Lesson video

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Mr. Chandrapala, and I'm really looking forward to working with you today.

We're gonna be working on practising planning and writing a detailed description of an image.

It's a really great opportunity to bring together a lot of skills that we've worked on across this unit.

It's a moment where we're going to really try to understand an image from scratch, try to pick out what's most exciting to us, really get those creative juices going before putting all our skills in terms of our technical accuracy and actually some of our really impressive skills in terms of, like, creating language devices, specifically metaphors, and then embedding them within a piece of writing.

Let's get started.

So our outcome for today is going to be to plan and describe an image using purposeful linguistic devices and sentence structures.

As ever, we'll start with our keywords.

Our first one is the adjective descriptive.

That means to write in an interesting and detailed way.

We're going to look to evoke feeling within our work, which means we're going to bring or recall a feeling, memory or image to the conscious mind.

And really all good descriptive writing means that we're really gonna have to practise that visualisation for the writer.

We need to visualise the work.

We also need our readers to visualise the work.

To visualise something means to form a picture of someone or something in their mind.

And finally, we're going to be looking at creating really impressive moods.

So a mood is the emotional response that a writer wants to give the reader.

You may want your work to have quite a threatening mood.

You may want it to have quite a calm, tranquil mood.

You may want it to have a sort of ominous mood.

Any of these are fine, so long as we're cohesive over the course of the piece that really should work for us.

So for our lesson outline today, we're going to be responding to an image, planning our description, and then writing that description.

Let's start with the responding to an image.

So the image that we're going to be working on today is this one here from "ukgardenphotos." We're gonna be using it to build a descriptive piece of writing.

One method of describing an image is to follow this step-by-step process.

So we first of all create a mind-map around the image that picks out all of the detail that draws our attention.

We choose three details from that image that will serve as the focal points for our paragraphs.

We zoom in on those focal points and write down any words or ideas that come to mind.

We decide on the general mood of each of those paragraphs.

And finally, we write the description of the image using linguistic devices, sentence structures, and impressive vocabulary to evoke the mood and allow the reader to visualise the image.

So we're going to practise creating a mind-map that picks out what draws our attention here.

You may have a copy of this image for yourselves.

You may want to discuss this with your partner.

You may want to do this by yourself, but what you're going to do is you're going to either write around the image or you are going to maybe write the word garden and you are going to just pick out what four, five, six things do you think are most interesting in this image.

Pause the video now, the batten is over to you.

Really lovely ideas, everyone.

So interesting to see what you're picking out.

Let's have a look through what we picked out earlier.

Well, we can see there's a wall just in that background, behind it is that tree.

So there's this sense of like seclusion almost.

We've got the pathway running through the garden.

We can see that there's almost that little sort of gravel path just there separating the two spaces on the left and right.

We've got the shaped hedges, so intricately done, so neatly defined, and we've got the different coloured rose bushes as well.

You may have picked out slightly different things.

That's absolutely fine.

If you want to pause the video now, just take any notes that you would want to from this image.

We're gonna be working with some of these ideas in the next step.

So we're now going to choose three details from the image that will serve as the focal points for your three paragraphs.

So what we do here, what I am going to focus on may be slightly different to what you choose to focus on, and that's absolutely fine.

Remember, your piece of writing is really individual and creative, and it's at its best when you are choosing the things that you think are most interesting.

Here's what I picked out.

I was interested in the red flower hidden in the bush in the forefront of the image.

I was really interested in that brick on the path, the sort of gravelly bit because I just think that that's a really interesting, almost like breaking point for the garden.

And then I really liked the white flowers growing up on the wall in the background.

Pause the video, see what examples you would've picked from the mind-map you did earlier.

Really good work, everyone.

What I really like there is the fact that you took some of those ideas but also you went beyond them.

Remember, it is about going and choosing the things that you think are most interesting.

So we're just gonna have a check for understanding when we are responding to an image.

I want you to add in the missing step here.

So I've got, step one: Create a mind-map around the image that picks out all the details that draw our attention.

Step two is missing, but then I've got step three, to zoom in on those focal points and write down any words or ideas that come to mind.

Step four, to decide on the general mood of each of those paragraphs.

And step five, to write the description of the image using linguistic devices, sentence structure and vocabulary to evoke the mood and allow the reader to visualise the image.

Pause the video now and see if you can check back through your notes so you even remember what that second example or second step was.

Pause the video and restart when you're ready.

Really good work, everyone.

So impressed that you were able to remember that.

It is to choose three details from the image that will serve as our phone call points for the paragraph.

Great work.

Let's keep going.

So we're going to practise now, zooming in.

So I'm gonna complete this table.

If you haven't got the table in front of you, what you may want to do is just to draw it for yourself.

So I, for example, started it.

I've got my focal detail, which is the red flower in the foreground, and I'm zooming in now.

So I'm focusing on what specifically I want to say about it.

And for me it seems that actually the first thing that pops out is the colour of it, those really strong, vibrant crimson petals.

But then, if I look closer, it's not like it's right in the foreground, it's kind of peeking out of the bush.

What's significant if it's peeking out? Well, if it's peeking out, it kind of suggests that it's shy.

It's trying to almost stay to itself.

So I may even say that it's shy and hiding away from me.

Pause the video now and choose what other focal details are you going to be focusing on from what you chose earlier and how would you zoom in on them.

When you're ready, unpause the video and we'll go through.

Some lovely ideas there.

So with those focal details, we are going to be writing them.

Well, we're gonna first plan and then write some really impressive pieces of work.

So let's, first of all, take some feedback.

Just as I said with the red flower, you may have gone for something similar, but you may have gone for something different.

That's absolutely fine.

You might have said something about the brick path.

Was it being organised, guiding us? The fact that it was that sepia tone and the shoes would make a noise on top of it rather than the quiet against the grass.

You may have talked about the white flowers as I wanted to on the back wall.

The fact that they're pearly, they're growing, they're trying to get out, they're unkempt, uncontrolled, all of those are fantastic ideas.

If you did go for any of those focal details or focal points, just take a second, you may want to add in anything from those zoom in areas or if there's any ideas that you have sort of been inspired to include for your own focal details, add them in a different colour now.

Pause the video and restart when you're ready.

Fantastic, let's keep going.

So now that we've responded to the image for the first time, we're now working on planning our description.

Now we're going to consider the general mood we want to create and consider which linguistic devices and sentence structures we should use to create that mood.

I'm gonna ask you to pause here and I want you to either talk to the person next to you or jot down some notes.

Think about your work.

Think about the focal details you've already chosen.

What is the general mood that you want to create? Do you want to create something peaceful? Do you want to create something more ominous? Have a think.

Talk to the person next to you, take notes and when you're ready, let's restart.

Okay, really interesting stuff.

Some of you were going for that idea of a more peaceful mood.

Some of you were saying how you wanted to actually create quite a joyous mood within your piece of work.

Some of you were almost trying to subvert it, twist it on its head and suggest that there was something lurking in the background to almost like create that sense of an ominous atmosphere and ominous mood for your work.

You may have also chosen to create wonder, delight, amazement.

Now, to do that, we need to consider our linguistic devices.

So that means we're going to start to consider how to build metaphors.

Metaphors are comparisons where something is said to be something else.

For example, "The clouds were balls of candy floss "floating through the sky." What does the metaphor tell us about the clouds? Pause the video, talk to the person next to you.

Let's see what we can come up with.

"The clouds were balls of candy floss "floating through the sky." What is that metaphor telling us about the clouds? Really good work, everyone.

So pleased to see and hear so many of you getting into the nuts and bolts of that metaphor.

So the clouds are being compared to candy floss and that tells us that the clouds are light, fluffy and easily dissipated.

Think about how when we have candy floss, you may be able to pick it apart really easily and even some candy floss, it almost seems to just melt away.

So the clouds are being compared to balls of candy floss suggests that yes, they're light and fluffy, but they could easily disappear.

So what we need to do though, even though we may know how to recognise metaphors, we need to know how to create them.

So let's just recap how to do that.

The first thing we need to do is to decide on the mood.

Luckily, you've already started to think about that.

Like we said, joyous, wonder, delight, calm and tranquil.

So we're gonna go for deciding the mood of wonder.

We're then gonna take an object from the scene and add an adjective to describe it.

So I'm gonna focus on the golden pollen.

Then I'm gonna find something to compare it to that fits with that mood.

So I need to find something that I can compare the golden pollen to that creates a sense of wonder.

So I'm going for "was fallen stardust." The idea of stardust creates wonder.

We're not quite sure what it is.

Stardust, it's got that almost magical connotation to it.

So my full sentence for my metaphor is "The golden pollen was fallen stardust." That should create my mood of wonder.

It comes from that mood to begin with, but I'm not including the mood within the full sentence.

The mood is the thing that is being built over the sentence.

So very quickly, I want you to add in the missing component in creating a metaphor as part of our check for understanding, we can see that we have to decide on the mood.

We can see that we take an object from the scene and add a an what? And then we find something to compare it that fits with the mood.

Pause the video and tell me what should fit in that gap.

Well done, everyone.

I'm so pleased to see you all remembered that we need to include an adjective to describe it.

Excellent work.

Let's keep going.

So for our sentence structure, we're going to focus on complex sentences.

We can't just be focusing on linguistic devices.

We also need to focus on sentence structure as well.

So complex sentences are main clauses that have at least one subordinate clause.

For example, you may say, "Swaying in the sunlight, "the blossoms danced so gracefully." Or "The blossoms, which were swaying in the sunlight, "danced so gracefully." Let's just have a look at the difference between the first and the second.

In the first example, we have swaying in the sunlight at the start of the sentence, the subordinate clause is fronted.

In the second sentence, we have the subordinate clause embedded in the middle of the sentence, using those commas to almost bracket the idea off, to suggest that it's an extra bit of information for our main sentence.

The third way we could do it is to say "The blossoms danced so gracefully "while swaying in the sunlight." Well, this is really interesting because now I've put the subordinate clause at the end of my sentence and naturally that means that I don't need to necessarily include, that in fact, I don't need to include the comma so long as I've got that word while which indicates it's an extra piece of information.

So I'm gonna ask you to pause now and discuss with the person next to you or maybe get some ideas down on your paper if you're working independently, why might using complex sentences enhance our descriptive writing? Pause the video.

Let's see what we can think.

Really good ideas.

Lovely to see so many of you going back to your previous work, thinking about actually when you've worked with complex sentences before and what they can do to help.

You've all said that it adds extra information, but there's a bit more that it can do in terms of creating mood.

So if we have the subordinate clause at the end of the sentence, it does help us to add that extra information and it helps us to better visualise the scene.

Also broaden the clauses because they give that extra information help the reader to understand, to really visualise that scene just that little bit better.

So quick check for understanding again.

True or false, using complex sentences helps the reader to visualise the scene? Pause the video, select true or false.

Unpause when you're ready, Well done, everyone.

Really good to see so many of you went true there.

Let's justify that answer.

Is it A: Joining together two main clauses allows the reader to see the connection between ideas? Is it B: Adding a subordinate clause allows the reader to add extra information to the scene? Pause the video, choose A or B to justify that true statement that using complex sentences helps the reader to visualise the scene.

Really great work, everyone.

Well done for identifying B.

Remember the issue with A is that a complex sentence doesn't use two main clauses, it uses a subordinate and a main clause.

Remember, two main clauses would actually be joined by a conjunction, which would make it a compound sentence.

Well done for spotting that.

So we're now going to practise planning our description.

You've got each of your focal details and now I want you to come up with a metaphor and a complex sentence for each of those focal points.

Pause the video now and let's see what you can come up with.

Fantastic work, everyone.

Really good to see so many of you going back to your notes, checking on how to build metaphors, checking what that process was and then trying to build your really interesting complex sentences that focused on a particular element of that planned out, zoomed in focal detail you'd gone for.

So if we're taking feedback now, let's see what you might have said if you chose to look at the red flower, the brick path or the white flower on the wall.

So for the red flower, you may have focused on the crimson petals to create your metaphor and talked about how actually the crimson petals were ruby jewels.

That suggests that they're precious, they're sparkling, there's a sense of beauty to them.

For your complex sentence, you may have picked out, you may have written, "Peeking out from behind the luscious leaves, "the scarlet flower winked at me." That creates a sense of wonder immediately within our work.

For the brick path, you may have said: "The umber stones were a map guiding my feet." A lovely idea.

The idea that it's a map tells us or suggests that actually we're being guided somewhere.

Maybe we're finding our own path.

There's an element of uncertainty, but there's a joy there as well.

With a complex sentence, we've now got the subordinate clause embedded as we've got, "My feet, which made a tapping noise on the stone path, "wandered forwards." And finally, for the white flower on the wall, for the metaphor, we've gone for, "The verdant stems were hands caressing me." So that idea that were almost being protected, soothed by this environment because of the caressing.

And then, "The parley blooms tower over the flowers "since they used the wall for support." That complex sentence being created by the subordinate clause, "since they use the wall for support" at the end of that particular sentence.

These are all just ideas, just examples that we came up with earlier or I've come up with earlier.

So pause the video now and if you need to, you may want to take anything for inspiration or you may want to just add your own ideas on to your own piece of planning.

Pause the video now, have that moment of reflection and improvement and then we'll restart.

Well done, everyone.

I'm so pleased to see so many of you getting your different colour pens out, adding to your plans, really trying to drive your work forward.

It's gonna mean that you produce even better pieces of work.

So now that we've responded to the image, we've planned our description, we're now looking at writing our description.

This is where we're bringing all our ideas together to create something really powerful.

So we're writing that descriptive writing piece still based on the image.

Remember, the purpose of descriptive writing is to use language devices and evocative words so that the reader can visualise the scene.

You want to evoke an emotional response in the reader and you want to allow them to feel the mood you have created.

So quick check for understanding here, which two of the following statements are true of descriptive writing? A: You should use language devices and evocative words.

B: You should offer, sorry, you should aim for the reader to be able to visualise the scene.

Or C: You should offer background information and context for the image.

Pause the video, see if you can work out which two statements are true for descriptive writing.

Excellent work, everyone.

So pleased to see that so many of you went for options A and B.

We don't need to worry about option C.

We don't need that background information and context, that sort of level of exposition, not necessary for descriptive writing.

We're now going to use our plan to write a descriptive writing piece and you are going to use that image to help you.

This is where you are putting all your ideas together.

So yes, it's a moment of practise, but we've done all the harder preparation.

We've done all the hard thinking.

You've even got set metaphors and set sentences that you're going to use and drop into your pieces of work to really develop what you start writing.

Remember, it's worth adding in language devices and evocative words.

So really impressive vocabulary that matches your mood.

And making sure that you're including details to help the reader to visualise the scene.

Remember, really crucially, you are trying to create a mood, whether that's wonder or delight, pleasure or tranquillity.

You need to be really careful about the mood you're trying to create and building that over the course of your text.

Pause the video now and let's put our fantastic plans into practise.

Some great quality work there, everyone.

I'm so looking forward to being able to reflect on this with you.

So for our feedback task, you're going to give your descriptive writing to someone else and ask them to draw the focal points you've zoomed in on.

Even if you've done this independently, maybe it's worth just drawing out what you've already written about and literally drawing to see whether you have managed to visualise your image or whether your partner's writing has helped you to visualise their image as thoroughly as possible.

Pause the video.

Let's see what great artists you are as well as writers.

Excellent work, everyone.

So creative.

What a creative bunch you are.

Swap your pieces of work back now, you're now going to reflect on your individual pieces of work and you're going to actually start off by reflecting on their drawing.

Does their drawing look similar to the original image? Could they easily identify what your focal points were, if you were focusing on the brick path, have they included it within their image? Have they included that tiny white flower crawling on the back wall there.

Were they able to identify the mood of the description and reflect it in their drawing? Pause the video and see if they've been able to do that.

If they haven't, go back to your work and see if you can add anything in in a different colour pen to really develop that sense of mood or to really focus in on those focal points.

Really lovely reflection there, everyone.

So impressed with your work today.

So we're just quickly going to summarise the ideas, the key learning points from practising planning and writing a detailed description based on an image.

So the first thing we have learned is that to respond to an image can involve considering what first draws our attention when zooming in.

We're thinking about effective descriptive writing, which allows the reader to visualise the scene and really linguistic devices and sentence structures can help the reader to visualise the scene.

You've all worked so wonderfully today and I've been so impressed.

Well done for all your hard work and thank you for joining me.

I look forward to working with you again soon.