Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

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

We're in the "World at War": Short Stories Unit.

Today, we are going to look at some pupil responses.

They have written letters pretending that they are on the home front, writing to a loved one in the trenches.

And we're gonna think, "Well, how could we improve these responses?" And we're gonna pay close attention to adjectives and verbs.

Now, I know what you're thinking, you might think that, "Those don't seem very complicated methods." But in fact, paying close attention to verbs, to adjectives, as we're gonna see from some of the brilliant writing that we look at today, can really, really develop your writing, make it powerful, and give it depth.

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

I can't wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas, let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you're going to be able to refine a letter by paying close attention to your choice of verbs and adjectives.

So it's always really fun to do a first draught of any piece of writing, but I actually love the editing process maybe even more.

I love having a little bit of a break from whatever it is I've been writing and then return to it, I feel that makes it much easier for me to see what is really good about it, but what could be improved as well.

And I'm looking forward to focusing on these two methods, verbs and adjectives, they give such power in writing, and sometimes we spend a lot of time thinking about what might be considered more complicated devices, like metaphor, simile, and anaphora.

But actually, playing a really close attention to verbs and adjectives can really lift our writing.

So we've got some keywords today, which are gonna help us achieve our objective that are gonna be referenced throughout today's lesson.

They are Vera Brittain, flare, Wilford Owen, tone, and PTSD.

So Vera Brittain, she was a British writer, 1893 to 1970, best known for her memoir, "Testament of Youth," about her experiences on the home front of World War One.

And we're gonna be looking at some examples from her memoir today, to inspire us in terms of our refining of a letter.

Flare is a light used to attract attention, and this is a word that's used in one of the Wilfred Owen poems that we're going to look at today, again, we're gonna use that as inspiration.

And Wilfred Owen was a British soldier and poet, 1893 to 1918 best remembered for his poetry about World War One, so he was born in the same year as Vera Brittain, they both experienced World War One, but Owen died in combat, Brittain survived the war, and then wrote this memoir in 1933.

Tone, this is the attitude and emotion in your voice, written, or verbal, and, of course, tone is impacted by adjective choice and verb choice, and PTSD, this is an acronym for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a Mental Health Condition, and Wilford Owen in one of his poems is about soldiers who are suffering from PTSD, an incredibly powerful poem, and we're going to be looking at that in today's lesson as well.

So these are keywords for today, we're going to reference from there throughout, and they're gonna help us achieve our objective.

Now our lesson outline for today, we're gonna start off by thinking about deliberate verbs, and then we're going to conclude today's lesson by looking at precise adjectives.

Let's start off by looking at deliberate verbs.

So pupils wrote a letter in response to this prompt.

Imagine you're a civilian on the British home front during World War One, and you're writing a letter to a loved one.

Today, you're gonna consider how to refine their responses.

Now, when writing creatively, it can be tempting to spend time crafting what would be considered more complex techniques.

However, often, we can develop the depth and power of our writing by carefully considering verb choice.

Verbs are doing words, they describe actions.

Knowing how an action is completed can give us an insight into feelings, atmosphere, and tone.

So we've got a definition here, but let's look at some examples to really refine our understanding.

So I'd like you to consider this line of poetry from a master of verb choice, Wilfred Owen.

He writes in one of his poems, "We," the soldiers, "cursed through sludge." This line describes soldiers in the trenches.

Now I'd like you to discuss why did Owen choose this verb "cursed," rather than simply writing, "we walked through sludge?" Pause a video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, a lovely discussion there, lots of people noting, well, cursed means to swear, so we get an impression and insight into their minds, these are unhappy soldiers, they are finding their life particularly difficult, particularly brutal, walked is a verb that we could do, we could walk down the street, it could convey ease, It doesn't convey anything about how they might actually be feeling, the soldiers might actually be feeling, and Owen wants to convey that, so cursed is a very well chosen, precise verb there.

Now I'd like you to consider another line of Owen's poetry, "Wading sloughs," which means, "swamps of flesh these helpless wander." Now this line describes the memories of soldiers with PTSD, so, "these helpless wander," "these helpless" are the soldiers with PTSD.

I'd like you to discuss what would the difference be if Owen had written, "marching sloughs swamps of flesh that these helpless walk?" So pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back, a bit harder there because we had two verbs and the line is a little bit more am ambiguous, a little bit more difficult than that first one, "we cursed through sludge," but some lovely discussions there, people noting that wading means to walk through water.

It conveys difficulty, and so we get the idea of the difficulty that these men are having in terms of thinking about their experiences, but it also gives an impression of no man's land.

We shouldn't really be wading through swamps of human flesh, and here, Owen is being very graphic in terms of conveying what it would be like in the trenches.

So that word is useful, that verb there is useful two effects.

And this word "wonder," if you wonder somewhere, you don't have any purpose, you don't have an aim, and so it perhaps gives an insight into the soldiers with PTSD, how they feel, they experience their lives now, they feel that the war has robbed them of their purpose because it has impacted their mental health so profoundly.

That is very different from just saying walk, we don't get an impression of the helplessness of some of these soldiers following their traumatic war experience.

Now I'd like you to consider another line of Owen's poetry, this is from a different poem, a poem called "Exposure." "Our brains, blank, in the merciless iced east winds that, blank, us." This is the first line of the poem "Exposure." Now this line describes soldiers facing terrible weather in a trench.

I'd like you to discuss what verbs would you select to fill in the blanks? So you're gonna pretend to embody the the persona of Owen here and think, "Well, what verbs should I be putting into these blanks?" Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, a really lovely discussion there, I know that we've got some poets in the room from some of those beautiful word choices.

Now, lots of people choosing verbs which convey pain in the first section of this line of poetry, so our brains hurt.

Some people saying, "Well actually, I think that word curse from earlier would work really well here as well, our brains curse." And then we've got "in the merciless iced east winds that," and again, we've got the idea that if the winds are merciless, then they are going to be hurting the soldiers in some way, so I heard that word punish, which was a really, really powerful one, one of the most powerful examples I heard, but let's have a look at what Owen chose himself.

He chose, "Our brains ache in the merciless icy east winds that knive us." Now I'd like you to discuss what do these verbs convey about the experience? Pause a video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, so lots of people saying, "Ah, I can see what Owen is doing here, 'our brains ache,' that idea of pain is definitely conveyed," but usually you say something like, "I have a headache," but brain is something internal, so it expresses more intense pain, the idea that the wind has penetrated their very skulls." "In the merciless iced winds that knive us." Now, knives are weapons and we know that these soldiers are at war, but it's not an enemy who's wielding the weapon, it is this time the weather.

So again, an incredibly well-chosen verb that really conveys the utter horror of the experience.

Now I'd like you to consider this extract from Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth," a memoir which presents her experience on World War I's home front.

So not a poem, it's a memoir, but we are still seeing some very powerful and pointed verb choice.

So she writes, "As I wandered with my basket of primroses, my thoughts swung dizzily between the conviction that Roland would return and the certainty that he could never possibly come back.

I had little patience to spare for my mother's middle-aged acquaintances, who patronised me.

I took their pennies with scant ceremony, and one by one thrust them with a noisy clutter into my tin.

'Those who are old and think this War so terrible do not know what it means to us who are young,' I soliloquised angrily." So this is a moment in her extract, in her memoir, sorry, where she is remembering, collecting money from the war effort, and we can see these verbs that she has chosen here to very powerful effect.

We're gonna refine our discussion in a little bit more detail, so why did Brittain select each verb, and what was she trying to convey? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, another really careful discussion about the writer's choice of verb.

I want to focus on some of the verbs that people said, "Well, these really convey her anger, 'patronised,' 'thrust,' and 'soliloquised.

'" So she is conveying, not only her anger here in terms of those verb choice, but also her loneliness, and soliloquize is when you speak your thoughts out loud to no one, so a very powerful verb choice there.

And some people saying, "Well, this word 'wondered', I remember that from Owen's poem about the soldiers suffering from PTSD?" And again, it gets suggests a sort of aimlessness that Brittain has, and she does throughout her memoir, express this idea that she feels quite powerless in the face of the war, what can she do? And so it was a very careful choosing there, a very nuanced understanding of what she's doing with this particular verb, well done.

So we check for understanding before we move on to an independent task, where we really show off our ability to use very powerful verbs.

We are looking at another extract from Vera Brittain's memoir "Testament of Youth," and in this extract, she quotes from her World War I diary, so, "Mourning' it [my diary] observes," so she's quoting from her diary, "creeps on into afternoon, and afternoon passes into evening, while I go from one occupation to another, in apparent unconcern, but all the time there's gnawing anxiety beneath it all." What are the verbs in this extract? Pause the video and select your responses now Well done if you selected A, B, and C.

These are all verbs, they are all actions.

Gnawing is not a verb, it is an adjective, it is describing the noun, anxiety.

So well done if you've got observes, creeps, and passes.

Now here is part of a letter in which a pupil imagines they are civilian on the British home front, writing a letter to a loved one.

They have written, "The weather is bitterly cold here, and I spend a lot of time thinking about you in the wretched trenches in France.

I know you have to walk miles in the mud.

Is the ground frozen solid now? Life is both normal and not normal for me.

I walk around the town, but this time walking to work instead of the shops.

When I arrive at the factory, I see all the other women walking to their places on the factory floor.

We lift shells and use heavy machinery, all the while thinking about our loved ones.

I often talk to myself as I work.

I do like some of the other women, but they talk to me as if I'm a girl of 12, not a grown woman." So a good first draught there, some nice ideas in terms of relaying ideas on the home front.

However, you could rewrite and improve this response by replacing the highlighted verbs, and that is what you are going to do now.

So you just need to replace the highlighted verbs.

What would make this a more powerful bit of writing? Now one note before we start, there are loads and loads and loads of powerful verbs that you could pick from, but you need to make sure that as a whole, both of these paragraphs make sense in terms of tone.

So you cannot choose verbs which express wildly different tones at different moments of this letter, they need to be consistent.

So whilst you will be very carefully selecting them, it would be a good idea to start off by thinking, Well, what tone do I want to express? Is it anger, is it despair, is it excitement, is it love? What do I want to express? And then all of my verbs need to make sure that they are maintaining that tone." Pause the video, spend some time having a little bit of a think before you launch into the task itself, I look forward to seeing the verbs that you've chosen to give this writing more power.

Pause the video and complete the task now.

Welcome back, lovely to see these redrafted letters in front of me, with some incredibly powerful verbs that really just lift this bit of writing.

Now we're gonna do some feedback.

Here is part of Izzy's rewrite.

She wrote, "I stride around the town, but this time journeying to work instead of the shops." And Izzy says, "I used these verbs to create a character as energy and drive.

Striding means taking large, purposeful steps and she feels she's on a journey, not just doing something aimlessly." Now like Izzy, I'd like you to self-assess your work, identifying what verbs you used and their effect in terms of characterization and tone.

Pause a video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back, some lovely discussions there and lovely annotations of your pieces of work.

Others saying, "Well, in contrast, Izzy actually wanted to create a tone of despair.

So I didn't use verbs like stride and journeying, but more wonder and aimlessly ambling through the town, not feeling that I have any sense of purpose and drive." And others saying, "Well, I really wanted to focus on some anger actually, when I'm working in the factory, the people who I'm working with, I say that I like some of them, but I'm gonna use that verb just like Brittain did, patronised, feeling like they are talking down to me." So a range of different tones, but I can see that everyone has made a consistent letter.

So the verbs that they have chosen all work together, so we've got a convincing persona in this redrafted letter.

Okay, we're gonna move on to Learning Cycle Two.

We've shown our prowess by selecting really deliberate verbs, we're now going to look at precise adjectives.

So in a similar way to verbs, adjectives require our attention.

Consider some of the nouns Brittain uses in "Testament of Youth." So we've got "horror," "anxiety," "speculation," and "suspense." And Brittain modifies each of these nouns with an adjective to make her meaning more precise.

For example, "unfamiliar horrors," she says, "horror," but she's calling it "unfamiliar horror." "Anxiety," we've got "wearing anxiety," and "gnawing anxiety." "Speculation," we've got "miserable speculation," and "suspense," we've got "nerve-wracking suspense." Now I'd like you to discuss what impact does each adjective have on this noun? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, a lovely, really precise discussion there about the impact that these adjectives have on the noun, so they really, really refine the noun.

So "horror," there could be various different types of horror, but what Brittain is talking about is "unfamiliar horror," and in some ways, that makes it even more scary.

Something that's horrifying, it's really, really scary, but if it's unfamiliar as well, you don't quite know what it might do, what that emotion might do.

Anxiety, that "gnawing anxiety," this actually turns it into a metaphor with this adjective because she feels she's being eaten away by this feeling of anxiety.

And then the final two, "speculation" and "suspense." These can sometimes be positive emotions, so you can speculate, you can guess, you can think, "What is actually going to happen?" You can feel suspense in a way that is quite enjoyable, but what Brittain does with these adjectives is she makes sure that we understand that it was horrible, the speculation, the guessing what might happen to a loved one was incredibly unhappy-making and nerve-wracking suspense, she was feeling on edge, tense the whole time for those four years.

So the adjectives there are integral to our understanding the emotion that Brittain is trying to convey.

Now I'd like you to consider Owen's use of adjectives in his poem about the gas attacks.

So not just the master of verbs, but also adjectives.

He writes, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge." I'd like you to discuss what impression is created of these soldiers? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back, a really careful discussion of these opening lines of one of Owen's most famous poems. And really these soldiers who we know are young men off to fight, we are being presented with people who seem very old, very frail, very aged, so "bent double, knock-kneed," and even using that adjective there, "old," the soldiers seem to have been aged by their experiences, and their bodies are beginning to fail them.

Now here's the third line of the poem.

"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we curse through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs." So flares, one of our keywords, we know that it's a light used to attract attention, so people in no man's land trying to attract attention using their flares, but these soldiers are turning their backs, having to return to their trench.

Now, I would like you to discuss, Owen first used the additive "clawing flares," but later edited the line to "haunting flares," why do you think he made this decision? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back, a really careful discussion there, I'm so pleased that we know some of Owen's editorial decisions because it really gives insight into the craft and care that he put into his poems, and it really gives us an insight into the writers' intentions as well.

We want to know, well, why did he change from "clawing" to "haunting?" Well, this idea "haunting," lots of people said, "Well, we know that many, many soldiers died, many soldiers died in no man's land, they were alone in horrific conditions, and so it conveys the idea that there are people who are dying, becoming ghostly in some ways, but also the idea that the soldiers who are left behind will be forever haunted, this idea of the flares going up and them turning their backs, that they will not be able to forget that in the rest of their lives.

So again, a double meaning of this word "haunting," which Owen does so often in his poems, so his poems are incredibly rich, and really, really yield to rereading and rereading, and returning to.

Now here's the fourth line of the poem, This is the last line of the poem we're going to look at.

"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we curse through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our 'blank' rest began to trudge." Now I'd like you to discuss what adjective do you think would work in this line? And I'd like you to justify your decision.

So just like we did in Learning Cycle One, I want you to think, "What might Owen have been thinking in terms of the adjective that he would place into this line of his poem?" Pause a video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, a lovely discussion there about the various adjectives you might be able to use.

Some people using their contextual knowledge in order to think, "Well, what would work? So, "Towards our 'horrid' or 'muddy' or 'disgusting' rest began to trench." Or, "bloody rest," again, thinking about the kind of conditions of no man's land and of the trenches.

This is the word that Owen decided to use, "distant," so he decided to say, "towards our distant rest began to trudge." Why do you think he chose this particular word? Have a think, what is the effect of it? What's the impact of this adjective? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, a really lovely discussion there, focused on that adjective.

So some people saying, "Well, 'distant rest,' it's far away.

So the idea that they have to walk through no man's land, we know that it's incredibly difficult, that it's not an easy stretch of land to navigate.

And so even though the trenches might be geographically quite close, it feels really, really far away." Another saying, "I think this has more of a metaphorical read, that actually their rest is very far away because they will never be able to rest, they will never be able to close their eyes without thinking of the horror that they have experienced in the trenches." So it could be literal, it could be metaphorical, and really, I think in this poem, it is both, and that is why Owen's poetry is so powerful because each word is chosen from such care and gives such a rich, such a depth of meaning.

So a check for understanding before we apply everything we know about precise adjectives to our own writing.

Here are two lines from another Wilfred Owen poem, you'll recognise it, It's from "Exposure," a poem that we looked at in the first Learning Cycle.

"Our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knive us.

Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent." What are the adjectives in this poem? Pause the video and select your responses now.

Welcome back, and well done If you selected B, C, and E.

Merciless, iced, and silent.

Ache is our verb, we looked at that verb in the first Learning Cycle, and night, it is a noun, it is a naming word.

Okay, let's move on to our final practise task of today's lesson.

I'd like you to continue Izzy's letter from Learning Cycle One.

Write one more paragraph using at least two precise adjectives, and you can use some of the examples we have looked at if you wish.

So pause the video, return to that first bit of that letter that you rewrote, you improved in that first Learning Cycle, and I'd like you to write the next paragraph using at least two precise adjectives.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

welcome back, lovely to see some refined paragraphs in front of you of these two paragraphs showing off your fantastic understanding of verbs and adjectives, and the power that they can have in your writing.

Now here is part of Izzy's paragraph.

"I feel a consuming anger as I survey the empty town and desolate shops.

You, our neighbours, all the young men should be here, not in some distant trench far from home." Now Izzy says, "I was inspired by Brittain's image of 'gnawing anxiety' and Owen's use of 'distant rest.

' I think I've incorporated them well, in addition to adjectives which draw attention to loss." And you can see that "gnawing anxiety" Izzy has changed, that she's been inspired by it to "consuming anger." And then "distant rest" has become "distant trench" in Izzy's writing.

And I agree that I think she has used some adjectives which draw attention to loss.

So I like that powerful use of "empty" and "desolate," and even that use of "young" because it conveys the end of, potential, the potential futures of some of these young men.

So I think Izzy has used some really, really powerful adjectives there to great effect.

Now like Izzy, I'd like you to self-assess your work, identifying what adjectives you've used, and their effect in terms of tone.

Pause a video and complete this self-assessment now.

Welcome back, some really nice self-assessment there, lots of people identifying adjectives that they have used in order to create a really specific tone, and many, many people inspired by Vera Brittain and Wilfred Owen, which is exactly what you should be doing at this stage, be inspired by great writers, try out things that they have done, see if you can alter them slightly to make them your own just as Izzy has done.

And it's really nice to see you applying all those discussions we had from Learning Cycle One and Learning Cycle Two, looking at individual words in poems and in Vera Brittain's memoir in order to help you create these fantastic redrafted paragraphs in front of you.

In summary, writers spend as long choosing deliberate verbs and precise adjectives as they do other methods.

Verbs tell us how an action is done, and so can give insight into character, atmosphere, and tone.

Adjectives describe nouns and also impact tone.

It has been such a pleasure to work through today's lesson with you today, and I look forward to seeing you next time.