Lesson video

- Hello, and welcome back.

I'm Mr. Hutchinson, and this is Twentieth Century Conflict.

We're learning history, and we have been on such a long journey.

Today we're going to get a chance to pull it all together into a nice big essay.

I'm really excited to do that before we get started, though I want to share some great work that's already come through.

First of all, an essay from one of our previous units and you can see this is Tom and Tom has worked so hard at using all of the knowledge that he's gained both in the lessons and from his own research to create a really long and thoughtful and authoritative piece of writing.

So well done, Tom.

You've absolutely smashed this piece of work, and I'm sure that you're going to do a great job again today.

You should be really proud of yourself.

That's exciting starting at all spent.

Wasn't just Tom that was working hard though.

I love this piece of work.

It's very creative.

What about the Korean war that we learned about during the cold war? As you can see that there's China there's North Korea and South Korea flags there.

And if you lift up those flaps there, then you'll see there are some really interesting facts underneath they explain exactly what's happened and this was done by Eve.

And so well-done Eve I'm really proud of you.

That was great work.

You were using your knowledge in such creative ways which I love.

Last piece of work I want to share with you is this one here.

And gosh, look at all of these notes.

The writing has gone so small for the Vietnam war.

This is been done by Thais.

I hope I'm saying that correctly.

And my gosh, you are going to be really well prepared for this essay, because look at everything that you've got in your brain there look at everything that you've been learning about.

You are already becoming a real expert and I think it's so cool that all of you out there and there are tens of thousands of know this period now with such expertise.

It's amazing, your As well done.

So in today's lesson we're going to be learning about what an essay is.

And you might have written one before.

If you did the previous unit on the first and second World War here we're going to plan our first section and then write our first section today.

And then we're going to plan our second section and write our second section.

So that's the process we go through.

First we plan, then we write and we plan then we write, and we're just doing the first two sections.

I haven't used paragraphs this time because I knew that some of you like to write more than one paragraph per section.

And that's really cool.

It means you've got loads to say it means that, you know loads.

So I've just put it as a section which we start to plan those sections.

So let's have a look at how we do that.

The first thing is you need to make sure you've got all of the equipment so that you need so you'll need an exercise book.

You will need some paper.

Some of you are completing this on a computer.

That's really cool.

So if you've got a computer and want to write your out on a computer, that's fine as well but otherwise you'll need to have something to write on.

And some of you wrote eight, nine, 10 pages last time just make sure you've got lots of paper have something to write with and you'll just need a ruler for the planning phase.

So what is this thing that we're doing? What do we do? Writing an essay? Well, what's an essay? What we doing, writing an essay? An essay is just a long piece of writing all about one particular subject.

And lets say essay is usually quite persuasive especially as they get more sophisticated, like because you're so clever.

You're now starting to write more sophisticated essays.

They usually try to persuade somebody something.

So you know a lot about this subject.

What are you trying to persuade them? What's an argument that you're trying to make.

So you could write an essay, for example, about sharks.

You could write one about the climate emergency that we're facing.

You could write one about the ancient Egyptians.

You could write one about reggae music.

You could write an essay about the cold war like we're going to do.

And the more you know about something the more you're able to write the more authority you have, the more powerful you become.

Here's an example from year five of what an essay might look like.

This one was about the tutors.

And you can see that this person's using all of their knowledge to make an argument.

They're using all of this knowledge, to teach other people about this subject.

So what's our essay question going to be for this unit.

I thought really hard about really good essay question that can allow you to bring together all of the knowledge and make an argument, make a case.

And this is your essay question, trumbo The world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

To what extent do you agree with this statement? I'll read it again.

The world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

To what extent do you agree with the statement? So you sometimes get this with essay questions.

You get a statement, you imagine somebody saying something and you have to say, no, that's not right.

Or you have to say, yeah, that is right.

Or you might say that's partially, right.

It's half way and you make that judgement.

So you're making a judgement.

You make the judgement of whether the statement is right or wrong based on everything that you know, so you need to explain everything that you know.

And our statement here is the world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

To what extent do you agree with that statement? So take a moment and have a little think.

Do you agree with that? Do you think that that's true if you think that's true? Why do you think that that's true? Or maybe you don't agree.

Maybe you think no, its not a safe place with nuclear weapons.

I don't think it's a good place.

Don't think it's good that there's nuclear weapons.

If you disagree, then why do you disagree? And to answer this question well, you're going to need to use all of the knowledge that you've learned over our past unit and units.

So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to get ready we're going to draw a planning table.

So I'm going to show you how to do this, but you'll need a piece of paper and a ruler and it should look something like this.

This is how we plan for an assay.

So you're going to make sure you've got three different columns.

You guys have key information as the largest column.

Cause that's where you're going to do most of your planning.

You're going to need about eight to 10 row lines for each row.

Maybe a bit more and you can drop the title up now.

So you just remember that you going to be answering this title, you're going to answer this question throughout.

So pause the video and have a go at doing that now, if you're not quite sure, then I'm about to model it so you can wait and watch me model it.

If you're ready to do that then you can pause the video and get that planning ready now.

Super so I'm just going to show you how to do this.

You already clear on what to do? So I've got my planning sheet ready here.

I've got my ruler and my pen and I am going to, first of all, draw my three columns.

So in fact, I'll use this line here as my first column cause I only need to write section one in there.

I was going to write my title.

The world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

To what extent, how far to what extent do you agree with this statement? That's my title.

So I need to remember that's the question I'm going to be answering throughout.

I'm just going to underline that.

It's important to keep your work neat and organised show a bit of pride in your own work.

My first column is going to be key information.

So I just write that at the top.

This is where I'm going to remember all of the facts and knowledge that I've learnt.

And my column over here is going to be key vocabulary.

The new words that I've learnt the people who we've studied make sure I include that technical vocabulary.

And then I draw a nice line down need to keep my key information column larger.

'Cause that's where I'm going to have more information.

I'll just list my vocab.

So that line goes down there.

I've already got a line here, just a line there And I'm just going to I have got two sections.

So I'm going to start about halfway.

So ill draw my line here And there we go.

Simple as that.

Now I've got a nice planning sheet I can in here.

I can jot down everything that I can remember about the period, here I can jot down all of the key vocabulary.

I'm just going to put here that this section is going to be section one of my essay.

And this section here will be section this little hole got in the way section, I just draw it here, two.

Okay so there we go.

I've got my I've now got my planning sheet ready to go.

Excellent.

So it's time to start drawing on all my knowledge.

Now, if you want to you could go back and look at some of your notes from previous lessons.

I know that in previous lessons you were embracing lots of different notes answering the questions and doing the tasks.

But also just jotting down key facts as you go along.

So if you want to go back and just read over that to refresh your memory, that's absolutely fine.

And that would be a great thing to do.

So our first section, let's start planning off the sections that are ready to write a paragraph or a few paragraphs all about our first section of our essay.

And in your first section, you're going to discuss how the second world war ended.

It's important to discuss how the second world war ended to be able to answer this question about nuclear bombs.

Because first of all, there was this huge conflict that went on for six years in which new nuclear bombs were dropped except at the end.

So the nuclear bombs ended that war perhaps saved perhaps saved many American allied lives by drawing the war to a short close, but also killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japan.

So it's important to be able to discuss all of this to answer that question.

The world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

You guys need to explain that.

What can you remember about the end of the second world war? What can you remember just jot in your section now until you run out of ideas, completely jot everything you can remember about the end of the Second World War.

So pause the video and do that now Super, I'm going to just show you what I remembered.

You might have all of these ideas plus more well-done if you do, you might have forgotten a few.

That's fine now your chance to add them in.

So you don't forget to write about them.

So one of the first things that you might have written about is you might've written about how there was a battle of Britain.

There's a hurricane fighter there.

The Hitler wanted to take over Britain, but first he had to gain aerial supremacy, air superiority and he wasn't able to do that.

Where the battle of Britain, you might remember that there was a big battle in Stalingrad in Russia.

And the Germans ended up losing the battle of Stalingrad and ended up losing to Russia.

Maybe that was the beginning of the end turning point of the war.

You may have remembered that America became involved in the war after Pearl Harbour was bombed by the Japanese.

You might have remembered the D-Day landing.

So with American now in the war, the allied troops landing that huge invasion of Normandy.

And you might remember the Americans dropped two nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan to finally bring the war against Japan to a close.

And so let's just jot down some key vocabulary that we can tick off as we go to make sure that our essay is using really sophisticated historical language.

So you might make sure you include the term the battle of Britain, Winston Churchill the prime minister, Pearl Harbour.

You might write about Stalingrad that area of Russia, where that battle was.

You might write about D-Day, the Manhattan project.

That was the name of the secret American project to develop a nuclear bomb throughout the Second World War, which was successful.

That's why they had the nuclear bomb, the Manhattan project.

Nuclear weapons, Hiroshima and Nagasaki the two Japanese cities that were bombed.

So pause now, and you can do two things.

First of all, you can add in anything that you've missed.

And second one, if you want to instead of having those pictures you can just start to turn those into bullet pointed notes so that you're ready to start writing.

And you've got a few bullet points.

It doesn't need to be in full sentences at the moment just so you've got those main ideas.

So pause the video and get your first section plan ready to go.

Great so I've turned I've jotted down some bullet points based on those ideas those pictures that I've got there.

And my plan now looks like something like this.

So I'm going to talk about how Churchill refuse to surrender.

I'm going to talk about Hitler actually ended up losing the battle of Britain.

He wasn't able to gain aerial supremacy.

So he wasn't able to invade Britain, how Japanese attacks the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and that made USA entered the war.

I might talk about how Germany lost to the USSR.

And I might talk about why there we talked about how, when we studied that we talked about how Hitler made some mistakes.

He wanted the symbolic town Stalingrad instead of the oil fields, which you really, what which they really needed.

It was very cold.

Geography of Russia made it difficult to fight.

This is the chance to add in a lot of that detail and really show off everything that you know.

You might write about the D-Day landings the allies invading Normandy, USA developing nuclear weapons to the Manhattan project the allies entering Germany and Hitler killing himself and then the war against Japan continuing until those two nuclear bombs were ended.

So know that you've got that plan.

It's time to turn it into your, now you've got a plan.

It's time to turn it into a paragraph or a few paragraphs or even a few pages.

If you think look I'm an absolute professor level expert at this stuff.

Maybe you're going to write on for pages.

That's absolutely fine as well.

This is what you need to make sure that you're doing that these are your steps to success.

Obviously, obviously you're writing in full sentences.

Okay, nice write full sentences.

You're going to include all of that key information all of that key vocab between each paragraph that you write make sure that you leave a line a key idea should be organised into one paragraph.

So for example you're writing a lot about the D-Day landings.

They maybe have a paragraph on the D-Day landings before you move on to the Manhattan project and the development of nuclear bombs, which is one sort of main ideas that will be its own paragraph as well Really overexplain okay.

Imagine you're explaining it to someone who has never learned about this that will help you to be really clear and detailed.

Don't forget to answer the question.

So our question is the world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

To what extent you agree with that? Do you agree with that or not agree with that? So use all of this knowledge to then say this shows that the world is a safer place with nuclear weapons or this shows that the world isn't a safe place for nuclear weapons, or maybe a bit of both.

And so you need to form a judgement.

You're like a judge in a court.

You you're saying, yes, this is true or no, it's not true or it's partially true and all good judgments have evidence.

So you're going to use your knowledge to justify your view to use it as evidence.

What am asking you to do is really hard, but I know that you're really, really clever.

So you're going to make a great job of this answering that question as you go throughout, you're always answering that question.

So you've got your plan.

You've got your steps to success.

I think that you're ready to write.

I think that you're ready to turn those notes and all of your knowledge into a paragraph all about the end of the second world war and the development of nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear weapons.

Pause the video and write that full section.

That full first section now Awesome you are amazing.

Well done.

You should be really proud.

You should feel really proud.

It's hard and you should.

And when you've done like a nice long piece of writing you're normally like, whoa, I feel good about myself.

Look everything I have achieved you should feel good about yourself.

So well done.

If you need to take a little moment, go and grab a drink, maybe a little snack.

Your brain's been working overtime and you can pause that do that you've earned it.

Then come back.

So we still got section two to plan and write.

Here we go since section two the second world war is ended and our next section is going to be moving into that cold war.

So the USSR and the USA entering the cold war, like before it's a chance for you to pause now.

So you can write down everything that you can remember chance for you to revisit your notes.

So pause the video and then I'll show you what I would have written all about.

Pause the video and fill in that detail now Awesome so hopefully you will have remembered that the USSR and the United States emerged as two superpowers following the Second World War there was that huge power vacuum in Europe.

All of Europe had been decimated by the Second World War and the major power Germany had been defeated.

All of the European countries who had been involved in the war had suffered many, many deaths and that towns and cities have been destroyed and they didn't have much money.

And so the USA and the USSR emerges two super powers and they have very different ideas about the economic system.

One was capitalist, and one was communist.

Now the leaders of Britain, the United States and the USSR all met and you can see that Winston Churchill Franklin D Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin they met at some conferences Yalta conference and the Potsdam conference to try and to decide what to do with Europe.

But they started to break those promises and fall out pretty much straight away.

They divided Germany into four sections although the West combined those sections and we started get that iron curtain.

Remember Winston Churchill called it an iron curtain not a real curtain, but like a big divide down the centre of Europe with the Soviet States on one side who all signed the Warsaw pact an agreement that they would stick together.

And they're the red States here.

And then on the other side, NATO the North Atlantic treaty organisation, the Western States or Kapsalis, and they all decided to clip together as well.

And there was this iron curtain down the middle.

And by 1949, both the USA and the USSR have nuclear weapons.

So both sides have nukes at this point.

Some of the key vocab you might have included here is you going to talk about superpowers, how they have different ideologies, communism versus capitalism.

There were other ideological differences as well that you may well want to discuss communism, capitalism the Yalta conference.

And the Potsdam conference.

They were the conferences where the leaders met.

They divided Germany into East and West Germany.

Churchill said that there was that iron curtain the Truman Doctrine from the American president Harry Truman, who said he would give lots and lots of money to any country that was capitalist.

Any country that followed their ideas.

He wanted to support those countries in Europe help them to rebuild but the deal was they had to be capitalists.

They couldn't be Soviets.

So pause now and add to your plan.

Anything that you've missed from here and you might even have gone beyond that.

Awesome work.

Okay like before I'm going to just jot some notes down.

Cause I find it much easier to turn notes into sentences than these sorts of pictures.

So this is what my note form plan looks like.

I'm just going to pause and let you read through that.

Great so you'll see, I'm not writing in full sentences here.

I don't need to write in full sentences 'cause I'm going to turn it into full sentences.

When I write my actual paragraph.

And as I was writing that through, I just remembered all about the Berlin blockade and the Berlin airlift.

One of the first sorts of flashpoints one of the first difficult moments where maybe people thought, Oh, we could have a war yeah.

So again, once you've got that plan you're ready to start writing.

You've got a really good plan.

You've got tonnes to write about.

Even if you just turn each of these into one sentence you've already got a couple of paragraphs there and I know that you know, this period inside out.

So you're probably going to expand on it even more but don't forget this final two steps.

Don't forget to answer the question.

The world is a safer place with nuclear weapons.

To what extent do you agree? And don't forget to justify your judgement.

So its time to work hard again, pause the video and write out your second section of your essay.

Great work.

You've worked extremely hard today.

Don't feel like you're alone thousands and thousands of kids out there all doing the same thing, working hard writing brilliant essays and together couldn't be proud of you.

Well done.

That's everything for today okay.

You can take a break now you've earned it.

The last thing you need to do though is just make sure that you complete your quiz.

If you're so proud of the first half of your essay ask your parents when they get a spare moment just take a photo of it.

Take a photo of the pages that you've written and I'd love to read them.

I love reading these.

So awesome take a quick photo of it and put it onto Twitter using these hashtags.

And if they go on with those hashtags then I'll be able to see them and I'll be able to read them.

And I would love to do that.

Thank you so much for working so hard.

Feel really proud of what an expert you are on this whole period and how you knew more about the world that we live in today.

And I'll see you next time.