Lesson video

Hello everybody and welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Ms. Halladay and I will be teaching you today.

In today's lesson, we are working towards writing your own opinion piece, looking at how to plan a really successful opinion piece with a clear viewpoint and a range of brilliant ideas, so let's get started.

So today's lesson is called "Writing an Opinion Article," and it basically does what it says on the tin because by the end of today's lesson you will have planned and written an engaging opinion article.

Here are some keywords that you will need for today's lesson, starting with voice.

Now voice is the identity of the writer that comes through the text.

Now next we've got vicariously, and that means when you experience something through somebody else's lived experience.

The next word is lamentations, and that's the passionate expression of grief or sadness.

And finally, the word impulsive means acting on impulse without thinking through the consequences.

As I said, these are all really important keywords that you will need for today's lesson, so if you need to take a moment to pause the video and jot down any of those keyword definitions, then please feel free to do so.

Here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to start by planning your opinion article because, remember, planning is really, really important and puts you in the best position possible when it comes to writing, which we're going to focus on in the second part of the lesson.

But let's start first of all by looking at planning your opinion article.

A pupil's parent made the following complaint to school.

"I do not believe that there is any place for Gothic literature in the classroom.

It is gruesome, gory, and pupils learn nothing valuable from it.

Take it out of lessons immediately." Now what I would like you to do first of all is respond to that statement.

So what is your initial response to the statement? What are your opinions about the topic? So what do you think about Gothic literature being taught in English classrooms? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss that either with the people around you or consider it independently if you're working on your own.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic discussions and it was great to hear such a diverse range of opinions with many of you actually saying you think Gothic literature is really valuable in the classroom and that it definitely should stay, so it's great to see that so many of you love and appreciate Gothic literature as much as I do.

Now for the purposes of this lesson, you are going to imagine that you do think Gothic literature is valuable and that you do want to keep it in the English classroom.

So whether or not you agree with that statement, with that parent's complaint or not, for the purposes of today's lesson you are all going to be arguing that actually Gothic literature is really valuable and it deserves to keep its place in the English classroom, and you're going to write an opinion piece in which you argue that exact message.

So you will need to justify your opinions with examples of why Gothic literature is valuable and provide examples of Gothic texts that you have read that have taught you something really important.

So I would like you to think, well, what is it that makes Gothic literature valuable? What is it that it teaches us? And why is it so useful to study Gothic literature? Again, I would love it if you are able to discuss this.

However, please don't worry if you're working on your own.

You can just think about your ideas or you can jot some down if you have a piece of paper in front of you.

So pause the video while you discuss those three questions on screen now.

Fantastic discussions and some really, really valid arguments raised there that support this overall message that Gothic literature is really important and deserves to keep its place.

So here were some of the ideas that I heard being discussed that I really thought were useful and that some of you might find useful to use going forward when you write your opinion piece.

So first of all, somebody mentioned that actually one of the key valuable things about Gothic literature is the fact that it teaches us right from wrong because actually we learn from the mistakes of Gothic protagonists like Victor Frankenstein.

Somebody else mentioned as well that it depicts the darker side to humanity, which can teach us really important lessons about greed, guilt, and hubris.

Okay, so through the Gothic protagonist or the character's mistakes, we learn how not to behave and therefore that teaches us how to behave, okay, and we learn kind of the consequences of some of these darker human emotions like guilt, like greed, like hubris.

Furthermore, reading the work of Gothic writers actually really improves your own writing and reading abilities because lots of Gothic texts were written in the 19th century and therefore, through reading those Gothic texts, we are exposing ourselves to really new and challenging vocabulary that perhaps we don't use as much anymore but was commonly or frequently used in the 19th century, so we are broadening our vocabulary horizons by reading Gothic literature.

And I think that's a really valid point, especially for this opinion article which is about Gothic literature in the classroom specifically, so actually reading that literature makes us better writers as well.

And finally, it's really thrilling to read Gothic literature.

It gives us a real adrenaline rush, okay? It's hugely exciting and people really enjoy reading Gothic literature, as do I, because you get an adrenaline fix out of it, okay? No need for a theme park when you've got a Gothic text in front of you.

So I do think that's a really important reason as to why Gothic literature is valuable as well there.

So thank you so much to the people who volunteered those ideas.

I think they're absolutely fantastic.

If you'd like to take a moment to pause the video and jot some ideas down so that you don't forget them, then please feel free to do so, because there are some brilliant, brilliant suggestions on screen right now.

So thank you very much to the people who contributed those, really well done.

So today you are gonna be using single paragraph outlines to support the planning of each paragraph of your work.

Now each single paragraph outline should not take more than five minutes to complete and it's really worth remembering that.

So here is what a single paragraph outline looks like starting with the topic sentence.

Now the topic sentence introduces the main ideas in your paragraph, so basically what it is that you're going to be arguing in that paragraph specifically.

We then have the supporting details, and they are the information and the ideas that prove your opinion.

So this could include examples from Gothic texts you have read and what you have learned from them that makes Gothic literature so valuable in the classroom.

And finally, the concluding sentence really reinforces the main argument in your paragraph.

It kind of, you know, reiterates your message and inspires your reader to either go away and think about this a little bit more or take action to support you with your opinion and your viewpoint.

So again, another really important component of the paragraph outline that will create a really strong and persuasive piece of opinion writing there.

So there's a reminder of what a single paragraph outline looks like and what each of the components should contain and how to plan them.

So here is an incomplete single paragraph outline that we are going to fill in together.

So first of all, we know that we have that topic sentence first of all.

However, the part of the paragraph outline that is missing in this case is actually the topic sentence, so that will need completing.

However, we use the supporting detail to help us complete the topic sentence.

So here's our supporting details for this particular part of our opinion piece.

"From 'Frankenstein' we learn about the dangers of hubris and ambition.

We learn vicariously, so through the experience of Victor Frankenstein, how hurtful discrimination and prejudice can be both to the individual, through the creature, and also to society." Secondly, "From 'The Tell-Tale Heart' we learn the consequences of guilt and being impulsive.

We learn that actions have consequences, so we need to think carefully about what we do before we do it." And thirdly, "These text teach us important life lessons because we learn right from wrong." Now we'll also need to look at the concluding sentence, which links to the topic sentence in order to be able to complete the topic sentence.

So here's our concluding sentence.

"Removing these kinds of texts from the classroom would ultimately just make the job of parents harder.

We all know that teenagers never listen to their parents, but we have listened to the heart-wrenching and conscience-tugging lamentations of Victor's shunned creation.

Why take that away?" So here's the exciting part.

You are going to take the supporting details and the concluding sentence and you are going to use them to write the topic sentence, making sure that you are kind of setting out what your argument for this paragraph is going to be.

So in order to ascertain what the argument is, that's where you'll need to be looking at the concluding sentence, which should reinforce that argument, and also the supporting details which should support that argument.

So remember as well that you can actually include rhetorical devices in your topic sentences to make them super engaging, fabulous, and creative.

So what I'm going to invite to do now is invite you to pause the video while you have a go at writing a topic sentence using the supporting details and concluding sentence.

If you have your exercise book in front of you, it would be great if you could write it in there.

If you don't have any paper in front of you, then just have a think about what you might have written.

So pause the video and have a go at that now.

Fantastic, and some really brilliant suggestions contributed there.

Here's an example of the kind of thing that you might have written.

So you might have written, "Gothic literature is the easiest form of parenting.

Mum, Dad, it does the work for you.

No more grounding, scolding, and confiscating.

I've learned vicariously through Frankenstein's mistakes." Some brilliant there, really engaging topic sentence there.

So let's check for understanding before we move on and Jacob needs our help.

He said, "I'm not sure I understand what the role of the concluding sentence is." And I'd like you now to think, well, what can you tell Jacob about the role of the concluding sentence to help him? So is the role of the concluding sentence, A, that it's the same as the topic sentence, you just repeat the same sentence twice for effect? Is it B, that it echoes ideas and the same argument from the topic sentence? Is it C, that it's a real chance to reinforce your opinion again and deliver your message? Or is it D, that it contains the ideas and reasons for your opinion so it allows you to justify your argument? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you decide which of the following answer options you would tell Jacob in order to explain what the role of the concluding sentence is.

So pause the video and make your decision now.

And a massive well done if you correctly identified that it is in fact B and C.

The role of the concluding sentence is to really reinforce your opinion again and deliver your message by reinforcing ideas and echoing, you know, arguments from the topic sentence, so a massive well done if you remembered that, really good understanding there.

So onto the first task of the lesson now where you're going to plan the single paragraph outlines for each of the three reason paragraphs of your response to this task.

And what I mean by reason paragraphs is, basically, after you've given your introduction to the topic, you would then start to kind of delve into the reasons for your opinion.

And those reason paragraphs, ideally you want between three and four reasons for your opinion, and therefore you're going to be planning up to four paragraph outlines that explain your reasons as to why you think that Gothic literature needs to be kept in the classroom.

So a reminder that the task was to write an opinion piece where you're arguing that Gothic literature should be studied in English, and you are now planning your paragraph outlines that delve into the reasons as to why you think it needs to be kept.

So, reminder that you'll need a topic sentence where you think about what you are trying to illustrate in this paragraph, making sure that this fits within your overall argument, which is your opinion, that Gothic literature should be kept in the classroom.

You will need supporting details, you'll need up to three bits of supporting details, so how are you gonna support your opinion? Can you give any real life examples that will help you to illustrate your point? And what vocabulary and/or rhetorical devices might you use to argue your opinion? And finally, remember that you will need to plan your concluding sentence, which is where you basically link back to your topic sentence and you restate your opinion, leaving the reader with a very, very clear message at the end of each paragraph about what they need to think and feel.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at undertaking your paragraph outline, planning for your opinion piece that you're going to write soon.

Make sure you put your absolute maximum effort into this as it will make the writing process much, much easier if you've thought very carefully about what it is you're going to include.

I'm really excited to see your completed plans, so pause the video and off you go to get cracking on that now.

Fantastic planning, really, really well done there.

Now, in order to check that we've planned efficiently and effectively, I would like you now to just make sure that you have written your topic sentences in full and have you kept your focus on your overall message which is basically your opinion.

Can you check that you have written your supporting detail in brief bullet points? We're not looking for full sentences in the supporting detail, we are just looking for brief bullet points of things that you will talk about in your paragraph.

Have you provided at least three pieces of supporting detail per single paragraph outline, including examples and reasons for your opinion? So perhaps, you know, different Gothic texts that you've learned things from.

You know, reasons as to why Gothic literature enhances your classroom experience, things like that you will need to put in your supporting detail.

Have you used descriptive and ambitious vocabulary as well as rhetorical devices to persuade your reader to adopt your viewpoint? And finally, have you written your concluding sentence in full, reinforcing the main ideas in your paragraph and making sure that you have linked back to ideas from the topic sentence? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at undertaking that self-assessment to just check the quality of your planning.

So pause the video and off you go now.

Fantastic reflection and great to see many of you making changes to your plans in a different colour.

It's great to see you taking reflection so seriously because it's super, super important, so well done.

So on to the second part of our lesson now where we're going to have a look at writing our opinion articles.

So here's a reminder of our task.

A pupil's parent made the following complaint to school.

"I do not believe that there is any place for Gothic literature in the classroom.

It is gruesome, gory, and pupils learn nothing valuable from it.

Take it out of lessons immediately." So there was our statement and you are going to be writing an opinion piece in which you argue that Gothic literature deserves to keep its place in the English classroom.

You will need to justify your opinions with examples of why Gothic literature is valuable and provide examples of Gothic texts that you have read that taught you something really important.

So I'd like you to discuss now, well, what is it that makes a successful opinion article? What do you need to do in order to make sure that you are being as persuasive as possible and conveying your opinion in the most kind of convincing way that you can? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss that question ideally with the people around you, but no worries if you can't.

If you're working on your own, just thinking about it in your head or jotting ideas down if you have paper in front of you.

So pause the video and consider that question now.

Fantastic discussions, and whilst you were discussing, I also posed the same question to our brilliant Oak pupils who are going to share some of the ideas that they had as to how you could make your opinion article really successful and convincing.

So as Jun points out, well, "A clear message is really important.

In an opinion article, your message is your opinion." So it's really important that you convey that really concisely and clearly.

And as Sofia adds, actually, "A clear sense of voice is also really important because readers like to have a clear idea of who has written the piece so that they can really connect to them." And Sam adds, "A cohesive structure is really important, where every paragraph works with the others to build a convincing argument, and every paragraph supports your message." I can't emphasise that enough, okay? Some students think, "Oh, well, if I present two sides of the argument, that's more convincing because then the reader can make an informed decision." No, okay, the most convincing thing is just to present one side of the argument, which is that Gothic literature is super valuable and must be kept in the classrooms. And as Jacob adds, "Rhetorical devices used for effect also make a successful opinion article, as well as some description added in there as well." So thank you so much to our fantastic Oak pupils for their contributions there.

These are some really clear and useful pointers that you can take forward to make sure that your opinion article is as convincing as possible.

So let's check for understanding, true or false.

"A clear sense of voice means giving your reader an idea of who has written a piece of writing, so basically the identity of the writer." I'm going to give you a moment now to decide whether you think that's true or whether you think that it's false, so pause the video and make your decision now.

And really well done if you remembered that that is in fact true.

What I'm going to ask you to do now is the hard part where you justify why that statement is in fact true.

So I'm going to give you a moment now to pause the video while you read both justifications and decide which you think is the correct one for that statement being true, so pause the video and make your choice.

And a massive well done if you correctly selected A, "Your reader should be really clear on roughly how old the writer is, what kind of person they are, and what their views are on the topic." That's the most important one.

Your reader should absolutely always know what your views are.

"This isn't stated explicitly, necessarily, but should be implied," okay? It should come through your piece of work.

Through the language choices that you make, through the punctuation you use, through the kinds of things that you discuss, it should be really obvious what the identity of the writer is.

So well done if you got A, you're absolutely right.

So another check for understanding.

Which sentence creates the clearest sense of voice? Is it A, "Gothic literature is my favourite"? Is it B, "The Victorians loved Gothic literature.

We learned about it in history"? Or is it C, "Gothic literature provided a form of escapism for some Victorians"? So I'm going to now invite to pause the video while you decide which sentence creates the clearest sense of voice, so the clearest sense of who has written this.

So pause the video and make your choice.

And well done 'cause I think most people did select B.

Okay, this was very clearly written by a student because it says "we learned about this in history." Okay, so the fact they're talking about their experience at school very clearly tells us that this was written by a student.

It's very difficult to tell who wrote A and who wrote C because it could be an older person who really likes Gothic literature, or it could be a young person.

We're not sure because they haven't given that away, they haven't, you know, there's not a clear sense of voice there, we can't tell what their identity is from those statements.

So really, really well done if you selected B, you are absolutely right.

So on toª the last task of the lesson now where you're going to write an opinion piece in which you argue that Gothic literature deserves to keep its place in the English classroom.

Remember that you should always have a clear message, which is your opinion.

You need to create that really clear sense of voice, so your reader should absolutely know what kind of person has written this piece.

You need to create a really engaging opening by using humour or a shared experience to connect to your reader.

Use rhetorical devices like direct address, repetition, et cetera, to create a persuasive tone.

Because this is an opinion piece, you are trying to persuade people to adopt your opinion.

You should use description to enhance the reading experience, to create a kind of really exciting, thrilling reading experience for your reader.

If they are bored, they will not adopt your opinion.

And finally, it's so important to end with impact.

You could use mirroring to achieve this, or you could try and leave your reader with some kind of moral conundrum or debate for them to consider.

These are the things that will make a really successful piece of opinion writing.

I am so excited to see your pieces of opinion writing all written up and completed, so what I'm going to do now is invite you to pause the video while you go off and have a go at writing them.

You will need to use your resilience, your effort, and you will need to try and bring together everything that you've learned about opinion writing to create the strongest piece of work possible.

As I said, I cannot wait to see what you come up with, so pause the video and give this a really good go.

You can do it.

Fantastic work, and I was so impressed with your resilience.

I asked you to bring it, you brought it, so really, really well done there, brilliant, brilliant work.

So a really important step in writing is actually editing, and that's what we're going to undertake now, the process of editing your work, checking it for accuracy.

So we need to make sure that our spelling, punctuation, and grammar is all accurate and correct.

In order to do that, I'm gonna give you some common mistakes that you can look for in your own work, so things that I see all the time in student work that are very easily fixed, but we just need to make sure that we haven't made those mistakes, that our work is as accurate and as perfect as it possibly can be at this stage.

So can you please check that all of your sentences do actually start with a capital letter? Check that you haven't missed any.

Have you used a capital G for Gothic? Because it is the name of a genre, so it needs a capital letter.

Have you given any authors like Mary Shelley capital letters? Because it is a name, it's a proper noun, therefore we've got to have that capital letter on both parts of the name, okay? So make sure you've got capital M and capital S.

Have you used the correct homophones, so have you used the correct version of they're, there, and their? Have you used paragraphs? Okay, this is one that students always miss out when they're rushing.

Have you actually separated your work into distinct paragraphs? Okay, your paragraph outlines will help you to do that, but make sure that you have left that line to indicate where you have started a new paragraph.

If you want to go and add some back in, you can put two forward dashes to show where you want to add a paragraph in instead.

And finally, have you put comments around subordinate clauses? So, for example, "Mary Shelly, arguably the mother of Gothic literature, wrote 'Frankenstein' to teach us blah, blah, blah, blah." Okay, so here the subordinate clause is "arguably the mother of Gothic literature," so therefore it needs to be surrounded by commas.

Now don't worry if you've made any of these mistakes, that's what editing is for.

So don't worry if you read your piece back and you think, "Oh, I've actually missed out quite a lot of this." That's absolutely fine.

You know what, you were under pressure, that's okay, because you've taken the time now to check it back.

So what I'm gonna do is invite you to pause the video while you read back through your work and make sure that it is as accurate as it can possibly be using the little hints and tips that I've given you on screen.

So pause the video and off you go to edit your work now.

Fantastic editing, really well done there and brilliant work.

So, to summarise the learning from today.

Paragraph outlines can be really useful in maintaining a cohesive structure for your argument.

Secondly, the writer's viewpoint should be introduced early in the article, but this can be implied.

Thirdly, your topic sentences can contain rhetorical devices and should convey a sense of voice.

And voice is how you convey the identity of the writer.

And readers should have a really clear understanding of exactly who the writer is from the words and language that you choose.

Furthermore, rhetorical devices and descriptions, including figurative language, can be really useful to support your argument.

And finally, checking your work for spelling, punctuation, and grammar is super, super important because, actually, poor spelling, punctuation, and grammar can really hinder meaning and can make reading your work very, very challenging for your reader, which is not going to make it very persuasive, is it? Thank you very much for coming to today's lesson.

I've enjoyed reading your responses so much and seeing all of your incredible contributions during the various discussion tasks that we've undertaken together.

Thank you so much for your engagement and your contributions, and I'll see you next time.