Hello, everybody, and a warm welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Ms. Halliday and I'll be teaching you for today.

In today's lesson, we're going to start at looking at how to build a really cohesive and coherent argument in which all of your ideas and paragraphs work together to contribute to your larger overall idea.

So let's get started.

So today's lesson is called Planning Cohesive Arguments about "The Telltale Heart." And by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to confidently plan a cohesive argument, and we'll have a little bit of a look at what that means in just a moment.

Here are some key words that you'll need for today's lesson, starting with the word delusional, which means when you hold irrational or untrue beliefs.

And in this context, in "The Telltale Heart," this is a result of mental illness.

Now, the word deranged can also be used as a synonym for delusional, but it does have slightly harsher connotations.

Now, deranged means unable to think clearly or behave with any self-control.

Now we see the narrator in the text behaving in a deranged way because he commits really heinous crimes which show his lack of self-control.

Now, heinous means wicked and appalling, and some of the wicked crimes that the narrator commits are murder and dismemberment.

And these are all committed because of the narrator's irrational fear of his neighbor's eye.

Now, irrational means when you don't think with logic or reason.

And what we're gonna do today is discuss this idea of madness and use it to form a cohesive argument about the narrator.

Now, cohesive means united and working together effectively to achieve a common goal.

And that's exactly what all of your ideas need to do in your argument.

They should all build up to contribute to your overall idea and opinion.

If you'd like to take a moment to pause the video while you jot down any of those keywords, then please feel free to do just that now.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're gonna start off by just gathering some ideas together using the question as a prompt.

We're then going to move on to looking at how to use paragraph outlines, and then you are going to have a go at using paragraph outlines to plan your response.

But let's start, first of all with gathering some ideas together.

So let's begin with a quick discussion, and I'm going to show you two students' arguments and I'd like you to think, well, whose argument do you think is more convincing and why? So the first argument is Andeep's.

And Andeep says, "Well, I think the narrator is definitely mad because he murders the old man out of an irrational fear of his eye." Whereas Jacob's argument is that, "I think that the narrator might be mad, because he murders an innocent old man.

However, he also might not be mad, because the way in which he commits the crime is so organised." So what I'm going to do now is give you a moment to pause the video while you discuss who's argument you find more convincing and give a reason as to why.

So pause the video and discuss this either with the people around you, or if you're working independently, just jot your ideas down.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions and a great start to the lesson.

Some real effort and enthusiasm shown there.

So well done.

And well done if you identify that Andeep's argument is actually more convincing, because he only presents us with one view, whereas Jacob gives us both sides of the argument.

So presents us actually with two arguments instead of one.

Now, when you're writing an essay, you are aiming to make it cohesive.

So that means that all of your ideas and all of your evidence should be working together to prove one bigger idea, because you are only presenting one argument.

So here is the question that you will be planning a cohesive response to.

Using this extract as inspiration, how does Poe present the theme of madness in "The Telltale Heart?" A really good question there, a really juicy one that you can bring so many different elements of what we've learned together into.

But before we look at the extract, let's just have a think.

Can we think of any other words for the word madness just so that we can avoid repeating that word too many times throughout our essay? So pause the video and discuss any synonyms that you might know for the word madness.

Off you go.

Fantastic work.

I heard some really great suggestions there.

So let's create a little spider diagram of some of the suggestions that I heard that I liked the best.

So in terms of synonyms for madness, well, the first one I heard was this word delusional, which is actually one of our key words for the day.

Remember that delusional means when you see or you believe things that aren't really there.

I also heard this word, insane, which again, is another word for madness.

So well done to the person who came up with that.

This word deranged is also a synonym for madness.

It means when you kind of lost control because of your mental torment.

And finally, you can use the phrase not of sound mind to mean mad or madness.

So well done if you've got any of those.

Now, some of these words that we can use as synonyms for madness actually have subtle differences between them.

So what I'd like you to discuss now is, well, which of these words do you think is the most extreme? So which one has the most severe connotations of madness, and which of the narrator's actions could we attribute to each of these words? So I'd like you to try and come up with an example of the narrator being delusional, an example of the narrator being deranged, being not of sound mind and one of him being insane.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you consider those two questions.

Again, either with the people around you or just thinking independently if that's how you are working today.

So pause the video and off you go.

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

Fantastic discussions.

And here are some quick ideas that might reflect some of the conversations that you were having there.

So as Andeep points out, "Some of these words can actually be quite condemning and harsh, such as delusional or deranged, and therefore we need to use them sensitively and appropriately." And Jacob adds, "Well, yeah, the fact that the narrator experiences delusions doesn't make him deranged because suffering with a mental illness does not make a person dangerous in every case.

This narrator is dangerous because he's a murderer who then dismembers the body of his victim and hides it under the floorboards, and that is what makes him deranged." Andeep adds, "The narrator's fear or hatred of the old man's eye makes him delusional because the threat is imagined.

So it's not really there.

The word insane can also be quite harshly used in the wrong context.

So arguably it should be used to describe the wicked and heinous crimes that the narrator commits." So Andeep, they're suggesting that we should reserve that word insane to describe the actions that are objectively wicked and evil, which is obviously the murder and the dismemberment.

And Jacob adds, "So I guess what we're trying to say here is that you need to choose your language really carefully to reflect the precise meaning that you're trying to convey because each of those synonyms does have a subtle difference in meaning.

Mental illness is a sensitive topic, and we need to make sure that our choices of language really reflect that.

But obviously we also need to make sure that we are answering the question which is about madness." So well done for those discussions.

And thank you so much to Andeep and Jacob for their contributions there as well.

Some really brilliant and sensitive ideas raised there.

So here's our question again, and I'd like us to just take a moment to unpack the question and understand what it is that we're being asked to do and how to approach this kind of question.

So first of all, this phrase, using this extract as inspiration means that actually some of our evidence should come from the extract, but also some should come from the rest of the text.

And what we're trying to do here is show our holistic understanding and knowledge of the whole text as well as the extract that we have been given.

Now, whenever the word "how" is used in a question, what you're being asked to do is identify and analyse Poe's use of methods, because the methods are actually how the writer does something.

And the writer's method can be as large as characterization.

So looking at how a whole character is presented, but it can also be as small as which word the writer has chosen in that context.

So for example, looking at the word "pale" in the quote "pale blue eye" would be an example of you examining the writer's methods.

So I want to emphasise here that methods are literally anything that the writer chooses to do on purpose.

And finally, the question word here is madness.

So we are looking for evidence of how the narrator is presented as delusional or not of sound mind or deranged or insane or mad.

And that is our big idea.

And every single other idea that we kind of contribute to this essay needs to link back to this idea of the narrator being mad, because that is how we create a cohesive argument.

So that's what we're being asked to do with this question.

So let's have a look at our extract.

So here's the extract that you will be using for inspiration.

So remember some quotes from the extract, but some will need to come from the rest of the text.

I'm gonna read you the extract.

As I'm reading, you should have a pen in hand, and you should be highlighting key quotations that you think you might want to explore in your response.

"I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men.

But the noise steadily increased.

Oh, God, what could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore.

I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased.

It grew louder, louder, louder.

And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled.

Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God.

No, no.

They heard, they suspected, they knew.

They were making a mockery of my horror.

This I thought, and this I think.

But anything was better than this agony.

Anything was more tolerable than this derision.

I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer.

I felt that I must scream or die.

And now again, hark.

Louder, louder, louder, louder.

'Villains,' I shrieked, 'dissemble no more.

I admit the deed.

Tear up the planks.

Here, here.

It is the beating of this hideous heart.

'" Okay, a fantastic extract that you've been given there that I'm sure as I was reading, you were noticing some delusional behaviour and some kind of insanity in.

So before we move on to discussing the extract, I'd like to just check if you understand where this extract is from.

So I'd like you to tell me now, which part of the text is this extract taken from? Is it A, the beginning of the text, B, the middle of the text, or C, the end of the text? Pause the video while you make your choice.

Fantastic work and well done if you selected C.

You are absolutely right.

This extract is taken from the end of the text.

And what I'd like you to discuss now is, well, what is it that comes before this extract? Because I think it's really important when you're given an extract to contextualise it within the text as a whole and to be able to recognise what comes before the extract and what comes after.

Now, because this is taken from the end of the extract, obviously nothing comes after this, and therefore, we can only talk about what comes before.

And that's what I'd like you to discuss with the people around you now.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic discussions and really well done if you remembered that prior to this extract, the narrator has actually just murdered and dismembered the old man and has hidden his body under the floorboards.

The police have then arrived at the house because of reports of loud screaming, and the narrator's feeling quite arrogant and confident in this moment that he has nothing to fear.

So well done if you remember that that's what comes before this extract, and let's carry on with our learning.

So on to our first task of the lesson now.

What I'd like you to do is reread the extracts you've been given, and that's a really important step to undertake.

I don't want anybody missing a step out.

It's always so important to read the extract you've been given really carefully.

And in order to make sure that we've done that, it can be really useful to read it twice.

So you are going to reread the extract that you've been given and you're going to highlight evidence which shows the theme of madness in the text.

If you'd already highlighted some as we were going through, you need to start thinking about refining that evidence and choosing maybe two to four pieces of evidence that you think best show madness in the text.

You're then going to continue to annotate the extract with your ideas and any methods that you think might be worth discussing in your response.

And as you read, you need to start considering how you are going to link your evidence to other parts of the text.

Because remember, we're looking to discuss not only the extract, but actually the whole text as well in our response.

So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you reread the extract, highlight and select your evidence and then annotate it with your ideas about what methods Poe's using and any effects that you think Poe has created.

And thinking really carefully, remember, about how you're gonna link that evidence to the rest of the text.

I can't wait to see what you select.

So pause the video and off you go with that task.

Fantastic annotations, really well done, and some really kind of careful selection of quotations there, which was really lovely to see, because we shouldn't just be selecting the first quotations we come across.

We need to be thinking more carefully about which the best quotations are to select.

So here are some annotations that you could have made.

If you struggled with your annotations, then please feel free to take any of these so that you can use them when you come to write your response.

So the first quotation you might have selected is this one here.

"It grew louder, louder, louder." And the method that we see here is Poe's use of repetition, okay? Which is where he's repeating this word louder more than once.

And this shows the persistence of the narrator's delusions because he really struggles to ignore the imagined sound.

We also have this exclamation mark, which is another one of Poe's methods, and that shows the increase in sound as the word is repeated, which I modelled for you just then and when I read it initially.

Now the word "louder" actually has two syllables, just like a beating heart that goes ba-boom, ba-boom.

And here we see that, louder, louder, louder, okay? And that repetition of that two syllable word actually becomes reflective of the noise of a heart beating.

So when we're reading that, it sounds like the beating of the old man's heart.

So those are some of the methods that Poe was using here to show the narrator's delusion.

Let's have a look at another quotation you might have chosen.

This one here.

"I foamed, I raved, I swore." Now here Poe uses a triple to show the narrator's escalating panic and stress.

The word "foamed" is a clever word choice, because actually it reminds us of something like a rabid dog and that has connotations of disease and madness.

And again, it shows us the narrator's hysteria in this moment.

The word "raved" here has also been used in conjunction with madness.

Raving mad was actually a quite a common turn of phrase that was used to describe people with mental illness.

And that again here, has been used by Poe with the distinct purpose we think, of creating this idea of madness, because it reflects his insanity at the end of the text when he's kind of unravelling mentally and emotionally because of the guilt that he's feeling and because of his delusions that he's experiencing.

Now, another thing that is really important to remember is that it's so important to use sensitive language like could and might to show sensitivity within this topic.

We are discussing quite sensitive issues here, especially when it comes to mental illness and madness and delusions, and therefore using could and might can show a little bit of empathy and a little bit of sensitivity when we're discussing such kind of controversial topics.

So make sure that you are using that sensitive language to show real sensitivity.

So we're going to move on now to looking at using paragraph outlines, and you are going to have a go at planning your response in just a moment.

So generally, critical writing tends to follow a structure a little bit like this.

We'll start with an introduction, which includes a really strong thesis statement in which we outline our big idea for the question.

And that's basically what it is that we're trying to prove.

So in this case, it could be something like Poe presents the theme of madness through his unreliable narrator whose delusions drive him to commit a heinous crime.

What we then do is start to unpack our reasons as to why we have our opinion.

So section one would be reason one for your opinion.

And here this could be something like, well, the narrator tries to conceal his madness.

Section two again, is reason number two for your opinion.

So it could here be, Poe uses symbolism to show the narrator's delusions.

And notice here how we are focusing on method, because we've been asked how Poe presents the narrator as mad.

Section three would be reason three for your opinion.

And here it could be that Poe uses sentence structure to reflect the escalation of the narrator's insanity.

Now it's always good to have between three and four reasons for your opinion as that will give you a breadth of evidence that you can use to make your argument really convincing and to demonstrate your knowledge of the text.

And finally, once we've given our reasons for our opinion, we then have to write a conclusion, and that's where we return to the idea from our thesis statement and restate our opinion.

So again, here it could look something like this.

The narrator's delusional nature allows Poe to build tension and suspense.

And here we're linking back to why Poe has used these methods.

What is he trying to teach us through this text? Now each of these paragraphs or sections of your work requires very careful planning.

And in order to do that, we are going to use single paragraph outlines to support the planning of each section of our work.

Now each single paragraph outline should not take you more than five minutes to complete, otherwise we're gonna spend more time planning than we are writing, okay? So we're looking to spend up to five minutes on each single paragraph outline.

And you need to plan one paragraph outline per section of your response.

So one for the introduction, one for reasons one, two, and three, and one for your conclusion.

Here's what a paragraph outline looks like.

We have a topic sentence, we have supporting details, and we have a concluding sentence.

Now the topic sentence introduces the main idea in your paragraph.

So basically what it is that you are going to be trying to prove.

Now, supporting details are the information and ideas that you will use to prove your opinions.

Now this might be quotations that you want to include, and also how you're going to link those to other parts of the text, because remember, we have to show knowledge of the whole text and not just the extract that we've been given.

And finally, the concluding sentence concludes the main ideas in your paragraph and links to the writer's intentions.

So what is it that Poe was trying to teach us through "The Telltale Heart?" So let's check for understanding before we continue.

Which section of your essay should revisit your main idea from the paragraph and link to the writer's intentions? Is it A, the topic sentence, B, the concluding sentence, or C, the supporting details? I'm gonna invite you now to pause the video while you make your answer selection.

And fantastic if you selected B.

It is in fact the concluding sentence.

Here, we need to restate our opinion and revisit ideas from our topic sentence whilst linking to the writer's intentions.

So why they wrote the text.

Well done if you remembered that.

Brilliant work.

So here's an incomplete single paragraph outline.

We're going to have a look at this together, and then we're going to complete it.

So first of all, looking at the topic sentence, we have this.

In "The Telltale Heart," Poe presents the theme of madness through his unreliable narrator, whose guilt-driven delusions cause his descent into utter insanity and loss of control.

Now the supporting details are missing, and they're going to be what you populate in just a moment.

So in order to do that, let's have a look at the concluding sentence.

So here's the concluding sentence.

Thus, Poe presents us with a highly unreliable and delusional narrator whose guilt drives him to further delusion and insanity, showing us the destructive nature of this all-consuming human emotion, which is often the result of poor impulse control or lack of self-control.

So here we have a very clearly linked topic sentence and concluding sentence.

Now what you are going to do now is discuss, well, which quotation would you select from the extract that you've been given to support the topic sentence, and what might you select from the quotation to discuss as Poe's method? So in order to answer this, you'll need to look back carefully at the topic sentence you've been given, but also the concluding sentence, and think about which evidence would really well support these opinions.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss that with the people around you, or consider it independently if that's how you are working today.

Pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

And it was great to see a real variety of quotations and lots of people thinking carefully about which quotation is the best quotation to support, and not just the first one that they came across.

Here's a suggestion of a quotation you could have used.

So you might have used this quotation, "It is the beating of this hideous heart." And just before this quotation, we're told that the narrator shrieked this, and the verb shrieked and the exclamation mark together, show us the narrator's utter loss of control and rationality.

Shrieked has a primal or animalistic quality to it, and that shows us the narrator's mind unravelling with guilt.

So here we've also thought about Poe's methods and what we're going to discuss as Poe's methods, but also our use of vocabulary has been considered as well.

This word "primal," this word "rationality," "unravelling." They've all been thought of really carefully before we start writing, because we've got to make sure that we are choosing the most specific vocabulary to convey the meaning that we're trying to convey.

So well done if you selected a quotation and you thought carefully about which one you wanted to choose and an extra well done if you also thought about which of Poe's methods you wanted to discuss.

Great work.

So let's check for understanding before we move on.

Jacob said, "I'm not sure I understand what to include for my supporting detail in my paragraph outlines." And what I'd like you to do is considerable, what advice would you give to Jacob about how to plan his supporting detail? So I'm gonna invite you now to pause the video while you read the five answer options and decide which you would choose as advice to give to Jacob about how best to plan his supporting detail.

So pause the video and do just that now.

Really well done If you selected B, C, and D.

These are all three pieces of really solid advice.

First of all, it is really important to consider what vocabulary you might want to include in your response as that ensures that you are choosing the most specific words possible.

It's also a great idea to choose shorter quotations that you can very easily embed when you begin writing.

And finally, it's really important to identify Poe's use of methods, and remember that this could be a single word.

A method is anything that the writer does deliberately.

Well done if you've got B, C and D.

I think you're ready to have a go at this yourself.

So let's do just that now.

For our last task of the lesson, you are going to plan the single paragraph outlines for each of the three analytical paragraphs of your response to the question, how does Poe present the theme of madness? Remember that a paragraph outline requires you to plan a topic sentence, which is basically a statement of what it is that you're trying to prove in your paragraph and basically where we see madness in the text.

Your supporting details should cover which quotations you will use as evidence, and this could be from the extract, but it also could be anywhere else in the text.

And secondly, what is it you are going to say about the quotation? And thirdly, which other moments in the text could you link to here? Because remember, we've got to demonstrate that holistic understanding of the text.

You'll also need to plan your concluding sentence in which you consider what Poe is trying to teach us about human beings.

So what is Poe's message, and why is it that he shows us this really kind of vivid depiction of madness in the text? What's he trying to show us about human beings? So those are some prompts to help you to plan your paragraph outlines.

Remember that you need one per section of your work and that you should spend no longer than five minutes on each one.

Remember, your argument needs to be cohesive.

So every point and every idea that you raise needs to work together to contribute this to this larger idea that Poe presents the narrator as mad.

So what I'm gonna invite you to do now is pause the video while you undertake this task.

Make sure that you are putting your absolute all into this so that you are put in the best position possible for when you come to write your ideas up.

Pause the video, and off you go, Fantastic planning, and I could see some very, very full and populated paragraph outlines there.

So that is brilliant work.

Really well done.

We're going to assess our own use of paragraph outlines now to check that we've completed them properly.

So what I would like you to do is look over your paragraph outlines and check that you have written your topic sentences in full, keeping your focus on how Poe presents madness, but also why he presents madness.

Check that you've written your supporting detail in brief bullet points, okay? We're not looking for full sentences here.

This is just quick ideas that you want to use to reinforce your opinions and support your opinions.

Check that you've provided at least three pieces of supporting detail per single paragraph outlined.

And that should include quotations, Poe's methods, and any links to other relevant parts of the text.

You also need to make sure that you have used very specific but also ambitious vocabulary such as conceal, delusional, heinous, sinister, hubristic and unreliable.

And finally, you need to make sure that you have written your concluding sentence in full, reinforcing the main ideas in your paragraph, and making sure that you have linked back to what it is that we learned from this text.

I'm going to give you a moment now to pause the video while you undertake that self-assessment and make sure that your paragraph outlines are as strong as they can possibly be, as this will put you in the best position when you come to write your ideas up.

So pause the video and undertake that self-assessment now.

Fantastic self-assessment and really good reflective work gone on there.

Excellent work.

So to summarise the learning from today, well, first of all, a cohesive argument is one that unpacks one big idea.

Each paragraph should be working with the others to prove the big idea.

Secondly, Poe shows us how guilt drives the narrator further into insanity and delusion.

And that could be what you have argued in your single paragraph outlines.

Single paragraph outlines contain a topic sentence, supporting detail, and a summary sentence.

Furthermore, the supporting detail should contain quotations that you will use along with the writer's methods, key vocabulary and relevant contextual information.

And finally, a single paragraph outline should be planned for each section of your response.

Each paragraph outline should take up to five minutes to plan.

Thank you so much for coming to today's lesson and for all of your engagement and effort today.

I've been so impressed, and I'm really, really excited about those plans that you've created.

They were really cohesive and convincing.

So great work there.

I look forward to seeing you next time, and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

See you later.