Lesson video

I'm Mrs. Crompton.

Welcome to today's English lesson.

Our focus today is on writing an effective introduction.

You'll need a pen and paper, and also your notes.

Take a moment to make sure you've cleared any distractions away and have everything you need to hand.

Just to remind you then, of the writing process, we need to think about our question, make our plan.

Today, we are going to start the drafting process and in particular, we're going to focus on introductions.

We'll then be working through critiquing our ideas for our introduction, and then finalising the writeup of the introduction by the end of this lesson.

Very quick reminder of our criteria.

We need to make sure that we're thinking about being convincing and engaging, being really precise in our vocabulary choices, and making the right choices in terms of style and tone.

This should be with you on your workspace, and you should now have everything organised in terms of the sequencing of your ideas, so the content is secure, you know what order you think you're going to put things in and we've got the flow already worked out.

We've also checked that we have got depth to our argument by including logos, pathos and ethos.

So in terms of our task, writing an article for a magazine in which we argue our views about what makes a good role model, what do we need to include? And to help us out, I'm going to go back to our model answer and just show you the following, and also pick out some key features of the introduction.

So the purpose of an introduction is to give an overview of your line of arguments, and it's about communicating that refined idea, but also, in the process, establishing a relationship with your reader, so the tone is also something that we need to think about, our.

Also, thinking about how we're going to link into the next section.

Now in this model answer, I would say it's not even linking into a second paragraph.

It positions as a second paragraph, but I consider this to be an extension of the introductory comments.

We've got developments of the relationship with the reader, with the use of pronouns, and we've got a more emotive angle introduced.

So in terms of length, you can see that these are actually two quite short paragraphs and you could almost run them together.

So that's not a problem within introductory comments if we take more than one paragraph.

So I don't want you to be anxious about that and try and keep everything in one paragraph, if you do want to split it as this person has done, and to separate it, 'cause it's only a couple of sentences, split it into two separate sections to really make that development clear, that's fine too.

But what I'm would like you to do is to go to your plan and try and achieve the following.

Establish your clear overview of your line of arguments and establish your relationship with your reader, using your notes of what you wish to include in your introduction.

I'll give control over to you.

You can have another look through this, pause and then write your version before you restart.

And I'll be waiting for you, so off you go.

So we have a draught now, but what I wanted to do today was to show you a different style of opening and it's called a drop paragraph.

So let's have a look at this together.

Lipstick on, check.

Reposition and plump the pillow to make it look like you've just woken up, check.

Perfection.

Now your shot is ready to take.

Just a little bit of final editing and you're ready to upload to Instagram.

Now, in this instance, we are dropped into a moment and we've got a story, an anecdote being given rather than an explanation.

So it's the exact opposite of being crystal clear in your opening line, but it needs a little bit more.

So let's have a look at how the drop paragraph then works.

It's only 8:15 AM and our celebrities are working hard to make sure they give us the content we demand.

To keep us up to speed with that every moment, to show us they care.

So we're now starting to reveal a little bit more detail, and we know that there's a focus on celebrity within this piece, and there's also a relationship being developed.

And there is a suggestion that we're demanding them to do this, that there's some sort of reciprocal thing going on, the content we demand.

Let's have a look at the next bit.

Selfless.

Seriously? Is this what society now considers relatable, educational, inspirational? And these are the people we want to look up to? But this is reality.

There isn't any alternative.

Really? Look around and really see the everyday heroes who are far more worthy of our attention.

So in this final section, we've got the relationship being critiqued.

It's almost like a counter argument, isn't it? We've got the counter argument first of the person we don't want to be our role model.

And then we get the final line revealing the true feeling.

Look around and really see the everyday heroes who are far more worthy of our attention.

So this is called a drop paragraph because you're dropped into the action.

However, it still fulfils the other functions.

We have a relationship with the reader.

We also have the clarity of the line of argument by the end of it.

In terms of and our particular topic of writing for a magazine, this could be a really nice, engaging way, couldn't it? So it's an alternative style of opening.

Have a little look at this drop paragraph again.

And I would like you to spend a little bit more time independently engaging some of the language choices that have been made, okay? So as you work through, as we've done previously, you will see that I've put some little prompts for you to focus on, as you look along the bottom of the screen.

Work your way through, make your notes, maybe even jot down a few phrases that you like.

And then we will come together just to unpack and explore a few of the ideas in a little bit more detail.

Okay? Control is over to you.

And welcome back.

So what I really wanted to look at with you is this idea of using sentence constructions and punctuation for effect.

It's quite an interesting and neglected aspect of our writing.

We often concentrate on vocabulary as being king, but I do think that there's a lot of value, particularly in terms of creating tone within our writing through sentences.

So in this example, we have simple sentences, there isn't any alternative, that declarative tone there, too.

Listing, is this what society now considers relatable, educational, inspirational? A fragment sentence, so a fragment sentence is a sentence where the object missed things.

It's just a word on its own, but we know exactly what we're talking about because of the context around it.

Perfection.

Deliberately done for additional impact.

So a fragment sentence might be a technique that you haven't considered before.

Look at how that fragment sentence is used.

Again, this time, with the addition of a dash and the dash is quite an informal type of punctuation that suggests a continuation of thoughts and also builds the relationship with the reader, and again, that whole thing of appropriateness within a magazine.

I couldn't do this in my letter to my MP.

That would be inappropriate.

So lipstick on, check.

Look at the next sentence.

We've got an imperative sentence with the use of ellipsis, reposition and plump the pillow to make it look like you've just woken up.

Ellipsis, and then check.

And again, the informality, the casual capturing of a moment is trying to create a particular mood to this piece.

And then finally, a little bit of patterning going on within the sentences where we've got fragments and then undercutting of it.

Selfless.

Seriously? Then quite quickly afterwards, we've got, but this is reality.

There isn't any alternative.

Really? And so we haven't got anaphora, where you repeat the opening lines, but there is a sense that there is a pattern.

You make a comment that is then undercut with the rhetorical question of seriously and really.

So patterning, things that add to the tone and impact of your piece.

So a few things for you, there, to consider.

I'll just go back and give you a little bit control of that to see if you want to jot down any more annotation before we come to the next part of our session today.

So to finish with, it is now your choice.

We've looked at two different types of opening.

And what I would now like you to do is to critique what you've written so far.

So you're going back over it, you're thinking about some of the learning that we've done with the drop paragraph and going back to the original draught that you wrote and amending, adapting, rewriting accordingly.

You have a reminder of your overall structure.

So you might want to think about adjusting ideas so that you are thinking about the relationship between the beginning and the ending, and thinking about how you're going to build into your second paragraph.

However, now is the time where we're going to write our refined final draught introduction, taking on board all of the learning that we've done so far and placing it within its sequence.

So a reminder there of the overall structure.

Go back to your plan, and also a reminder of the criteria should you need it.

So control is over with you.

Pause, really take your time.

Green pen out, pencil, underline words, take bits from your original and really think about the tone, the relationship, and try something new, maybe some of the different sentence types within your final refined paragraph.

I will see you very shortly.

So we have now a clear plan and we have drafted and refined our introduction.

In the next session, we'll be looking at the main body of our response.

So what you need to remember to do is to bring to the session all of your materials so far, so that we can continue to build our viewpoints assets.

All that remains for me to say today is enjoy the rest of your learning.