Hello there! Mr. Barnsley here.

Fantastic to see you today.

Thank you so much for joining me as we continue to study myths, legends, and stories that inspire.

Today, we're going to be comparing extracts from two texts, "The Silence of the Girls" by Pat Barker and "Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller.

You are going to need access to both of these texts.

You're gonna need access to the opening paragraphs on the first chapters of each story because today, we are gonna be writing some comparative paragraphs.

We're gonna be doing some analysis, comparing similarities and differences between these two texts.

I am really, really excited for today's lesson, but do make sure you have access to the texts before you start.

All right.

I think it's time for us to dive in.

Let's go.

Okay, let's have a look at today's outcome then.

By the end of today's lesson, you are gonna be able to write a comparative paragraph which explores two different extracts but that are both inspired by the same mythological character.

So some keywords we're gonna look out for in today's lesson.

They are captivate, youth, first person, methods, and perspective.

So I like to think that that third phrase, first person, and perspective go really nicely together.

We'll be talking about the first-person perspective and that means the point of view of a narrator in the story.

And we're gonna be looking out for pronouns like I and me to show that a character is speaking from their own personal experience.

We're also gonna be focusing on methods today, and these are the tools a writer uses to create their work.

And two words are gonna be helpful for us as we think about these methods.

They are captivate and youth.

Captivate means to hold the attention of someone.

And youth, someone who is a youth means they are young.

All right.

Keep an eye out for those words.

See if you can use them in your own discussions in today's lesson.

So today, we're gonna be writing comparative paragraphs about "The Silence of the Girls" and "The Song of Achilles" and you're gonna need to have access to the opening of both of these texts.

Now we've seen in today's outcome that we're gonna be writing comparative paragraphs, but before we can do that, we have to determine the differences between the two texts.

So we'll be starting the lesson by doing that before moving to writing comparative paragraphs.

So it's really important then.

Let's dive in and get started by thinking about some of the differences between these two texts.

So pupils have been discussing the three characters from Greek mythology, Achilles, Briseis, and Patroclus.

What do you think they might say about each of them? Over to you for this one.

If you've got a partner, you can discuss these three characters with them.

Otherwise, you can just think independently.

What do you know? What can you remember about these three characters, Achilles, Briseis, and Patroclus? Over to you, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Great job! Some fantastic discussions.

I could see you remembering and then well done to those of you who were a little unsure, so they thought, you know what? I'm gonna go back and have a look at the extracts and remind myself.

That's great.

Great thing to see.

Well done.

So for Achilles, you might have mentioned that he was a renowned warrior.

He was known for being brave and strong.

You might have also mentioned his temper and his violence, particularly when we thought about "The Silence of the Girls." For Patroclus, you might have talked about how he was Achilles's best friend.

You might have talked about when they were younger and how you might have thought Patroclus really admired and was captivated by Achilles.

But you might have also said that he might have been a little bit envious.

And for Briseis, you might have talked about how she was given to Achilles.

How he took her.

He won her in battle.

He raided her hometown and she was given away.

She was enslaved into Achilles's control.

You might have talked about how she was quite unique in that in "The Silence of the Girls," we're hearing a traditional Greek myth told from the perspective of a woman, something that didn't happen very often.

Well done if you said anything similar to what you can see on screen, or if of course, you might have had slightly different things, and that's okay too.

So both Pat Barker and Madeline Miller wrote novels inspired by Greek mythology and particularly, the character of Achilles.

And we are gonna be comparing today how they present that character, how they present the character of Achilles.

So you're gonna be focusing on extracts, two extracts, one from each novel.

So the extract from "The Silence of the Girls" by Pat Barker.

Remember, our narrator in that text is Briseis.

And we're gonna be looking at the opening of the novel to the end of the second paragraph that's on page five, and it finishes with the word now.

The second extract we're gonna look at is from "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller and the narrator there is Patroclus.

And we're gonna be thinking about the opening of the novel then, from the opening to the end of the fifth paragraph on page three, and that ends with the word victory.

So two different extracts.

One key similarity about the character of Achilles.

Two different narrators, Briseis and Patroclus.

Really, really important that you have access to these extracts.

Now I know I said that in the beginning of the lesson, but I'm gonna remind you now.

So if you need to pause the video and make sure you've got these, it's the opening of both novels, now's the time to do so.

All right, pause the video, get yourself sorted, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, so one of our Oak pupils, Andeep, has reread both of these extracts and he started to generate some initial ideas about both the differences and their similarities.

And he says, both Barker and Miller describe Achilles.

Similarity.

However, Barker describes him as a grown up, whereas Miller describes him when he's still a child.

What about you then? Why don't you hand over to you to do some skimming and scanning, reminding yourself of these texts, these extracts, and then say, what are your initial ideas about the similarities and the differences between these two texts? Over to you now for this one.

Give this a go.

If you've got a partner, you can work in pairs on this.

But if you're working by yourself, don't worry.

Plenty for you to do here independently.

All right, skim, scan, and then think about those similarities and those differences.

Pause the video, give it a go, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Welcome back.

Fantastic to see you looking at the text so closely.

You did a great job.

Okay, Andeep is gonna use this table that you can see on screen to help him compare the extracts.

As you can see, the first column is, it includes the aspects that he's gonna compare.

And it also gives us a little reminder that we want to think about whether there are similarities or differences here.

The other two columns are useful for recording which text these ideas come from.

So let's look at Andeep's example then.

So he started by comparing how Achilles is described in each of these texts.

And in Pat Barker's book, "The Silence of the Girls," we know he's described as being a butcher.

In Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles," he's described as being a boy.

So what are the similarities or differences here? Well, both narrators describe Achilles.

However, Briseis focuses on his capacity for violence by describing him as a butcher, whereas Patroclus focuses on his youth, the fact that he's young, and his innocence.

So even though we've got two descriptions of Achilles, these descriptions are very, very different.

And that's what I really like about this.

Andeep has focused on a similarity, but he's also drawn differences between them.

And that's what I find most interesting in comparisons.

Look for similarities, but look for the differences within them.

So here's another section of Andeep's table.

He wants to talk about the perspective that these texts have been written from.

So in "The Silence of the Girls," we see the perspective of Briseis, a woman, written in the first-person perspective.

And in "The Song of Achilles," it's written from the first-person perspective, but this time it's Patroclus, his friend.

What do you think, then, are the similarities and differences between the perspectives in which we see Achilles in these two texts? What would you say the similarities and differences are? You can see in that bottom box, I've given you some sentence starters or a little bit of some guidance, some bullet points to focus you.

So start by thinking about a similarity.

What do both texts do? Then tell me the differences, difference between how Briseis sees Achilles, and Patroclus.

Okay, pause the video.

If you've got a partner, you can work through this with them.

Otherwise, think through this independently.

Over to you.

Welcome back.

So a similarity you might have said is, you could have started with both, both texts are written from the first person.

Both of us see Achilles through the eyes of a narrator.

I've said both of them spend a long time talking about Achilles.

Both of them are very focused on him as a person.

However, there's a difference.

But Briseis fears him, whereas Patroclus is captivated, is in awe of him, by Achilles.

All right.

I wonder if you said something similar.

Well done if you did.

Of course, you might have had slightly different ideas and that's perfectly fine as well.

Okay, let's pause for a moment and check to see how we are getting on.

Which of the following states an accurate difference between "The Silence of the Girls" and "The Song of Achilles"? Is it A? Briseis is captivated by Achilles's power as a warrior, but Patroclus is captivated by his skill as an athlete.

Is it B? Briseis is presented as an equal to Achilles but Patroclus is presented as inferior because he's weaker and slower than him.

Or is it C? Briseis meets Achilles as an adult where her home is under attack, but Patroclus meets him as a boy when his father is hosting an athletics competition.

A, B, or C? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you've got some ideas.

Over to you.

Welcome back.

Yes, well done if you said C.

You should have noticed in A or B, at least one part of my comparison wasn't very logical.

So in the first one, Briseis isn't captivated by Achilles power, and in the second one, definitely, Briseis is not presented as an equal.

So well done if you got C there.

Okay then.

Over to you for our first task in today's lesson.

I want you to compare two or more ways "The Silence of the Girls" and "The Song of Achilles" present Achilles.

Things that you could focus on.

How each narrator describes or feels about Achilles.

How and when each narrator meets Achilles.

So I want you to use this table where you're gonna put the aspect you're gonna compare in the left-hand column.

And then I want you to find evidence from each of the texts.

And in the bottom box, I want you to write a comparative sentence.

You can use the framework that you can see on the screen to help you if you wish, but I want you to compare both the similarity and that difference within the similarity.

All right.

Remember, you're gonna need to have both the extracts in front of you.

Pause the video.

Give this a go.

And press play when you're ready to continue.

Good luck.

Okay, fantastic work there.

It was great to see you looking so carefully at the text and thinking about the evidence that you were gonna use.

All right, before we move on, I want to take a moment to reflect on the work that we've just done and we're gonna do that by comparing our work to that of Andeep.

And you can see ideas that were similar to his, ideas that were different to his, and any ideas of his that you liked and you think would make your work even better and you can take a moment to add them to your table.

So Andeep concentrated on when the narrators meet Achilles and we know that Briseis meets when they're both adults and Patroclus meets when they're both children.

So how can we turn this into a full sentence? Okay, well, over to you.

Why don't you quickly discuss and then we can see what Andeep said.

So pause the video, have a quick think, how could you turn this into a full sentence, and then let's see what Andeep said.

All right, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to move on.

Yes, welcome back.

Let's have a look.

Did you say something similar to this? Both meet Achilles at an important moment in their lives, but Briseis meets him when she's under attack and knows of Achilles's terrifying reputation, whereas Patroclus meets him when Achilles is a child and is impressed by him at an athletics competition.

Well done if you said something similar there.

Fantastic.

Okay, we've done some thinking about the similarities and the differences between the texts.

Now let's turn these into some comparative paragraphs.

So Andeep compares how Barker and Miller present Achilles.

Let's see how he does this.

So he writes, both Barker and Miller focus on Achilles's physical power.

So we can see he started by creating a topic sentence that states the paragraph's main idea.

He says what we're gonna be looking at, the comparison we're gonna be making, is we're gonna be focusing on Achilles's physical power.

For example, Barker describes him as a butcher.

So he supports his idea with a quotation from Barker's novel.

This metaphor expresses how violent Achilles is and also develops the idea that he sees humans as nothing more than pieces of meat.

So we see he analyses this quotation.

He really focused on the methods, the tools that Barker has used in their text.

Question for you then.

What does Andeep need to do next? Why don't you pause the video, have a quick think, and press play when you think you've got an idea.

What does Andeep need to do next? Pause the video, over to you, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Really great work if you said, well, he's got this comparative topic sentence, but he's only talking about Barker's text, so he must do some comparing now.

He must compare Miller's description to Barker's.

So let's see how Andeep does that.

By contrast, Miller describes Achilles as plump and childlike.

Even though he is young, he beats other athletes who he slips by.

The verb suggests he easily runs past them.

So here we can see he makes a link to, by contrast, a quotation or more than one quotation from Miller's text and he starts exploring some of the methods here.

Briseis is clearly terrified of Achilles, but Patroclus is in awe of him.

Now he makes a clear comparison.

So notice we've got a comparison in our topic sentence.

Introduces the first text with some analysis.

Compare to the second text with some analysis.

Then make that clear comparison.

And finally, ultimately, both show that Achilles's physical strength and speed are extraordinary.

His last sentence is gonna link all the way back to that topic sentence, which was all about Achilles's strength, all right? You can see there's a really nice clear framework that we can try and emulate and use in our own writing.

Great work, Andeep.

All right, let's pause for a moment and check our understanding.

Which is the most successful opening sentence comparing Pat Barker's "The Silence of the Girls" and Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles"? Is it A? Briseis describes Achilles as a wolf whereas Patroclus describes Achilles as a prince.

Is it B? Both Barker and Miller use lots of methods to describe Achilles.

Or is it C? Both narrators feel inferior to Achilles.

Pause the video.

Have a think.

A, B, or C? Press play when you think you've got the answer.

Okay, there's a tricky one there.

Well done if you got C.

Let's work out why C is correct.

We're gonna do that by working out why the other two might not be the best answer.

So Briseis describes Achilles as a wolf whereas Patroclus describes Achilles as a prince is a valid comparison to make, but I don't think it should be our first sentence.

It doesn't give us very much to talk about in our paragraph.

It tells me that we're only gonna be able to talk about the words wolf and prince.

It's too specific.

So potentially a useful sentence to use somewhere else, but maybe too specific here.

What about B? Both Barker and Miller use lots of methods to describe Achilles.

Now this one has the opposite problem to A.

This one is too vague.

It doesn't really tell me what the focus of the paragraph is.

It just says that I'm gonna talk about methods and Achilles, but that could be anything in the text.

So I've not given myself enough of a focus here.

And that's why I like C.

Both narrators feel inferior to Achilles.

It really tells me the focus on what I'm gonna talk about in this paragraph.

How both Briseis and Patroclus both feel like they're not as good.

They're inferior in some way to Achilles.

And once I'm in there, I'm gonna look at some methods that the writers use.

But at the moment, I'm saying to my reader, hey, this is what I'm focusing on, the way that narrators feel in comparison to Achilles.

So really well done if you got C there.

Great work.

Okay, I'm gonna hand over to you then for our final task of today's lesson.

So using the tables that you completed in the first learning cycle, I want you to write a comparative paragraph in response to this question prompt.

Compare how Pat Barker's "The Silence of the Girls" and Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles" presents Achilles.

So you may wish to follow Andeep's structure, and I've given you some sentence starters that will help you do that.

Both Barker and Miller.

For example.

By contrast, Miller.

Ultimately.

All right.

Over to you.

I want you to show me how much you have learned through reading these two texts, how much you've learned about Achilles, and how much you've learned about the different ways he's presented.

But most importantly, I want to see you comparing.

All right, pause the video, give this your best shot, and press play when you think you are done.

Welcome back.

Some really fantastic work there.

It was so pleasing to see you writing with such confidence and concentration and a really well done to everyone who checked the spelling, punctuation, grammar before they put their pen down.

Okay, we're gonna now take a moment to compare our work to really reflect on our work.

I want to do that by thinking about our work in comparison to Andeep's.

So Andeep started with a topic sentence.

He then introduced a quotation, and he analysed the methods in there.

He then made a comparison from the first text to the second.

And then finally, he linked back to the topic sentence, showing how both texts linked to the original idea.

So now I want you to identify where you have met this checklist in your own writing.

So can you identify where you've used a topic sentence? Can you identify where you've introduced a quotation and analysed the methods? Can you identify your comparison? And can you identify that final link back to the topic sentence? If there's any of those that you haven't managed to do in your work, well, great news, you've got a bit of extra time now to make those changes.

So pause the video, identify where you've met the checklist, and if you haven't, improve your work further.

All right, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you are done.

Right, that's it! We've reached the end of today's lesson.

Really well done for all of your hard work today.

It was so fantastic to see you writing these comparative paragraphs with confidence.

Before we move on to our next lesson, I'd like us just to remind ourselves of the key learning that we've covered today so you can feel really confident before you start your next lesson.

So we've learned that the opening of a comparative paragraph could start with a topic sentence which states the paragraph's main idea.

Next, the comparative paragraph could focus on analysing the first text.

Then, a comparative paragraph could focus on the second text, comparing it to the first.

Comparing the methods writers have used can help develop the comparison.

And the final sentence of a comparative paragraph could link to the topic sentence.

All right.

Great work today.

Thank you so much for working so hard.

I do hope to see you again in one of our lessons in the future.

Bye-bye.