Hello there.

Fantastic to see you today.

My name is Mr. Barnsley and it's great that you've decided to join me for today's lesson as we continue to look at myths, legends, and stories that inspire.

And today is all about us planning our own narrative writing.

That's right, we're gonna get creative and start thinking about some stories.

We're gonna be planning the narrative today and we're gonna be using the five-part narrative structure, which you may have already covered before.

I will be revising it in today's lesson.

But if you do want to take some time to remind yourself what that five-part narrative structure is before we start, then that might be a good thing to do.

But we will look at it, we will do some revision in today's lesson as well.

You might also wish to have access to some of the stories, some of the myths, some of the legends that you read in front of you, because like I said, we're gonna be inspired by some of these and it might be helpful to have them at hand just in case you need any reminders what happened in those stories.

Okay, time to get creative.

Let's dive in.

Right, so let's have a look at today's outcome then, shall we? By the end of today's lesson, you are gonna be able to plan a well-structured piece of narrative writing, a story using single paragraph outlines.

So let's have a look at some words we're gonna want to look out for then.

So firstly, a miller is a person who grinds grain to make flour.

We're also gonna be thinking about the narrative perspective.

Who's our narrator in this lesson? And there are two terms that I want you to get your head round.

The first is third person omniscient.

This is where the narrator isn't a character in the story.

So they can present the feelings and experience of multiple characters, and they'll use pronouns like he, she, they, it.

Alternatively, you might wish to use the first person perspective and this is where the narrator is a character in the story and therefore, we're likely to use pronouns like I and me.

Now, we're going to be using single paragraph outlines in today's lessons and these are a way of planning paragraphs by preparing the first and final sentences, as well as the detail in the middle.

And the final adjective I want you to look out for is wily, and this means cunning.

So let's see if you can spot that when it comes up in today's lesson.

All right, I think it's time for us to get started.

So we are gonna be planning a narrative today.

And firstly, we're going to be reminding continue practising using that five-part narrative structure.

And then in the second part of the lesson, we're gonna move on to creating some detailed paragraph plans.

So let's start with the five-part narrative structure first.

So in this learning cycle, you're gonna plan your own story using the five-part narrative structure.

Now, before we get started, I want us to think about some of the recent characters that you have read who could inspire the story that you are going to write.

So we want your stories to be based on characters from myths, legends, and stories that inspire.

You may wish to use any of the characters from Greek mythology that you may have heard about.

You may wish to base your story on the narrative of "The Lady of Shalott," the cursed woman.

You may wish to think of some West African mythology that you may have read or some Middle Eastern folk tales.

You may also want to consider Lady Jane Grey, who was the queen of England just for nine days.

And you might also wish to consider some of the characters from "The Canterbury Tales," particularly the miller.

So again, why don't we take a moment to pause and think about which of these characters, which of these stories really stood out to us and which of these do we want to use as an inspiration for our own narrative? I'm gonna ask you to pause the video and if you've got a partner, you can discuss with them.

Otherwise you can just think through this to yourself.

Okay, so you've got lots of different characters on the screen.

Who is going to be the inspiration for your narrative? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

So Laura decided to write a story about the character of the miller from "The Canterbury Tales." And she starts to establish some basic features of her narrative.

She says she's gonna write in the third person omniscient.

So the narrator of her story isn't gonna be a character, someone outside the story looking in.

However, she says she wants the main focus of her story to be the miller.

So this narrator will probably be kind of following the miller, following his actions, narrating what other characters are doing.

But the miller is the focus and she's decided she wants the story to end unhappily for the miller.

She wants no happy ending for the miller here.

So over to you then to start thinking about your narrative.

Will you write in the first or the third person? And do you want your story to resolve, end, happily or unhappily for your main character? What do you think? All right, pause the video, have a quick think, discuss with a partner if you have one or just think through it independently if you're working by yourself.

All right, press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Now, Laura considers the overall structure for her narrative and she relies on the five-part narrative structure to organise her plot.

So we're gonna use this as a way of revising, reminding ourselves what the five-part narrative structure is.

So Laura starts with an exposition and this is where you establish your character in your setting and you introduce some sort of problem or conflict.

So Laura decides to talk about how the miller is wily, cunning and strong and that he needs money to fix his bagpipes as he broke them when he was angry.

We're then gonna move on to the rising action.

And this is where the story builds towards its climax.

This is where characters and plots are developed.

And in Laura's story, she's gonna talk about how the miller disguises himself as weak and challenges someone in the next village to a wrestling match to try and win money.

This then builds to the climax, which is a moment of drama or emotional intensity.

It's often quite short.

And here one or more characters' lives may change in some way.

So Laura's climax is going to be when the person he challenges has the same disguise.

So when they fight, the miller actually loses.

What's the falling action then? Well, this is the aftermath of the climax.

This is where one or more characters move towards their resolution where things start to get wrapped up, tied up.

And in Laura's story, the miller is gonna watch his opponents celebrating his victory.

This is really following on from this climax of the person he challenges also having the same disguise as him.

So our resolution is the story's end.

And just a reminder, it doesn't have to be a happy, it doesn't have to be simple and it doesn't have to be completely conclusive, but we do want the reader to have some sense of finality.

We don't want to be kind of left thinking that the story is kind of only half told.

So yes, there might be some questions that we're left with.

That's okay, but we want some form of sense of finality.

So how does Laura resolve her story? Well, the miller returns home bruised and still with his broken bagpipes.

Okay, let's pause for a moment and have a think about this question.

True or false? The resolution of a story which follows the five-part narrative structure should be a happy one.

Is that true or false? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you've got some ideas.

Yeah, welcome back and well done if you said false.

Let's justify that.

Is it A, the resolution can be happy, unhappy, or a bit of a mixture of both? It just needs to leave the reader with a sense of finality.

Or is it B, the resolution should be happy for at least one of the characters.

Which of those feels like the right justification? Pause your video, have a think and press play when you think you've got the right idea.

Great work if you said A.

Of course, a resolution does not have to be happy at all.

It can be unhappy or it can be a bit of a mixture.

But it's really important that we leave the reader feeling that there has been some resolution, that some of the loose ends have been resolved and there is a sense of finality.

All right, well done, if you got that correct.

Okay, then over to you then.

You are gonna be planning a narrative inspired by a character from a story that you have read.

I want you to rely on the five-part narrative structure that you can see on the screen.

Okay, over to you.

Think about what is gonna be in your exposition, your rising action, your climax, the falling action, and how are you gonna resolve your story? All right, pause the video.

Time to get creative.

I know you can do this, I know you've got loads of great ideas.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

It was great to see so much thought going into your planning there.

Before we move on, we're gonna take a moment to reflect on the plans that we created and really think about how this plan is gonna turn into a narrative.

So Laura does this.

Laura looks at her plan that she created and she says, "The longest section will be the rising action because I want to develop the description of the miller's disguise.

I'll probably write two paragraphs here.

The shortest section will be the resolution as I just want to remind readers that the miller's bagpipes are still broken." So why don't you now take a moment to reflect on the plan you created and think very carefully about how this is going to turn into a piece of narrative writing.

So I want you to think about what's gonna be the longest section? Where do you think in your five-part structure do you really need to focus lots of detailed description? And which area you think is going to be the shortest part of your plan? If you've got a partner, you can discuss with them.

And if you're working by yourself, that's fine.

You can just think through these questions independently.

You can see in the callout speech bubble on the screen that there are some sentence starters to support you, thinking about what your longest and shortest section will be but making sure you say because and justify your reasons.

Okay, over to you.

Pause the video, look at your plan once more and start thinking about how am I gonna bring this to life? How am I gonna turn this into a narrative? Sentence starter's on the screen.

Off you go.

Welcome back.

It was fantastic to see us being so creative with our ideas in that first learning cycle.

Now we should have a clear outline for the story, the narrative that we are gonna be trying to tell.

What we're gonna do now is move from that bigger picture to the detail and we're gonna start to create some really detailed paragraph plans.

So Laura uses a single paragraph outline.

You'll remember this is one of our keywords.

She uses this to plan each of her individual paragraphs that are gonna be in her narrative.

Now, you can see on the screen a diagram which shows you what a single paragraph outline looks like.

It's a box broken into three sections with the middle section being the largest one.

Now, the top section, our topic sentence, this is where we write in full a full sentence, which introduces the main ideas of a paragraph.

In the supporting details box, this is the ideas that we're gonna use in our writing, maybe some of the things we want to talk about, some of the key vocabulary, maybe some of the language devices that we're gonna use.

But all of these should link to the topic sentence.

They're gonna help flesh out whatever the main idea is of our paragraph.

Now, it's really important with the supporting details that this is written in note form.

Obviously, this is the middle of your paragraph and this will be the longest part of your paragraph.

So we don't wanna write all this in full sentences.

Otherwise our plan just becomes the same as our finished paragraph.

So we can write this in note form, just a few ideas to remind us what we want to write.

But we always finish our plan with a concluding sentence.

And this concludes the main ideas in this paragraph.

This also has to be a full sentence 'cause I want to remind myself exactly how I'm gonna end because this is gonna help me know how I'm gonna start the following paragraph.

So let's have a look at Laura's example of a single paragraph outline.

Her topic sentence is as follows.

"The miller looked at his bagpipes ruefully.

They lay in a broken jumble in a corner of his mill, silent and useless." Now, let's have a look at some of the supporting details Laura wants to use.

Remember, these are notes where she's just gonna put some things to remind her of things that she wants to include.

So she said she's gonna use a flashback to when he broke the bagpipes and why.

She's gonna start with "He closed his eyes and clenched his fists." She also wants to use some alliteration, particularly the repetition of the word B to describe them as breaking.

She wants those kind of harsh plosive sounds, ba, ba, ba.

You can almost hear the snapping and the breaking of the bagpipes.

And then her concluding sentence is as follows.

"There was no point glaring at the bagpipes; that would get him nowhere.

A plan.

He needed a plan." So you can see here, this is wrapping up this focus of the bagpipes and also giving us an indication of what might come next, moving from the bagpipes to the plan that the miller is about to create.

So let's go through this again.

We've got a topic sentence with a really clear focus.

The focus is the bagpipes.

We've got clear vocabulary and techniques that we want to use.

I want to use flashbacks and alliteration.

I want to use a word like clenched to describe his fists.

And then my concluding sentence links to my next paragraph.

So for example, my topic sentence for my next paragraph might be, "He flung open the door of his mill and strode out in the open air where he could think." The focus of my next paragraph is all about creating a plan.

You can see paragraph one ends with a plan.

He needed a plan.

Paragraph two starts with him going outside to think of his plan.

So I really want to see that connection between my two paragraphs.

So lots of information there about single paragraph outlines and how we should plan appropriately.

Let's have a pause for a moment and think and check that we're understanding everything that's been discussed so far.

So here is a concluding sentence to another of Laura's paragraphs.

"The disguise was complete: the once stout miller looked feeble and fragile." So the miller is now looking very weak.

Which of these would you say is the best topic sentence for the following paragraph? So if we think about what paragraph will follow on, which topic sentence, which of the following looks like the best topic sentence? Remember, we're looking for connectivity between this and the concluding sentence of the paragraph before.

So was it A, there was another aspect of his disguise as well, actually.

Is it B? Then he went to the next village.

Was it C? Encouraged by the success of his disguise, the miller made his way to the next village.

Why don't you pause the video.

Think, is it A, is it B or it's C? And when you've got an answer, remember to press play.

All right, over to you.

Welcome back.

Really well done if you said C, encouraged by the success of his disguise, the miller made his way to the next village.

So we can see A doesn't really work because actually, why would we have a second paragraph about the disguise? If we're continuing to describe the disguise, it really should be in the paragraph that we've just written.

So for me, this can't work as a topic sentence because it doesn't feel like I'm actually changing topics.

For B.

then he went into the next village.

Well, yes, that might be the focus of the next paragraph.

The next paragraph might all be focused on him going to the next village.

However, when we compare it to C, encouraged by the success of his disguise, the miller made his way to the next village, you can see the connectivity there.

The paragraph before was about his disguise.

This paragraph is about making his way to the next village.

But by putting that phrase, "Encouraged by the success of his disguise," I'm creating some connectivity between the paragraph before and the paragraph I'm about to write.

So really well done if you said C.

Okay then, I am handing over to you then to do some planning of your own.

You are gonna create single paragraph outlines for each section of the narrative that you have planned in learning cycle one.

Remember, look at that diagram on the left-hand side.

Our paragraphs should link to each other.

There should be a connection between the concluding sentence of one paragraph and the topic sentence of the next.

On the other side of the screen, you can see a reminder of the five-part narrative structure.

You want to use your plan from the first learning cycle and turn each section into a number of single paragraph outlines.

It's really important to remember that each section does not have to have the same number of paragraphs.

The exposition, for example, might only have one paragraph, whereas the rising action might have two or three.

Okay, you've done some excellent creative work so far, you've got some fantastic ideas.

Now it's time to turn this into a really solid concrete plan that's gonna be really, really helpful when we come to write our narratives up.

Okay, pause the video, over to you and press play when you think you're done.

Welcome back.

It was great to see you so focused on planning.

I will always say planning is so, so important if we want to have a really clear, coherent piece of writing.

So it's fantastic to see you putting all the time and effort into the planning stage.

All right, let's take a moment to remind ourself of Laura's plan.

You can see it on screen.

And as a reminder, she had a topic sentence with a really clear focus, bagpipes.

She really thought about the vocabulary and the techniques that she was going to use, and her concluding sentence linked to the next one.

There was connectivity there, and in Laura's example, it was the focus on the plan.

Now I want you to take a moment to reread all of your paragraph outlines.

So look at all your paragraph outlines together.

Look at them each as single paragraphs, but also look at that connectivity between them.

And I want you to check that each of them are meeting this checklist.

I want you to show me that each of them have a topic sentence with a clear focus, each of them have vocabulary and techniques selected, and each of them have a concluding sentence that links to the next paragraph.

Okay, over to you then to pause the video and reflect on the work that you have done so far in today's lesson.

Over to you.

Right, that's it.

You've done some really fantastic work planning your narratives today.

You've been incredibly creative, but also really, really thought carefully about the importance of planning.

So before we move on to our next lesson, I just want to share with you, remind you our key learning that we've covered so you can feel really confident before you move on.

So we have learned that the five-part narrative structure divides a story into exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.

We learned that each section of the narrative does not have to have the same number of paragraphs.

We also learned that single paragraph outlines are a way of planning a narrative paragraph.

Single paragraph outlines have topic and concluding sentences written in full and supporting detail in note form.

And to further structure your piece, you could link the concluding sentence of paragraphs to the next topic sentence.

All right, fantastic work today.

It's been a pleasure learning alongside you.

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

But for now, I'm gonna say goodbye and have a great day.

Bye-bye.