Lesson video

Hello.

Is Mrs. Smarts.

Welcome back to this English unit.

We're going to be carrying on exploring the biography all about Mary Anning today.

Our learning objective is to answer retrieval questions.

Right, if you're ready, let's get started.

Needs an exercise book or some lines paper, and a pen or pencil to write with.

Try and put away any distractions so that you can fully focus on your learning.

Pause the recording and get yourself ready for your lesson today.

In this lesson we're going to start with an introduction and recap of the text All about Mary Anning.

We're then going to focus on retrieval skills, and lastly you'll have a chance to put those skills into practise by trying to answer some retrieval questions.

Here is the book that we are focusing on in this unit.

It's called History VIP; Mary Anning.

It's written by Kay Burnham.

We're now going to see what you can remember from our previous lesson.

I'm going to ask you a few questions that I've got multiple choice answers, and you're going to point to the answer that you think is correct.

Ready? Which genre is Mary Anning History VIP? That's the book that we're focused on? Is it a story, a newspaper report, a biography, or a nonfiction text? Which ones you think.

I'm going to count down from three and I want you to point to the correct answer.

Three, two, one, point.

Oh, well done.

If you didn't fall for my trick, there were two correct answers to that question.

It is a biography because it is a text written about someone's life, but it's written by someone different.

So it's about Mary Anning but it's written by Kay Burnham.

And it's also nonfiction.

It gives me true factual information about Mariana.

Well done if you got that right.

What was Mary Anning's job? Was she an actress and a singer, fossil hunter and scientist, writer, or a teacher.

Ready? Three, two, one.

Point.

Well done.

She was a fossil hunter and a scientist.

You might also remember that she was a dinosaur expert.

Where did Mary Anning hunt for fossils? Lyme Regis in Dorset, Cows Isle of Wight, France, or Wales.

Where do you think it was? Counting down from three now.

Three, two, one.

Points.

Of course, it was Lyme Regis in Dorset.

If you remember, we looked at the map in the last lesson and that is right on the coast in the South of England.

So it's a seaside town in the county of Dorset.

Well done if you've got that right.

Before we answer any retrieval questions, let's just make sure we know what this word means.

Repeat after me, to retrieve, to retrieve, To retrieve is a verb that means it's a doing word.

It's something that we do.

The definition is to get or bring something back from somewhere.

Synonyms or words that mean the same or similar, could be find, get, or bring.

Now one way I remember the meaning of to retrieve, is I think of a golden retriever.

This beautiful dog on the screen.

Golden retrievers are really good at going off and finding things and bringing them back.

So you need to be a little bit like a golden retriever today, finding answers or words in the text, and then bringing them back and copying them into your answer.

Reasonably good front steps that we need to take to be successful when we're answering retrieval questions.

We need to start by ,of course, reading the text.

You can't answer any questions about the text without reading it first.

Once you've read it, you then need to read the question and identify the key words.

Sometimes it can be useful to underline the key words or highlight them.

Key words means the main or the most important words in the question.

It's then useful to have a think about what type of word the answer might be.

It might be the name of someone.

It might be the name of a place.

It might be a number such as a date of birth.

That helps when you're then scanning the text because you know roughly what you're looking for.

You're then going to scan the text.

That means reading really quickly.

And I often find it helpful to use my finger as I scan.

Cause I've already read the text.

I don't need to read the whole thing again, I can scan it quickly.

And I'm looking for one of those words that I've thought it could be such as a name or a date or a place, or it might be that I'm looking for a word from the question.

Once I think I found the answer, I then read the sentence just to check and then I can copy the word or phrase into my answer.

If I didn't get it right, that wasn't the word I was looking for, I then go back to scanning through the text until I find the correct answer.

Let's have a practise.

Here's the first double page in our book.

If you want to pause the recording and with the whole double page, you can do.

We're going to focus the start read on one section.

Here is the section that we're going to focus our first few retrieval questions on.

If you want to pause the recording and read it through yourself, you can, or you might want to pause the recording once I've read it and read it through for yourself.

Otherwise you can follow along as I read.

Introducing Mary Anning.

If you thought fossil hunters were all top palaeontologists, then think again.

The 'greatest fossil list the world ever knew', according to The British journal for the History of Science, was a poor woman who barely went to school.

She was born over two centuries ago in the small English, coastal town of Lyme Regis, where she spent her life discovering fossil treasure.

Her name was Mary Anning.

Here is our first retrieval question.

We're going to have a go at doing a few together and then it will be your chance to give it a go.

Where was Mary Anning from? Now the first thing I needed to do was read my question which I've done.

and then I need to identify the key words in that question.

I've identified where and from.

Now if this is a where question, my answer is going to be a place and it's probably going to be the name of a county, or a town, or city or maybe a country.

And I know all of those words, are going to start with a capital letter because they're all proper nouns.

And that can really help me when I'm scanning through the text trying to find a word really quickly.

Right let's scan through the text now and see if I can spot a word starting with a capital letter, which looks like the name of a place.

Have a look.

Oh, I think I found it.

Let me read the whole sentence.

She was born over two centuries ago in the small English coastal town of Lyme Regis, where she spent her life discovering fossil treasure.

Am I right? Does that answer my question, 'where was Mary Anning from?' Yes, she was from Lyme Regis.

My next question is when was Mary Anning born? What are my key words in that question? I think they're when and born.

Now this time my question starts with when.

That tells me that my answer is probably going to have a number in it because it might have the number of a year or maybe even her date of birth.

So, I'm going to scan through and see if I can see any numbers or maybe the word born as well.

Let's have a scan through.

Oh, I think I've spotted It.

Born over two centuries ago.

Let me just read the sentence.

She was born over two centuries ago in the small English coastal town of Lyme Regis, where she spent her life discovering fossil treasure.

Yes, I know she was born over two centuries ago.

A century is a hundred years.

So she was born over 200 years ago.

Now it's your chance to apply your skills to try and answer some retrieval questions on your own.

We're going to focus on this section of this double page.

I'm going to read this section to you.

If you would rather pause the recording and read it through to yourself first, you can, or you can pause it and read it after.

Otherwise follow along as I read.

Mary Anning lived during the 19th century, which was not a good time for women to study palaeontology- the science of fossil animals and plants.

Some thought that women weren't clever enough to understand the subject.

Women were not allowed to join the Geological Society of London until the so the 20th century.

They couldn't even go to the society's lectures, where fossil finds were discussed.

Anning didn't start out as a palaeontologist.

She simply hunted for fossils along the shorelines to the east and west of her seaside home.

She sold the fossils that she found to tourists and collectors.

As well as being a source of income for Mary and her family, these fossils would become hugely important in another way.

They change the study of prehistoric life for ever.

Here is your first retrieval question.

Where did Mary Anning find her fossils ? Remember your steps? You're going to identify the keywords in the question, scan through the text.

Once you think you've found the answer, read the whole sentence and then copy your answer down.

Off you go.

I identified the key words in this question as were find and fossils, and that helped me to identify shorelines to the east and west of her seaside home.

Well done if you got that correct.

Question two.

What did Mary Anning do with her fossils? Again, I want you to pause the recording, follow your steps and write down your answer.

Off you go.

I think the key words in this question are; what, do and fossils.

So I know that I'm looking for a verb because I'm looking for something that she did with her fossils.

I found, she sold the fossils.

Well done if that was your answer.

Question number three.

This one gets a bit trickier, but I'm sure you are all very, very prepared.

Why was the 19th century not a good time for women to study palaeontology? Now I'm going to give you a clue.

There are three answers to this question in the text.

Pause the recording and see if you can find all three.

Off you go.

I don't know about you, but I found identifying the key words in this question quite tricky.

I ended up highlighting nearly the whole question.

I highlighted, why not a good time for women to study palaeontology? Here are the three answers I found.

Some thought that women weren't clever enough, not allowed to join the Geological Society, couldn't even go to the societies lectures.

Well done if you found all three answers.

We're now going to have another go at doing some more retrieval questions, using a different section in the text.

This is the next double page in the book.

If you want to pause the recording and read the whole thing through you can, but we are going to focus on this section.

Again I'm going to read it through to you.

If you want to pause the recording first and read it you can, or after, otherwise you can follow along as I read.

Anning's father, Richard Anning, worked as a carpenter and cabinet- maker but was also a keen fossil Hunter.

This wasn't just a hobby.

The Anning family was desperately poor and by selling the fossils he found, Richard could make extra money to support them.

Fossil hunting was a skill that Richard taught his children.

At low tide, he took Mary and her brother Joseph to the shoreline, showing them how to spot spiral-shaped ammonites and smooth, pointed belemnites.

They learned how to clean the fossils to get them ready to sell.

The Anning's sold their fossil finds from a stall on the lyme Regis seafront.

Their customers were the wealthy tourists who visited the seaside town in summer.

Here are your three retrieval questions for that section of text.

What job did Mary's father have? How did Mary learn how to find fossils? Who did the Annings sell their fossils to? I want you to pause the recording, work through your retrieval skill steps and write down an answer from the text for each of those questions.

Off you go.

Let's go through each question one at a time.

Question one.

What job did Mary's father have? I can see in the text, it says a carpenter and cabinet-maker.

Well done If you've got that right.

Question two.

How did Mary learn how to find fossils? Mary's father Richard taught her.

I know that because in the text it says fossil hunting was a skill that Richard taught his children.

So you can see, I actually haven't copied that exactly.

I slightly changed the wording to answer the question, but that was the part of the text that I used to find my answer.

Question three.

Who did the Anning sell their fossils to? My answer was wealthy tourist.

And I've taken that directly from the text because it says the wealthy tourists who visited the seaside town in summer and it refers to them as their customers.

I know that customers mean someone who's buying something.

Well done if you've got that one right as well.

Congratulations.

You have finished your second lesson in this unit.

Well done for all of your hard work today.

I will see you in your next lesson.

Goodbye.