Hello! It's lovely to see you.

My name's Miss Halladay, and I'm so excited that you've decided to join me for today's lesson.

I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Let's get started.

Today's lesson is the third instalment in our writing master's unit, and it's called Structuring Effective Arguments.

By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to use a range of structural devices to engage your reader from beginning to end.

First, let's look at some keywords that you'll need for today's lesson.

First of all, we've got inebriated, self-gratifying, to flout, malefactor, and to deface.

I'm going to put the definitions on screen, and give you a few moments just to read through these.

Let's look at our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start with the beginning, and look at engaging openings, and how you can craft those.

Then we're going to look at how to create cohesion across a text, before finally looking at ending with impact and calls to action.

Let's start with engaging openings then, shall we? What I'm going to do now is I'm going to read you the first two paragraphs of an exemplar response that you have on your additional resources sheet.

And as I read this, I want you to consider, what do you think the topic of this writing is? How does the writer bring the opening round to address the task? And finally, where can we detect the writer's opinion about this topic in the piece? As I said, I'm going to read it for you, and as I do, I'd like you to have those three questions in mind.

"Picture this.

You've just bought your first house.

It's a beautiful little townhouse, in the middle of a well-to-do district.

You've scraped and saved all your pennies together for months.

And finally, you had enough to buy your first, very own sanctuary.

It's move-in day.

Your removal van pulls up, the estate agent is waiting at the door.

You're practically inebriated with giddiness and anticipation.

But wait.

Something's wrong.

The ashen expression of the estate agent tells you that.

You approach him suspiciously, wondering what on earth it could be now.

He says nothing, his lips pursed in a tight, pained expression.

As you follow his grim gaze, you gasp with horror.

'Justin was here' shouts at you in bloody red paint from the otherwise crisp white wall of the side of your brand new sanctuary." I'm going to invite you to pause the video, while you have a little think about those questions, and before we share our answers.

Let's have a look at some of the answers to those questions then, and how this first paragraph creates that really engaging opening.

So first of all, we start with this quite dramatic statement.

"Picture this." And here, we're asking our reader to imagine a hypothetical situation, which is buying a house.

And at this point, we're not a hundred percent sure what the topic is, but what we do know is that we're very intrigued by this hypothetical situation, and that we're feeling involved.

We then move on to have this house described for us.

It's a beautiful little townhouse, and it's in the middle of this well-to-do district.

It's a sanctuary, okay? And what we're doing here is we're creating a really warm and comforting atmosphere.

We're luring our reader in, with nice scenes and making them feel secure and comforted.

We're creating empathy for the house buyers, and saying how hard they've worked to secure this house.

And again, this is all part of the emotional journey that we're taking our reader on.

We want them to feel comfortable.

We want them to feel that warmth that these new house buyers would feel having saved for months and months.

And that's done through this emotive language.

"We've scraped and saved our pennies together.

And finally we've managed to afford this house." And then towards the end of the first paragraph, we get this really kind of sinister change of tone, as we start to reveal the topic of our piece of writing, which is vandalism.

And again, here, we've used the slow reveal to reflect the horror that the house buyer would feel at turning up at their new home only to find it vandalised.

So that change of tone, it takes that reader on that emotional journey, from feeling really secure and comfortable, to actually feeling really exposed and vulnerable because of this vandalism.

And again, we see this tension created, as we start to discover what is wrong, and we reveal the topic slowly.

We make our reader work, and engage with us, to find out what it is that we're criticising here.

And the language that we've used has been chosen really carefully to create a very negative atmosphere.

We don't actually need to say that we disagree with vandalism here, because it's perfectly obvious from the language that we've chosen.

"This grim gaze", "gasp with horror", "shouts".

Even again, the colour symbolism of the bloody red paint.

It all shows us the writer's perspective and viewpoint, without actually having to say it explicitly.

And finally, we get the revelation of the topic at the end of the first paragraph.

The reader discovers the topic through this journey that they've been on, this emotional rollercoaster that we've taken them on, as the writer.

So it's really cleverly done.

First of all, we intrigue and captivate, and then we reveal our topic.

Let's check for understanding, then.

Which three of the following can you do to create an engaging opening? Is it A, reveal the viewpoint early on in the writing? B, take your reader on a journey to discover the topic? C, reveal your opinion in the first line? Or D, create a shift in tone? I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you jot your answers down.

Well done.

Really good effort there.

And a massive congratulations to those of you that rightfully pointed out that actually we can reveal the viewpoint early on.

We can take our reader on a journey to discover the topic.

And actually, it's a really good idea to create that shift in tone as well.

Well done.

So now, I want you to imagine that you will be writing this article.

"There is too much pressure on students to perform in exams. They are not a real test of ability, and they can ruin students' futures." So imagine that you are writing an article in which you argue your views on this statement.

Your first task is going to be to write the opening paragraph to this task, using this sentence as your start.

"Your palms are sweating, your breathing is shallow.

You strain your eyes to try and make sense of the vast empty hall before you." So as you can see there, we've started our journey.

We've started that emotional rollercoaster for you, and you just have to continue it on, and you reveal that topic gradually.

What's really important here is that you use emotive language to convey your viewpoint, without necessarily explicitly saying it, and you connect to the reader, 'cause connection's really important in persuasive writing.

And finally, please remember that you should bring the paragraph slowly round to the topic.

You reveal it gradually.

So what I'm going to do now is give you a few moments to have a go at writing that really engaging opening, taking your reader on that rollercoaster, and revealing the topic gradually.

I'd like you to pause the video while you have a go at this task, and before we share our ideas.

Enjoy.

There was some real effort there, and I'm really impressed with the speed that those hands were writing at, so well done.

Here's what you could have written.

So here we have our sentence.

"Your palms are sweating, your breathing is shallow.

You strain your eyes to try and make sense of the vast empty hall before you, only to find that beads of sweat have run down your glistening forehead, and are now pricking your swollen eyes, stinging you so that you can't see.

As you wipe them away with a shaking hand, you see them, the desks, laid out in rows, a ruler space between them, like armed guards lining the corridors of a maximum security prison.

You know there's no escape now.

You slump unconsciously into your allocated seat, and count your breaths.

All of a sudden, a sharp, shrill announcement, breaks your concentration.

'You have an hour and a half, you may open your paper now.

' 'This is it,' you think.

My whole future dictated by one paper, and an hour and a half.

You take a deep breath, and open the booklet in front of you." So again, as I'm sure you can see, we've got that real, you know, emotive language, where we put our reader in the situation that we're trying to describe here, and create empathy for individuals who might find themselves in that situation.

Now, this is a situation we can all relate to, and I think that it's done really powerfully here.

Again, the topic is revealed gradually.

We only realise that this is an exam hall about halfway through the paragraph.

And we only realise that this is a criticism of exams towards the end of the paragraph, when it starts to talk about the futures being ruined.

So again, this would be a really good example of a very intriguing and engaging opening.

Onto the next section of our lesson, where we're going to look at creating cohesion across a text.

So first of all, what is creating cohesion? Well, cohesion means forming a united text, in which every single paragraph is interacting with the previous one, and the next one.

And what this means is that the paragraphs should work together, and that no one paragraph should ever make complete sense on its own, without the others.

Obviously, if you were to take it in isolation, grammatically, it would make sense.

However, I think thematically, it shouldn't make sense without the other paragraphs, if you've truly achieved cohesion.

And if you've set the scene well enough, you've actually already given yourself an example or a reference that you can frequently refer back to throughout your writing, to create that cohesion.

And what this does is it allows you to have this thread, that runs through your piece, and ties all the different elements of your argument together, so that we've created one united, cohesive piece of writing.

Let's check your understanding about cohesion.

You're going to pick three answers here.

So, cohesion across a text means, is it A, that no one section of text can completely make sense without the others? Is it B, referring back to previous ideas or examples? C, forming a united text? Or is it D, using the same tone throughout the piece? And again, I'm gonna ask you to pause the video while you jot your answers down, before we share the correct ones.

Well done.

Excellent effort, and congratulations to those of you that identified that the correct answers are in fact A, B, and C.

Yes, cohesion means that no one section of text can make sense without the others.

Yes, it means referring back to previous ideas or examples, and also, it also means forming that really united text.

So well done if you got those right.

Let's have a look at that cohesion in action.

I'm going to ask you to dig out your exemplar response on your additional resources sheet, and I'm going to read from the second paragraph down, on this sheet for you.

And as I read, I would like you to highlight any mention of the scenario that we were presented with in the first paragraph, that the writer returns to anywhere else in the article.

Now this scenario, if you remember, was that of us being a house buyer, and us buying our first house, getting there, and discovering that actually, somebody called Justin has graffitied all over the side of it.

So whenever you see a mention of that scenario, you're going to highlight it.

So I'm starting reading from the second paragraph.

If you can follow along with your highlighter, that would be brill.

"This is the key issue with graffiti.

Yes, self-expression is important, but what our friend Justin apparently fails to recognise is that the crisp white wall that he's so selfishly defaced, is not his own.

In the five seconds it so obviously took him to scrawl his triumphant statement across your new house, he's created five hours worth of work, and 500 pounds worth of cost, neither of which he will ultimately end up responsible for.

Unfortunately, given that our beautiful little townhouse is not publicly owned, it ultimately falls to us to foot the bill.

If we refuse to foot this bill, or more likely cannot afford to foot this bill, then we must face more months of living in a house with someone else's signature quite literally stamped across it, until we can offer up the funds to paint over Justin's five seconds of self-gratification.

Furthermore, considering the growing problem of graffiti, you'd think that by now, after months and months of practise, our friend Justin would've at least developed some artistic flair.

But no.

Justin's so-called artwork is as amateurish as ever.

I'm sure, dear reader, that like me, you would have little issue with graffiti, if it demonstrated some level of artistic ability, or depicted a national treasure, or commemorated a key historical event, and wasn't plastered across people's hard-earned private properties.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.

The reality of graffiti is far more bleak.

Vulgar depictions of human anatomy, declarations of trespassing such as 'Justin was here,' and the classic tragic little love affairs that, let's face it, we all know will never last, depicted in hearts with arrows, and the initials of the treacherous little perpetrators who, by the light from the faint glint of the mischief in their eyes, scrawled it on the park slide after dark.

None of these forms of self-expression serve the general public in any way.

They are not artwork, they are not self-expression, they are not political commentary.

They are a selfish nuisance inflicted on us by the country's aspirant Banksies, with much less talent.

Speaking of Banksy, please do not assume I'm taking issue with genuinely talented artists, those whose artwork attracts tourism, and boosts the local economy.

These artists are real artists.

They're not going around devaluing community assets.

Artists like Banksy are welcome in our community.

They're celebrated.

However, to ensure that only the real Banksy is Banksy-ing, I strongly suggest that some kind of licencing programme needs to be implemented, whereby only those with genuine artistic skill, or those who have been commissioned by private businesses to paint private property, should be allowed to artistically enhance our community's landmarks.

Graffiti artists who wish to paint the town red should apply for the right to do so, to the local council, with blueprints and sketches of their intent to support their application.

For malefactors like Justin, who will undoubtedly flout these rules, I suggest much harsher punishments.

They should be forced to remove their own graffiti, and pay all of the associated costs.

A complimentary stint with an ASBO should also deter them from re-offending." I'm going to leave it there, as we'll return to the last paragraph later in the lesson.

So I don't want you to read that just for now.

What I'm going to ask you to do now, is I'm going to ask you to discuss, of what you've highlighted, what is the effect of the writer returning to the scenarios throughout the piece? So you'll need to look back at what you've highlighted as we've read, and think about their effect.

And I'm gonna ask you to pause the video for a few moments while you have those discussions, and share your ideas.

Well done, some really fruitful discussion there, and well done for interacting with each other so respectfully.

Let's look at some examples then, of us returning back to that previous scenario.

First of all, we know that in paragraph one, we get this scenario about the young adults who've bought their first house, and then found it defaced.

And that's presented to us in a very emotional way.

Then in paragraph two, you might have highlighted this sentence.

"You'd think that by now, after months of practise, our friend Justin would've at least developed some artistic flair.

But no.

Justin's so-called artwork is as amateurish as ever." And here, by keeping on returning to this friend Justin, and being quite sarcastic about the, you know, calling him a friend, the writer is creating a common enemy, and they're actually humanising this issue, by kind of wrapping it all up in one person and blaming one person for this issue.

It unites the people protesting against vandalism together, and it creates this really scathing and condemning tone, because we're calling him our friend.

Justin serves as our focal point for criticism.

And it, like I said before, it gives the reader, and those protesting against vandalism, something really tangible to condemn.

It's quite difficult to condemn lots of, you know, anonymous vandals.

However, when we've got one person who's been singled out, as you know, the kind of scapegoat for all vandalism, it's much easier to feel more strongly towards them, and to want to stop this one person.

So that in itself is quite a clever strategy to use.

In paragraph three, you'll have noticed that we had the sentence, "For malefactors like Justin, who will undoubtedly flout these rules, I suggest much harsher punishments." And again, we've got this further reference to Justin, as a focal point of our condemnation, and that creates cohesion, because again, this is a situation we as a reader are familiar with, so when it keeps being returned to, those emotions that we evoked in the very first paragraph are being brought back up, and it's creating anger, and it's creating that motivation to tackle the Justins of the world.

For your second task of the lesson, I'm going to ask you to use the first three paragraphs of the model answer that we have just read, to write the final paragraph.

Now, make sure that you don't peep at the final paragraph that we've just read again.

So I'd like you to cover it up with your hand or a sheet of paper, because I want to see what you come up with on your own.

In this final paragraph that you are going to write, I would like you to restate your opinion about graffiti, and call for greater punishments for graffitists.

Now, the whole point of this is that we're learning how to create cohesion, and I want to see that cohesion demonstrated in your task.

So you must refer back to Justin in some way in the last paragraph, so that we can create that cohesion and tie the paragraphs together.

In order to help you with that, here are some suggestions of ways that you could start your paragraph.

"Our community is our home." "We must prevent." "The Justins of the world." "Graffiti is a growing problem." Or, "Action must be taken." So I'm now going to encourage you to pause the video while you have a go at that task.

Just give it your best shot, and that's all we ask, and I actually can't wait to see what you come up with.

So pause the video and give it a go.

Well done, really good effort, and I could see some people getting really passionate about, you know, preventing the Justins from further vandalising the community.

So well done.

Here's what you could have written.

"Our community is our home, and we must prevent the Justins of the world, who will, given any opportunity, deface and devalue every building in town, from doing just that.

This is not Justin's town, and he and his criminal friends have no right to spray their signatures on every space and surface.

We must save the remaining blank spaces in our community from being violated in the most offensive manner possible.

We must get a greater grip on graffiti." So well done if you wrote anything that resembled that.

Excellent work.

And onto the final part of our lesson, where we're going to look at ending with impact and calls to action.

But first, I'd like you to discuss, what is the aim of ending a piece of opinion writing? And I'd invite you to pause the video, while you have those quick discussions.

Fantastic.

Some great ideas being shared there.

Here's my favourite.

So the end of your writing could be this call to action, and a call to action is where you ask your reader or your audience to do something to support your cause, or your opinion, or your proposal.

Now this call to action, if you're going to use it, has to be really specific, because it's no good telling your reader that you want help, and not telling them how to help.

You've got to be really specific with exactly what it is that your reader needs to do in order to help you.

So they should come away from your piece knowing exactly how they can help your cause.

Here's an example of some calls to action that are specific.

You might ask your readers to vote in favour of banning something.

You might ask your audience to write a letter to their council, where they support your proposal.

You might ask readers to come and attend a local campaign that you are perhaps protesting at.

You might ask your audience to donate to a cause, or start doing something differently.

And all of these are really specific ways in which someone could tangibly help you.

So that's really important when you're writing your call to action.

Let's test your understanding.

True or false? This is a good call to action.

"You must support me to help the homeless." Now I'm going to give you a few minutes to think about whether or not you think that that is a good call to action.

I'm seeing loads of falses, so well done.

You're absolutely right.

That is not a good call to action, but I want to know why it isn't a good enough call to action.

So I'm now going to invite you to justify your answer.

I think most people got that right there.

So well done.

You're right, it is just not specific enough at all.

Okay? We talked earlier about telling your audience exactly how to help, and here it's really not clear.

You're just asking them to support you, but they don't know how.

So it's not really a very good call to action.

And well done if you identified that.

So what is a good ending then? What is a good call to action? And I want you to read the ending again, to our vandalism article, but this time I want you to think about, what's effective about this ending? But what could be improved? So I'm going to read it to you now, and I'm gonna give you a few minutes to pause the video and have those conversations.

"Our community is our home, and we must prevent the Justins of the world who will, given any opportunity, deface and devalue every building in town from doing just that.

This is not Justin's town, and he and his criminal friends have no right to spray their signatures on every space and surface.

We must save the remaining blank spaces in our community from being violated in the most offensive manner possible.

We must get a greater grip on graffiti." Now I know that you've seen this before, but as I said, I want you to think about those two questions really carefully before we share our ideas.

So I'm gonna invite you to pause the video, while you collect your ideas together.

I'm gonna share my favourite ideas.

So first of all, this ending is good, because it uses inclusive pronouns, and that creates a real sense of community, makes the reader feel involved.

Again, the use of modal verbs here, "We must do this, we must do that, we must do the other." And that implies that the audience, the reader, sorry, has no choice but to act, and that it is their, you know, moral obligation to act against vandalism here.

So modal verbs can be used really powerfully, especially in an ending.

It's also important in the ending to sometimes present the worst case scenario to the reader, because actually we're saying here, if you don't act, if you don't support my cause, this is what's going to happen.

And actually, the Justins of the world are going to graffiti on every single building in town.

And this is the point where the reader thinks, "Hmm, I really don't want that, so I'm going to support the cause." So it's really important to exaggerate and present to your reader the worst case scenario, to spur them into action.

Now, this is a good paragraph, it's a good ending.

Is it perfect though? No, it isn't.

And the reason that it's not perfect is because there is no specific call to action here.

We've said, yep, we need help in tackling graffiti.

Yes, I want to introduce licencing.

But actually, what can the reader do to support this? The reader doesn't know here, how to help the cause.

So this needs adding in.

And you're going to do it.

So for your last task, as I said earlier, you are going to rewrite the last line, and you're going to add in a much more specific call to action.

This was a good paragraph, but it's definitely lacking, you know, explicit instruction as to how the reader can help tackle the problem of graffiti.

So again, I'm not going to read it to you again, I'll let you read it.

However, if you look at the highlighted line in blue, that is the line that you are looking to rewrite.

How exactly can your reader help? And that's what you're aiming to add into this paragraph.

So I'm gonna encourage you to pause the video again, for a few moments, while you have a go at redrafting that last line, adding in that really specific call to action.

You could have put anything like these.

"Join me next Monday on the 21st of September to campaign for greater licencing and harsher laws for vandals." "To show your support for greater licencing and harsher laws, write a letter to Michael Brown, our local MP, to show your commitment to the fight against graffiti." Again, that's really specific, because we've been told exactly who to write to.

And lastly, "We must get a greater grip on graffiti.

Join me at the Lords' Library on Wednesday the 23rd of October, where I will be proposing harsher laws and greater licencing for graffitists to our local council.

Come and show your support, come and support your community." So again, all of these are really specific about where, how, and when, the reader can help fight against this cause.

To summarise our learning for structuring effective arguments, first of all, we need to remember, that the best opinion writing takes the reader on that emotional journey, making them think, as they read, and revealing the topic gradually.

Secondly, it's always a good idea to establish a scenario, or an idea, or a metaphor that you can refer back to throughout your writing, to create that coherence, and provide yourself that thread that runs throughout your writing.

And finally, endings should always include a specific call to action.

And that call to action should be really specific, and tell your reader exactly how they can support your cause.

That concludes today's learning, and I'd like to thank you for joining me, and for all your fantastic ideas and suggestions.

I'm really looking forward to seeing you next time, for our fourth instalment in our Writing Masters unit.

Thank you very much.

I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.