Lesson video

Hello, it's Mrs. Smart.

Welcome back to our English unit all about the film "Rabbit-Proof Fence".

In today's lesson, we're going to be using our descriptions from our previous lesson to write the first part of the journey.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil, and your journey description from our previous lesson.

So your description of the weather, the setting, and the characters.

If you haven't got any of those things with you right now, just pause the recording and go and get them.

In this lesson, we're going to start with a sentence level warmup where we will practise writing complex sentences.

We're then going to recap the journey and re-watch the clip.

We'll then discuss a literary device that you can use in your writing, and lastly, I will model a piece of writing for you, and then you will write your own part one of the journey.

I have written some sentence starters or some sentence finishers to help you write a complex sentence.

The first two sentences, the subordinate clause is a nonfinite clause.

That means the subordinate clause starts with a verb in the progressive tense or an inverb.

Trudging through the parched landscape comma, and then you need to finish it with a main clause.

Alternatively, you could start with your main clause, comma, trudging through the parched landscape.

Remember the nonfinite clause is referring to the girls, the girls are the people who are trudging through the parched landscape.

So your main clause needs to refer to the girls.

The next two sentences you can see use adverbial subordinate clauses.

As the blazing sun glared down at the girls comma, and then you need to finish it with a main clause.

Alternatively, you could have your subordinate clause at the end, and you could start with the main clause.

And you'll notice that if you have your subordinate clause at the end of your sentence, you don't need a comma to separate the two clauses.

So it would be main clause, as the blazing sun glared down at the girls.

Pause the recording and write down at least one, if not two, complex sentences now.

Here are some of the stills from the film clip that we are going to be watching in a moment, and then writing later on in this lesson.

We're going to be focusing particularly on this part of the clip today.

This is the part where we want to really describe the setting and the weather and describe the girls travelling through that setting for a long, long time.

In our next lesson, we'll focus on the girls finding the rabbit proof fence.

Let's watch the clip now.

So this is "Rabbit-Proof Fence", the director is Phillip Noyce and the production company is Hanway Films. Which way now? That way, that fence.

Find that rabbit fence, we go home.

Then we see our mom.

The fence, the fence, she found it.

Here's a reminder of some of the descriptions that we produced in our previous lesson.

Hopefully you've got yours in front of you now.

So we described the weather, we've got blistering, stifling, oppressive, or suffocating heat.

The blazing sun glared down, rays sliced into the scorched earth, like an orb of fiery light.

Remember that was comparing the sun to an orb.

Scalding sun, relentless blaze, the air was still, or the air hummed.

So lots of reference to the heat and the sun in particular to get across how difficult it was for the girls to travel across this landscape for a long time.

We also described this setting.

So thinking about that really, really hot setting, and the effect that the heat and the sun might have on the land around them.

Scorched, dry, parched soil, blistered earth, withered trees with bare branches, gnarled or skeletal branches, lifeless solitary tree swayed with thirst, shrivelled shrubs dotted the landscape, rugged hills lined the horizon.

We then went on to describe the characters in this setting.

And in this part, we really focused on how their bodies were struggling with carrying on their journey in this really difficult landscape, which was really really hot.

Weary aching limbs, blistered feet, bodies consumed with exhaustion, trudged on, parched or dehydrated, so really, really thirsty, persevered with a gruelling journey, determined to reach the fence.

So although the girls were really struggling, they were really, really determined, and they persevered to try and find that fence that would then lead them home.

Let's now think about the purpose, audience, language, and layout of this part of our writing.

This is the journey scene.

Pause the recording and write down anything you can think of to do with the purpose, audience, language, and layout.

Remember, purpose means why are we writing? What's the purpose? Who is the audience, who would be reading this? What sort of language do we need to include? And what's the layout or organisation of the piece of writing that we're going to be doing? Pause the recording and write yourself some notes now.

Well done, okay.

The purpose is to describe the setting and the characters, and we've practised that already, so we need to use all of our ideas in our writing today.

But it's also to help them readers to empathise with the characters.

So that readers almost feel how the characters are feelings.

So we really need to describe their feelings and their bodies so that the reader really understands the struggle that they're going through.

The audience would probably be children from about age 10 plus.

The language we need to use is going to be very descriptive, but also emotive, remember, we're trying to make our readers feel an emotion, they're trying to empathise with the characters.

At the layout, we're going to be writing two paragraphs today.

They need to be in chronological order, so that means in time order, because we're retelling this clip of the film.

We're going to have an opening and linking sentences at the beginning and end of our paragraph.

So we'll open with an opening sentence that will introduced what we're writing about, and then we'll finish with a linking sentence that will link on to our next paragraph or a closing sentence that will bring the paragraph to an end.

How does the film show the passing of time? We know that the girls are travelling through this landscape for quite a long time, for many days in fact.

How does the film show this passing of time? Because the film doesn't last for many days.

And then thinking about that, how could you show the passing of time in your writing? Your writing can't go on and on forever, describing everything that happens over several days.

So how could you show that time has passed? Are there any sentence starters or phrases that you think you could use.

Pause he recording and try to answer these two questions now.

So here are some ideas of ways that you could show the passing of time in your writing.

Step after step, mile after mile, the girls, then you continue.

Minutes turn to hours and hours turn to days as the girls.

Minutes passed, hours passed, days passed.

Hour after hour, day after day.

As the days passed, so you can see lots of reference here to time, to minutes to hours to days, and then building up.

Then we've got one foot in front of the other they continued.

Every step they took could have been a mile.

Every minute they travelled could have been an hour.

So really exaggerating how their journey felt really, really long.

It was long, but it felt even longer because it was so challenging.

On and on they went, Night followed day and day followed night.

Okay, now I'm going to start my modelled piece of writing.

First of all, I'm going to write the first paragraph, and then there'll be an opportunity for you to write your first paragraph.

Then I'll write my second paragraph, and then there'll be opportunity for you to write your second paragraph.

So by the end of this lesson, you will have written the first two paragraphs of your journey.

So I'm going to start my first sentence with leaving the dense woodland behind.

This serves as my opening sentence.

It links to what's happened previously.

We know that they have left the camp, they've escaped from the camp, and the first thing they did was to run through this really dense woodland.

So they've left that dense woodland now, and now they're moving into a more desert-like landscape.

So leaving the dense woodland behind them, I'm going to say the three girls, I want a word walked, but I'm not going to use walked.

I'm going to use trudged, the three girls trudged on through the, now how can I summarise what this new landscape is like? I'm going to say the vast comma unforgiving landscape.

Okay, let's read that sentence back.

Leaving the dense woodland behind them, the three girls trudged on through the vast, unforgiving landscape.

So I've introduced to my reader that we've linked from the woodlands to this new landscape, and that this new landscape is really large, and it's very unforgiving.

That means it's a very challenging landscape to walk through.

And then I'm going to go on to explain why it's such an unforgiving landscape.

I wonder if I could add an adjective to describe the three girls at this point.

How might we describe them? In so doing that they've been really brave and escaped the camp, and they're determined to return home.

I'm going to use the adjective courageous, which has a similar meeting to brave.

Okay, the next sentence I'm going to start with a prepositional phrase.

I'm going to write out in the desert, so it's really clear to my reader where the girls are.

Out in the desert, now I want to introduce something about the heat because that's really important and what the sun is doing.

So out in the desert, the aggressive sun because remember, we want to describe the sun as been really aggressive and violent and describe it in a very negative way.

So the aggressive sun blazed down and what else did it do? I know, I could say it blistered everything it touched.

So I'm introducing this idea of this very aggressive sun and the effect it's having on the landscape around.

So let me read that sentence back.

I've got out in the desert, the aggressive sun blazed down and blistered everything it touched.

So I've got a compound sentence there, using and to join my two main clauses together.

Okay, now I'm going to describe something in the landscape.

I know, I'm going to focus on that tree.

One solitary tree, remember we said solitary means on its own, and it was the only tree you could see.

So one solitary tree.

How could I describe it? With withered branches, now what might it do? It's really, really thirsty.

It hasn't had any moisture or water.

I'm going to say gasped for water, and I'm going to extend that with a but, but none came.

So I'm personifying the tree there, I'm giving the tree human features.

Trees don't really gasp.

That's something that humans do.

So I'm giving it that human quality to show how thirsty, dehydrated and parched the tree was due to the heat.

Okay, let's have another sentence to describe the effect of this heat on the land.

I'm going to focus now on the soil.

The parched soil crumbled under their feet with every step.

You can see I've now started to introduce the girls again, introducing their feet, making the soil crumble with every step that they take.

Now, here I think might be a good point to use one of my techniques, one of my literary devices to show the passing of time.

I want to show they're not just going for a short walk through the desert, they're walking for a long, long time, for days and days and days.

So I'm going to use minutes, minutes turned to hours and hours turned to days.

So there's some patterning in there as well, as, what did the girls do? All this time, as the minutes became hours and the hours became days, the girls I'd say continued to persevere.

Remember that means to keep going, to not give up, to persevere with the gruelling journey, I'm going to call it.

That means very difficult or very challenging journey.

Now I want to start introducing some show not tell, to show how they're feeling.

I've shown the effects of the heat and the sun on the land.

Now I want to show the effect of the heat and the sun on the girls, and the fact that they've been walking for a long, long time.

So I want to show that they're really tired, but I don't want to say they're tired, I'm going to show that through describing how their body feels.

So I'm going to add, their weak, aching limbs, remember limbs means arms and legs, screamed in agony, but again, I'm personifying their limbs there.

Our arms and legs don't really scream, but it's showing that they're in so much pain, it's as if their muscles are screaming.

Now extend that a little bit more with, an and their bodies work consumed with exhaustion.

That's as if their whole bodies are just full of exhaustion, they're not feeling anything else.

Okay, so I think that's the end of my first paragraph.

Let's read back the whole paragraph and just check I haven't made any errors.

Leaving the dense woodland behind them, the courageous three girls trudged on through the vast unforgiving landscape.

Out in the desert, the aggressive sun blazed down and blistered everything it touched.

One solitary tree with withered branches gasped for water, but none came.

The parched soil crumbled under their feet with every step.

Minutes turned to hours and hours turned to days as the girls continue to persevere with their gruelling journey.

Their weak aching limbs screamed in agony, and their bodies were consumed with exhaustion.

So if I have a look at my success criteria, let's see how I'm getting on.

Have I used ambitious and precise vocabulary to describe the setting and weather? Yes, I've definitely done that using some of the ideas from my previous lesson.

I have used show not tell to describe the characters feelings.

Yes, I described their limbs to show that they were really tired.

I've used devices to show the passing of time.

Yes, I used that phrase minutes turned to hours, and hours turned to days.

And I have used a range of sentence starters and structures.

Yes, I've used a nonfinite clause.

I've used prepositional phrase starters.

I've had compound sentences and complex sentences.

So I'm doing well there.

It's now your chance to write the first paragraph of the journey.

Remember to use these images that you can see on the screen to describe the setting, describe the weather, and to show how the girls are feeling as a result of the setting and the weather that they are travelling through.

Pause the video to complete your task, and then resume once you're finished.

I am now going to model the second paragraph of the journey.

I want to show how the girls are feeling at this point, and I'm going to include some speech to show the slightly different feelings that the three girls might be having.

Okay, let's get started.

I'm going to start with Gracie, who's going to say, "I see", and I'm going to have a pause.

I want to show that she's pausing by using the ellipsis.

So imagine that she's looking around her, and she's saying "I see "nothing." So she's a bit more negative.

"I see nothing," Gracie, now what word could I use for said? I'm going to use whispered, whispered dejectedly to show that she's almost giving up as she gazed ahead.

Now I want to show how Daisy is feeling on the journey.

She's the youngest one.

Daisy complained, "Tired Moll," That's her shortening for Molly, she's talking to Molly.

"Tired Moll, so tired." Shows how Daisy is feeling, she's a much smaller one, so she's going to feel much more tired from walking for such a long period of time.

Then I want to show how Molly's feeling.

So I'm going to say, "Got to keep going." You can see I haven't said, "We've got to keep going," I've used got to to show slightly informal speech.

"Got to keep going.

"Got to keep on track," Molly repeated.

This shows that she's really determined.

She's keeping going, she's not giving up.

So Molly repeated, let's have a nonfinite clause to add a little bit more detail to this sentence.

I'm going to add, knowing they had to get home.

She's the one who's really in charge and leading them home.

And then I'm going to have Molly looking at the horizon, trying to find that rabbit proof fence.

So I'm going to use the verb scanned, she scanned the horizon and searched for the rabbit-proof fence.

Remember, they're trying to find that rabbit-proof fence.

Once they found that, they can walk along the fence, and that will lead them all the way home.

So she's scanning, she's searching for the rabbit-proof fence.

It would have been easy to give up, but what could I say? Molly was determined, I want to show, really exaggerates how determined Molly is to find that rabbit-proof fence.

And then I'm going to have a final sentence to close off this paragraph.

And another way of showing that carrying on walking over a long period of time.

So I'm going to write putting one cracked foot in front of the other, they continued.

I'm going to end with an ellipsis to show that they're continuing and they're not stopping.

Let's read that paragraph back and just check it all makes sense, and I haven't made any errors.

"I see nothing," Gracie whispered dejectedly, as she gazed ahead.

Daisy complained, "Tired Molls, so tired.

"Got to keep going.

"Got to keep on track," Molly repeated, knowing they had to get home.

She scanned the horizon and searched for the rabbit-proof fence.

It would have been easy to give up, but Molly was determined.

Putting one cracked foot in front of the other, oh, I've made a mistake there, in front of the other, they continued.

Now it is your chance to write the second paragraph of the journey.

See if you can include some speech to show how the three different girls are feeling.

Pause the video to complete your task.

Resume once you're finished.

In this lesson, we have had a sentence level warmup where we practised writing complex sentences.

We then recapped the journey and re-watched the clip of the film.

I shared a literary device with you to show the passing of time.

And then I modelled two paragraphs of the journey, and hopefully you have written two paragraphs of the journey.

If you haven't done that yet, this is now your chance to write those two paragraphs.

Congratulations, well done for completing your lesson.

If you would like to, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging at Oak National and #LearnwithOak.

I'm sure lots of people would really enjoy seeing your journey writing.

I will see you in our next lesson.

Goodbye.