Hello, welcome.

I hope you're ready for today's English lesson.

My name is Mrs. Butterworth and I'm definitely ready to delve in to today's lesson, which is focusing on non-fiction texts, in particular, how we summarise non-fiction texts.

And we're going to be looking at a letter from the Guardian.

So should we get started? So in this lesson, you will show an understanding of a non-fiction text by summarising it as well as exploring the writer's use of direct address.

But before we delve into the lesson, let's look at those all important key words that will be useful for our learning.

So these words are open letter, discourse marker, infer, suggest, and direct address.

Now, an open letter is a letter that is written to a particular person or group, but which is then published in a newspaper or journal so that the public can read it.

So this is what we call an open letter, and this is what our text is today.

A discourse marker is a word or phrase that helps structure writing or talk.

So for example, you might use discourse markers like first, then, or finally to organise a piece of writing.

Now, to infer something in relation to a text is to come to understand a text's suggested ideas.

So very often, you talk about people's, very often, people say inference is like reading between the lines.

If you infer something, you are reading between the lines.

If you suggest something, you hint or imply.

Suggest is a really good word when writing summaries.

And then direct address, which we'll be coming to at the end of the lesson, is when a writer directly addresses their audience.

So very often, they use pronouns like you, we, or us.

So the outline of our lesson looks like this.

We're going to start by reading that open letter, "A letter to.

my son." Then we're going to look at how we can summarise that text.

And then we're going to look at how this text uses direct address.

So let's start by reading the text.

So today, you will read an open letter published in the Guardian in 2014.

Now, as we have already said, an open letter is a letter written to a particular personal group.

So in this case, to a son from a mother, but which is then published in a newspaper or journal, so in this case, it's published in the Guardian so that the public can read it.

So what's interesting about an open letter is it balances the private with the public.

So letters are very often associated with private feelings and messages from one individual to another.

They are very personal text.

Now, the personal private content of the letter is written knowing that the public will read it.

So it offers a bit of an interesting balance there, doesn't it? There's the private side of it, which could be emotional or quite revealing or personal, alongside the knowledge that the public are going to read it, that it's going to be published.

So the open letter that we're going to look at today is a part of a series called "A Letter to.

.".

Now, in this series, people wrote letters that they wish they had sent to a significant person in their life but hadn't.

So here's the open letter's title, subheading, and author.

So "The letter you always wanted to write, A letter to.

My son who is a drug addict" by anonymous.

So I'd like you to discuss what predictions can you make about the content, tone, or author of this letter? So just from the title subheading and the author, what predictions can you make about the text in terms of contents, tone, and author? Okay, you're gonna need to pause the video to give yourself time to discuss your ideas, or you may wish to sit quietly by yourself, or maybe even jot some ideas down.

When you're ready, pause the video, and off you go.

Great, some really lovely thoughtful predictions happening there.

So lots of you picked up that it's probably quite a personal and an emotional letter because it's this idea of a parent writing to a son.

I mean this idea that, you know, the idea of drug addiction is a very controversial, difficult topic to address.

So picked up on that.

The letter is also anonymous, which again might hint that it could be quite a difficult letter to write, or there's some really personal things in there that maybe the parent doesn't want to identify.

So there's a lot here that we can predict about the text before we even read it.

So A, B, or C, what is true of an open letter? Pick your answers now.

Okay, should we see who's right? So what is true of an open letter? Absolutely C.

So an open letter is intended to be read by a wide audience.

So it may be addressed to a person or a group specifically, but then it is published for a much wider audience.

So you always want to think of it as having multiple readers or multiple audiences.

Okay, so what I would like you to do now is you'll need to find "A letter to.

my son," which is in the additional materials.

And I'd like you to read this article.

And once you have read it, I would like you to discuss the questions below.

Why do you think this parent always wanted to write this letter? So what's your opinion on that? How would you describe the general tone or emotion of the letter? And what are some of the most important ideas that the parent wants to convey to her son? Okay, so read the article and then discuss those questions.

You'll need to pause the video to be able to complete this task.

Off you go.

Okay.

Great work, everyone.

Some really thoughtful discussions there.

It's quite a difficult emotional text, isn't it? I find myself getting quite emotional when I read it 'cause it is very personal and does deal with some really difficult subject content.

So well done, everyone, for dealing with that so thoughtfully and sensitively.

So we have two pupils here, we have Jun and Izzy, and they're discussing why they, what they think is the letter's most important idea.

So let's see what they said.

"So I think the most important idea is the mother's love for her son, despite all the heartache." And Izzy says, "I think the most important idea is the mom apologising to her son." So I'd like you to discuss, please, who do you agree with more and why? So Jun or Izzy and why.

And what do you think the letter's most important ideas are? Pause the video to discuss those questions.

Off you go.

Okay, fantastic.

Now we have read that text, we can move on to the second part of our lesson, which is all about summarising that text.

So summarising.

Summarising a text after you have read it is a great way to check your understanding.

This doesn't just apply to non-fiction texts, this can apply to literary or fiction text too.

Summarising is a really great tool to have.

Now what summarising is is that it involves capturing a text's most important ideas clearly and briefly.

So let's think about the idea of capturing the text and summarising it.

So here is Izzy's first summary point about "A letter to.

My son who is a drug addict".

So her first point is this.

You'll notice how she's used that discourse marker here first as well.

"First, the writer recalls her son's birth.

She says she remembers it vividly, and he was born at 3:50 AM weighing seven pounds four ounces." Now, this is a good summary point because, so let's just look at why it's a good summary point.

First of all, it has used a discourse marker to structure the summary first, so we know that this is the first point.

And it captures an important idea in the text.

The writer recalls her son's birth, which is an important moment in the text.

And what Izzy has done well here is she has used multiple short quotations.

So vividly, 3:50 AM, and seven pound four ounces.

They're very short and they're embedded within that summary point.

So Izzy wants to summarise the rest of the open letter, relying on discourse markers to structure her ideas.

So you can see here we've got the discourse markers "first," "next," "then," and "finally" so we can already see how Izzy is going to structure her summary.

But what I want you to do is I would like you to discuss thinking about that text, how would you complete each of Izzy's sentence starters? So we've got her "first" one, but what would you write for "next," "then," and "finally"? Pause the video to discuss your ideas, or you may wish to sit and think quietly to yourself.

Off you go.

Great, thank you, everyone.

Some excellent suggestions of those next summary points that Izzy could make in order to summarise the whole text.

Well done.

Let's keep going.

So Izzy's first idea, if you remember, captures one of the text's main ideas.

However, Izzy can develop her summary by making inferences about what she has read so she can develop this summary a step further.

So we know that inferences explore a text's suggested ideas.

It's about reading between the lines.

So let's look at an example here.

So we've said here that "First, the writer recalls her son's birth.

She says she remembers it vividly, and that he was born at 3:50 AM weighing seven pound four ounces." Izzy develops that by using this inference.

"The specific details suggests that even though a lot of time has passed, and her son has changed dramatically, the moment of his birth is unforgettable and significant." It really does do that, doesn't it? Those inclusion of those details really gives the sense that this moment is unforgettable and significant.

That's a great inference from Izzy there.

Because what Izzy is doing is she's exploring the suggested ideas and reading between the lines, which is exactly what we want to do to develop our summaries.

Okay, so here is a checklist with the items that make for a developed summary of a text.

What item is missing from the checklist? So we've got use discourse markers to structure the summary, capture the most important ideas in the text, our missing item from the checklist, and make inferences to explore a text's suggested ideas.

So what item is missing from the checklist? Great, I can hear lots of correct answers there.

So well done to everyone that noticed that include multiple short quotations was missing from our checklist there.

Well done, everyone.

Let's keep up the good work because we have reached our second practise task, task B.

And what I would like you to do here is I would like you to write a developed summary of the text, "A letter to.

my son who is a drug addict." So thinking about everything that we have looked at, Izzy's example, and that checklist, I want you to write that summary.

So you can refer to the open letter as you write your summary.

So refer back to that text.

And remember that your summary should meet that all important checklist below.

So remember to use those discourse markers to structure the summary.

So things like "first," "initially," "then and finally," or "later and finally".

You need to capture the most important ideas in the text.

Make sure you include multiple short quotations so they don't need to be long quotes, just those nice short ones, and make inferences to explore a text suggested ideas, okay? To really develop that summary.

Okay, make sure you've got everything you need to complete the task and pause the video to get this done.

Off you go.

Okay.

Great job, everyone.

Excellent work on those summaries.

Okay, great job everyone.

Excellent work on those summaries.

I can really see you developing using those inferences Some really great work, well done.

So Izzy again, we're going to look at Izzy's summary.

So let's have a look.

This is another part of her summary.

"Next, the writer focuses on why and how her son turned to drugs, citing the 'turbulence' of her own relationship with her partner as a cause.

She says that she's 'truly sorry'.

This suggests that the mother has reflected on why her son has had such a difficult relationship with drugs, and feels a sense of guilt for the part she feels she had to play." So what Izzy then does is she annotates her summary to show how she has met the checklist.

So let's look at Izzy's annotations.

We have the discourse marker "next," the capturing an important idea, the short quotations, and then finally, those inferences.

So Izzy has really clearly annotated those parts of the checklist in her own work.

So over to you now.

I want you to do exactly the same with your own work, and I'd like you to annotate your summary to show exactly where you have met the checklist.

Pause the video, and off you go.

Okay.

Well done, everyone.

That is the first two sections of our lesson complete, those first two learning cycles.

We're now moving on to the third learning cycle, which is all about exploring direct address in our text, "A letter to.

my son." So let's just think about this.

The author of the letter who show, The author of the letter chose to express herself via an open letter.

So the author chose this text type for a reason.

She could, for example, have chosen to write an article about her experiences instead, but she chose a letter instead of doing that.

So I want you to discuss why do you think she chose to express herself via an open letter? Why did she choose this option? In your discussion, I want you to consider how an open letter allows a writer to balance the private with the public, how it reaches those multiple audiences, okay? So why do you think she chose to express herself via an open letter? So pause the video so you've got time to discuss your ideas, or you may wish to think quietly to yourself or jot down some ideas.

Alright, pause video, and off you go.

Okay, some really lovely ideas there about the choice of an open letter, you know, how it's able to convey really personal thoughts and feelings, but share them with a wider audience so you reach more people.

Perhaps she was thinking that she could highlight some of the issues around drug addiction.

There's lots of reasons why she chose that.

So if the author had chosen to write about her experience as an article, her opening sentences might have read something like this.

So if she'd chosen an article instead, it might sound like this.

I remember the time around my son's birth vividly.

My waters had broken and as there was no signs of contractions, he had to be induced and arrived the following morning at 3:50 AM.

He weighed seven pounds, four ounces.

Where the open letter starts like this.

I remember the time around your birth vividly.

My waters had broken and as there were no signs of contractions, you were induced and arrived the following moment at 3:50 AM, all seven pound, four ounces of you.

So I want you to consider how the open letter actually starts.

What are the differences between the open letter and the article? So you may just want to reread those openings again before you discuss what are the differences between the open letter and the article.

Pause the video and we'll feed back some answers in a moment.

Off you go.

Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions.

Let's just explore the open letter and what it does.

So we can see that one of the major differences is that the format of the open letter allows the parent to use direct address, which we wouldn't usually get in an article.

So we get this direct address here.

Now, direct address sees a writer directly address their audience.

So it often uses pronouns like "you," "we," or "us" so we can see this here in the open letter, "your" and "you".

And what this often does is create a connection between writer and audience because it makes it incredibly personal.

It's almost like the public, the wider audience, are looking in on a personal moment, which creates a much deeper connection between writer and audience.

So let's look at another example.

The writer has used direct address twice, once with the pronoun "you" and also through the phrase "my lovely son," and finally, the realisation that you, my lovely son, are a heroin and crack addict living a most appalling life.

Any word or phrase which directly addresses the audience counts as direct address.

So though we've said about the pronouns, "you" and "we," "my lovely son" still counts as direct address, okay? So it's important that we consider that as well as those pronouns.

So what I would like you to do now is I'd like you to discuss the extract.

What is the effect of the two examples of direct address in this extract.

So what is the effect of the two examples of direct address in this extract? So pause the video so you've got time to discuss that question or think quietly to yourself.

Off you go.

Thank you, everyone.

Lots of you picking up on how personal and emotional that direct address is.

And it can also see the connection between mother and son.

You know, this kind of, you know, "my lovely son".

It really shows that relationship between mother and son, but also creates a rapport with the writer and her wider audience of the public.

So it's a really intimate moment between mother and son that we as a wider audience are looking at.

So it makes it really emotive, really personal.

Okay, so I'd like you to look at A, B, C, and D.

Which of the following is an example of direct address? Should we read the answers together tree first.

Okay, so A is desperate money problems, relationship breakdown, overdoses, homelessness, chaos, and loneliness.

Over the past years, past four years, I have watched you systematically destroying yourself.

C, but today, we are at the launderette, spending some rare mother and son time together.

And D, but I don't allow my hopes to rise.

Those stay well hidden these days as they have been smashed so many times before.

So which of the following is an example of direct address, A, B, C, or D? Okay, who thinks I got the answer right? Okay, let's see.

Perfect.

Yes, B and C are our examples of direct address because we can see, over the past few years, I have watched you.

So we've got our direct address then, but today, we are at the launderette, spending some rare mother and son time together.

So it's that direct address happening there.

Okay, so onto another practise task.

Okay, so Jun explains which example of direct address he thinks is the most powerful.

Let's see what Jun has to say.

He says, "I think the most powerful example of direct address comes in the first paragraph.

Here, the writer says 'Everything and everyone else looked dirty and jaded, but you looked and smelled and felt like perfection.

' The writer uses the direct address to draw a comparison between her son and the rest of the world.

He is singled out as perfect and it feels like a really intimate moment between mother and son, even though it is an open letter." Lovely personal response from Jun there.

So what I would like you to do now is like Jun has just done, like Jun has just done, I would like you to discuss which example of direct address do you think is the most powerful? So you can use these sentence starters to help you: "I think the most important example of direct address comes in the paragraph," "Here, the writer says," and "The writer uses the direct address to." You should make reference to the open letter as you discuss your ideas.

So look back at the text to really develop your discussions.

Okay, so which example of direct address do you think is the most powerful? So pause the video so you've got time to discuss your ideas.

You may wish to think quietly to yourself or even write down some ideas if that's an option for you.

Okay, pause the video and off you go.

Great, thank you so much for your personal responses, your personal and thoughtful responses to that question.

It was really great.

So let's look at Izzy's response to the question.

So Izzy has said, "I think the most powerful example of direct address comes in the final paragraph.

Here, the writer says, 'I recognise and welcome the feeling of normality that is not normal for us.

' The writer's use of the pronoun 'us' gives a brief moment where the mother feels completely connected to her son.

They are together and a unit.

What a lovely response from Izzy.

It's really sensitive and really perceptive, isn't it? What a lovely response.

So I'd like you to discuss now which examples of direct address did you select and why? Okay, pause a video so you can discuss your examples of direct address and why you chose them.

Off you go.

Well done, everyone, and thank you so much for your thoughtful hard work today.

I've really enjoyed listening to your personal responses to the text and also seeing your summary skills improve even further.

So let's just remind ourselves of everything we have looked at this letter, this lesson, this lesson.

An open letter is written to a particular person or group but published so that the public can read it.

A summary captures the main ideas of a text in a short and clear format.

When writing a summary of a text, it can be helpful to include short quotations.

You can develop your summary by including inferences.

Inferences explore a text's suggested ideas, so that reading between the lines.

And direct address sees a writer directly addresses their audience, often using pronouns like you, we, or us.

Okay, again, thank you so much for your thoughtful hard work today.

Please do join me again for another lesson.

I really hope to see you soon.

Until then, goodbye.