Lesson video

Hi, everyone, and welcome to our lesson today.

Today, we're going to be planning for the next stage of our writing.

So let's get started.

In today's lesson, you will be able to plan a cohesive, descriptive first part of the build-up of "The Highwayman." Here are some key words we are going to use: purpose, structure, compound adjective, hyphen, show-not-tell.

Well done.

The purpose is the aim of the text.

A text's structure is how the writing is sequenced.

A compound adjective is two words joined together using a hyphen to form one adjective.

A hyphen is a punctuation mark that can be used to form compound adjectives.

Show-not-tell is a writing technique for showing a character's feelings with description of their actions, body language, and facial expressions.

Today, we're going to be planning the first part of the build-up of "The Highwayman." First of all, we're going to focus on the purpose and structure of the build-up, and then we're gonna move on to planning part one of the build-up.

Let's begin by reviewing stanzas one and two.

These form the basis of our setting and character description.

Let's read them through together.

"The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes.

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, and the highway man came riding, riding, riding, the highwayman came riding up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French-cocked on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-kin.

They fitted with never a wrinkle.

His boots were up to the thigh.

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, his pistol butts a-twinkle, his rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky." Stanza one and two of the poem form the basis of what? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that stanzas one and two form the basis of the setting and character description.

So let's just recap where we're at with our writing so far.

Stanzas one and two describe the setting and the Highwayman, and we use these to inform our setting and character description for our narrative writing.

We've then looked at stanza three, and this stanza is going to form the basis of part one of the build-up.

And this is the section that we are going to be planning today.

Let's review stanza three.

This will form the basis of part one of our build-up.

"Over the cobbles, he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.

He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be standing there but the landlord's black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord's daughter, plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair." Stanza three of the poem forms the basis of what? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that stanza three forms the basis of part one of the build-up.

What do you think is the purpose of the build-up? Take a moment to have a think.

I think that the purpose of the build-up is to.

The purpose of the build-up is all of these.

We want to introduce key characters and storyline.

We also want to give clues about what will happen later in the story.

And we want to keep our reader engaged.

So with our setting and our character description, we really hooked our reader in and made them feel that this story was going to be filled with suspense and really, really exciting.

And we want to sustain that engagement from our reader now with our build-up.

Which are included in the purpose of the build-up? Pause the video while you decide.

We want to keep our reader engaged.

We want to introduce key characters and storyline, and we want to give clues about what may happen later in the story.

Now it's time for your task.

Firstly, reread stanza three.

Then create a storyboard to help you sequence the events of the build-up in your own words.

The sequence will help us structure our writing cohesively.

You can use words and pictures.

So you're going to use stanza three as the basis of your storyboard to help you sequence the events of the build-up.

Pause the video now while you do that.

Check your storyboard now.

Did you remember to include all of these? The Highwayman arrived at the inn-yard.

He tapped on the windows and whistled a tune to the window.

And Bess appeared at the window, plaiting a dark red love-knot, or ribbon, into her long, black hair.

Well done, everyone.

That now brings us to the end of the first part of the build-up of "The Highwayman." Now we are going to plan part one of the build-up.

In our narrative writing, we will be using lots of descriptive vocabulary to paint vivid images for our reader and create atmosphere.

This includes all of these.

So we've already encountered lots of figurative language, and by figurative language, I mean simile, metaphor, and personification.

We're also going to be using poetic devices, which include alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia.

We are also going to be using compound adjectives.

This is one of our key words, compound adjectives.

Well done, now we're going to be learning about compound adjectives in more detail now.

A compound adjective is an adjective formed of two hyphenated words.

A hyphen is a punctuation mark, and it looks like this.

This is a hyphen.

It can be used to join two words together to form one adjective.

This is called a compound adjective.

For example, jet-black hair, ice-cold wind, honey-sweet tune, mad-eyed ostler.

All of these are examples of compound adjectives we might have used in our writing on "The Highwayman." A hyphen can be used for what? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that a hyphen can be used to form a compound adjective.

We are now going to use stanza three as the basis of part one of the build-up of our narrative writing.

This is the planning format that we are going to use.

Firstly, we're going to describe the Highwayman arriving at the inn-yard.

And when we do that, we've got these prompts to help us.

So we're gonna describe the inn-yard.

We're gonna describe the arrival of the Highwayman, and we're gonna explain how he signaled for Bess.

Then we're going to introduce Bess.

So we're gonna describe her looking out the window.

We're going to explain to our reader what she looks like.

And we're also going to give our reader some show-not-tell for her reaction when she sees the Highwayman.

So let's get started with the first part of our planning, which is the Highwayman arriving at the inn-yard.

How could we describe the inn-yard? Take a moment to think or share some ideas with a person nearby.

We could describe the moon yard as moonlit, lonely, abandoned, silent, cobbled.

These are just some of the ideas I had when I was thinking up some adjectives we could use for the inn-yard.

Using words such as lonely personify the inn and make it seem as if it's got feelings.

Remember, that's one of the poetic devices we want to be using in our writing.

Now, I bet you've come up with loads of amazing ideas as well.

So make sure that you've recorded those ideas or you've written them down because they're gonna help you now with your planning.

So now it's time for you to add your ideas for describing the inn-yard to your plan.

You can see my suggestions here on the screen, but I would really like you to use your own ideas as well.

Pause the video while you do that.

Great work, everyone.

I decided to describe the inn-yard as moonlit and cobbled.

Now we need to think about how we could describe the Highwayman's arrival.

We might be thinking about some verbs here to describe how he actually arrives at the inn-yard.

Take a moment to have a think and have a discussion with people around you if you have got a partner.

Here are some of my ideas: clattering and clashing over the cobbles.

Now, I've actually magpied those onomatopoeic words, clattering and clashing.

They're also alliterative, cl, with the C-L sound and the k in cobbles.

So I definitely have wanted to magpie that from the stanza itself.

I've also given some adverbial detail, with the thunderous pining of hooves, your turn.

This is an example of an adverbial phrase of manner.

This is how he arrived in the inn-yard.

At lightning speed.

Your turn.

This is another example of an adverb of manner.

Now, take a moment to look at some of your ideas.

So these are just my ideas, but what ideas did you come up with for describing the Highwayman's arrival to your inn-yard? When you've decided on your vocabulary that you want to use, add your ideas for describing the Highwayman's arrival into your plan, and pause the video while you do that.

Well done, everyone.

I decided to go with, he arrived with the thunderous pounding of hooves.

Your ideas will hopefully be a bit different to mine, and that's great 'cause we want lots of different ideas in our writing outcomes.

Now we're gonna move on to our final section of this part of our plan, which is describing the highway man signaling for Bess.

So how could we describe that? Thinking back to the stanza, what did he do? How did he do it? And how could we explain that to our reader? Take a moment to have a think and have a discussion.

I've decided to magpie another onomatopoeic word from the stanza four, or stanza three, tapping.

So that tapping makes, or it mimics that sound of the tap on the shutters.

So tapping on the windows' shutters, I've also turned this into a non-finite subordinate clause, starting with that progressive verb form, tapping.

I've used some show-not-tell here, his heart sank as the second ticked past.

He desperately whistled a tune to the window.

I've used that word desperately as an adverb of manner.

So I haven't just said he whistled a tune to the window.

I've explained how he did it as well.

So he did it desperately because he's so hoping that Bess is going to answer him.

I've also put this scaffold here as a question because perhaps we might want to include a rhetorical question to show what questions were going through his mind in this moment when he's signaling to Bess, he's tapping on the windows, he's whistling to the windows, and at the moment, nobody has appeared.

Now, take a look at some of my ideas, but also make sure to use your own ideas and add them to your plan for describing the Highwayman signaling to Bess.

Pause the video while you do that.

Brilliant work, everyone.

I've actually put an entire sentence in because I really wanted to make sure I included a non-finite complex sentence.

So tapping the windows' shutters, his heart sank.

So in this sentence, I've got my non finite subordinate clause, tapping the windows' shutters.

And his heart sank is an example of show-not-tell.

I've also included a question, was he too late? I wonder, did you use a question in your plan as well? Also included that he desperately whistled a tune.

Now we have described the inn-yard, we've described the arrival of the Highwayman, and we've explained about how he signaled for Bess in the first part of our plan.

Now we're going to move on and introduce Bess to the story.

So we're gonna start by describing her looking out the window and describing what she looked like for the reader so they could picture her in their head, and then we're gonna give some show-not-tell to give clues to the reader about how she was feeling when she saw the Highwayman.

So let's start with, how could we describe Bess looking out the window.

Talk to your partner or have a moment to just have a think.

We might start with an adverbial of time, such as, at that moment.

Just as he was about to give up.

After several excruciating moments.

Excruciating means really painful.

The Highwayman's raven-haired, or we could describe her as dark-eyed love, appeared at the window.

So here we've got two examples of compound adjectives.

Raven-haired, so her hair was the color of a raven.

A raven is a bird with very dark black feathers, or dark-eyed.

Remember in the stanza, she's referred to as the landlord's black-eyed daughter.

So her eyes are so dark, they're almost black.

Have a look at my ideas and also your own ideas and then add your favorite ones for describing Bess Looking out the window to your plan.

Pause the video while you do that.

Well done, everyone.

So on my plan, I have used, just as he was about to give up, 'cause I think this is quite a nice cohesive link back to the previous section of the plan where we were talking about how hopeless he was feeling when no one answered whenever he knocked on the window.

And then I've also included, the Highwayman's dark-eyed love appeared at the window.

So I've gone with the compound adjective dark-eyed to describe Bess.

Now we need to describe Bess appearance in a bit more detail, because remember, we really wanna create that vivid imagery in the mind of our reader so they can picture what she looked like as she was standing in the window.

Take some time to have a think about what language or vocabulary choices you would like to use to describe Bess's appearance.

Here are some of my ideas.

We could describe Bess as a mesmerizing or radiant beauty.

We could also describe her as a red-lipped angel.

I've used that compound adjective red-lipped 'cause that's exactly how she's described in the poem.

The landlord's red-lipped daughter.

She was plaiting a crimson ribbon, or love-knot, into her jet-black hair.

In the stanza, the love-knot is described as being dark red, which we could also use, but I've decided to use the word crimson as a synonym for dark red.

Now take a moment to read and think about the ideas you just came up with to describe Bess's appearance.

You might also like to magpie an idea from me as well.

But pause the video now while you add your ideas for describing Bess's appearance to your plan.

Well done, everyone.

In my plan, I decided to go with, plaiting a crimson ribbon into her jet-black hair, Bess mesmerized him.

Now, I've decided again to go for a non-finite subordinate clause.

And we know this because it starts with that verb in the progressive form, plaiting.

I've also wanted to use the compound adjective jet black to describe her hair.

How do you think Bess reacted to seeing the Highwayman? Take a moment to have a think or discuss this question.

We might say that relief flooded her flawless face.

So here you might spot that I've used the poetic device alliteration.

Flooded, flawless, face, the repetition of the f sound to start those words.

We might say that she smiled, or she beamed radially.

A beam is a huge, genuine smile.

She might have leaned over the windowsill because maybe she wanted to move closer to him or be able to see him properly.

These are great examples of show-not-tell descriptions.

Show-not-tell descriptions tell the reader what the character is thinking or feeling by what they are doing or gesturing with their body or face.

So if someone beams radiantly, we can take that as a clue that they're feeling really, really happy or overjoyed.

True or false, show-not-tell descriptions tell the reader what the character is thinking or feeling by what they say.

Pause the video while you decide whether that statement is true or false.

Well done if you spotted that this is false.

Now read through A and B and decide how to justify your answer.

Well done if you spotted that the correct justification is B, show-not-tell descriptions tell a character's thoughts and feelings by what they are doing with their body or face.

So the whole point of show-not-tell is that it's giving our reader clues rather than just telling them how they feel.

It's not as exciting for the reader if they're just being told everything by us all the time.

We want our reader to be able to interpret the clues that we give them about how characters are feeling through what they are doing and what their faces are doing with their facial expressions.

Now add your ideas for describing Bess's reaction to your plan.

Think of how you can use some show-not-tell here to give your reader a clue about how she's feeling.

Pause the video while you do that.

Well done, everyone.

On my plan, I've gone for adverbial detail of manner.

So, with relief flooding her flawless face.

I've also told my reader that she leaned over the windowsill, and she beamed brilliantly.

I added that adverb brilliantly because if you think of someone flashing a brilliant smile, makes me think of all of her teeth glowing almost in the darkness 'cause she was smiling so widely.

Also, beamed brilliantly is an example of alliteration with that repetition of the letter B at the start of both of those words.

Well done, everyone.

That now brings us to the end of our lesson, where today, we've been planning the first part of the build-up of "The Highwayman." Understanding the purpose of each section of narrative writing enables us to write more effectively.

We can use a range of linguistic devices, such as figurative language, poetic devices, and compound adjectives, to bring the text to life for our reader.

A hyphen is a punctuation mark that can be used to join two words to form a compound adjective.

Considering the character's thoughts and feelings can help us to write in a more engaging way.

I hope you're feeling really proud of the planning that you've produced in our writing today, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how we are converting Alfred Noyes' narrative poem into some really, really engaging narrative writing.

Well done, everyone.