuasive text.

So if you empathise with someone, that means that you understand and share the feelings of another person, showing some sort of emotional connection.

Now, empathy has some similarities with sympathy, for example, because if you sympathise with someone, you feel sorry for them, you feel perhaps pity for them.

However, sympathy is quite detached.

You still appreciate that you are not necessarily experiencing that yourself, but perhaps you feel sympathy for somebody that is.

Empathy, however, is more about putting yourself into the shoes of somebody else.

So not necessarily just feeling sorry for them, but actually imagining how they might feel in that situation and how you might feel if you were in that situation.

So empathy is a really, really great thing to include in persuasive writing because if we can get our audience or our reader to put themselves in the shoes of perhaps the people we're talking about, if we're giving a speech about animals in captivity, if we can encourage our audience or our reader to put themselves in the shoes of those animals and to imagine how life in captivity might feel, that can really help us to build a powerful persuasive argument.

So do pause the video here if you need to and really make sure you are familiar with those keywords.

So how is today's lesson going to look? Well, we are going to start off by reading and responding to an article called Are We Having Fun Yet? And then when we've established initial reader response to this article, we are then going to analyse it in detail, thinking really carefully about how the writer of this article is using hyperbole.

And then when we've done that, we're gonna have a go at using hyperbole ourselves.

So as I just said, we are going to be exploring the article Are We Having Fun Yet in this part of the lesson? And in particular, we're going to be thinking about how the writer, Elizabeth Day, engages her readers.

So let's start by forming our initial response to the text.

So before we start reading it, I want to just use this contextual information that we have here to see about what predictions we can make.

So what do we expect from this text based on the information that we have on screen at the moment.

So pause at the video here while you have a think and perhaps make some notes.

And if you are working in a group setting, maybe just take a moment or two to share your responses with the people around you.

So pause the video here and click play when you're ready for us to feedback together.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of really interesting responses that I overheard there.

So let's see then what we might have expected to see from a text like this.

So let's start by thinking about the title.

So the title suggests that maybe the article might be about someone's personal experiences because we've got this personal pronoun, we.

Are we having fun yet which suggests that the writer is involved in the experience.

And then we've also got a rhetorical question here, which suggests possibly that the article might take a cynical view, are we having fun yet? So maybe this experience they're gonna describe is not necessarily one where they've enjoyed it or where they felt that they've had fun.

So for these reasons, it's likely for us to think that this is a piece of opinion writing because we are getting that person experience and we're also getting that cynical view, which is an opinion that somebody's taken about that experience.

So we've also got this date then, 2005.

So we know that this article was written in 2005, so already that can tell us a lot about what to expect.

For example, it's likely that this text will use modern language and avoid archaic terms and what I mean by archaic here is perhaps old-fashioned language that we don't use anymore in today's society.

So we'll definitely be expecting modern language, but also we could develop this idea a bit further and suggest maybe that it could opt for an informal or colloquial tone and remember that keyword colloquial links to words or phrases that have that conversational feel, they're more words and phrases we associate with spoken language and conversations that we might have with people we know as opposed to written language, which tends to be a bit more formal.

So we've got this idea then that a lot of modern articles tend to write in this informal colloquial term and then we can also link that back to the title because we could think about how it's pieing on that modern phrase, are we there yet? I don't know if any of you have got perhaps younger siblings or younger members of your family or friends or maybe you even remember from your own childhood, but I know that my poor parents were definitely subjected to me sat in the car saying, are we there yet a lot on long journeys.

So maybe this phrase, are we there yet perhaps conjures up an image of of boredom and frustration.

And then we've got this piece of information about where it came from.

So we know that it came from the Telegraph.

So the Telegraph is a famous UK newspaper.

So perhaps we can therefore expect that it will tackle an issue or a topic that is of interest to the general public.

It's not, for example, a publication that's focused around a particular interest already, but rather it generally appeals to the British public.

And therefore, we can infer that the audience are going to be Telegraph readers.

So most likely British adult, it's a British newspaper, and newspapers tend to be aimed more at adults than they do children.

So now we've made these initial predictions.

Let's have a go at reading the text and also forming our initial responses.

So I'd like you to read the article Are We Having Fun Yet and a copy of this article can be found in the additional materials section of the lesson.

So take some time to read the article carefully and think really carefully about your initial responses because once you've read it, I'd like you to take a moment to either make some notes or discuss with the people around you how the text matches up to those initial predictions that we made using that contextual information.

So is it doing what we had expected that it would? So pause the video here and take as much time as you need to read this text carefully 'cause we're going to be using it all the way through the lesson so do make sure that you understand those key ideas and when you are ready for us to feedback together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope that you had enough time to really get to grips with Day's article there.

So my discussion question then, how does it match up to our initial predictions? Now I don't know about you, but I actually managed to identify evidence that supported most of the predictions that we came up with there.

The article is based on personal experience, it's Day describing a time that she went to a music festival.

We have got that cynical view or the cynical tone coming across.

We definitely know that it's opinion writing, Day is offering lots for own opinions.

We've got that modern and colloquial language that we expected from an article written in 2005.

And finally, I would argue that it is aimed at British adults.

It is described in a music festival that takes place in Britain and it's also reflecting quite heavily on the disastrous British weather that I think most British people can relate to.

So let's pause here and check our understanding so far.

So why did the title suggest that the article was an opinion piece? So pause at the video here and have a look at these options and decide which one you think is correct and when you're ready for me to reveal the answer, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who said A and C.

So firstly it used a rhetorical question which implied that the piece had that colloquial informal tone and helped to really convey that cynical attitude that we might have been expecting to see.

And also it used personal pronouns.

If you remember we had that first person plural pronoun, we, are we having fun yet, which implied that the piece was about the writer's personal experiences.

So now it's time for the first practise task of today's lesson.

And what I would like you to do is summarise your initial response to the article.

So you should aim to answer these questions in your summary.

So it's really important to cover what the article is about, whether or not you think Day has a positive or a negative attitude towards that thing, towards the subject of the article.

And even more importantly, what gives you that impression.

So this is your opportunity to perhaps zoom in on some key words or perhaps a part of the article where you think her opinions are particularly strong.

Does her attitude change as the piece progresses? So is the opinion that we're getting at the beginning, perhaps the same as that we are getting at the end? What do you think the purpose of the article is? Is it to persuade or to inform or to entertain, to argue? And finally, and most importantly, how did the text make you feel and what did it make you think? This is a personal response so your opinions are extremely important here.

So pause the video, take some time to reread this text carefully making some notes about each of these questions as you go through and when you're ready for us to feedback together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you had enough time there to really summarise the text in detail.

Forming a personal response is a really important skill to have.

Before we begin to analyse the text, it's really important that we start with that initial personal response because that will guide a lot of the analytical points that we make.

So let's see how one of our own peoples, Andeep, summarised his initial response to the text.

The article is about Day's first time at Glastonbury Music Festival.

She was initially concerned having never visited before, and you could argue the article begins with a cynical negative tone.

As her initial reaction is one of undiluted horror, she focuses a lot on the mud and dirt caused by the rain and seems to have a negative impression of the festival initially.

However, as the article progresses, Day warms to the festival.

She interacts with others and sees them having fun.

She ends the article by deciding that this Glastonbury thing is almost nice.

I think the purpose of this article is to capture the experience of being at Glastonbury, informing readers about what it's like and perhaps persuading them to want to go or at least persuading them to agree with her perception of it.

So let's see how Andeep's summary matches up to these questions.

Did he manage to cover everything that he needed to in order to really summarise that detailed response? So as we're going through these questions, do think about your own response and think about whether you have answered these questions in enough detail.

So what is the article about? So Andeep did say the article is about Day's first time at Glastonbury Music Festival.

Does Day have a positive or negative attitude towards it? So Andeep highlights that the article begins with that cynical negative tone that we'd predicted we might see based on that title.

And what gives you this impression? So here is where Andeep's introduced this first bit of evidence from the article, pointing out that her initial reaction when told she was going to Glastonbury Festival was one of undiluted horror.

And then he goes on to summarise some of the detail that Day gives us in the article.

So she focuses a lot on the mud and the dirt and the weather conditions, really building up that negative impression of the festival.

Does her attitude change as the piece progresses? So we know straight away from that however that we've got there, that comparative language that Andeep is going to say that her attitude changes.

However, as the article progresses, Day warms to the festival.

So we do have that shift in attitude across the course of the text.

And what is the purpose of the article? So here, Andeep suggests that he thinks the purpose of the article is to capture the experience of being at Glastonbury, informing readers and perhaps persuading them.

So we have a bit of more than one purpose perhaps to the article here.

And then that final question, how did the text make you feel and what did it make you think? Well, I would argue that that's the one thing that is missing from Andeep's personal response here.

And this is actually quite a common trap that a lot of us fall into when we're summarising our response to the text.

Yes, it's really important for us perhaps to be able to discuss a text without continually using the word I, I think, I feel, I believe because when we are analysing the text, we should really be talking about it like we are at the beginning here.

The article is about, the author of the article suggests that detached voice, however a personal response is personal.

So we do need some space for your own opinions as well.

So in terms of an even better earth, this is perhaps what I would suggest to Andeep.

I would suggest that he focuses more on his personal response to the text considering how it shaped his opinions and attitudes about the festival.

So what did he think about Glastonbury before he started reading it? And did this article impact on those opinions in any way? So following that, Andeep went back to his summary and he added this onto the end.

After reading this text, I view Glastonbury as an exciting experience, but not necessarily a wholly positive one.

I think Dave focuses very much on the drama course by the weather, but less so on the dramatic elements of the festival itself, the outlandish people, the enormous crowds or the exciting performances.

I wish Day had been more open-minded about the experience in the beginning as I found it hard to relate as cynical attitude initially.

So now if you can see, we're really getting that personal response, actually that cynical attitude that some readers may have really responded to, perhaps because they themselves might consider themselves to be a bit cynical and it didn't really respond to that at all.

And in fact, he felt that jaded his opinions of Glastonbury at first because he was seeing it through this negative lens.

So that's why personal opinions are really important.

So take some time to review your own work, thinking about whether or not you managed to include all of those different things, answer all of those different questions.

And most importantly, did you include how the text made you feel and what did it make you think? So it takes some time to review and redraft if you need to add in anything you've missed.

And when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, so we've reached the halfway point of today's lesson and I hope you are really pleased with the hard work that you've put in so far.

So now we've thought about the article, summarised our initial responses, and we've got a greater understanding of the attitudes that Day is trying to convey.

Let's analyse how she uses hyperbole to convey these attitudes to us in a way that is engaging and impactful.

And then when we've done that, we're gonna have a go at emulating, so having a go ourselves at using hyperbole in some of our own opinion writing.

So throughout the article, Day uses lots of methods to engage the reader and as I've said before, today we're gonna focus on her use of hyperbole.

So first of all, we need to work out what hyperbole is.

So take a moment, think to yourselves where you might have heard it before, you may know what hyperbole is already.

So make a few notes or share your responses with the people around you.

What do you think hyperbole is? If you don't know, don't worry.

Have a guess and see how you get on when I reveal the correct answer.

So pause the video here and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So well done if you managed to work out what hyperbole was.

Hyperbole is exaggerated claims that are not meant to be taken literally used for emphasis.

And quite often, we will see the terms exaggeration and hyperbole used interchangeably.

And that's because hyperbole is a type of exaggeration.

It's not the only way we can exaggerate and it's a type of exaggeration that is used for emphasis.

So it's not actually meant to be taken literally, it's meant to draw the reader's attention to that particular piece of information because of the dramatic language used.

So exaggeration is when we use our language to make something seem better or worse or more dramatic than it really was.

So my next question then, why do opinion writers use hyperbole? So pause the video here, why it takes time to have a think and share your answers with the people around you or make some notes and when you're ready for us to feedback together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of really fantastic responses there.

So let's just summarise some of the great ideas that I overheard.

So first of all, hyperbole adds drama and suspense to opinion writing.

And this is particularly helpful when recounting life experiences such as Day's experience at Glastonbury because unfortunately, life isn't always as exciting as a film or a TV show.

As I'm sure you'll know from your own lives, we have lots of periods where perhaps we are bored or where perhaps life isn't as interesting or as action packed as we'd like it to be.

So actually using hyperbole in these situations can help to bring the scene alive for the reader and enable them to empathise with the people or the situation that they're in and we've got that important word that empathise, if you remember means putting yourself into someone else's shoes and imagining how they might feel.

'Cause actually with Day's experience at Glastonbury, every day might not be exciting or every part of every day might not have been very exciting.

So here the use of hyperbole allows her to really zoom in on those aspects that perhaps were more exciting or more horrific.

Filling our author with undiluted horror, enabling us to really empathise with how she felt.

So it is also good persuasive device because it intensifies the writer's core message.

So it makes arguments more memorable and emotionally impactful.

And remember, hyperbole can dramatise things to make them better or worse.

So it's a fantastic way to subtly convey your opinions, particularly if you're trying to persuade your readers of something is a really good idea to use hyperbole to really overstate how negative the situation is in order to inspire your readers to want to see change and inspire them to agree with you.

And then when you come to state your argument, what you think we should do in order to solve this issue, you can use hyperbole again to overstate perhaps how beneficial that would be if people listen to you.

It might change the world, it might change your life as we know it.

So it's really useful to think about how we can use it both negatively and positively.

So here is Day's first paragraph from the article.

So I'd like you to begin by seeing if you can identify any examples of hyperbole here.

So pause the video while you take some time to reread this paragraph and if you're working with other people, share your responses or make some notes if you're working on your own.

And when you're ready for us to feedback together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

And as I'm sure you've realised by now, there are quite a few examples of hyperbole in this first paragraph.

So let's just zoom in on a few key examples.

So first of all, Day uses hyperbole to emphasise the severity of the British weather, comparing it to a natural disaster down there at the bottom.

And we've also got another sentence slightly higher up, which also links to this idea when she describes it as a scene of near total devastation.

Now obviously a music festival is not in any way like the scene of a natural disaster because people wouldn't be going year after year.

It would be dangerous, it would be life threatening.

And instead we know that Day is just trying to emphasise how much mud and how much flooding there was.

So using this hyperbole really helps us to empathise perhaps with a horror that she felt as she was looking out on this scene.

She also uses hyperbole to dramatise the weather and create an extended metaphor, comparing the rain or floods to a river.

So if we notice he's covered in a slippery layer of dark brown mud, like a gleaming otter emerging from a riverbed.

So this is our first simile we've got here that's comparing the rain and the flooding to a riverbed.

And actually then she really cleverly uses language linked to rivers in order to really build that extended metaphor up.

So we've got wafts carried away by the current, a series of tenses, exhausts, moorings floating down the hillside.

So again, obviously people were not necessarily floating down the hillside in tents.

This might been dangerous, people perhaps wouldn't have gone back the following year if this was the case.

But this hyperbole, even though we know it's a dramatic representation, helps us to see the severity of the situation and imagine it in our minds.

And it's also quite entertaining to read.

It makes this scene seem a lot more comical, which is a fantastic way for Day to engage the reader.

So now we've identified some important examples from that paragraph, I'd like you to think about why is that Day's using hyperbole, what effects does it create? And a really important hint here is to consider how it might link to those predictions that we made about the text earlier on.

How is this hyperbole helping perhaps to link to this cynical attitude or perhaps to link to this colloquial tone.

So why do you think she is using it? So pause the video here while you take some time to discuss it with the people around you or make some notes and when you're ready for us to feedback together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

It was really interesting to see that you didn't all necessarily agree.

I could see lots of people actually debating what they thought the effect of the hyperbole was.

And this is fantastic 'cause it shows that you are continuing to form these personal responses to the text.

You are not necessarily having the same answer because there isn't a right answer and it's all down to how we as readers interpret the writer's use of rhetorical devices.

So let's see what some of our oak pupils have to say.

So Sam said, I think it helps to Rita to empathise with Day.

Instead of thinking she simply isn't cut out for music festivals, we are able to share in her initial horror once the rain sets in and causes such devastation.

So we've got this idea Sam's really picking up here on Andeep's personal response from earlier because Andeep actually said that he found it difficult to relate to the voice in this article because it was perhaps so cynical whereas Sam actually felt that the hyperbole made it easier to relate to Day and to empathise with her situation because instead of thinking that oh, festivals are fine and maybe Day just doesn't like them herself, we are actually able to picture that scene and see that horror and see that devastation for ourselves, which makes us more likely to believe her depiction.

And Alex said, I think it helps to build suspense in the article.

By presenting her experience as a disaster initially, we are left wondering if her time there will end up getting worse or if she'll come to enjoy herself.

So we know from reading the article and forming those personal responses that actually by the end, she is gonna warm to the festival and she actually is gonna have a really good time.

But by making it so that this festival is possibly the worst thing that Day could have found herself at, we really going on that journey through the article in order to see her enjoy herself at the end.

So in that way, we're building up suspense 'cause we are almost moving from one extreme emotional reaction to another.

So what about these responses have in common? Well, hyperbole encourages the reader to be more invested in the article.

And what I mean by that, it encourages them to care, encourages them to relate perhaps to the people talking, relate to the situations that are being described and also to feel invested in wanting to know what happens.

So let's pause here and check our understanding again.

Which two effects are created by Day's use of hyperbole? Pause the video here while you take some time to think and when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer, click play.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who said B and D.

Firstly, it helps readers to empathise with her and secondly, it builds suspense and maintains reader engagement.

So now it's time for the final practise task of today's lesson and it's time for you to have a go at using hyperbole yourselves, emulating how Day was using it in her article for effect.

So what I would like you to do is imagine that you are Elizabeth Day.

So imagine that you have gone to Glastonbury for the first time.

And what we would like you to do is to add another paragraph to the end of the article using hyperbole to describe a performance you watched at Glastonbury because the article actually ends before we get any descriptions of any of the performances perhaps that Day watched.

So this is an opportunity for you to imagine what kind of experience you might have had.

And you can choose any musician or band you like.

They don't need to have played at Glastonbury so you can choose perhaps your favourite band, your favourite musician, or the opposite.

You could choose a band or a musician that you don't like in order to really emphasise the dramatic aspects of it.

Because remember, hyperbole can be used positively or negatively.

So you could use hyperbole to describe how loud the music is.

You could use it to describe the size of the crowd or to capture the atmosphere of the performance.

These are just suggestions.

You can also use it to describe lots of other aspects of the performance as well.

So pause the video here while you take as much time as you need to give this a really good go, thinking really carefully about how you can keep building up this use of hyperbole in order to build that suspense and help your readers to empathise with the scene or the situation that you are in.

So pause the video here and click play when you're ready for us to back together.

Okay, welcome back, how did you find that task? How easy was it to convey such a dramatic scene to your readers? So let's see how Sam approached this task.

So she said the music at Glastonbury was so loud, it felt like the earth was shaking beneath us, each beat echoing through our very bones.

A crowd was an ocean of people, millions it seemed, stretching as far as the eye could see.

A sea of humanity all united in the same rhythmic wave.

The atmosphere was electric, so charged with energy that you could almost see sparks flying through the air as if the very sky was pulsing with the excitement and joy of the moment.

I couldn't believe I'd never experienced this euphoria before.

As I stood there, screaming in unison with a gargantuan choir of excited voices, I vowed to overcome my fear of mud and the not so glorious British weather and return to Glastonbury next year to do it all again.

So have a think about your own response, then take some time to review it and underline where you've used hyperbole.

And as you can see here, Sam has lots of examples of hyperbole in her writing, echoing through our bones, the atmosphere was electric, a gargantuan choir of excited voices, each of them helping to make this scene seem even more dramatic.

So pause the video here while you review your work.

And if you like any of these examples, feel free to magpie them, look for opportunities to add in even more hyperbole to your response.

So pause the video here and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, so we've made it to the end of today's lesson and a massive well done for all your hard work today.

I hope you're feeling a lot more confident when it comes to using hyperbole in your own writing.

So let's just summarise what we covered in this session.

We can use contextual information to make predictions about what we expect to see in a text.

Forming a personal response to a text involves considering how the writer's attitude changes as a text progresses.

Hyperbole is when writers exaggerate for dramatic effect.

Hyperbole can help readers to empathise with and relate to a writer.

And finally, it can also help to build suspense and maintain reader engagement.

So thanks for joining me in today's lesson and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Have a fantastic day everyone.