Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Ms. Madden.

And in today's lesson, we are going to be editing the writing that you wrote in the previous lesson.

I love editing because it's a great time to improve your writing, both by looking at the small details but also adding new ideas.

You're coming back to your work with fresh eyes.

Let's get going.

In today's lesson, we will start off by thinking about the purpose of editing.

Then you will edit your writing in sections.

First of all, we will focus on editing punctuation.

Then we will move on to editing to improve and finally, editing to extend.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper.

Critically, you need the paper or book with your writing from the previous lesson on.

So we're going to be working on the writing you did about the escape from the previous lesson.

You'll need a pencil or pen.

Sometimes, it can be quite helpful to edit in a different pen or pencil to the one that you did the original writing in.

So if you wrote in the previous lesson in pencil, you might edit in pen.

If you previously wrote in pen, you can edit in pencil.

It can help you to keep track of what you are doing and of course, you need your brain, your reflective brain to help look at your writing as a reader.

Press pause and get the things you need now.

Okay, so let's think about the purpose of editing.

What does an editor do? Can you press pause and say it aloud now? An editor goes through a writer's work and checks for mistakes and makes improvements.

Every author needs an editor.

And do you remember who we said the best editor is? You.

You are the best editor of your own work.

We don't want to wait for someone else to look at our writing and say how we could improve it, we can make those choices and decisions for ourself.

Editing is the process of making any changes needed to improve our writing.

When you edit, you decide what will stay and what will be changed.

Even really successful authors need to and want to edit their work.

I love to hear successful writers and authors talking about their process and I'm often astounded at how many draughts of their writing they have done before their writing finally gets published.

Each time you look back at your writing, you'll notice something new and think about how you can improve.

We're going to start off by focusing on editing punctuation.

Here I have some writing.

I want you to pause the video, read this through and see if you can spot the mistakes to do with punctuation in this example.

It's really important that we do focus on punctuation because it's really easy when we're writing, especially if we're writing in a rush, to sometimes miss things out and get punctuation a little bit wrong.

And punctuation is really important to help the reader for clarity so that they really understand what we're communicating.

So press pause, read and see if you can identify the errors.

Okay, did you spot these? I'm going to read it through and show you the errors as we get there.

Molly edged towards the door and peered to check whether there were any witnesses while the rest of the camp hurried to church.

Outside, so of course, we need a capital letter there because it's the start of the sentence, and then a comma because that's some extra information, a fronted adverbial at the start of the sentence.

So we have a comma after a fronted adverbial.

Then, outside, thunder clapped and the bells rang ominously.

We have a new sentence, a full stop, a new sentence for a new idea.

Inside, so I have to have a capital letter at the beginning of that sentence.

Inside, the girls discussed their escape.

Gracie was perched on the bed, nervously listening to Molly.

Of course, Molly is a character's name and a name must have a capital letter.

Then the start of my speech, the rain will cover our tracks, we've got to go now.

So we have to have a capital letter at the start of the speech sentence.

The the, sometimes it can be easy to forget that capital letter at the start of the speech sentence.

Then we've got the contracted word we've.

Short for we have.

So we need the apostrophe we've to show that it's short for we have.

And finally, that final inverted comma, the 99 to show the closing of speech.

Molly insisted as she reached forward to hurry the others.

Daisy grasped her sister's hand and here, we have an apostrophe for possession.

Previously, we had an apostrophe for contraction and now it can be quite easy to forget to use our apostrophes for possession.

Did you spot that? Well done.

Now it's time for you to have a first go at editing your writing.

The first time that you read back your writing now, I want you to be checking your punctuation.

Here is a checklist to help you.

Start off by checking your capital letters.

Check the start of sentences, check the start of speech sentences and check for proper nouns carefully.

So the names of the character or if you've talked about the Moore River Settlement.

Next, check your punctuation.

Think about commas, full stops and speech punctuation because that's really tricky.

Check that all your punctuation is there and that it's correct.

If in doubt, leave it out.

We don't want to throw in commas randomly.

We only use punctuation where there's a rule, where you know it has to be used because it's separating a subordinate clause, for example.

And then finally, most importantly, as you read this time through, check for sense.

Does it sound right? Sometimes it can be easy to miss out words by accident when we're writing at speed.

So this is your opportunity to check that it does make sense and you haven't missed anything out.

Press pause and read over and edit your work.

Well done.

Now we're going to focus on editing to improve.

What we focus on now is stretching the action.

This is a great technique where we choose a key point in our writing and we draw out the tension, we draw out the action to build tension and make it more exciting to read.

I'm going to read you what I have as a starting point and then we're going to see how we can improve it.

"The rain will cover our tracks, we've got to go now," Molly insisted as she reached forward to hurry the others.

Daisy grasped her sister's hands and they cautiously made their way to the door.

So this is a really important point in the story, isn't it? Where Molly's convincing the others to go but will Gracie go or not? So I'm going to show you how we can draw out the action by using short sentences, repetition and showing time passing.

Look at how I've stretched the action.

The sentences and phrases that I've added are in bold.

"The rain will cover our tracks, we've got to go now," Molly insisted as she reached forward to hurry the others.

Time ticked on.

The girls remained stuck in position; they refused to move a muscle.

"Well, we got to go now," Molly insisted once more.

She held out her hand to little Daisy in the hope that she could be persuaded, but to no avail.

Uncertainty filled the room.

Seconds turned to minutes and the minutes passed by.

Molly's determined gaze failed to waver and yet the girls would still not move.

Finally, Daisy grasped her sister's hand and they cautiously made their way to the door, the doorway to freedom.

Can you see how I've stretched that moment? I've added short sentences to build up the tension.

Time ticked on.

How I've showed the time passing.

Seconds turns to minutes and the minutes passed by.

These critical crucial minutes as we know the tracker is nearby and the girls need to make a choice and break for it.

And then can you see why I've used this repetition at the end to really emphasise that this is their moment and their chance for freedom? And they cautiously made their way to the door, the doorway to freedom.

And I've used a dash there to add this extra information.

We can also edit to improve by focusing on flow.

That's how one sentence leads into another.

Let's look at this example here.

"Well, we got to go now," Molly insisted once more.

She held out her hand to little Daisy in the hope that she could be persuaded, but to no avail.

Could I turn this into a complex sentence to make one sentence flow into another better? Press pause and say aloud how I could transform these two sentences into one.

Here's how I chose to do it.

You can see I used the subordinating conjunction as, to join these sentences.

"Well, we've got to go now," Molly insisted once more as she held out her hand to little Daisy in the hope that she could be persuaded, but to no avail.

Okay, now it's your turn to edit your writing.

This is take two.

You've already edited to focus on making sense and punctuation.

Now you're looking about adding in suspense to stretch the action in the way that I showed you through repetition, through short sentences, reflect, through showing the passing of time and you might add in a complex sentence to build more flow.

Press pause and add those things to your writing.

Well done.

Finally, we're going to edit to extend, to build even more to our writing.

Perhaps to add new ideas.

So this is the sequence, the end of the writing that you might be able to build on from the previous lesson, the end where the children do decide to leave and are making a run for freedom.

This is a point that we want to make really dramatic and really make the reader feel incredibly excited and nervous about what they're doing.

Let's have a look at this ending that I have extended to try and make it more dramatic.

As I read it to you, think about why this is an effective ending.

As the pair glanced over their shoulders one final time, they hoped that Gracie would change her mind.

Finally, she reluctantly followed.

She could not have let them go without her.

Keeping a low profile, they edged towards the boundary of the forest.

It was now or never.

They had no choice.

As the thunder roared above them, they ran through the trees.

They ran for freedom.

They ran for hope.

They ran for home.

Press pause and say aloud any of the sentences or phrases that you think are particularly effective.

And perhaps you might say why you think some of these are effective.

I wonder if you had any of these ideas.

Did you notice the short sentences I used in a sequence to build up suspense? They had no choice.

A short, punchy sentence to really show the drama.

Did you notice the complex sentences I included to add detail? As the pair glanced over their shoulders one final time, they hoped that Gracie would change her mind.

So I've used that subordinate clause.

As the pair glanced over their shoulders, and then I've added the information.

They hoped that Gracie would change her mind.

So complex sentences to show the detail and complexity of what's going on.

Did you notice the repetition I used in my final three sentences for emphasis? They ran for freedom.

They ran for hope.

They ran for home.

This can be a really useful device, the repetition of three, three sentences starting in the same way to really emphasise what is going on at this point in the story.

So now, it's your third final time to really extend your writing this time.

So now, this time, I want you to focus on the end of the dramatic narrative scene that you have written.

I want you to add in short sentences to build up suspense.

Add in a complex sentence for detail.

So perhaps really focus on how Molly is feeling and add in some repetition for emphasis.

Press pause and complete your task.

Well done.

You have achieved a lot in this lesson.

We have thought about the purpose of editing.

You have edited your punctuation.

You have then focused on editing to improve your writing and finally, you have in doing editing to extend your writing.

I think you should be really, really proud of what you have achieved and perhaps you might read your work aloud to a parent or carer.

Congratulations.

You have completed your lesson.