Hello everyone, my name's Ms. Keller and I'm so glad that you could join me for today's lesson.

In this session we are going to be practising writing excellent model answers about "Belonging" poetry.

So grab your copy of the anthology and let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson we'll be able to create a written response which meets success criteria.

So let's explore today's keywords.

We have discourse marker, comparative, inference, and topic sentence.

So I'd just like to draw your attention to that third word there, inference, which is a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.

And this is such an important word to bear in mind when it comes to analytical writing because inference is one of the greatest tools in our toolkit.

Because when we're analysing a literary text, inference is exactly what we're doing.

We're reaching a series of conclusions based on the evidence that we have in the text and our reasoning, our interpretation of that evidence.

So do take a moment to familiarise yourself with the rest of these words because we are going to be encountering them frequently in today's lesson.

So click play when you're ready to continue.

So how is today's lesson going to look? Well, first of all, we are going to focus on comparative writing skills, so we're gonna explore what an excellent model answer needs to contain.

And then when we've done that, it's going to be time for you to have a go at writing your own comparative response.

So let's have a look at one of our Oak pupil's, Laura's, single paragraph outline for the first paragraph in response to the question, "Compare how poets present happiness in 'Sunday Dip' and one other poem from the 'Belonging' anthology." So her topic sentence starts, "Both 'Sunday Dip' and 'Clear and Gentle Stream' present happiness as connected to time spent with the natural world." And then her supporting detail, so from "Sunday Dip" she has chosen the quotation, "Seek the water for their Sunday joys," because here there is that direct link between happiness and nature.

They're seeking the water in order to get that joy.

And then the second piece of evidence, then, she is drawing out this idea of verbs, so dancing and laughing.

In both cases, happiness is linked to fun and socialising with others, so the type of happiness that we see in here in "Sunday Dip" is perhaps an active one and the activities and time spent socialising with other people.

So then, in "Clear and Gentle Stream," so first of all, we have this quotation, "Many and afternoon dreaming here." So we are getting that link again between happiness and nature, between that stream and the happiness that the speaker feels.

And then we've also got some words, idle, lie, lay, and dreaming.

So here, happiness is linked to solitude and tranquillity, because these words all link to that idea of relaxation and peacefulness.

And then finally, for that concluding sentence.

So both poets use natural imagery to depict a happy scene yet link happiness to a different mood.

For Clare, that mood is fun and laughter and activity and energy, whereas for Bridges, that mood is solitude, peace and relaxation.

So we have got that really important similarity there but then we've also got that nuanced difference.

So now Laura needs to use her single paragraph outline to produce a written response.

And using sentence stems can help you to convert your ideas from that plan into a full written response.

So let's explore some of the important sentence stems you can have in your toolkit.

So first of all, we have discourse markers which signpost your arguments.

These are words like initially, furthermore, consequently, in conclusion.

They show which part of the response we are in.

And then secondly, we have comparative conjunctions, which we use to show comparison.

So these are words like likewise or similarly, which show similarities, or words like on the other hand or contrastingly, which show differences.

The third type of language, then, correlative conjunctions, which also show comparison.

And we can always spot correlative conjunctions because they come in pairs.

So these are words we use to group the text or group ideas together, so both/and, neither/nor, either/or, whether/or.

They are grouping ideas and texts together.

And finally, we have some sentence stems that show inference and analysis.

So we've got things like this suggests, implies, emphasises, or the use of something reveals or demonstrates, or the writer effectively conveys.

These are fantastic sentence stems to use after you have put in your evidence.

This is a great way to start zooming in on the keywords, zooming in on the methods used by the writers, or zooming in on the effects of their language use.

So let's read Laura's comparative paragraph that she wrote using that single paragraph outline.

"Firstly, both 'Sunday Dip' and 'Clear and Gentle Stream' similarly present happiness as connected to time spent with the natural world.

Clare describes how the boys seek the water for their Sunday joys, which implies that there is a direct link between the boys' happiness and the water.

Nature is presented here as fun and wholesome since it enables the boys to relax and play together in the water, dancing and laughing together.

In 'Clear and Gentle Stream,' Bridges also draws a link between water and happiness, since the speaker describes how he would spend many an afternoon dreaming here.

Similarly to Clare's depiction, Bridges also implies that the water enables the speaker to relax and escape the challenges of life.

However, Bridges' depiction creates a more tranquil scene than Clare's, who focuses more on the fun aspects of the water, since he builds up a lazy scene using adjectives from the semantic field of relaxation, such as idle, lie, lay, and dreaming.

It is interesting that both poets use the natural imagery of the water to conjure up feelings of happiness and relaxation, yet the scenes they create employ very different moods.

For Clare, happiness is depicted through fun, laughter, and socialising with others.

Whereas for Bridges, it is characterised by solitude and tranquillity.

The difference in each poet's choice of mood here could perhaps link to the wider context of their writing.

Clare was a Romantic poet known for writing about the beauty and simplicity of the natural world, and here we could argue that his depiction focuses on a simple and wholesome scene of humans interacting with nature.

By contrast, Bridges was writing in the late Victorian era when society detached from its relationship with the natural world in favour of urbanisation caused by the Industrial Revolution.

Perhaps Bridges' depiction of solitude and tranquillity could reflect a desire for Victorian society to rekindle its relationship with nature and enjoy the simplicity of time spent engaging with it." So now let's deconstruct the first part of Laura's answer exploring how she used these sentence stems to build this paragraph.

So she goes straight in there with a discourse marker, "firstly." We know that this is Laura's first point.

And then we've got some correlative and comparative conjunctions which show that comparison.

So she first starts off by grouping the poems together.

"Both 'Sunday Dip and Clear and Gentle Stream' similarly present happiness as connected to the time spent with the natural world." So we know straight away that this is Laura's first point and she is describing a similarity.

We've also got lots of language there which shows inference and analysis, so "which implies that there is a direct link between the boys' happiness and the water," and "nature is presented here as fun." So both of these show that Laura is interpreting the meanings in the text and she's also analysing how the writers convey their ideas.

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

So here is that table we were looking at earlier.

Which set of sentence stems are missing from the grid? So pause the video while you have a think and when you think you have remembered what it is, click play and I'll reveal the correct answer.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who remembered that it was correlative conjunctions which we use to show comparisons.

And these are those pairs of words such as both/and or neither/nor.

So now it's time for the first practise task of today's lesson, and what I would like you to do is finish annotating the rest of Laura's comparative response, beginning with the sentence in "Clear and Gentle Stream" to the very end.

So you'll find a copy of the answer in the additional materials.

And what I would like you to do is identify where she has used the discourse markers, comparative and correlative conjunctions to show comparison, and language to show inference and analysis.

And once you've done that, I'd like you to evaluate Laura's response and give her What Went Well and Even Better If feedback.

So when you're evaluating, you're making a value judgement , you're considering how effective, how compelling you think this response is and why.

And remember, most importantly, when we're giving our EBI feedback, we need to be constructive.

We're not pointing out what's wrong with the response, but instead we are thinking of solutions rather than problems, so we're going to give Laura some really good advice that she could use next time to improve her response.

So pause the video here while you annotate Laura's response and give her some feedback, and when you're ready for us to discuss it together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you had time to really get to grips with Laura's response there and identify how she was using all of those different sentence stems, and I hope that some of her examples have inspired you to use these sentence stems in your own writing.

So here is how you could have annotated Laura's response.

So we've got lots of comparative conjunctions here to show comparison.

We've got "also," "similarly," which show us that we've got some similarities, and then we've got "however," which shows that we've got a difference.

And also we've got some evaluative language where Laura is starting to make value judgments, "A more tranquil scene than Clare's," so Bridges' is a more tranquil depiction than Clare's depiction.

And then "Clare's focuses more on the fun aspect," so we're really getting that idea of the way those poems are against each other.

We've also got lots of language that shows inference and analysis.

"Draws a link," "describes," "depiction," "builds up," "implies." Lots of signposts there that Laura is inferring and analysing the language.

And then we've got lots of comparative conjunctions as the answer progresses.

We've got "both," so grouping those ideas and poems together, and then we've got "yet" and "whereas" which indicate that we've got some differences.

Again, lots more language to show inference analysis.

"Conjure up feelings of happiness," "employ," "depicted," "characterised." These are all fantastic ways to show that we're exploring different aspects of the text.

And again, we've got some more comparative conjunctions.

"By contrast," we've got a difference there in the wider context of both poems. And again, language showing inference and analysis.

"Could argue," "depiction focuses," "could reflect." So what was your What Went Well and Even Better If for Laura based on these identifications of different language types? So pause the video here and share your feedback for Laura with the people around you or have another look over what you've written and see if perhaps you've changed your mind based on what we've just gone through together.

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

Welcome back, I hear lots of fantastic suggestions for Laura there.

Lots of people highlighting what went well, such as the fantastic use of comparative vocabulary and the way that she was signposting the relationship between the texts, and also people picking up on how well she had embedded her evidence and how well she'd begun to unpick and zoom in on the use of language in each poem, and I would certainly agree that they were both things that Laura did fantastically in this response.

And I had lots of people thinking about Even Better Ifs.

If I was marking this particular response, I think my Even Better If for Laura might have related to this contextual discussion here at the end.

While I think it was really detailed and it's clear that Laura knows a lot about the context of each poem, and also that she's beginning to compare that context, which is fantastic, I would challenge her to ensure that she's relating this context back to the question focus.

Because while she does acknowledge perhaps the different ways in which each of the poets might present happiness, she doesn't use the word happiness or a synonym for happiness at any point during the end of this response.

So I think perhaps it would be a good idea for her to just signpost that to the reader by using that question word when she's having this contextual discussion.

So we've made it to the halfway point of today's lesson.

So now we've explored what makes fantastic comparative writing, it's time to give it a go for ourselves.

So here are the beginnings of two comparative paragraphs.

And my question to you is, which pupil's approach to a comparative response is more effective? So the question they were using is, "How do the poets present feelings about home in 'My Mother's Kitchen' and 'The Emigree'?" So Sam says, "Hardi uses adjectives like ugly, rusty, and lost to show how the mother hasn't been able to settle anywhere.

This suggests that the mother's home is unstable.

Rumens uses adjectives to show how the speaker feels her homeland is becoming sick with the ongoing conflict.

This implies that the speaker's homeland is now somewhere she views as unstable." And Jacob says, "Both Hardi and Rumens associate ideas of home with feelings of instability.

Hardi focuses on how the mother's belongings are all ugly, rusty, and have been lost, these adjectives emphasising how she's had to keep moving on.

Rumens also uses adjectives to illustrate how her country is now sick with conflict.

This implies that her homeland was once a stable, healthy place, but isn't any longer." So which of these two responses is most effective? Well, let's break them down into the first opening topic sentence and really compare them in detail.

So here are the first sentences that each of the students have used in their responses.

So when writing in a comparative response, it's a good idea to signpost that you are comparing two poems. So Jacob's topic sentence uses correlative conjunctions to signpost this comparison, "Both Hardi and Rumens," so straight away we know that Jacob's topic sentence is comparing.

And we should try to avoid comparing the texts by feature spotting, so leading with word analysis.

So here Sam has gone straight in with "Hardi uses adjectives." And we're not really making comparisons about the use of language.

We might be able to do so later, but if we want to directly respond to that question focus, it's really important that our topic sentence links to key ideas.

So Jacob is exploring the connections between key ideas' meanings because he's focused on how both poems associate ideas of home with feelings of instability.

And he's even got that keyword home, which was our question focus, so he's signposting that this topic sentence relates directly to that question focus.

So let's explore how Jacob continued with his response, so starting with that bit in green.

"Both Rumens and Hardi here are sharing depictions of life as a refugee and interestingly explore ideas of home differently.

Rumens associates home with the place itself, describing it like another life that is suffering from a sickness, whereas Hardy associates home with a collection of objects.

The place itself is less important than the things that characterise it as the mother's home." So when writing a comparative response, we should avoid writing everything we know about one poem and then everything we know about another poem in another paragraph, because that doesn't evidence comparison and arguably that's just two analyses that we've included in the same response.

And really what we want to do is make sure that we're using comparative and correlative conjunctions to weave ideas about both poems throughout the paragraph.

So that's what Jacob's done here.

Again, he's got that correlative pair, "Both Rumens and Hardi," so we know we're getting a similarity.

And then later on when he's exploring the subtle differences we've got "whereas" to signpost that shift into a discussion of the differences.

So let's pause and check our understanding again.

So the most effective analysis writing does what? So take a look at these four options and decide which one you think best completes that sentence.

Pause the video here and click play when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer.

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

The most effective analysis writing weaves ideas about both poems throughout each paragraph.

So now we are onto our second practise task of today's lesson and it's time for us to have a go at writing our own comparative paragraph, answering this question.

Compare how poets present family relationships in "To My Sister" and one other poem from the "Belonging" anthology.

And we need to make sure that we include the following.

Comparative topic sentences leading with those big ideas, discourse markers to signpost our argument and discourse markers to signpost analysis, correlative and comparative conjunctions to signpost comparisons, and a comparison of language, form, and/or structure.

And the reason I've put and/or there is because we're just doing one paragraph.

If we were writing a whole response, we might try to include all three of those things.

So pause the video here and take as much time as you need to give this a really good go.

Remember, we are aiming to write the most effective comparative response that we can.

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

Okay, welcome back, how did you find that task? I hope that all of our discussions so far in the lesson have helped you to feel a lot more confident about approaching comparative analysis writing.

So now it's time to read back through your work and see if you included each of these important things that we've been talking about.

So when going through the list, Izzy realised that she hadn't used discourse markers to signpost her argument, so now she'll go back and redraft her work to add some in.

So over to you, take some time to review your work carefully, even better perhaps grab a different colour pen or a highlighter and annotate your work, showing where you've done each of these things.

And that way, if you have missed anything out, it'll be really clear to you what you need to include.

So decide whether or not you have met each of these success criteria and then take this golden opportunity to redraft your answer to include anything that you might have missed.

So pause the video here while you take some time to review and redraft, and when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope that you are really pleased with your efforts today.

We've worked really hard and we've explored analysis writing in really, really great detail, so I hope that you're feeling a lot more confident with using this important skill when you come to comparing poems in your Belonging" anthology.

So let's just summarise what we've covered in today's lesson.

Topic sentences must be comparative when comparing texts.

Comparisons should be made between ideas, intentions, themes, and messages.

Correlative and comparative conjunctions are a good way to signpost your comparative writing.

Within paragraphs, evidence can move back and forth between the two poems and be linked with connectives.

And finally, drawing a direct comparison of quotations should take place at least once across the essay.

So thank you very much for joining me in today's lesson and I hope that you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

Have a fantastic day and I look forward to seeing you again soon.