Lesson video

Hello everyone, it's Mr. Brown here with your English lesson for today, and we are starting to move on from the opening and focus on the build up.

And we're going to be generating language today, words, vocabulary.

So let's get going.

Okay, so your learning objective for today is to generate vocabulary for the build up.

And this is our outcome 2, our second outcome of this unit, lesson number nine.

Okay, our agenda, we're going to watch the build up, talk a little bit about the build up in general, its purpose, its relation to the rest of the story, we're going to be choosing our key nouns and generating adjectives.

In this lesson, you will need your exercise book or paper, a pencil, and of course, as always, your brain.

If you don't have any of these things, go and get them now.

Okay, we're going to start by watching the build up.

But just before we do, let's have a look again at our story mountain.

Now I've ticked off the opening because that is done.

We are now focusing on the build up.

And like we said, the opening sets the scene, introduces the setting and the characters, and creates the atmosphere.

The build up is where the tension starts to grow, the suspense.

We are knowing that something big is around the corner, which is the climax, but we're not quite there yet.

Okay, suspense.

Suspense is when you are feeling excited or anxious about what may happen next.

Really key thing to remember with suspense, it is not happening now, okay? It is something that might be about to happen.

When you're on a rollercoaster and you're going click, click, click, click, click, click, up to the top, you're full of suspense because you don't know what it's going to be like when you go over and then start the really fast bit of a rollercoaster, that's suspense.

We're now are going to watch a clip from the build up of "A Christmas Carol." When you're watching, try to think about how suspense is created.

What are the directors of the movie doing? And what has Charles Dickens done, and in this part of the story to create suspense.

Remember, suspense is when you're feeling excited or anxious about what might happen next.

It's all still.

Now, now, what do you want with me? So much.

Wow, what an exciting clip.

There was so much suspense there really, really good part of the story to use as our buildup, because it's going to give us the opportunity to create so much suspense and excitement, okay.

Why though did this clip make you feel excited and anxious? What was it about that clip that allowed that feeling of suspense to go through your body? You didn't know what was going to happen next.

That is what it is.

It's just that feeling that you didn't know, you were watching Scrooge and that noise was getting louder and louder.

And then the door handle starts to turn and you don't know what's going to happen next.

That's why the suspense was so key in that scene.

We must create an atmosphere of suspense.

Remember when we were writing the opening, we were really focused on creating an atmosphere of negativity and an uncomfortable environment.

Now build up its suspense.

And again, we will keep this in mind so that we can make intelligent and purposeful language choices.

Everything we do is to try and create that feeling of suspense.

Okay, let's start by choosing our key nouns.

Now we're going to watch the buildup up again and this time I want you to write down any key nouns that you will need to include in your writing.

Now we know that people are nouns so don't include Scrooge and the ghost because we know that we're going to write about them.

I'm more interested today in looking at the objects around the room.

What objects around the room do you think we need to describe in our buildup? Let's watch the clip again.

It's all still.

Now, now, what do you want with me? So much.

Okay, so let's see what nouns, key nouns you were able to spot during the buildup.

I went for chair.

The chair that Scrooge is sitting in, definitely plays a part as one of the key nouns in this scene.

What other ones did you come up with? Can you tell me now? Okay, let's see if I came up with any of those.

I had chair, door, and door knob.

So both of those are nouns, they both play a key part.

The chains, the footsteps.

Now footsteps are not an object.

You can't pick up or hold a footstep, but it certainly is something that can be described, so it's a noun.

And the chests, those chess that come flying through the door, they need to be described definitely.

Okay, so once you've got your nouns the next thing to do is start generating adjectives.

And I've started with chair for you.

I've gone for large leather chair, definitely larger than a normal chair, isn't, and leather is the material it's made from.

Can you have a go at the other nouns by pausing the video and writing down two adjectives for each of those nouns.

Okay, let's have a look at what I came up with.

So for Scrooge's chair, I said large leather.

For the door, I went for wooden and tall.

For the door knob, metal and rusted.

It had kind of rust rounded it.

For those chains, I said thick, heavy chains.

For the footsteps, deafening, monotonous.

Now deafening is when something is so loud, it could make you go deaf.

And those footsteps were really loud and monotonous is when something is the same again and again.

So if I am talking like this, it is quite monotonous.

I'm not making my voice go up or down or throw it around, like I normally would do.

That's monotonous and the footsteps were like that, weren't they.

Just like that.

And then chests, so those chests are quite hefty, bulky chests, definitely.

And whenever we're generating adjectives, we're always thinking adjective comma, adjective noun to help us write those expanded noun phrases.

Adjective comma, adjective noun.

Say it.

Adjective comma, adjective noun, good.

So can you have a go at writing, expanded noun phrases, adjective comma, adjective noun, for each of these sets of nouns and their adjectives.

Off you go.

Okay, so now let's move on to Scrooge.

How could we describe Scrooge at this point in the story? Because the description of a character will change throughout the story.

Characters will never just stay in the same state.

They won't always stay feeling happy.

There will be ups and downs in a story.

Now, how is Scrooge feeling at this exact point of the story? Can you have a go at writing down some adjectives to describe how Scrooge is feeling at this point in the story, I'll give you a clue, he is scared.

See if that helps you to generate any more adjectives.

He's scared at this point of the story.

Okay, let's have a look.

We've got scared, petrified, terrified, frightened, fearful, when you are full of fear, alarmed, when something alarms you, you are alarmed, and horrified.

Let's just say those all one more time.

Say them with me.

Scared, petrified, terrified, frightened, fearful, alarmed, horrified.

They are all excellent adjectives to describe Scrooge at this point in the story, he's very scared isn't he.

How could we describe the ghost though? Think of the words we use to describe how scared Scrooge was, can you alter those words to help you describe the ghost? Here's an example, petrifying.

The ghost is petrifying.

Scrooge was petrified.

The ghost is petrifying.

Have a think.

Are there any other words you could use to describe this ghost? Say them out loud to me, if you can.

Good, let's have a look at some of my suggestions.

Petrifying, terrifying.

I've taken terrified and made it terrifying.

Frightened becomes frightening.

Alarmed becomes alarming and horrified becomes horrifying.

Exactly.

So those are great adjectives to describe the ghost.

Now let's zone in on the ghost.

We did this for Scrooge didn't we.

We talked about his nose, and his skin, and his hair, and his eyes.

So for the ghost, let's do the same.

So I have given you the first one.

His teeth is a key noun I think we need to describe.

What other key nouns are there on the ghost that we will need to describe when we're trying to put that image in our reader's head? What do you think? Teeth.

How about hair, skin, and eyes.

So similar to the ones we did for Scrooge actually, apart from we've switched nose for teeth, because I think his teeth, the ghost teeth are going to be definitely worth describing.

It's now time to generate adjectives for those nouns.

I've started you off with jagged, broken teeth.

So if something is jagged, it is not straight.

It's very crooked and up and down like jagged rocks.

And broken means that something has been broken.

His teeth you can see they're almost broken off.

Some of them are not whole anymore.

Can you have a go now at making expanded noun phrases, so adjective comma, adjective noun, for hair, his skin, and his eyes.

Have a go.

Great, let's have a look and see what I came up with and see if you did the same.

So for his hair, I said long, wispy hair, and wispy is when something is very, very thin and long.

And I thought I really summed up his hair because it's kind of in wisps of long hair, isn't it.

His eyes I went for bulging, bloodshot eyes or bloodshot bulging eyes.

Remember you can always switch these adjectives around.

Just remember the comma between them.

Bloodshot is when.

You might have seen this, sometimes people's eyes have little red veins in them.

They look like little red veins of blood and bulging is when something is coming out at you.

And his skin rotten or rotting actually I said, and flaky.

When it's rotting, it means it is starting to rot, it's starting to deteriorate cause he's not alive anymore, so it would do that, and flaky the skin is starting just to flake away.

Okay.

Can you have a go at finishing my sentences by adding your carefully chosen adjectives? For example, my first one is Scrooge tightly gripped his, comma, chair.

So I've given you the noun chair.

You need to choose the adjectives.

You can go back in the video if you want to.

You've probably got great notes in front of you or you can use your own ideas.

So put adjectives in before these nouns and then finish sentence two and sentence three as well.

Well done, we've watched the buildup.

We've chosen our key nouns and we've generated adjectives.

Congratulations, great lesson everyone.

We're now in a really strong position to write the buildup because we have that foundation of nouns and the adjectives that we can use to describe them.

That's going to make such a difference in helping our writing to be as detailed and descriptive as possible.

Again, well done everyone.

I will see you next time.