Lesson video

My name is Ms. Johnson and I'm going to be teaching you reading today.

In today's lesson, we are going to analyse the author's use of language.

If you haven't watched lesson one to three, then you need to pause this video and you need to go all the way back to lesson one.

The book we're focusing on is The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson.

In this story, it focuses on family relationships and also divorce.

So if right at that moment you feel a bit uncomfortable, I suggest you pause the video now and go and ask an adult to watch it with you.

If not, then let's get started.

We're going to start today's lesson by doing a recap of the story and the plot and the main characters.

Then we're going to do a strategy check.

Then we're going to answer some language questions.

If you're not sure what this means, don't worry.

We'll do this in the lesson together today.

And then we're going to reflect on everything we've done already in the lesson.

In today's lesson, you're going to need an exercise book or paper, a pen or pencil, and your brain.

If there are any distractions in the room right now, for instance, if your phone is right next to you, or if there's an iPad right next to you, or perhaps the TV is on, I suggest you move them away from you, turn the TV off.

I always put my phone right at the back of this room so that I can't look at it because I always get distracted otherwise.

Okay, when you're ready, then let's get started.

We're going to start today by doing a quick recap of the story.

So the story we're reading today is The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson.

So I've got a few quick questions and I'm going to ask you to pause the video in a minute.

First I'm going to read the questions to you.

So why didn't Andy like the counsellor? What was it about the counsellor that Andy didn't like? What is the name of Andy's mascot? And who, is it decided, will Andy live with? Now pause the video, write down the answers and then press Play when you're ready to resume.

Right on, shall we see how you got them? So why didn't Andy like the counsellor? And the answer is because she patronised her.

Say that word.

Patronised.

Patronised.

And that means she made her feel like a baby.

She made her feel like she was two years old when actually she is 10 years old.

What is the name of Andy's mascot? The name is Radish.

Radish.

And who will Andy live with? So it's decided she will spend one week with her mum at house A, and the other with her dad, at house B.

Now we're going to do a strategy check.

So when we're unsure of a word, we think we have a strategy ready for us to understand the meaning.

Now this is really important whenever you're reading, because if you come across a word that you're unsure of, you need to know how to work out or have a guess at the meaning of that word.

A good guess.

It also helps us when we're answering questions, because sometimes there's a word in a question that we're not sure of.

So I'm going to practise now with this word and the word we're going to look at is propped.

Say it.

Propped.

She propped these horrible dolls up at either end of her desk.

So this comes from The Suitcase Kid and it is when the counsellor puts these two dolls up at either end of her desk, so she props these horrible dolls up at the end of her desk.

So if I look at the word class, I can see it's a verb.

It's something she does.

And I can make a guess here that perhaps she is placing these horrible dolls.

So I'm going to replace the word with another.

She placed these horrible dolls up at either end of her desk.

And then I might want to read around a little bit.

And if I'm thinking about these dolls, how do dolls normally sit? Well, dolls normally, if you just put them up at the end of the table, they might fall over.

So to prop something up, perhaps she's having to make sure they stay upwards.

I think if you prop something, you give it extra support so it stands up.

So she propped these horrible dolls up at either end of her desk.

Should we check what the word means? But if I didn't know exactly what it meant, I've got a good idea now because I've used this strategy to help me.

So props means to position something for support.

So I know that it was meaning that she's placing the dolls, they stand upwards.

So that's my strategy that I'm going to use at anytime today, when an unfamiliar word comes up.

And you can just pause the video at any point, if you need to do that strategy, if there's a word that you don't understand.

Today, we're going to be looking at language questions.

Now, language are the words that the author has chosen to use.

So for The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson has chosen her words.

Authors can pick any word they like when they write a story, but they make purposeful decisions over the words they choose so they have the correct meaning and they get across what they want to in their words, or they create the correct image of a character.

And so Jacqueline Wilson has made purposeful decisions over the words that she has chosen in this story.

In order to answer language questions, it helps us to use these following steps.

So we always underline the key words.

We skim and scan the text and then read around that word to find clues about its meaning.

I often think about what that word means and the word that it's associated to, perhaps what that means as well.

So in a minute, I'm going to ask you to pause the video to answer the question, but first I'm going to read the question for you.

The question I'm going to read to you comes from this extract.

So listen carefully to the extract from The Suitcase Kid.

This lady chatted to me.

She was trying to be ever so casual but I knew she was trying to suss things out.

She had some little dolls in her office, a mummy doll and a daddy doll, and a whole set of children dolls in different sizes.

She wanted me to play with them.

The lady is the counsellor.

Now I'm going to ask you the question.

So my question is this.

And this is a very common language question that you might come across.

And it says to give the meaning of the word casual in this sentence.

So casual might have multiple meanings, okay, multiple uses depending on how it's placed in a sentence.

So it's not asking you to say what casual means.

It's asking you to say what it means in this sentence.

So I'm going to find casual in the text and underline it.

She was trying to be ever so casual but I knew she was trying to suss things out.

So it's to do with how the lady is talking to her.

So now I'm reading around the text to find out the meaning of it.

So the lady chatted to her and Andy is saying, "She was trying to be ever so casual about it "but I knew she was trying to suss things out." So I wonder, we've got four choices of words here, what does casual mean? Does it mean she was trying to be serious? Doesn't mean she was trying to be funny? Doesn't mean she was being informal, which means quite relaxed, so how you might talk to your friend? Or does it mean she was being formal, how you might speak to your head teacher? So now I would like you to pause the video and write down your answer and press Play when you're ready to resume.

Well done.

Should we see how you got on? Fantastic.

So the answer is informal.

And why is that the answer? I'm going to explain it to you now.

So this lady chatted to me.

She was trying to be ever so casual.

So she's not trying to be funny and she wasn't being serious.

She's trying to get Andy on side.

So I know she's trying to encourage Andy, from my reading of the text, I know she's trying to encourage Andy to be her friend almost.

And so informal means she's trying to talk to her like she was a friend.

She's not being formal like a head teacher or like we'd expect the counsellor to be, she's trying to be more relaxed and informal.

That's helped me.

I also know that casual, if I was to wear casual clothes to school, I know that I might be in my home clothes and I might be quite relaxed.

So I could use word association here to help me.

What do I know casual means and then, what does this tell me about how it's being used in the text? And that would be my best way of answering this question.

Well done.

Should we have another go at another one? So pause the video in a minute when I ask you to.

I'm going to read the abstract first, and then I'm going to ask you to do the question.

"She's not a toy, "she's a mascot," I said.

So this is still in conversation with the counsellor.

I didn't want to show her Radish at all.

She's mine and she's private.

But I had to let this lady paw her about and undo her frock and turn her upside down in a very rude sort of way.

Your question is this.

Copy a word that is similar, so similar means is almost the same as, in meaning to secret? Now to answer this question, I have to actually think about the word secret before I can go searching in the text the word I need to find.

And I remember I'm only copying a word.

I need to think about what secret might mean.

So what does secret mean? Tell me, what is a secret? What does secret mean? Tell me.

Yeah, a secret means it's yours, isn't it? You don't want other people to know about it.

So is there now a word in this text that is similar to that? Is there a word that tells me that it is just hers and she doesn't want others to necessarily know about it? So now pause the video, skim and scan the text and find that word, and then press Play when you're ready to resume.

Well done.

Shall we check? So I found the word private.

Did you find it? Fantastic! Don't worry if you didn't, because these are tricky questions and we are going to keep practising them.

So private is very similar in meaning to secrets.

And this is how I'm going to answer this question.

A secret is something you don't want other people to know.

Private also means it is not for other people.

Private.

So that helps me to know that I have found the correct answer and the correct word even, and I've answered it in a really detailed way.

Right on, take a breath.

Okay, we're going to move on.

Next question.

I'm going to get you do some acting out in this question.

So I hope you are feeling ready.

First of all I'm going to read the extract to you, and then I'm going to read you the question.

"Oh what a dear little toy.

"Do let me have a look," she said, in that silly voice grownups always use when they're trying to get you to like them.

"She's not a toy, she's a mascot," I said.

I didn't want to show her Radish at all.

She's mine and she's private.

But I had to let this lady paw her about and undo her frock and turn her upside down in a very rude sort of way.

"What's Bunny's name?" she asked.

You'd have thought I was two years old, not 10.

I just shrugged and shook my head.

What does the word shrugged tell you about how Andy is feeling? My question again.

What does the word shrugged tell you about how Andy is feeling? So it's an action.

Shrugged is an action.

It's something she does.

And that gives me a clue as to how she's feeling.

'Cause if I smiled, you know as feeling happy.

So let's think about this.

Before we do anything, before we can really work out what it means, let's have a go at acting it out.

So we're going to act out a shrug.

Are you ready? I'm going to show you and I want you to copy me.

This is a shrug.

I think lots of you have probably done that before.

This is a shrug.

Ready? Do it with me.

So what does that tell me, that action, tell me about how Andy is feeling? What I'd like you to do now is pause the video and have a go at answering the question, and press Play when you're ready to resume.

Well done.

So, when we shrugged, we gave them kind of, it shows that we're not really answering.

If you were to answer the question, if Andy was going to answer that question about what's the Bunny's name, she might have actually spoken, but it tells me in the text that she just shrugged and shook her head.

So she's not even bothering to answer the counsellor.

And I know it's because Andy doesn't really want to talk about her.

So this is my answer, and I wonder if you got something similar.

Shrugging is a non-verbal cue that means I don't speak, I just use my body like this for saying you don't know, or it can also be a rude action as it suggests you don't care or you can't be bothered to speak.

Therefore, it shows Andy isn't interested in answering the counselor's question because she doesn't like her.

She doesn't want to.

So it kind of showed me that Andy is not feeling very happy here.

She can't be bothered.

So she's actually being a little bit rude.

Okay, next question, and this is another act out question.

So I hope you're feeling ready still, don't lose your energy just yet.

I'm going to read the question first.

Then we're going to read the extract.

Then I'll read the question.

And we'll have a go at acting out and then you can answer it.

"Hello, Radish," she said, peering right into a furry little face.

And this is my question.

Why do you think Jacqueline Wilson chose the word peering, and how does it show us Andy's reaction towards the counsellor? So what does Andy feel about it when the counsellor is peering right into Radish's furry little face? So what we're going to do is we're going to have a go and act out peering.

Okay, I will do it, first of all I'm going to peer into the screen and then I want you to have a go.

Okay, have a go.

Ready, with me? One, two, three.

And that is peering.

How does it feel? How did it make you feel when I came really close to the camera? I wonder what your feeling was when I did that.

How did I make you feel then? Sometimes it makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable.

It's like your personal space is being invaded by someone else's face.

So now that we know what peering means, I would like you to think about why did Jacqueline Wilson make that decision to use that word.

What meaning does it add to the sentence that it's in? So pause the video now and write down your answer and press Play when you're ready to resume.

Well done.

Fantastic.

So we've worked out that to peer means to look intensely at someone.

You're invading someone.

It shows the counsellor placed her face very close to Radish's, and we know Andy does not like the counsellor because she finds it invasive.

She doesn't want anyone near Radish and the counsellor has gone right up into Radish's face, which Andy does not like.

Fantastic.

Okay, we have another question now.

One of our last questions today.

I want you to pause the video in a minute.

First of all I'm going to read the extract to you.

Then I'll read the question and help you to answer it.

So this is the extract.

So that's how it was decided.

Radish lives with me, in my pocket, as she's always done.

She's the luckiest one.

And I get to live in my mum's house one week and my dad's the next.

My question is this.

Which word, so I'm just looking for one word, which word tells you Andy is jealous of Radish? Now, before I can answer this question, I need to think about what jealous means.

Because I can't answer it if I don't know that, if I don't think about perhaps what jealous looks like, or perhaps how you feel if you're jealous of someone.

So what does jealous mean? What does jealous mean? If you're jealous of someone, what does it mean? Shout out to me.

Yeah, so you might want to be, you might be jealous if someone has something that you don't.

You might be jealous of someone if they get to do something that you can't.

You might be jealous of someone if they are playing with your best friend.

So if you're jealous of someone, you want something they have.

So you might consider them to have something that you don't.

So what word here now suggests or tells you that Andy is jealous of Radish? What word does she use? Pause the video and write down your answer and press Play when you're ready to resume.

Well done.

So the word that I found was luckiest.

So Andy describes Radish as being the luckiest one.

So luckiest shows Andy is jealous of Radish and she wishes she could be like her and not have to choose or move house.

So she thinks Radish is lucky 'cause she just gets to stay and live in her pocket.

And if I read around the text, that's going to help me.

Radish lives with me, in my pocket, as she's always done.

And because of that, she's the luckiest one.

She doesn't have to choose.

And so that helps me to know that she's jealous of her because she feels that she's luckier than her.

Well done.

You've done so well today.

There's one more thing I'd like you to do before the end of the lesson.

We're going to reflect overall on the author's use of language.

So this is my question.

In a minute, I'm going to ask you to pause the video.

Does the story sound like Andy has written it or Jacqueline Wilson? So we know Andy is the main character and we know Jacqueline Wilson is the author.

But who does it sound like is speaking when we read this book? So when we listen to the book, who does it sound like is speaking? Is it Andy or Jacqueline Wilson? And why? Because Andy's a child and Jacqueline Wilson's an adult.

So I want you to think about that.

So pause the video and can you write down an answer for me and then press Play when you're ready to resume.

Well done.

So I hope you've written a nice answer for me there, a lengthy answer as well, with lots of detail.

So I would say that this story sounds like Andy is speaking, and this is important because even though Jacqueline Wilson is the author, she's actually written it, not Andy, 'cause Andy's fictional, she doesn't exist.

Even though Jacqueline Wilson has written it, she's put herself in the shoes of a 10-year-old and she's speaking like a 10-year-old.

She says words like suss it out.

She says words like let rip.

And that's really important.

And whenever you're writing, you have to make those purposeful decisions over your language too.

It can't be you speaking.

It has to be whichever character you're writing as who is speaking.

And this is really important when we think about language and it's perhaps the most important thing we need to remember whenever we're writing as well.

So congratulations.

You've finished today's lesson.

Well done, you've done really well.

Before you go, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to tell me two things you've learned today.

Perhaps it's a new word, like shrugged or peering.

And then I really hope you enjoy the rest of your lessons today and that you take care.