Lesson video

Hi everyone.

I'm Miss Reid, and welcome to our last lesson on Buddhism.

Let's have a look at our key question.

So our key question for today is, "Can I improve my essay about Buddhism?" Well, I'm here to tell you that of course you can.

In this lesson, we are going to be learning about how to improve our essays that we've been writing over the course of the last two lessons.

We'll be thinking about how to improve grammatically before trying to write a closing statement for each paragraph.

So for today's lesson you will need your essay, of course.

You will need a pencil.

You might even want to use a different coloured pencil or a pen, and you'll need your brain.

Now, before we start, please take a moment to clear away any distractions including turning off the notifications or any apps or conversations that you have running in the background.

And finally, if you can, try to find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed during the lesson.

Pause the video now so you can go and get the things you need and try to find a quiet place to work.

Great! Now you have everything you need.

Let's carry on.

So in today's lesson, we'll be thinking about how to improve our grammar, then we will be learning how to write a closing statement, and then you will be editing and improving.

So how to improve our grammar.

Well, we're going to be improving grammar in three ways.

The first is by looking at capital letters and full stops, and we'll be thinking about capital letters, making sure we use them for proper nouns and making sure you use them at the start of sentences, and we'll be making sure that we've got full stops at the end of our sentences.

The second grammatical feature we'll be using is commas after fronted adverbials.

Now, fronted adverbials can be phrases so that means they don't include a verb for example, "all of a sudden," or they can be clauses, and that's when they include a verb for example, "when the thunder growled." They always need a comma after them, and that's what we'll be checking for today.

The third thing we'll be looking for is commas to separate clauses, and when we do this, we often look out for conjunctions such as "but, as, which, who, or because." So let's read through this paragraph.

This is a paragraph that I wrote for my essay, and it does have a few mistakes in it.

I'm wondering, as we read through, can you find any of the mistakes and put your finger on them as you see them? Let's have a closer look.

Siddhartha Gautama was a prince, who lived at around 500 BCE.

His kingdom was situated on the India/Nepal border, but Siddhartha never left the palace as a child.

When he was 29 years old, Siddhartha Gautama went on a walk outside the palace walls.

When he was walking, he saw four sights: a weak, old man, a sick man, a corpse and a holy man.

These sights taught him that while suffering is a part of life, spirituality was the only way to overcome suffering.

As a result, he left his life to be a holy man.

For six years, he studied with many holy men.

Eventually, he left them to meditate for six days and six nights under a Bodhi tree.

As a result, he became the Buddha, which means the enlightened one.

So did you spot any mistakes as I was reading and put your finger on them? Well done if you did.

The first thing we're going to look for as we read through this text and edit it is, of course, capital letters and full stops.

Now remember that we use capital letters for proper nouns, and we also use them at the start of sentences.

We need to also make sure that we have a full stop at the end of every sentence.

Can you look for any missing capital letters or full stops? Put your finger on them when you find them.

Pause the video now so you can do that.

Great work! Did you find them? Let's have a look at where they were.

So you can see from the pink letters and, of course, the pink full stops where they were missing from.

Gautama needs a capital letter because Gautama is a proper noun.

It's a name of the person.

There was a full stop missing from the end of the sentence, and, therefore, we needed a capital letter after the full stop.

I also missed the capital G for Gautama here.

I missed a full stop here after "men" which meant that I needed a capital letter for "eventually" and the "Buddha," which is a proper noun.

It needed a capital letter as well.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to find all of those missing capital letters and full stops.

Let's move on.

Now it's your turn to have a look through your own essay and have a look for any missing capital letters or full stops.

Pause the video now so you can look through own essay and fill in those mistakes.

How many missing capital letters and full stops did you find? Excellent work for having a go at editing your work.

So the next thing we're looking for is, of course, commas after fronted adverbials Now remember that fronted adverbials always come at the beginning of a sentence, and they tell us how, where, or when an action happened.

Let's have a closer look.

So I'm always looking at the beginning of sentences.

Now, I can't see a fronted adverbial here because I don't have any information that tells me how, when, or where something happened.

Neither here.

But when I look at the next sentence, "when he was 29 years old," the word "when" indicates to me that this is a fronted adverbial of time.

It's telling me when something happened.

So I think I need a comma after the fronted adverbial here, "when he was 29 years old." Your job now is to look through the text and have a look and see if you can find any other fronted adverbials that need a comma after them.

Pause the video now so that you can put your finger on any missing commas.

How many have you found? Let's check.

So let's zoom in and have a look.

There is the fronted adverbial that I found and the missing comma.

The next fronted adverbial was "when he was walking." That needed a comma after it.

We also needed one after "for six years" and "eventually." It's now your job to look through your own essay and see if you used any fronted adverbials that might need a comma after them.

Pause the video now so that you can look through your own work.

Great work everyone.

Well done for checking your answer.

I'm really proud of you for having a go.

Let's move on.

So the third grammatical feature we're looking at is commas to separate clauses.

Now sometimes clauses are subordinate clauses come at the start of a sentence, and that's usually when we're using a subordinate conjunction such as "as" at the beginning of the sentence.

But in this case, we're going to be looking out for conjunctions in the middle of the sentence because generally that's how we use them.

I wonder, can you look through my paragraph and see if there's any commas missing? Remember the comma needs to go before the conjunction when the conjunction's in the middle of the sentence.

Pause the video now and see if you can find any conjunctions such as "as, because, which, who" that need a comma before them.

Did you find them? Let's check.

We can zoom in.

So the first comma needed to be after "prince" because "who" is of course showing us that there is another clause.

We've added a clause to that sentence.

"Siddhartha Gautama was a prince," that makes sense on its own, "who lived at around 500 BCE." We've added some information.

"His kingdom was situated on the India/Nepal border," that sentence makes sense on its own, and we've added "but Siddhartha never left the palace as a child," so we need a comma to separate those clauses.

And finally, "as a result, he became the Buddha," that makes sense on its own, but we've added the extra information, "which means the enlightened one." So we need a comma to separate those clauses.

Well done if you found all three of those.

It's now your turn to have a look through your own essay and see if you can pick out any clauses that need to be separated using a comma.

Pause the video now so that you can complete that task.

How many commas did you find that were missing? How many did you edit in? Wow! I'm so impressed.

Well done, everyone.

So we're moving on to how to write a closing statement.

This is a tricky part, and I know that you can do it.

If we learn how to do this now, you're going to be amazing at writing closing statements for the rest of your educational career.

So closing statements link two paragraphs together.

They summarise the information in the paragraph that's just been written, and they introduce the information in the following paragraph.

Now this paragraph that I wrote is about Siddhartha's journey to enlightenment.

The next paragraph will be about Buddhist teachings so my closing statement needs to summarise or close the information in this paragraph and introduce the idea of his teachings.

Let's have a look at the closing statement I wrote.

I said, "Siddhartha Gautama's journey to enlightenment was long and difficult, however, he used his own experiences to teach others how to reach enlightenment." So this closing statement summarises the fact that Siddhartha Gautama had to work hard to reach enlightenment, and it tells the reader that the next paragraph is going to be about his decision to help others reach enlightenment through his teaching.

I've linked the two ideas, or paragraphs, together.

So it's now your turn.

Your task is to try and write a closing statement for each paragraph.

You don't need to do this for the conclusion because there's not a paragraph after it.

Remember it needs to link the two paragraphs together.

It needs to summarise the information in the first paragraph and introduce the new information.

Pause the video now, and try to write a closing statement for each paragraph.

Excellent work, everyone.

You have done a fantastic job.

That is a really difficult skill to master, but practising it is only going to make you better at getting it right.

That brings us to the end of today's lesson.

A really big well done for all the fantastic learning you've achieved today.

If you're able to, please ask your parents or carer to take a picture of your work and share it with your teacher so that they can see all of the fantastic things you've learned today.

And if you'd like, you can ask your parents or carer to send a picture of your work to @OakNational on Twitter so that I can see your lovely work too.

That's all that's left for me.

Thank you so much, and well done on this fantastic, on the fantastic work you've done on this whole unit on Buddhism.

You've got an excellent essay to show for all your hard work.