Lesson video

Welcome to today's English lesson.

I'm Mrs Crompton.

Our focus today is to consider the writer's perspective as we read an extract from "Journey to the Source of the Nile" by Christopher Ondaatje.

You will need a pen and paper.

Take a moment to make sure you've cleared any distractions away and have everything you need to hand.

To begin with, a reminder of the areas that we are looking at as we explore our non-fiction extracts.

We're looking at summarising, thoughts and feelings.

Today we're focusing on the writer's perspective.

We have considered the methods and we've been thinking about the big picture ideas.

So how has Ondaatje been feeling in our extract? So our focus is very much on the writer today.

And the first thing that I would like you to do, from memory of the extract is to tell me which two or three words would you select to describe Ondaatje's feelings? Look at the list on the screen carefully, you can select from across.

The only thing that I would say to you is remember he felt differently at different points within the extract.

So how was he feeling when he was at Lake Victoria? How was he feeling when he was on the ferry to Mwanza? Pause the video at this point and make your selection of no more than three adjectives to describe Ondaatje's feelings.

And welcome back.

So we're looking at perspective.

What does that mean? Well, a perspective is, I suppose an angle.

What angle does Christopher Ondaatje come from when he is on his visit? What are his experiences, or who is he as a person? How is his situation influencing the way that he is reacting to what he sees when he's at Lake Victoria and then on the ferry to Mwanza? So what we're going to do is just to have a look at a little bit of information about Christopher Ondaatje.

So what we're going to do is, I'm going to go through this information with you.

And then I would like you to write down further objectives, but this time you're going to be describing the type of person Christopher Ondaatje is.

Let's go through it together.

So Christopher Ondaatje was born in 1933 in Sri Lanka to a family of Dutch and Indian origin.

In 1956, he emigrated to Toronto, Canada, with virtually no money.

He quickly began to rebuild the family fortune, becoming a wealthy stockbroker.

He then became a multi-millionaire in the publishing industry.

So with that information, what can we say about his character and the type of person he is? Just pause the video at this point, and you may wish to have some details from the screen, as well as your word.

What word would you use to describe a man who can go from in 1956 having virtually no money to being a multi-millionaire? Apart from really lucky, okay? So pause the video, take down any relevant details, and then write your objectives to describe his character.

Let's continue.

This was my detail that I really liked before.

He represented Canada in the four-man bobsled at the 1964 Winter Olympics.

And they came 14th, his particular bobsled.

He left the business world in 1995 and moved to Britain.

He then began a career as a philanthropist.

So a philanthropist is a wealthy person who is able to give money to charity and gets involved with various concerns that he cares about in terms of social concern.

So he becomes a philanthropist and an adventurer.

That's the last little bit of information on Christopher Ondaatje.

And then let's just review everything and finish up our question.

What sort of person is Christopher Ondaatje? Write down three adjectives to describe his character.

You've already written down a few, just add to those.

So pause the video at this point and complete your initial appraisal of Christopher Ondaatje as an individual so that we're starting to find out about who he is and what his perspective is.

Pause, resume when you're ready.

Okay.

Now, another angle we need to consider is this focus on the Nile.

So let's just find out a little bit more.

The source of the Nile, the longest river in the world was discovered in 1858 when John Hanning Speke discovered Lake Victoria.

So this as a concept, finding out where the origins of the Nile were was something that explorers were interested in, and John Hanning Speke is the first person to have discovered it.

However, it doesn't get recorded in the Royal Geographical Society until another 42 years later.

In his book, Ondaatje follows the route of great Victorian explorations.

Burton and Speke, Speke and Grant, Baker, Livingstone, Stanley.

You might know some of those names.

So think about the significance of that.

Think about the significance of history of following in others footsteps.

Those things are important to Ondaatje.

Those are things that have influenced his decision to take particular routes.

So that's important as we read.

And then we've got a little quotation from a review, Ondaatje brings new evidence and proof of the Nile's true source and the origins of mankind.

Now, that's a big claim.

This idea of the origins of mankind itself.

And clearly on his journey, he's seeing how we have developed as a humanity, seeing evidence of the way that change is occurring.

So Ondaatje brings new evidence and proof of the Nile's true source and the origins of mankind.

Okay, pause the video again, and now think about this aspect of his journey.

This is also an angle with which he is approaching the whole task of the mission to journey to the source of the Nile.

Pause, resume when you're ready.

Just a very quick image there for you of what is supposedly the source of the Nile.

We've talked about it a lot.

I thought it would be good to show you an image.

Looks quite insignificant, doesn't it? But yet this is the start of the longest river in the world.

Okay, let's continue.

So with the information that we have gathered, I think it's important that we take those notes and turn them into something a little bit more concrete that will help us in responding to any questions about the writer's perspective.

So let's look at these three sentence starters.

And I would like you to pause the video at this point to complete them using your notes to help you.

Ondaatje sets out on his journey in order to? His character can be described as? And he is motivated by? What is he motivated by? 'Cause we can capture those things.

We are inside the perspective of Christopher Ondaatje.

Okay, over to you.

Pause the video, complete your answers.

Resume when you have completed.

And welcome back.

So we are going to be looking very specifically now at working with the text.

And we are going to be talking about the writer's perspective.

And we've now got the background information that we need.

When we are responding to the writer's perspective, we're going to use the following formula, so to speak, in terms of what we're going to include in our response.

We're going to make a statement of what the writer's perspective is within a particular moment or instance.

We're going to select evidence, and that evidence will be a combination of supporting.

So supporting evidence backs up your point, and rich evidence.

Rich evidence is the evidence that has further connotations through the word choices and sentence constructions.

That is the evidence that we will then explore and pick and then build into our comment on writer's method.

And again, explaining and bringing everything together finally.

So that is an overview of the elements we will consider.

Pause at this point and make sure that you have got that strategy written down.

As soon as you have done that, resume.

Okay.

So we're going to approach this by looking at some sentence stems first of all.

So I want to give you a framework to work with.

What you're going to do is answer the question at the top of the instruction box, and this is what I would like you to have on your piece of paper.

Why does Ondaatje travel to Africa? What is his perspectives? That's what we're going to examine.

We're going to write an overview statement to start with.

So I'm going to show you how to put the piece together, and I have written that for you, and I will show you that in a moment.

At this point, I then want you to write down the sentence starters.

And as you do so, you can start to jot down your initial ideas.

And this will give you just a planning frame, you're then going to get the opportunity to use these sentence starters and framework to complete your response.

But that will be when you see the extract again.

Okay, so this is just setting up our frame.

So we have got an overview.

And the whole point of working with perspective is to track the writer's perspective as it's demonstrated in the extract, and also to establish any changes that happen, okay? So establishing an overview and tracking any change, that's what we're going to do.

So first of all, here's my initial paragraph.

The extract is from Ondaatje's travel book, "Journey to the Source of the Nile," which relates his experiences and documents his discoveries during his visit.

In the passage, Ondaatje shares his thoughts and feelings about his environment as he reflects on the past and observes the present.

So within my overview, I'm setting it up by saying, "Well, he's a travel writer." And also establishing the key idea that Ondaatje is interested in thinking about the past, but he's also very much in the moment and noticing what's going on around him in the present and thinking about the world that he's currently living in.

That's my thought on his perspective.

I shall give you control of this in a moment, so don't worry about trying to get that down right now.

Then we have got some sentence starters.

Now, you're not going to need every single one of these.

It's not a formula like that, but they are ways of starting your ideas.

So throughout the response, Ondaatje presents what sort of attitude? His perspective changes when he experiences? Remember I said we really want to focus on any change.

His attitude is reinforced by? If it's not changing, then it's going to be reinforced.

So I've given you that sentence stem.

His feelings towards his situation are? And what are those feelings? And is that typical or atypical? Is it what we were expecting? Is it what you would presume either of his status, his gender, his intentions, that there are lots of things we can do with the language of typical and atypical.

And then bring it together at the end.

Overall, Ondaatje's viewpoint is influenced by the fact that? Back to perspective.

And at the end of your response to stepping back and thinking about why was he there in the first place? And think about how that has influenced his perspective.

Okay.

So as I said, control is over to you.

And what I want you to do is to get down the introduction, get down to sentence starters.

And you can start jotting down a few gut response reactions before we actually move to looking at the text again, okay? So control is with you now, just to set up your response and have your structure in place.

As soon as you are happy that you've got all of the information by pausing between each slide, then resume the video, and I will be there with the next step.

And welcome back.

So our next step is quite logical.

we're going to re-read the extract, and you're going to select three to five quotations that you're going to use within your response.

I then want you to have that opportunity to actually write the response independently.

So you're going to use the writing frame that we've just taken down to complete your refined answer.

So at this point, I want you to think about everything that we've been talking around in terms of phrasing, precision, vocabulary.

Remember what we did right at the beginning of the session, when we tried to say how he was feeling by using very precise language.

Bring all of that together within this final written response.

So you will see now the extract is there.

Control is over with you.

Once you have worked through the extract, stop, take an opportunity to write up your response, then resume the video and I will tell you what we're doing next.

Over to you.

Welcome back.

So in front of you, you have your piece of writing.

What we will do now is to have a look at a model response.

And what I would like you to do is to assess your own work, tracking that you have particularly used an appropriate selection of evidence as you go through and thinking about where you have got areas that match what's going on within this model response.

We'll then follow the routine of me giving control back over to you, so that you can work through the individual slides and further improve.

Taking down whole paragraphs if needs be, so that you can make your response a model of excellence.

A model of the best example you possibly could achieve.

Okay, let's have a look at the model answer together.

So our opening paragraph is the one that we've shared.

The extract is from Ondaatje's travel book, "Journey to the Source of the Nile," which relates his experiences and documents his discoveries during his visit.

In the passage, Ondaatje shares his thoughts and feelings about his environment, as he reflects on the past and observes the present.

So there is the overview.

Follow the thread of past and present.

Ondaatje is an explorer.

So again, angle perspective, with the specific intention of following in the footsteps of those before him and tracing the source of the Nile.

Can you see how I've used the contextual information to help me? He thought about the role this mighty lake had played in the great explorations of the past.

Throughout the response, Ondaatje presents his curiosity and interest in his environment.

"The fish eagles screeched their mocking cry.

"It was a wonderful way to wake up." So let's just look at what's happened in those two sections.

I've given the earth a view of the fact that he's an explorer.

Use my supporting quotation, "Thought about the role this mighty lake had played." And then we've moved on to the sentence stem.

So throughout the response, he's curious and interested in his environment.

The first thing is an example of how he felt by Lake Victoria when he heard the fish eagles.

So we've got an example from there.

And then the second quotation, the second supporting quotation is taken from the ferry.

So we've got brilliant way to wake up and brilliantly coloured clothing, shirts, t-shirts, dresses of red, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow and orange.

In both locations, Ondaatje enjoys the details of these new surroundings, revelling in their difference to his own everyday experiences.

Atypically to the locals, he does not find the cry of the bird irritating.

He is in awe at the majesty of nature.

Although he is on a journey to re-trace the past, he is also interested in the present and enjoying the experience as a modern traveller.

So can you see how I've brought it out? And not just thought about leaving the detail and saying, "Oh, he really likes where he is and he's really interested "in what he's seeing." I've then reflected one step further and considered the perspective.

He's meant to be looking for the past, but actually, that doesn't mean he's blind to the moment and he is a traveller in his own right and exploring in his own right.

And he's exploring the modern environments.

I've put that in at the end.

Okay.

Ondaatje's perspective does change however, as he moves from the idyllic spot by the banks of Lake Victoria by ferry to the hot as hell urban environment of Mwanza.

Firstly, his feelings change because he mistrusts the safety of the ferry itself.

Then he seems to be overwhelmed by the teeming mass of people.

The ferry was packed with buses, petrol tanks, vans, Land Cruisers, Jeeps, fuel tankers, cars and people.

The asyndetic list creates a claustrophobic feeling and lists all of the man-made items before mentioning the people themselves.

The use of the dash suggests the humans are an afterthought, but also implies that Ondaatje is being ironic in his observation of what's important.

This final part of the extract suggests that Ondaatje views modernization as dangerous and mankind as destructive in contrast to the beauty he had perceived in nature.

So let's just track back a little bit.

We've got the perspective of the two locations, supported by a selection, idyllic spot, hot as hell.

We've then got the example from the ferry, teeming mass with a little bit of analysis then building out from there.

So you will notice, I didn't try and analyse every single piece of evidence.

But I selected one particular piece of evidence where I wanted to lead into a big point.

What I wanted to say was this idea that all of the things that are packed onto the ferry represent the craziness of what modernization is doing that we're all just jammed into this one space.

And the people stuck there at the end seem like an afterthought.

And Ondaatje is laughing at us, that this is what we've come to, and it makes man look really quite pathetic in comparison to the simplicity and beauty of nature earlier.

And so that's the detail I've picked out to actually do my analysis with.

And then I brought that out to the big picture point of view that I feel that Ondaatje is ultimately quite critical of the modernization that he observes within the passage.

And that's my interpretation.

And I feel that there's enough evidence to support that.

I've met all of the criteria that we set.

Okay.

I'm going to go back to the beginning.

And if you remember, what we do now, it is over to you, for you to actually examine this response.

Review your work, refine your answer, and make it that model of excellence.

Work your way through.

I'll be waiting for you when you've completed.

So resume the video when you are ready.

Well done.

So we have got our final response while we examine the perspective that Ondaatje has during his journey to the Nile.

Thank you for your focus today.

Don't forget to complete your exit quiz, and enjoy the rest of your learning today.