Lesson video

Hi, everyone, it's me, Ms. Chu.

I hope you had fun retrieving information about Charles Darwin, because I did.

In today's lesson, we are going to use that information now to plan a biography.

So we can't write one straightaway, because we need to organise our thoughts, we need organise our notes into a layout, into a format that works best for us, so that when we write, it will become easy.

We just use our plans, and that helps us to structure our writing.

So today, that's what we're going to do.

We're going to do a lot of planning, we're going to plan the whole biography.

You need to be super ready, you need to have all your resources, and then, when you've got all of them, we can begin.

It's time to get ready for the lesson.

Get your book or paper, your pen or pencil, and have you planning heads switched on.

What's the agenda? We're going to have a writing warm-up, plan the introduction, then, plan the main body of the biography, and finally, the conclusion.

What is the warm-up today? Write a complex sentence with a relative clause about Charles Darwin, there he is.

Here is an example of a complex sentence with a relative clause.

Jane Goodall, comma, who was a primatologist, was also an animal rights activist.

Use the sentence scaffold below to help you to structure your complex sentence with a relative clause about Charles Darwin, and use your notes from the previous lessons to give you some information about Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin, who, tell me a fact about him, and then tell me the rest of your sentence.

Remember, we're using who, and who is for people, which is for places and things.

So for this example, we are only using who.

Pause the video and have a go.

Here is my complex sentence with a relative clause about Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin, comma, who wrote 'The Origin of Species', is one of the most well known scientists in the world.

And I've used my who.

Let's plan the introduction.

What is an introduction? An introduction, we must include general information.

We cannot go into specific detail yet.

We need an introductory sentence, two or three general facts, and then a linking sentence which links nicely onto the next part of the biography, the next subheading.

We have our general information, and then, we go to our specific information.

For example, I would like you now to write your introduction subheading.

Have an introductory sentence about who Charles Darwin is.

In there, that's the first thing you want to say about him, he is a scientist.

We are looking at writing a biography about a scientist, so maybe you want to pop that key information there.

And then, three things about him generally, and then, your linking sentence will follow.

Pause your video, and get your page ready like this.

So I've taken my notes from the previous lesson about Charles Darwin where I have noted down that he's a serious scientist, he came up with the theory of natural selection which explains how so many different plants and animals came to be and shares how every living thing is connected, and I'm going to use that now in my plans.

So I'm going to use my notes now and put my notes in my plan.

So for my introductory sentence, I want to include a relative clause.

I want to look over my notes and summarise Charles Darwin by finding two or three general facts about him.

And then, my linking sentence is going to be a persuasive device to try and get the reader to read on.

So I want to say, "Read on to find more about this amazing scientist." Or, "Read on to find more about this interesting explorer." You will pause the video, and you need to fill in your plan, your page, just like this.

Off you go.

Great, this is what I came up with on my piece of paper.

I did my complex sentence with a relative clause, because I'm going to take that straight from my plan and put it into my writing.

So if I make more of an effort now to make my plan good, when I come to write it, it will be much easier for me.

I've said, "Charles Darwin, who was an English naturalist, "became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies." And then, the three general bullet points that I have about Charles Darwin are, "He possessed a unique hunger for knowledge "of the natural world.

"He came up with the scientific theory "of evolution by natural selection.

"His book, 'The Origin of Species', 1859, "has deeply influenced modern society and thought." Those are my three general facts about Charles Darwin, one being that he's hungry for knowledge, two, that he came up with the scientific theory of evolution.

Evolution, your turn, natural selection.

And that he wrote the book, "The Origin of Species", which is the most influential book.

Now, we are onto planning the main body.

What is the main body of the text? Well, they are the four paragraphs that we've made notes for.

His early life, school life, voyages, and his discoveries.

That's the main, we're now going from general information about Darwin down to specific sections of Darwin's life.

So the main body is split into these different paragraphs.

We use subheadings.

Each subheading, each paragraph needs an introductory sentence and key facts, and then, we link to the next subheading.

Pause the video and get your page ready, just like this, so that we can fill it in.

Here are the notes from before that we made.

You may pause the video and read it through.

Pause the video again, and just read it through.

Brilliant, now, we're going to use those notes.

And we're going to put it into our plans.

So, for early life, we need an introductory sentence about his early life.

Perhaps, you might want to start with where he was born, where did he grow up? And then, your three bullet points about his early childhood.

What three things stood out to you? And then, your linking sentence to link onto school life.

Here are some examples to help you.

Charles Darwin was born in.

Sadly.

Maybe something tragic happened, you'll remember.

Look at your notes.

By the age of eight.

During this time, what happened? And then, my linking sentence would be something like this.

Shortly after he turned nine, maybe you could say, he was sent to boarding school.

And then, that leads in really nicely into the next subheading of school life.

Pause the video and continue planning this part of the biography.

Brilliant, we have now finished early life.

We are ticking that off, and we're now going to go onto school life.

So this is your chance now to pause the video and get your page ready.

Remember to have your subheading, your intro sentence, your bullet points, and lastly, your linking sentence.

Notes that we made in the previous lessons about his school life.

Pause the video and read through your notes.

This is the second part of his school life when he went to university.

Pause the video, and read through your notes.

Now, we will fill in each section of our plan under the school life heading.

Your introductory sentence could be something like this.

In 1818, Charles was sent to.

By the age of 16, he attended.

After two years, what happened then? Look at your notes.

He went to Cambridge University, didn't he? Yes, I remember.

And then, our linking sentence could be, if we're going from school life to voyages, you could write a sentence about how Charles loved collecting bugs and studying the natural world, which led him to an opportunity of a lifetime.

Pause the video and use some of my notes to support your planning.

Brilliant, we can tick that off now.

We have done school life.

We have done early life, we've done school life, we are now onto voyages.

Again, this is your opportunity to pause the video and get your page ready like this.

Subheading, voyages, introductory sentence, bullet points, and your linking sentence.

Make sure you leave space to fill it in.

Let's look at some of the notes that we've made previously.

Pause the video to read through your own notes.

The second part of the voyage notes, read through.

The third part of our notes on voyages.

Pause the video to read through your notes.

And finally, we are onto our plan.

So you should have your subheading.

And your introductory sentence could start with, "On the 27th of December, 1831, The Beagle.

." What could you put there? You could say it set sail on a trip around the world, or you could be more specific, you could say to South America.

And then, these are some of the sentence starters that you may choose to use.

Despite having, in addition to, during, on his long way.

And then, the linking sentence, linking onto discoveries.

After his five year voyage around the world, Charles returned home.

Now, pause the video and complete your plan, filling in as many facts as you can.

Brilliant, so we have done early life, tick, school life, tick, voyages, tick.

And now, we are onto the final one part of our plan which is discoveries.

Once again, I would like you to set up your page just like this.

You should have discoveries as your subheading, and then split your page into introductory sentence, your bullet points, your facts, and your linking sentence at the end.

Pause the video, and have a go.

Let's now look at some of the notes that we made from the previous lesson.

You can look at yours, and I will look at mine.

Pause the video.

Now, we're onto the second part of our discoveries notes.

Pause the video so you can look at yours, and I will look at mine.

Brilliant, so now, we are going to fill in our plans.

Introductory sentence could be following on from the last subheading.

In the last subheading of voyages, we mentioned that he had returned after a five-year long voyage around the world.

So a nice introductory sentence linking in from that could be, "Upon his return, Charles was set on," and what did he decide to do when he returned? Then, some of our sentence starters.

Despite having.

In addition to.

During.

Could be some of the sentence starters that you would choose to use when you're introducing some facts in this section.

And then, our last one, our linking sentence, linking onto the conclusion, could be, "In 1842, Charles put all his ideas "and facts into a proper theory." Pause the video, and complete your plan.

Well done, we have finished the main body of the biography.

We've done the early life section, the school life section, the voyages section, and the discoveries section.

Let's now plan the conclusion.

What is a conclusion, though? In a conclusion, we bring everything together.

It summarises everything in the text and does not include any new facts about Charles Darwin.

So we're just pulling everything together.

We can use concluding conjunctions.

We could start with "In summary", comma, "To summarise", comma, or, "In conclusion", comma, or, "To conclude", comma.

My turn and then your turn.

In summary, to summarise, in conclusion, to conclude.

Brilliant, your last, last bit of planning, you're going to set up your page like this with the conclusion as a subheading.

And then, you're going to write down some of the concluding junctions that are on this page, as you may choose to use them in your writing.

Pause the video, and add some onto your plan.

Wow, wow, wow, well done.

You have worked so hard today.

Planning is really, really tricky, because we've got to get the planning part right to make sure that we get the writing part perfect.

That's why we spent loads of time today looking over our notes and then putting them into a plan.

And that's what we've done, we've planned the introduction, the main body, and the conclusion of our biography.

So, congratulations, you're now at the end of this lesson, ready to write your biography in the next lesson.

I look forward to teaching you that lesson.