Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

I'm so glad you've decided to learn with me.

Today, we're in our "World at War Short Stories" unit.

Today we are going to write a letter.

We are going to imagine that we are a soldier in the trenches of World War I and we are writing a letter back to a loved one.

We're gonna think what makes a letter a letter, what are all the features that mean that it is distinct, a particular form of writing? How can we show that we are writing a letter? And we're also going to look at this careful balance of precise details and atmospheric details in order to make sure that our recount of this particular event in the trenches really captures some of the ideas, some of the things that we know about trench warfare.

I can't wait to hear all of your really creative and thoughtful ideas.

I'm gonna be your support and guide as we work through today's lesson together.

Let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you will have drafted a recount letter applying Owen's key techniques, and we're going to look at his careful balance between these precise facts about the event that he experienced and how he balances that with atmospheric details.

And your understanding of that is going to be shown through the fact that you will be able to apply that to your own letter writing.

We're gonna go through each section, section one, section two, section three of your letter one at a time.

And we're gonna make sure that we have a really powerful first draught of this recount letter.

There are some keywords which are gonna help us draught our recount letter today.

And they're gonna be referenced throughout.

And they are recount, which is to describe something that happened to tell its story.

And you are gonna describe a particular event that has happened to you on the front line of the trenches.

So you're going to adopt a persona of a soldier on the trenches and then you're gonna recount a particular experience.

Balance.

This is an equal distribution of two or more things.

And as I said, we are going to look at Owen's balance between atmospheric details and precise facts about his experience.

Why is that so powerful in his letter and how can you apply it in your own letter? Metaphor.

This is a literary technique in which you compare one thing to another.

Now, Owen compares mud to an octopus in his letter.

It's not his only metaphor, but it's one of the most powerful ones, certainly one of the most powerful ones that stuck out to me.

And we're gonna see, well, can we mimic this powerful metaphor? What metaphor can I come up with that I can include in my own recount letter.

Atmospheric.

This is creating a distinctive mood.

And again, this is something you're gonna try and achieve in your letter.

Can you create the atmosphere of the trenches? And resentment.

This is a complex emotion in which you feel anger, disappointment and bitters.

And we know in the final section of your letter you need to convey a particular attitude to what happened to you.

It might be resentment, it might be something completely different.

But one of the models we're going to look at today at this particular pupil has chosen to feel the emotion of resentment.

And so having good understanding of that complex emotion is gonna be helpful throughout this lesson.

So these are our keywords that are gonna be referenced around and help us achieve our objective.

Our lesson outline for today.

We've got three parts to this lesson.

We're gonna draught section one of our letter, then we're gonna draught section two and section three.

So we're gonna go through it one step at a time so that you have a really, really powerful letter that you can be really proud of at the end of this lesson.

So let's start off with drafting section one.

So today you're going to write a recount letter.

You'll imagine you are a soldier in the trenches World War I, and you are writing to a loved one about a particular experience you have had.

You'll use Wilfred Owen's letter to his mother in 1917 to support your piece.

Now Owen's letter follows this structure.

The first section is an introduction which establishes his relationship with his mother and overall tone and mood.

The second section is a recount of a particularly horrifying event Owen experienced.

And the third section is Owen's feelings and attitude towards the event.

Here is section one.

It's dated 16th of January, 1917, 2nd Manchester Regiment, B.

E.

F.

"My own sweet Mother, I'm sorry you have had about five days letterless.

I hope you had my two letters posted since you wrote your last, which I received tonight.

I'm bitterly disappointed that I never got one of yours.

I can see no excuse for deceiving you about these last four days.

I've suffered seventh hell.

' Now I'd like you to discuss what key features of a letter can you spot in this section.

So a letter is a text type, like novel, like poem, like a leaflet, like an article.

So all these different text type have particular key features so that we know what text type they are.

And I want you to tell me what key features of a letter can you spot in this section.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Fantastic.

I had some really, really careful precise feature spotting there of this letter.

Really important so that you create a letter that looks like a letter.

So it's not just a random sequence of paragraphs as powerful as they may be, but it actually looks like a letter.

So absolutely the key features we've got are the date at the beginning, the address, a bit of a funny address because it's from the trenches so it doesn't look like a normal address that you might have with a postcode.

But instead it's just saying his regiment.

We've got that greeting, "my own sweet Mother," comma.

Then we've got the establishing of the relationship, so forming a connection because he's speaking in writing to a particular person.

And then we've got his overall tone and mood established in those last two sentences there.

So check for understanding.

We're gonna have two checks before we write our own opening section of our letter 'cause it's really important that we get the key features.

So it looks like a letter.

So what features of section one of Wilfred Owen's letter are missing? We've got address there, establishing relationship and overall tone and mood.

What features are missing? Pause the video and complete this check now.

Well done if you correctly identified that the date is missing and the greeting is missing.

So these are key features of a letter which you must include in your own section one.

The second check for understanding is a bit of grammar.

So a pupil writes a greeting in their letter.

Which pupil has written their greeting accurately.

We've got A, B, C, D.

They almost all look exactly the same, but there are some key differences.

Can you spot which greeting is accurately punctuated? Pause the video and complete this check now.

Well done if you selected D, "My dearest brother," comma.

So let's just go through just to remind ourselves of some basic tenets of punctuation.

"My dearest brother" A is incorrect.

There is no comma.

That is what we need after a greeting.

We need a comma.

B is incorrect because "my dearest brother," "my" should have a capital as it's the beginning of the sentence.

C is incorrect, "My Dearest.

." Dearest does not need capital letter.

It's not a proper noun.

So that means that D is correct, "My dearest brother," comma with a capital letter in the right place.

So I would like you to write section one of your recount letter.

There's a reminder of the persona that you're adopting at the top.

Imagine you're a soldier in the trenches of World War I and you are writing to a loved one about a particular experience that you have had.

Remember to include each of these key features, the date, address, greeting, establishing relationship, and overall tone.

So get your pen, your laptop, whatever it is that you are writing on and apply yourself to writing this opening section of the letter playing close attention to those key features.

Pause a video and I'll see you back here shortly.

Welcome back.

It is lovely to see the opening sections of letter all around me and to see those key features really leaping out at me.

I can see we've got off to a great start.

Let's do a bit of self-assessment before we move on to drafting section two of our letter.

The biggest section where we will count a particular event.

Our feedback that you're going to do your self-assessment is I'd like you to identify each key feature of section one of your letter just as we did for Owen's letter.

So where's your date, where's your address, where's your greeting? Check that punctuation, where have you established the relationship and where have you got your overall tone and mood? Pause the video and identify each key feature of section one of your letter.

Pause the video now.

Welcome back.

Fantastic.

Nice to see people making a few corrections here and there to punctuation, particularly in that greeting.

Few people had forgot to put the date in or had put in today's date.

And remember that we are adopting the persona of a soldier in the trenches of World War I.

So we need a date between 1914 and 1918.

Okay, we're gonna move on to section two of our letter.

So drafting section two, this is the biggest section of your letter and I'm really looking forward to hearing all of these different recounts.

So in section two of his letter, Owen recounts a particularly horrifying event that he experienced.

In this section there's a careful balance between two things.

So in Owen's section of the letter, there's careful balances, equal distribution between precise facts.

For example, "We had a march of three miles," "I left 18 bombers," "My dugout held 25 men," "Water filled to a depth of one or two feet of the dugout." So really precise facts there.

grounded in statistics.

But there's also lots of atmospheric details.

"So the mud was an octopus of sucking clay," which is a metaphor.

We've got "Three quarters dead, I mean each of us, three quarters dead." We've got "crawl, wade, climb and flounder over No Man's Land." Now I'd like you to discuss why do you think there is this balance between precise facts and atmospheric details in Owen's recount? Consider its effect.

What's the effect of having both the precise facts and the atmospheric details? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back after a really interesting discussion about why Owen might employ precise facts and atmospheric details.

And I completely agree that this moment, Owen is trying, his goal is to try and convey to his mother exactly what happened to him.

So he does need some of those precise facts in there so that she has a real grounding in what has happened to him.

But it is not enough just to give facts.

In order to really convey the horror of this particular event, he needs to include some of those atmospheric details so that his mother, who will never have experienced trench warfare, gets some idea of the brutality and the reality of trench warfare.

So there needs to be this careful balance so that the recount is an honest recount.

It really did happen.

Remember we're looking at a piece of nonfiction here with Wilfred Owen, but also we're getting this kind of vivid picture of what it might actually have been like.

So I'd like you to discuss now you are going to have this exact same balance of precise facts and atmospheric details so you know who you are, the persona you've adopted in this letter.

What precise details are you going to include in your account and what atmospheric details will you include in your account so that like Owen, you are really able to convey what happened to you in all its brutal reality? Pause the video and discuss these two questions now.

Welcome back.

It was really, really nice to listen into that discussion and see how people are going to build their story and tell me what happened in those trenches, the particular event that they have decided they're going to recount.

And lots of people including like Owen, lots of statistics.

So thinking about how far they had to move, how many people were involved in the particular event, and then some really lovely atmospheric details coming through.

So some people getting some powerful metaphors in there.

Some other language devices.

I had some really nice use of alliteration, some fantastic descriptions of the mud in order to try and convey what their experience in the trenches was like.

So check for understanding before we move on to drafting our own section two.

So let's look at two model answers from two pupils.

They have drafted a section of their recount.

Which pupil do you think has the best balance between precise facts and atmospheric details.

So you're gonna read both model answers and then you're gonna select which one you think has the best balance between precise facts and atmospheric details.

Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done for reading through both those examples, both those models, there really carefully and then evaluating and thinking well, which one does have the best balance? And well done if you selected the first example.

Let's have a look through this first example.

"It was pitch black and close to midnight.

The stars hid themselves.

I couldn't see my own hand and lived by my other senses.

For a mile, I cursed through sludge.

Arriving at my destination was no better.

The dugout was two feet in water and men stood there, shivering children in a tepid bath." So we've got some lovely facts in there.

The dugout is two feet in water.

The idea that it was close to midnight and the man had to, the soldier had to walk through this mud in the pitch black.

But we've also got some lovely atmospheric details there.

The stars hid themselves, some metaphorical language and the idea that the men are standing there, again, a metaphor, shivering children in a tepid bath.

If we compare this to a model that is almost exactly the same, conveys the same detail, but is just precise fact.

So it's pitch black and close to midnight, there were no stars.

That is a fact rather than the stars hid themselves, which personifies them, uses that metaphorical language.

"The mud was hard to walk through.

I hate the mud." "I arrived at my destination about 1:00 AM, took an hour to walk a mile.

The dugout was two feet in water and there were many, many very cold men standing in it." So we have exactly the same details, but it's conveyed in all factual manner.

We can't have just precise facts.

We need some atmospheric details as well in order to echo this vivid picture of what happened in this trench in this particular trench.

So we are now gonna apply these skills, the balance of precise facts and atmospheric details to your own recount letter.

You're gonna write section two of your recount letter.

You've already got section one in front of you.

And here you're going to recount a particular event you experienced.

And like Owen, I would like you to employ a balance between precise facts and atmospheric details.

Now this is gonna be the longest section of your letter.

Give this activity, this writing task, the time that it deserves.

There's no rush here.

You're looking for craft and this careful balance between precise facts and atmospheric details.

So pause the video, get your pen, your laptop, whatever it is you are writing on.

I will see you back here and we can celebrate some of your recount writing.

Pause the video and complete the task now.

Welcome back.

So lovely to see you apply yourself to writing the second section of your letter, the biggest section of your letter where you're trying to convey, recount a particular experience that happened to you.

Some self assessment.

I would like you to consider the model we looked at earlier, which employed a balance between precise facts.

So pitch black, close to midnight, couldn't see my hand for a mile, walking and the dugout was two feet in water.

So some really clear facts there.

But then those atmospheric details, the stars hid themselves, and cursed through sludge, the men stood their, shivering children in a tepid bath.

So I would like you to self-assess your own section two, which will be longer than the model, than is on the board.

And I want to ensure you meet the checklist.

Where are your precise facts? Where are your atmospheric details? Pause the video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back.

Just as it's such a pleasure to see pupils engage in extended writing.

Also really enjoy watching pupils edit their work.

It's such an important part of the writing process, not only when you are doing imaginative creative work like we are now, but actually in any of your writing, email, text, always good to look and see, have I actually written how I expressed myself in the way that I wish to express myself.

And I can see lots of people annotating those precise facts.

They have balanced with those atmospheric details and you should be able to see from your annotations.

Oh yeah, I do have a good balance between these two things because half my annotations roughly say precise facts and half of them say roughly atmospheric details.

Alright, let's move on to drafting section three of our letter, our final section.

In section three of his letter, Owen reflects on what happened to him.

He reassures his mother that he's now safe.

He expresses feelings about what happened and he signs off his letter, "Your very own Wilfred x." And I'd like you to discuss what feelings do you want to express in section three and how will you sign off your letter.

So when you started your letter, you wrote a greeting.

We did that in learning cycle one.

And that expressed something, revealed something about the relationship you have with this particular person, the person you've decided to write to.

And you can do that again.

You can reinforce, develop, deepen that relationship by revealing something in the way you sign off your letter.

So Wilfred Owen referred to his mother as his sweet mother, and we can see him kind of reinforcing, developing the relationship, the strong relationship that they had where he writes at "Your very own Wilfred x." So I'd like you to discuss now what feelings do you want to express in section three and how you will sign off your letter.

Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how these letters and some of these powerful emotions that you want to express, the feelings that you have at the end, after you have relayed what you experienced in the trench.

Some people using that word, a keyword we had at the beginning of the lesson, resentment that you resent you want to express resentment for the fact that you have to fight and fight in this horrific, brutal way.

And others saying no, like Owen, I want to express anger.

I want to be angry about my experience and others saying, no, I'm going to be much more despairing and I'm going to feel slightly hopeless after this particularly traumatic event.

So a range of feelings that you want to express at the end of your letter.

So check for understanding before we move on to finishing our own letters.

So personal letters should end with your sincerely or yours faithfully.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected false.

Now I'd like you to justify your answer.

Is it A, you are sincerely and yours faithfully are outdated terms that no one uses anymore, or B, you are sincerely and yours faithfully can be used for more formal letters? Pause the video and select your justification now.

Well done if you selected B.

So yours sincerely and yours faithfully, they're not outdated, you can still use 'em, but they're for more formal letters.

You would use something more like Wilfred Owen, something more loving, something that shows your more connection.

You are connected to the person you're writing to if it is a personal letter.

So our final practise task.

So you're gonna write section three of your recount letter.

You're gonna focus on conveying your thoughts, reflections, and attitudes towards what happened to you.

And of course, include that sign off.

Pause the video, return to your letter.

You're gonna just complete that final section now and I'll see you back here shortly.

Pause the video now.

Welcome back.

I'm now looking at some fantastic completed letters with a really powerful section one, section two, and section three.

Let's complete some self-assessment before we celebrate these letters in their totality.

So here is part of Sam's section three.

This is what she wrote.

"I resent the propaganda that brought me here.

I resent the patriotism I felt before crossing the channel.

I resent the way in which my naivety about battle was preyed upon and exploited." So a really powerful moment at the end of Sam's letter.

Now, Sam says, "I expressed the feeling of anger and I did this through repetition and word choice." So we can see that repetition there.

I resent, I resent, I resent.

And then we've got the idea that Sam has adopted the persona of someone who feels that their naivety was exploited and that is the reason that they are on the front line now.

Now I'd like you to discuss what is the most powerful feeling you expressed in section three and how did you express this feeling? Pause the video and discuss these two questions now.

Welcome back.

Such a pleasure to hear some of those really powerful emotions coming through at the end of section three.

It was nice to hear that lots of people like Sam used repetition really powerfully for effect in order to convey their resentment or their despair or their hopelessness that they wanted to convey at the end of their letter.

And others saying, actually in my particular persona that I adopted, I wanted to adopt a more hopeful approach because I wanted to reassure the person that I was writing to that I was okay.

So still powerful emotions, but some people choosing more positive emotions at the end of that letter.

Of course, no right or wrong answers here.

This is a creative imaginative recount and you can convey what you think is most convincing for your particular persona.

In summary, date, address and greeting are important features of letters.

You've got those in your section one.

A recount could balance precise facts with atmospheric details.

And the letter concludes with a sign off which could signal your relationship with the person the letter is to.

It has been such a pleasure to see you create and then celebrate these fantastic letters and I look forward to seeing you next time.