Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

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

We are in our World at War: Short Stories Unit.

Today we are going to focus on planning a letter.

We're gonna pretend that we are a soldier in the trenches of World War I.

And you are going to send a letter back to a loved one, explaining a particular experience that you've had there.

We're going to look at a letter from Wilfred Owen who's most famous for his poetry about World War I, but we have an example of his letter, a letter that he sent to his mother in 1917.

And we're going to look at the structure of that letter and think, well, how can this inform our own planning? I can't wait to hear all of your fantastic creative 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 planned an imaginative recount using precise details and a thoughtful structure.

So you are gonna pretend that you are a soldier in the trenches of World War I, and you're gonna write home to a loved one.

Now, you're gonna use precise details, so some contextual knowledge, things that you know about the trenches of World War I.

But you're also gonna use a thoughtful structure, and we're gonna rely on Wilfred Owen's letter, his letter to his mother that he sent in 1917, as the basis of that structure.

There are some keywords which are going to help us today in our lesson, achieve our objective, and they're gonna be referenced throughout.

We've got recount, court-martialed, execrate, structure, and tone.

So let's have a look at their definitions.

A recount.

This means to describe something that happened, to tell its story.

Now, in Wilfred Owen's letter to his mother, he recounts a particular event in the trenches, and you are gonna do that yourself in your imaginative recount in your letter.

Court-martialed.

This is to be tried for a crime in which you were deemed to have broken military law.

So there are particular laws in the military, and if you are court-martialed, it's because you've broken a particular military law.

Now, Wilford Owen references a soldier, a man who is court-martialed at the end of his letter, he believes wrongly.

So you will see that word in Wilfred Owen's letter when we reread it in our first learning cycle.

Execrate.

Now, this means to curse, hate, detest.

It's quite an archaic word, an old word, not one that I use very often and I indeed had to look it up as well, so I'm glad to now share its definition with you.

And Wilford Owen, he uses this letter.

He says that he's very angry.

He hates the person who has court-martialed, who's deemed that this soldier who has apparently broken military law is going to be court-martialed.

Structure.

This is how something is put together; the most basic structure in a text is its beginning, middle and end.

And so we'll look at the structure today of Wilfred Owen's letter.

Of course it has a beginning and middle and end, but we're gonna delve a little bit deeper than that.

And then tone, a writer's attitude or emotional stance that encompasses the mood, feeling, and overall atmosphere.

So we're gonna think, well, what tone is Wilfred Owen expressing in his letter? What tone do I want to express in my letter? So these are our keywords for today's lesson, and they're gonna be referenced throughout.

So our lesson outline for today, we're gonna start off by looking at the structure of Owen's letter to his mother.

This is gonna inform our own structure.

And then in the second learning cycle, we will focus our attentions on planning your own recount letter.

So let's start off with the structure of Owen's Letter to his mother.

Now, during World War I, letters were an important form of written communication.

By 1917, roughly 12 million letters and newspapers were being sent to the front each week, mostly to France.

A huge, huge quantity of letters and newspapers being sent over to France, which is where a lot of fighting was taking place.

I'd like you to discuss why do you think so many letters were sent back and forth? Pause the video, consider what you know about World War I, and discuss this question.

Pause the video and discuss now.

Welcome back.

Some really nice hypotheses there about why there were so many letters sent back and forth.

This word that kept coming up in the discussions that I was listening to was connection.

That people were very, very far away from each other in very trying circumstances, whether in the trenches, on the front line, or on the home front and so this idea of connection will bring joy, would bring comfort, would bring some reassurance that the people that you loved were still alive, were still there for you.

But some other people are saying, well, a diary, sorry, not a diary, a letter is a way of expressing your innermost thoughts and feelings, because you're writing often to someone that you love, that you feel you can share sort of your closest, your most intimate feelings with.

And so perhaps these letters were sent in order to somehow make sense of what was going on on the home front and also on the front line.

And certainly in Wilfred Owen's letter, you can see that he goes into a lot of very precise detail about what happened to him in this particular event in the trenches.

And actually maybe that's part of him trying to make sense of what happened and to not forget this experience that he had.

So some really nice ideas about why this vast quantity of letters were sent between the frontline and the home front.

Now, we're going to look at one of these letters today sent from a soldier called Wilfred Owen to his mother in January, 1917.

And Wilfred Owen, he was born in 1893.

He died in 1918 at the end of the war.

And he was a British poet and soldier.

Owen's poetry is known for its graphic betrayal of trench warfare.

Some of you might have read some of his poems. Now, for example, if we look at one of his poems, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," this is how it begins.

"What passing-bells that these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns." So this is the opening of one of his poems, and it really conveys some of the brutality of trench warfare.

He believes that people, that the soldiers are dying like cattle, like animals, and he describes the gunfire as monstrous anger.

So kind of scary opening to this poem here.

Now I'd like you to discuss, we're going to look at a letter that Owen wrote, and what differences might there be between Owen's poetry and a letter that he wrote to his mother.

I'd like you to consider the structure, the audience, and the tone.

Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back.

Some lovely discussions there showing off your brilliant knowledge of the format of a letter and its differences to the idea of a poem.

So a poem, often written in verse, often written in stanzas.

If you look at a poem on the page, you can often tell that this text is a poem, because the lines don't go all across the page.

Not for all poems of course, but usually the lines are a bit shorter.

There's usually some division if the poem is written in more than one stanza.

We use that word stanza rather than paragraphs.

That's the kind of word that we use for a letter.

Poems often have a title.

And there's some kind of rhythm or pattern, it might be regular or irregular, that we might see in the work of a poem.

And lots of people mentioned as well, well, the audience of a poem is often universal.

So the idea that lots of people might read a poem in contrast to a letter where just usually letters are directed to one person or certainly a smaller audience.

So there is some difference there.

And the idea that Owen, we do know, wrote some very graphic, some very clear, some very honest portrayals of trench warfare, but that he might be able to reveal something more of himself in his letter than he does for these poems, which he knew would be read by a wider audience.

So these are just some of the differences between letter and poem.

Obviously there will be some similarities as well.

Potentially Owen's turn of phrase, his mastery of language might come across in his letter in the same way that it does in his poem.

Now, Owen's letter follows this structure: It starts off with an introduction which is establishes his relationship with his mother and the overall tone and mood of his letter.

Then we have a recount of a particularly horrifying event that Owen experienced.

And then finally we have Owen's feelings and attitudes towards the event.

Here is section one of the letter: 16th of January, 1917, (2nd Manchester Regiment, B.

E.

F.

) My own sweet Mother, I'm sorry you have had about 5 days letterless.

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

I am 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.

I'd like you to discuss just looking at section one, what can you infer about his relationship with his mother and how he is feeling? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back.

Some really nice inferences from this short section of Wilfred Owen's letter.

And absolutely, his relationship with his mother seems very, very close.

Not only because of this term of endearment, he calls, my own sweet mother, but also because of his bitter disappointment, his frustration, his sadness that he did not get a letter from her.

So perhaps suggesting that he feels really comforted and joyful when he receives a letter from her.

And his feeling seems to be overall quite depressed, quite low.

He's disappointed that he hasn't got his letter from his mother, but he also has suffered.

He uses a short sentence, "I've suffered seventh hell." So we immediately get an insight into his mood.

He's had this terrible, terrible experience.

Now, Andeep considers the first section, making bullet points about the most important details.

So the focus to begin with is that introduction which establishes his relationship with his mother and the overall tone/mood.

And the details that Andeep has selected is the date and location, so that's at the big very beginning of his letter.

We can see it's January, 1917, and he's with a Manchester Regiment.

He addresses his mother, he uses that adjective "sweet." And he sets the mood and tone with that phrase, "bitterly disappointed" not to have got her letter and been in "seventh hell." So he's just made a few notes about the details that Owen has included in that first section of the letter.

And we're gonna keep this in mind because we're gonna do this later in the lesson for the rest of Owen's letter.

Now, a check for understanding so that we really understand what that opening section, what it might tell us about form of the letter and its importance in World War I to those who were in the trenches.

So Owen says, "I'm sorry that you've had about five days letterless.

I hope you had my two letters 'posted' since you wrote your last, which I received tonight." What could we infer about letters during World War I? So A, soldiers and those at home wrote to each other from time to time.

B, those at home loved receiving letters, but it was impossible for them to send them to the chaos of the trenches.

Or C, receiving a letter was a highlight in the misery of the trenches.

Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected C, receiving a letter was a highlight in the misery of the trenches.

Now, A is not correct, it's not that soldiers and those at home wrote to each other from time to time.

It seemed for a lot of people much, much more constant than that.

And B, those at home love receiving letters, but it was impossible for them to send them to the chaos of the trenches.

It's not true.

It's very possible, very easy to send letters to the trenches.

There was a whole system set up by the post office in order to do this because they realised how important letters would be for soldier's morale.

All right, our practise task, I'd like you to read Wilfred Owens letter to his mother.

You can find this on the worksheet.

And the letter has been divided into three sections on this worksheet.

Section One: an introduction which establishes his relationship with his mother and overall tone and mood.

Section Two: a recount of a particular event Owen experienced.

Section three: Owen's feelings and attitudes towards the event.

Now after you've read the letter in those three sections, for sections two and three, I'd like you to create bullet points about the most important details, just like Andeep did for section one.

So what are most important details about section two, where the event occurs, and what are the most important details about section three where we see Owen's attitude.

So pause the video, gather the letter, and then complete these two tasks.

I will see you back here shortly.

Pause the video and complete the tasks now.

Welcome back, lovely to see people reading through that letter so carefully and then selecting those fine details which really explain the focus of the section of the letter.

So for the event, what are the details of that event for Owen's experience, and then what details can we get for Owen's attitude? So here is part of Andeep's table for section two.

So he did section one, and now like you, he's done section two, the event.

And he's just got two ideas so far.

The detail is he knows that Owen marches "three miles" to a trench where the mud is "an octopus of sucking clay." He knows that it's pitch black, but there are "high explosive dropping all around." So he's got two details there.

I'd like you to discuss what additional supporting details could Andeep have.

So you will have a look at your own table and think, well, what could you share with Andeep so that he can develop his ideas.

Pause a video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, well done for helping Andeep out so carefully and adding some of these additional details.

Some of the ideas that I heard were that 25 men were "tight packed" in a trench.

So the number of men that the soldiers that Owen was with, that is an important detail of the event.

He's in a trench for "fifty hours," and he describes this as "agony." I would suggest that the time that he's in that trench, that is a very important detail of this event.

And at the end, this really, really sad moment that he's sharing with his mother, it must have been incredibly difficult for her to read this.

But Owen says that he nearly let himself drown.

The water was "slowly rising," and that there wasn't much he felt that he wanted to do in order to stop that because the experience was so agonising, because it was so horrifying.

So these are some additional details that you've been able to share with Andeep so that you can develop his ideas about the event.

Now, let's have a look at his table for section three.

He's got just one idea here.

So he knows Owen's attitude seems to be quite angry, because he's angry at being sent to that "awful post." But I'd like you to discuss what additional supporting details could Andeep add.

So again, look at your own table and think, what can I share with Andeep to help him develop that table? Pause a video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Again, Thank you so much for sharing some really interesting ideas with Andeep so that he has a really developed table.

Some ideas that I heard is he's angry again at the soldier being "court-martialed." So one of the soldiers who was in this awful event, in this awful post, he left three of his guns behind and for that he has been deemed to broken military law and he's going to be court-martialed.

So he will be tried for this crime and the punishment could be incredibly severe.

Some people who were court-martialed at were killed.

And this quote here, this word, this keyword that we had at the beginning, "the soldiery," and Owen is part of the soldiery, he's a soldier.

Execrate, they curse at the Prime Minister who Owen calls in this letter, "that countryman." He's angry at what is happening to him.

And my inference is that it's not just in the trenches, but it's also this idea of the court-martial, the rules that the soldiers live by.

The very strict rules that they live by, which don't seem to take into account some of the terrible and horrifying conditions that they have to face.

So we've got this shorter section here, really the end of Owen's letter and potentially the most powerful feeling that is coming across is Owen's anger.

Well done for looking through that letter so carefully and gathering all of those details.

You've got a great idea of Owen's structure and the detail that he's included in his letter.

We're gonna use that in learning cycle two to help with your own imaginative recount.

So let's move on to learning cycle two where you're going to do some planning of your own recount letter.

So you're going to imagine you're a soldier on the frontline of the trenches.

Like Owen, you will send a letter back to a loved one, and today we're just gonna complete the planning stage.

So you're going to use Owen's structure as the basis for your planning.

So you'll have an introduction which establishes a relationship and overall tone.

You're gonna recount a particularly horrifying event.

And then at the end of your letter, you'll have feelings and attitudes towards the event.

So we're really gonna rely heavily on our own structure.

Now, I'd like you to use these questions to discuss your initial ideas about the details you'd like to include.

So the questions are: Who are you writing to and from where? What's your relationship like with this person? What event will you recount? What do you want to have happened? And how do you feel about what happened and why? So no right or wrong answers here.

This is you being able to use your imagination, your creativity, grounded in those contextual ideas about what you know about the trenches of World War I.

So give this discussion the time it deserves so you can create a really convincing persona, a really convincing character, and then you'll be able to develop the plan of your letter.

So pause the video and discuss these questions now.

Welcome back.

Some really beautiful ideas about the different personas that you could adopt.

I had one person say, I'm gonna be a general, I'm actually gonna be quite far away from the front lines and I'm gonna be agonising about a decision that I want to make about a group of soldiers going forth, going over the top.

So I think that's a really nice thing to be able to put yourself into that person's shoes and think, well, what would that be like to have that control? Another person saying I want to be on day two or three of being on the front line having signed up because I was very excited about the propaganda.

There was lots of propaganda in England about what it meant to sign up to the war.

And I'm going to be really disillusioned.

So the idea that the first couple of days in the trenches really undermine all of that propaganda.

So some really, really interesting ideas and a range of ideas of who you could be.

And then lots of people are saying, I do wanna express anger at the end of my letter.

Some people were finding that a little bit more and saying, I actually want to express despair.

That moment in the letter where Owen says that he thought about, contemplated choosing to take his own life is incredibly powerful, and that kind of despair, I can imagine feeling that in the trenches, and I'm going to explore that in my letter.

And then a range of different accounts, the ideas of things that people wanted to happen.

So some very dramatic, the idea of going over the top being an important one for lots of people wanting to explore what that might be like in their imaginative recount.

But others saying actually I just want a small moment where I have a cup of tea with another soldier and we have a chat about the sort of agonising experiences that we are having.

So it doesn't need to be a moment of high drama, of course it can be, but it doesn't need to be in order for you to fully develop and explain what's happened to you in the trenches.

Now, a check for understanding before we move into our planning so we know exactly what sections we're planning and what those details should look like.

So the first check for understanding is, which section of the letter is missing? We know the first bit should be an introduction which establishes your relationship with the person you're writing to.

The second needs to be a recount of the event you experience.

What is the third section of this letter? Pause the video and complete this check now.

Well done If you said I need to include my attitude towards what happened in section three of the letter.

Our second check.

So here are some example details from a letter that a pupil wrote.

And I'd like you to match each detail to its section.

So which bit is the introduction? Which establishes the relationship with the person? Which bit is the recount of the event experience? And which bit is the attitude towards what happened? Pause the video and match each detail to its section now.

Well done if you match the introduction to My best and wisest sister.

You can see that punctuation are very important, capital letter for My, and then we've got the comma after the end of the greeting.

A recount of the event experienced, here a student has used a really simple sentence, really powerful sentence, we began our journey at dawn.

And then finally the attitude to what's happened.

I condemn those who sent us here, to die like cattle.

And I really like how this pupil has included or sort of taken inspiration from a poem of Wilfred Owens in order to help them with their letter, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," Owen is angry at the idea that the soldiers die like cattle.

So three examples here, example details from each section of the letter.

So our final practise task for today's lesson, I would like you to create bullet points showing the details you include in each section of your letter.

And you're gonna use an example from Owen's letter as a model.

So the first section, remember, is going to focus on the relationship and overall tone and mood.

The second section is going to recount the event that you experience.

And your third section section's gonna recount your attitude towards the event.

So just some supporting details.

What will you include in those paragraphs? We're not writing the full letter.

We are just planning those details today.

Pause the video, give this activity the time it deserves, so you've got a really, really solid plan for your letter.

I look forward to hearing all the details that you might include in each section, and I will see you back here shortly.

Pause the video and complete the task now.

Welcome back, well done for giving that task the energy and the concentration that it deserves.

I can see some really beautiful plans in front of me where your imagination has really come to the fore, but you grounded those imaginative details in your contextual knowledge of the trenches, and you've got a very firm structure using Owen's structure of his letter to help you.

So before we celebrate your work, I'd like you to do some self-assessment.

Now, a reminder, here are some of the details of the first section of Owen's letter.

He looked at a relationship where he established his relationship and set the overall tone and mood.

Now we had contextual details.

He's telling us the date and location of his letter.

We've got a clear relationship, because he addresses his mother.

And we've got an overall tone because he says he's "bitterly disappointed" not to have got her letter and he's been in "seventh hell." So I'd like you just to self-assess your own section one, ensuring you meet the checklist.

Have you got that date and that location? Have you really thought about the relationship you have with the person you are writing the letter to? And have you established your overall tone? Pause the video and self-assess using the checklist to guide you.

Pause the video now.

Well done for completing that self-assessment so carefully.

So a lot of people adding in dates, location, they're quite easy to forget.

And then some people just making sure, have I actually established how I feel about this person that I am writing to? Okay, let's have a look at section two.

So here are some of the details of the second section of Owen's letter, the event.

We've got his march, his three mile march, it's pitch black.

How many men were there? He's in the trench.

How long he's there? And nearly letting himself drown.

The water is slowly rising.

So we've got a clear beginning, middle, and end.

The march is in the beginning.

The waiting is in the middle.

And then the idea of him despairing at the very end.

We've got language clearly chosen for effect.

So we've got that metaphor there.

He describes the mud as "an octopus of sucking clay," the men "tight packed," and this very powerful word "agony" there.

Now I'd like you to self-assess your own section two, ensuring you meet the checklist.

There are just two things here.

Clear, beginning, middle, and end.

Have you got your account, the event that's actually happened? And if you've got language clearly chosen for effect.

Pause the video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back.

Well, I'm clearly checking that, 'cause this is the biggest part of your letter.

So it's really, really important that you've got all the details that you want there.

So some people saying, "Well, I just wanna actually carefully delineate the beginning, the middle, and the end.

Make sure that I have a kind of a whole recount to put into this letter.

I haven't actually put the end in yet.

Let me think about the detail I'd like to include now." And then some people just refining some of those language devices that they want to include in their letter to really make it evocative and atmospheric.

And the final section, here's some details from the third section of Owen's letter.

So this is why he expresses his attitude.

And we've got a really clear attitude, the idea that Owen expresses anger.

And we've got that language that expresses his attitude.

"The Soldiery execrate," curse the Prime Minister "that countryman." Now I'd like you to self-assess your own section three, ensuring you meet this checklist.

What tone do you want to express? What are some of the words or ways in which you will express at that tone? Pause the video and complete this self-assessment now.

Welcome back.

You are now looking at a fantastically planned letter with a section one, a section two, a section three, all of which have been carefully self-assessed, making sure they meet a success criteria.

So you've got really stable foundation in which to write an incredibly powerful letter.

In summary, letters were a vital form of communication during World War I.

Receiving and sending letters brought small moments of joy to those on the front or those at home.

Owen's best remembered for his poetry about World War I, but he also sent many letters home.

Owen's letters are different in structure, audience, and tone from his poems, but still convey the horrors of war.

Arguably, Owen's letter is structured into three sections, scene setting, recounting an event, and conveying his attitude.

It has been such a pleasure to see you build your plan for your own imaginative recount today, and I look forward to seeing you next time.