Lesson video

Hello everyone.

It's Mr. Brown here for your English lesson today, and we have got a great lesson in store for you.

We're going to be looking at characters and specifically generating vocabulary to describe those characters.

And we're really lucky because in a Christmas Carol, you have got one of the most interesting characters ever written and that's Scrooge.

So, let's get started.

Okay.

So, our learning objective for today is to generate vocabulary to describe a character.

Our agenda is choosing key nouns, first of all, generating adjectives, and then adding those verbs and adverbs.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper, a pencil or pen or something to write with, and of course, your brain.

Exactly.

Yeah, your brain.

Okay.

Let's start with our key vocabulary.

And again, it is our word classes because they're going to be crucial in today's lesson.

We start with our nouns.

A noun is a PPT, a person, place, or thing.

Say it back to me.

A noun is a PPT.

A person, place, or thing.

Good.

Adjectives.

An adjective is a describing word.

An adjective is a describing word.

What's an adjective? What's an adjective? A describing word.

Verbs.

A verb is a doing or a being word.

A verb is a doing or a being word.

What is a verb? A doing or a being word.

And, a verb's best friend, adverbs.

An adverb describes a verb.

An adverb describes a verb.

What does it often end with? Can you remember? L-Y, yeah.

Okay.

I'm going to start with re-watching our visual clip.

We need to familiarise ourself with it because you're going to need to look very closely at those characters today.

So watch it, enjoy it.

Keep a close eye on those characters because we're going to be describing them today.

Let's go.

Okay.

So, let's start with choosing key nouns.

Now of course, our first key noun, when we're talking about characters, where there's any two characters, so it has to be Scrooge, at this point in the story, anyway.

Now, I want you to think about a noun.

A noun is a PPT, a person place or thing.

What nouns could we use for Scrooge? Well, he's a man, obviously.

His name is Scrooge.

You could use Scrooge.

But are there any other nouns that you could use to describe him? Have a go.

Write any down, if you can think of anymore, or just say them aloud so I can hear.

Any other nouns? You could call him a man.

You could call him a- How about these? A person, a banker, because that's his job.

He is a banker and a misery.

You could call him a misery.

It could be a noun.

You are such a misery.

And that sums up his character, but it also is a good word to use for him as a noun.

Now, what do nouns need before them? What do nouns need before them? Of course, nouns need adjectives.

Nouns and adjectives go together.

They're best friends.

If you're going to write a noun, you really should have an adjective or two before it.

So let's start generating some adjectives.

Now, adjectives to describe Scrooge.

Let's start with just him in general.

What describing words could you use for Scrooge? I've started you off with grumpy.

He's certainly grumpy.

He's a grumpy man, isn't he? What other adjectives could you use to describe him? He's a man.

What would you say? Have a go at writing them down or say them aloud so I can hear.

He's a grumpy man.

What else could you say? He's a kind man.

No, that doesn't work.

Let's have a look.

Ah, he's grumpy, mean, rude, cruel, heartless.

Love that.

He's heartless.

He's without a heart.

He's selfish.

Only thinks about himself.

We see that in the opening.

He's not interested in making sure that the other man who works in the office is warm.

Greedy.

He wants everything he can get.

He's so interested in money.

Won't even pay to use some coal to heat that room.

Now, you've got adjectives and you've got nouns.

Let's put this together to make an E.

N.

P.

Now, an ENP is an expanded noun phrase.

And all that is, is when you're putting adjectives before a noun.

And you've been doing that in our previous lessons.

We just haven't really called it an expanded noun phrase.

But I think ready to start giving your work the correct name.

So, what I want to do is on your piece of paper, I want you to write an expanded noun phrase to describe Scrooge.

So, you might call him a comma, something.

I'll give you an example.

A grumpy, comma mean man.

Can you have a go yourself? You can pause the lesson if you want to.

Off you go.

Okay, if you want to, you can just say it out loud to me as well.

I'm always interested in listening to your great work.

Let's see.

Heartless, comma, selfish banker is another way to refer to him.

We don't just have to call him Scrooge all the time.

We don't just call him a man all the time.

You can be creative.

Okay.

When describing a character, it is important that we search for the nouns within the noun.

Let me just let that sink in.

The nouns within the noun.

That sounds confusing, doesn't it? We know Scrooge is a noun, but what nouns are there within him? Well, I'm a noun.

Mr. Brown.

Can you see any other nouns on my body or my face? Oh, yeah.

My nose.

That's a noun.

My glasses.

That's a noun.

My hair, my ears, my mouth, my teeth, my beard.

They're all nouns.

We're going to do the same for Scrooge.

So, I've started you off with his nose.

Can you have a go at writing down any other nouns that you can spot on Scrooge? Really? That goes back to what we call our definition for nouns.

A person, place, or thing.

We're not interested in person or place, but things.

What things are there on Scrooge that you could describe? 'Cause they are nouns.

You can pause the lesson if you want to, or you can tell me.

So, we've got nose.

I've also gone for hair, skin, and eyes.

Now, there are lots more.

You could go for eyebrows.

You go for eyelashes.

You could go for ears and ear lobes.

But, you have to work out your key nouns.

What are the ones that are interesting and important to describe when you are writing a description of your character? What nouns are going to put that character in your reader's head? I've got nose, hair, skin, and eyes.

So, now let's turn them into expanded noun phrases.

Long, comma, pointy nose.

It's not a normal nose, is it? It's so long.

It's so pointy.

How about his head and his skin and his eyes? Have a go yourself.

Expanded noun phrases for hair, skin and eyes.

Pause the lesson.

Have a go or tell me out loud.

Should we see what I came up with? See if my description beats yours.

Is it more descriptive or have you beaten me? Okay.

I've gone for grey, thin hair.

I thought his hair was really kind of long and it doesn't look thick and luscious.

It's quite thin and it's very grey, isn't it? I could also have said white, perhaps.

His skin.

I went for wrinkled and pale.

Wrinkled tells the reader how old he is and pale tells you that he's not someone who goes out in the sunshine very often.

And eyes.

Beady, dark eyes.

Beady eyes tends to be someone who might be a bit untrustworthy and dark, perhaps because he doesn't sleep much, 'cause he's up all night counting his money.

I don't know.

Dark eyes just has negative connotations, doesn't it? Okay.

Let's put this together and write a phrase with two expanded noun phrases.

Okay? Let me give you an example.

A cruel, selfish man with thin, grey hair.

So cruel, selfish man is an expanded noun phrase.

And thin, grey hair is an expanded noun phrase.

Now, you have a go yourself.

You're not writing sentences.

So, you don't need a full stop at the end, but I want two expanded noun phrases together.

Off you go.

Pause the lesson, if you need to.

Good job.

Okay.

Remember adjective, adjective, noun.

That's the key thing to remember, whenever we're writing our expanded noun phrases.

Okay.

Adding verbs and adverbs.

If we know that nouns and adjectives love to go together, then verbs and adverbs are exactly the same.

They are best friends.

You've got to think of a verb needs an adverb.

An adverb, obviously would need a verb.

We're going to re-watch the clip again.

And this time, I want to generate two verbs.

What Scrooge is doing.

Two words that tell us what Scrooge is doing.

Once you've done that, you'll need to pause, rewind and watch the clip again.

And this time generate adverbs for each verb.

How Scrooge did each verb.

That's what adverbs are.

They tell you how he did each verb.

You may think of more than one adverb for each verb.

Okay, let's go for it.

Okay.

I hope you managed to get your two verbs and your adverbs for those verbs.

I did.

So, let's have a look.

Now, the verbs I went for were counted and glared.

Counted because he was counting the money.

And glared is an amazing word for when you look at someone in an evil, nasty way.

So, I'm glaring at you right now.

That's glared.

Okay? Now, the adverbs that I've got for those words for counted, I've got carefully.

'Cause he was quite careful in the way he was counting.

He wasn't just counting while looking around the room.

He was focused, wasn't he? Repeatedly, because he counted again and again and again.

And that's what repeatedly means.

And quietly.

He just sat there quietly counting.

He didn't speak to anyone.

He didn't try and interact or engage with anyone.

So, they were the verbs that I chose to use with the word counted, the verb counting.

For the verb glared, I went for coldly.

He coldly glared.

There was no warmth in his glare.

Threateningly.

He actually gave that man a look, didn't he? That was almost a bit like, if you don't get back to work, then you're going to be in trouble.

And intensely.

It was a very intense look that he gave him.

Intense glare.

So, those were the verbs and those were adverbs I went for.

And here is an example of how this all would look together in a sentence.

A cruel, selfish man with thin, grey hair glared threateningly across the room.

So, I've got my expanded noun phrases.

Cruel, selfish man, and thin, grey hair.

And then I've got my verb, an adverb.

That's called an adverbial phrase, when you've got a verb and an adverb together.

Glared threateningly across the room.

A cruel, selfish man with thin, grey hair glared threateningly across the room.

Really descriptive, Really easy to see that character, if you're just reading the words on a page.

That's what we're aiming for.

Okay.

What I want you to do is to pause the lesson, to have a go yourself, to complete your own task.

You're going to have a go at writing a full sentence, using everything you've just learned, exactly like I just did.

Expanded noun phrases.

That's your adjective before your nouns and verbs and adverbs to say what Scrooge was doing and how he did it.

Okay? Now, when you're finished, you can then resume the video.

But have a go at writing a full sentence with expanded noun phrases and a verb and adverb.

Pause the lesson now.

Okay.

I hope you got on okay with that.

You're going to be needing those sort of sentences when we come to writing the opening.

You've got one more task today though, because I want you to go back to the process we've just gone on for the other character.

Now, we're just going to call him the man because we know there's Scrooge and then there's one more person.

So, he's just going to be called the man.

We don't need to know his name for now because we're not going to go into that much detail.

I want you to find some nouns with adjectives for him, nouns, with adjectives, for parts of his face or body.

Just like we did for screwed for Scrooge.

For Scrooge we said, I think grey, thin hair.

But he might be a bit different, this man.

And verbs and adverbs to say what he did and how he did it.

He was doing this a lot, warming his hands, wasn't he? How was he warming his hands? That's what we're interested in.

Okay? Pause and have a go at this for yourself.

Well done.

I hope that you have managed to get a good planning description of this character.

Okay.

So our agenda, we looked at key nouns.

We talked about finding the noun within the noun.

We've generated loads of adjectives that are going to be so useful in our writing.

And we thought about the role that verbs and adverbs play when we are creating vivid, detailed descriptions.

Well done.

You have completed today's lesson.

Great job.

Super work today, everyone.

You are really, really starting to pull everything that you've learned together.

Nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs.

It's getting very, very detailed and really, really interesting to read.

Great work.

I will see you next time.