Lesson video

Hi everyone, it's me, Miss Webster, with you for the last writing lesson in our highwayman unit.

And I'm really excited today because you get to write your very own ending of the highway man story.

So I hope you're feeling comfortable.

Hope you're feeling confident.

And I can't wait to get started on this lesson.

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

If you haven't got everything you need, pause the video, go and collect it, and I'll see you when you're ready.

We will be doing our writing warmup, then we will get ready to write, and you will then have the chance to write your very own ending to the story of "The Highwayman." And you'll finish the lesson by reading back your writing.

So for our writing warm up, we've got a little bit of mix practise, which means we're going to practise some of the skills that we have been doing throughout this unit.

So let's start.

I've got a missing word here from this word class definition.

I wonder if you can think about what it is.

An mm describes a word; it tells us what it's like.

I'm going to give you a second to think about that.

Is it a noun, an adjective, a verb or an adverb.

An mm describes a word, it tells us what it's like.

Should we say it together? An adjective describes a word, it tells us what it's like.

Good job.

Ready to move on? So our next practise is going to be thinking about whether these are phrases or clauses.

Just have a second now.

What does a clause have to have in it? A clause has to have a verb in it.

Okay.

So let's just have a look.

He galloped rapidly.

Phrase or clause? You can tell me in three, one, two, three, it's a? Clause.

Why, how do you know? It's got a verb in it, hasn't it? What's the verb? Point on the screen.

Good job, it's galloped.

What about this one? Below the eerie sky.

Phrase or clause? Have a really good look.

One, two, three, it's a phrase.

Why? Has it got a verb in it? Or it hasn't got a verb in it? It hasn't, has it? There's no verb in below the eerie sky.

Are you ready for the next one? The faint moonlight shone.

Phrase or clause? One, two, three.

It's a clause.

Why? Point to the verb.

Well done, it's shone.

And then finally in the moonlight, phrase or clause? Check to see if it's got a verb.

One, two, three, it's a phrase.

There's no verb in in the moonlight.

Good job.

Let's move on.

I've got three sentences that I want to show you.

You've got to think about whether they are simple, compound or complex.

Here's the first one, Read it to yourself.

I'll read it aloud for you as well? His heart thumped in his chest, as he caught sight of the inn.

Have a really good think.

Think about what clauses you can see, what type of clauses they are.

Should we say it together? Simple, compound or complex? It's a complex sentence because it's got a main clause and it's got a subordinate clause.

The subordinate clause in this sentence is as he caught sight of the inn.

Ready for the next one? Read it to yourself.

I'll read it to you.

He couldn't wait to see Bess.

Take a second to think.

Simple, compound or complex.

One, two, three.

It's a simple sentence.

Well done.

You ready for the next one? Here it is.

Please read it to yourself first.

And I'll have a go too.

A mile later, comma, he arrived at the inn, and felt a surge of excitement.

Have a really good think about this one.

What kinds of clauses can you see? I can see a main clause.

He arrived at the inn.

And I can see another main clause, felt a surge of excitement.

I can also see a coordinating conjunction.

So that must mean it is a compound sentence.

Really good job.

Let's move on.

Write these in the plural possessive form.

So I've got the singular possessive, the tree's branches.

In other words, the branches that belong to one tree, the cloud's shadows.

In other words, the shadows that belong to one cloud.

The horse's neighs.

In other words, the neighs that belong to one horse.

You've got to have a go at writing the plural possessive form so that you can show the branches that belong to more than one tree.

Two trees, 20 trees, a hundred trees.

So where would you put the apostrophe? Have a go at writing down the first one, and then we will check.

If you need a little bit more time, you can pause, and I'll see you in a second.

Okay, let's see what we got.

The tree's branches.

Did you put your apostrophe after the S? Well done.

Have a go at the next one, please.

The cloud's shadows.

Think about where that apostrophe needs to go.

Write it down.

If you need a little bit more time, you can pause.

Okay.

Shall I show you what I thought? Ah, so the apostrophe is after the S again, the clouds' shadows, meaning the shadows that belong to more than one cloud.

It could be two clouds, 100 clouds, 200 clouds.

And then the horse's neighs.

Take a minute to write that one down to show the plural possessive form.

Hmm.

Where does the apostrophe need to go? Pause the video if you need a little, tiny bit longer.

Okay.

I'll show you what I thought.

The horse's neighs with the apostrophe after the S.

Really good job, well done.

Our next challenge is to point to the punctuation mistakes in this sentence.

I will read the sentence aloud.

You can follow along and you can think about the punctuation mistakes that I've made.

Uh-oh.

So it says, "Oh no muttered the highwayman when he saw the Constable.

So, can you point to the first punctuation mistake? Point to it now.

Well done.

There's no capital letter there.

Uh-oh.

And is there another punctuation mistake? Can you see? Think about the inverted commas.

Think about the comma.

Are they in the right place? Point to it now.

Well done.

So it should look like this, shouldn't it? It should be inverted commas, capital letter.

And then the speech part.

The speech of the highwayman.

Oh no.

And then my comma, and then my closing inverted comments.

Now a Constable is another word for a police officer.

It's kind of an old fashioned word.

They wouldn't have used the word police officer in the highwayman's day, but they would have used this word, Constable.

And that's a little picture of what one of them might have looked like.

I'm going to read the sentence aloud, so listen really carefully.

Galloping along the road, he saw a stagecoach full of wealthy travellers.

This is what a stagecoach looks like.

And it's a method of transport that was used in the highwayman's days.

And you can see it's not powered by Petro or electricity, it's powered by horses.

Okay.

So it's a method of transport that was used back in the 16th and 17th and 18th centuries.

And inside the coach bits, can you see, that's where the people would have sat? So can you point to the non-finite clause? Galloping along the road, he saw a stagecoach full of wealthy travellers.

Point to the non-finite clause now.

Well done.

It's the, all the writing in pink.

Galloping along the road, that's our non-finite clause.

Can you point to the main clause? Tell me what colour the main clause is written in.

So we did it in green, well done.

So our main clause is he saw a stagecoach full of wealthy travellers.

Can you point to an adjective? Can you tell me the adjective? Well done.

Wealthy, that word written in italics, in slanted letters.

Wealthy is our adjective in this sentence.

Can you point to verb one, and tell me? Galloping.

Well done.

And point to verb two.

Saw.

Really good job.

So let's get ready to write.

So far you've written the opening, the buildup part one, and the buildup part two of the highwayman, which is absolutely amazing.

And you've done so, so well.

What I'd really like you to do is pause the video and read back your three paragraphs, your opening paragraph, your build up one paragraph, and you'll build up two paragraph.

Pause the video now, and I see you when you've done that.

So here's a question I'd really like you to think about.

How did your writing make you feel when you read it back? In other words, can you think about being the reader when you read your writing back? What is the intended effect of your writing on your reader? Have a second to think about that question, 'cause it's really important that when we are writing we always have in our mind how our reader will feel when they read our writing.

These are some of the things that I thought when I read back my writing.

I felt a bit uneasy, a bit anxious, a little bit worried, and a little bit like something bad might be about to happen to the highwayman.

Did you get any of those feelings when you read your writing back? Okay, interesting.

So, what happened in the story to make us feel these things? There's my list of adjectives, or my list of feelings.

And I wonder why we felt a bit like that.

This is what I thought.

It was because the story is set on a dark and stormy night.

And that's a linguistic device used by writers called pathetic fallacy.

Say that, pathetic fallacy.

Well done.

It's quite a fun word to say, isn't it? And this is where the writer, on purpose, reflects the mood or the atmosphere of the story in the weather, and in the atmosphere.

So we purposely chose to write about it being a stormy night, with tempestuous wind and ghostly clouds, because perhaps we know that something bad might be about to happen in the story, something scary perhaps, or something that might go wrong.

Also, we know the highwayman is a thief.

We know he's about to go and rob someone.

We know those two things are not very good things to be or to do.

And also there was something a bit strange about Tim, wasn't there, and the way that we described him as having crazy eyes, being scruffy and dishevelled, and spying on the other two characters.

So there was something a bit odd about him I thought.

So we're not going to read the rest of the poem to find out what happens.

You are allowed to make up the ending.

So let's have a think about some ideas.

What could happen next? Remember, the highwayman is just left in the inn.

He's just said to Bess, "don't worry, "I'll be back.

"I'll be back with some gold for you.

"I'll be back soon." So what could happen next? Shall I share some of my ideas? Maybe the highwayman gets caught.

Maybe Tim tells the police about the highwayman's plan.

Maybe the highwayman gets lost in the storm.

Maybe he steals a fake piece of jewellery or coins.

What other ideas did you have? Have some thinking time.

What else could happen? Okay.

So, when you thought of your general idea, you need me to make a very brief plan.

Four key things that could happen in the ending of your story.

I've got a few pictures there to give you some ideas.

A picture of a stormy night, and the pictures of the police constable, and the stage coach that we had earlier in the lesson to maybe give you a few ideas.

I would like you to pause the video now, and jot down a few brief notes that you would use in your plan.

Pause the video now.

So, our next question before you start writing is thinking about the skills that you need to use in your writing to be successful.

We did have this question in a previous lesson, so I bet you can remember some really good ideas.

Have a little bit of thinking time.

What are you really going to try hard to do in your writing today? What are the really important skills to remember? I'll share some of my ideas.

We've got to follow your plan.

In previous lessons, we've worked really hard on coming up with a detailed plan, didn't we, to help us sequence our writing properly.

So it's really important that you've got your, your plan, and that you follow that so you can stick to a nice cohesive structure.

Definitely lots of this: think, say, write, read for every sentence, using really precise vocabulary choices.

We've discussed and practised this a lot over the last few lessons, really choosing words on purpose.

Using different sentence starters, accurate punctuation, including accurate punctuation for speech if your characters are saying something, and then different sentence types.

We practise lots of different sentence types using simple sentences and compound, and a few different types of complex sentences.

We've used as adverbial clauses in complex sentences, and non-finite clauses in our complex sentences.

Did you think of anything else? Tell me if you did.

Okay.

So now the fun part.

You can pause the video, and you can write the rest of your story.

Whilst you write the story, it might be helpful to have this screen on, or this page on your screen.

Or it might be helpful to have this page on your screen so you can see the pictures.

It is totally up to you.

You can just go back in the video and choose the page that you would like to have on your screen whilst you're writing.

I'd say that you could have about 20 minutes to write the rest of your story, but it doesn't matter if it takes you less time than that, or a little bit more time than that.

Okay? You need to the video, and I will see you back when you've written your story in however long it takes you.

Pause the video now.

Wow, you have worked so hard.

You've written the rest of the story.

So now it's time to read back your writing.

And I'll just give us a quick reminder about why it's important to do this, making sure that it makes sense.

Making sure that we get a sense of being the reader.

And we talked a bit about that at the beginning of the lesson.

It's really important that when we're the writer we get a sense of how the reader feels, what the reader's impressions and feelings will be when they read your writing back to make sure we've got the purpose right? To check and change for any punctuation errors.

To check we've used precise vocabulary, and to check and change spelling errors.

And the most important thing is to enjoy it, and to feel really proud of yourself as a writer.

So you need to pause the video now and take a few minutes to read back your writing.

Pause the video.

Oh my goodness, you have worked so hard.

We did lots of different kinds of practise in our writing warmup, we got ready to write.

You wrote the whole ending of the story, which is absolutely amazing.

And then you read back your writing.

I think you've worked so, so hard, and it would be great if you would like to, to ask your parent or carer to share your writing on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter by tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I am so proud of the work that you've done, not just today, but in the whole of this highwayman writing unit.

And hopefully I'll see you again soon.

Have a really lovely rest of your day.