Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Waddell, I'm working with you on this Aladdin unit.

I hope your day has been all right so far.

We are today going to plan our opening description, getting ready, building up to writing our opening.

So if I'm ready, let's get going.

Okay, let's look at what the lesson is going to look like today.

First of all, we are going to analyse the opening of the Aladdin clip that we've been watching.

We're going to think about camera shots and how that will help our writing.

Then we're going to match the shots to writing.

So thinking about how we can recreate those images in what we write down.

Then we're going to generate lots of that powerful vocabulary.

Then we're going to write some star sentences.

First of all, let's think about what you need.

I want you to have some paper or a book, a pencil, and have your brain switched on with no distractions or as few as possible around.

If you don't have your exercise book or pencil just yet, pause the video and go and get it please.

Okay, I'll warm up here.

We are going to build a compound sentence.

Here are the two parts of my compound sentence, the stars glistened, the moon shone brightly.

Pause the video and decide what coordinating conjunction with the correct punctuation you would put to join these two main clauses.

Say it aloud and then write it down.

Off you go, pause the video.

Okay, what did you come up with? I bet you've got some fantastic suggestions.

You only need to choose from one of three, but you've got to check that it makes sense.

So let me hear some of your suggestions.

Good, working hard already, I'm pleased to see.

Let's see what you could have written.

The stars glistened and the moon shone brightly.

Thumbs up or thumbs down for mine? Thumbs down, oh why? Oh, I can see.

Okay, let's see if I can improve that.

I have got some things missing, I've got some punctuation missing.

Stars glistened and the moon shone brightly, punctuation missing for sure.

There it is, the stars glistened and the moon shone brightly, I've got my capital letter and my full stop.

Just check that yours that you wrote has the correct punctuation.

Remember that you need a before but or, or if you chose to use a but or or as your coordinating conjunction.

Pause the video.

Okay, let's try another one.

The vast desert was silent there was a crunching of hooves on sand.

What coordinating conjunction would you use here? Pause the video, say it aloud, write it down and check it.

Okay, here is my one.

The vast desert was silent and there was a crunching of hooves on sand.

Really good? Medium or not so good.

Why? Why is it not so good? Ah, okay.

Yeah, 'cause the desert was silent and there was a crunching of hooves? Can it be silent where there's no noise and a crunching of hooves? Not really, so what could I use instead? Ah, I could use but instead, because but says that there was something but there was also something else.

There was something but there was also something else, so that it was not exactly the same and, but something contradicts or says it's the not side.

So let's see, the vast desert was silent but there was a crunching of hooves.

So it was silent but there was a crunching of hooves.

Pause and edit yours if you think maybe yours didn't quite make sense.

And if not, carry on.

Pause the video now just to double check.

Okay, now we're going to analyse the opening of the Aladdin clip.

So analyse, what does analyse mean? Analyse means to look at something really carefully and to think about it.

So that's what we're going to do.

Look carefully and think very hard.

So, the opening is the bit that we're doing in our story mountain.

So it needs to do some things.

Let's think about what it needs to do.

We're going to focus very carefully on that just this first beginning bit.

And so you need to think and watch very, very carefully.

We're going to be looking at the camera angles.

So the camera, when a film is made they use a camera, and they have wide shots which are usually from a distance and give you an idea of place and location.

So where something happens and where we are, roughly.

And those are sometimes called wide shots as well.

So that's an example of a long shot or a wide shot.

And then close ups or close shots reveal details of the character, so they're more close up and they reveal something about the character, they highlight emotion.

So if you're more close up and you're really happy, it might be something that you want your reader or the person watching the film to know.

Or if a tear trickles slowly down your face, that's something that the person who's writing the story or the film, a person who's making the film, want you to know or they might, but sometimes you have a closeup on the hand reaching into someone's pocket or just a little shot of a necklace, which is something to do with the story that the person writing the story wants you to know.

Now we're going to watch the clip.

And I want you to think carefully about the way that the film does those things.

We're to watch a little bit, I've shortened it slightly cause I want you to focus in an intense focus, a very strong focus on just that bit.

Let's go.

When a dark man waits with a dark purpose.

Okay, I hope you are watching carefully.

We are now going to match the shots to some writings.

So see if we can see how you would show the way that the camera moves in the shots that the filmmaker uses in your writing.

So the camera shots, as we can see, start in the sky and then it moves to the ground and then it ends with the character.

Here we've got three sections of a story that I wrote.

I would like you to read the story, their story opening, and decide which one goes first.

If we're starting with the sky, we're coming down to the ground and then we're introducing one of the characters.

So I would like you to read it and decide which order the letters go in.

Pause the video now, read it and just say which order the letters go in.

Okay, did you get it right? C is first, then B, then A.

Let's read it together.

As the sky darkened, bright sparkling stars glistened in the cool night air.

In the distance, the glowing moon loomed over the vast desert.

The soft amber sand lay still, undisturbed by the wind and not even a whisper could be heard.

Two men appeared out of the shadows and spoke in hushed voices.

They did devious deals and they shared sly secrets.

So can you see, the first section is all about the sky.

Then the second section is about the sand and the desert, and the third section it introduces, comes closer in on the characters.

There are some slightly tricky words in there, so I just want to make sure that you're clear about what they mean.

The first was loomed.

Okay, here you can see some buildings looming over the person who's taking the picture.

So in the distance the glowing moon loomed over the vast desert.

So my turn, loomed, your turn.

Loomed means kind of standing over in a way that makes the thing that's above seem much bigger.

So if you're sitting down on the floor and someone stands above you, they're looming over you, it makes them look kind of bigger than they really are, loomed.

Okay next one.

Amber, the soft, amber sand lay still, undisturbed by the wind and not even a whisper could be heard.

So amber is just a kind of dark yellow.

Like these beads are made from amber, amber is like a resin that you can make beads out of.

And the colour of amber is a kind of dark yellow.

So we can say that Amber is a kind of dark yellow.

Hushed voices.

So two men appeared out of the shadows and spoke in hushed voices.

My turn, hushed voices, your turn.

So as you can see from the picture, hushed voices is sort of speaking quietly but not necessarily a whisper.

So it, it's kind of so you could speak in hushed voices like this in a very excited way.

And it's not necessarily a whisper cause it's very excited.

Devious, devious.

So you would have come across this one with Miss Batt probably in your lesson, your Mrs. Wordsmith lesson.

They did devious deals and they shared sly secrets.

So devious is like when you make plans that are to your advantage.

So these two villains, these men, are making plans that they plan to win from.

So my turn, devious, your turn.

Great.

So let's think about what's good about this.

I've highlighted here some really powerful, what do you think these words are? Bright, sparkling, glistening, asked, can you tell me? They're adjectives, that's right.

So they're really powerful adjectives, and I've tried really hard when I was writing it to include some really powerful adjectives in there.

So soft and amber, so soft, amber sand is like example of an expanded noun phrase, there's something, something and then the noun, with a comma in between the two adjectives.

And they did devious deals and they shared sly secrets.

Let's have a look at what else is good.

Here, I've got some really vivid, which means clear in your mind, verbs, they make clear pictures in my mind.

So vivid verbs like darkened and glistened and loomed and lay and shared, that just some examples, they're not all of them, but there are some examples that I thought were quite vivid.

So I wanted to give myself a pat on the back, well done me.

What else? Ah, we've got some different kinds of sentences.

So, as the sky darkened bright stars glistened in the, bright sparkling stars glistened in the cool night air.

So that's an example of a, what kind of sentences? A compound sentence with a joining conjunction, with a coordinating conjunction.

No, it's a complex sentence, that's right.

So complex sentence with our subordinating conjunction at the beginning there, and it's balanced.

The sky is darkening, where's my hand? Here's my hand.

The sky is darkening and then the stars are glistening on the other side.

Then the next one is an example of a compound cause it's got two main clauses.

The soft, amber sand lay still, and not even a whisper could be heard.

And then the last one I wanted to pick out is, cause I did some alliteration, which is where, do you know what alliteration is? It's where you use the same letter in the beginning of two different words, close together.

So devious deals, they both begin with a D, and sly secrets and they both begin with an S.

And it's sometimes quite fun to do and it sounds quite good.

Okay, so if you like any of the things in here, maybe not let's say any, maybe let's say pick out three things that you like in here and you can note it down in your book or your piece of paper.

Pause the video and write down three things that you like, it could be a phrase or it could be a sentence or it could be a sentence starter, just because you're going to use these notes when you come to write.

And if you really like something, why not give it a go, take it? Not really, just for the writing, obviously.

Okay, is it a good opening? Let's see whether it does the things that we need it to do as an opening.

Does it introduce the main characters? Thumbs up, thumbs down? Yeah, it does, thumbs up.

Does it set the scene? Yeah, tells us we're in the desert.

Does it grab your attention or interest you? It does me, I hope it does you.

I think it's successful in all of those things.

So now we're going to generate some powerful vocabulary that will help us with our writing.

Here's our first picture.

I can see some dazzling stars, what else can you see? I would like you to just draw a picture of a little moon or stars or something in your book, in the middle of the page, and just write down, spend two minutes just writing down the things that you can see in this picture.

Different ways that you could describe it.

Off you go, pause the video.

Could have glimmering stars, that's a good idea.

Can you tell me any others? Dazzling stars, glimmering stars.

Hmm, glistening stars, that's a good idea.

Anything else? Twinkling stars, yeah, twinkle, twinkle little star, it's a classic.

In the inky sky, I like that one.

Or the dark sky, nice.

Or the midnight sky, could be.

The moon cast shadows, yeah, it did, on top of the sand dune you could see that the moon was casting shadows.

And I think I remember that from our notes before as well when we were ordering the sequence of the story.

The glowing moon loomed, that's a good one.

The glowing moon loomed above.

Okay, so I would like you to see if you could turn this dazzling stars into a simile.

Dazzling stars, the dazzling stars, the dazzling something like.

Pause the video, write down a sentence with a nice simile in it for me.

Okay, I want you to tell me your ideas in three, two, one.

Say it to the screen.

Great, so let's have a look.

The dazzling stars glistened like fireflies in the sky.

I like that one, I hadn't heard that one.

The one that I hear more often, I have to be honest, is this one, the dazzling stars glistened like diamonds in the sky.

Which is, which works, it's fine, it's not my fav.

Okay, so if you'd like any of these, oh no, first I would like you to see if you can build an expanded noun phrase from two of these, the inky sky, the dark, so it's when you have an adjective, a comma, an adjective then a noun.

So I want you to do an expanded noun phrase about the sky.

So you could use any of those three from your notes.

Have a go, pause the video.

Okay, now tell me.

Nice, nice ideas.

Let's have a look and see whether this is your one.

In the dark, comma, inky sky.

So that's a phrase, but in the dark, so the stars glistened coldly in the dark, comma, inky sky, so that's my full sentence.

Was yours like that? Check yours and see whether yours was laid out like that, doesn't have to be the same words.

And edit if you think that you didn't quite understand what I'd said.

Have a go now, pause the video and just have a little look at what you've done.

Okay, so I would like you to choose one thing from the stars, one thing from the sky and one thing from the moon and write it down to add to your brilliant ideas before.

Pause the video now and write them down, off you go.

Okay, so we've done the first one, tick.

And now we're going to move on to the next one.

So here we've got a steep sand dune.

Pause the video and for two minutes, just write down a few things that you can see.

How would you describe the sound? How would you describe the desert? Pause now and write it around, maybe get a new page and draw a little hill to show that you're talking about the sand, and do some words around it.

Brilliant ideas to describe these pictures, off you go, pause the video.

Okay, let's see what you came up with.

Tell me in one, two, three.

Fantastic ideas.

Okay, so let's see whether any of yours come up here as well.

Got a steep sand dune, fine sand, that was a good one.

Moonlit sand, hadn't thought of that one.

Soft, amber sand, nice, using one of our words that we've learned.

Silent desert, so the soft, amber sand in the silent desert, that's nice.

The vast desert, so really big.

The colossal desert, another way of saying really, really big, a shadowy figure waited.

So you can see at the beginning there's just one of them up on the hill, isn't there? So I would like you to tell me how the shadowy figure waited.

You add an adverb, a shadowy figure waited.

Write it down on your paper.

A shadowy figure waited.

How did he wait? If you add ♪ This is really, really nice, I'm so chilled ♪ Or was it a bit different? Write it down.

What adverb would you use? Pause the video.

Okay, now tell me, what did you write? A shadowy figure waited.

Good, a shadowy figure waited nervously.

Was he nervous? What do we even, what have we seen about his character so far? Do we think he's nervous? I don't think he's nervous actually, I think he's pretty scary and pretty sure of himself.

So I wouldn't use nervously.

Should we try another one? Impatiently, impatiently.

Yeah, he is waiting quite impatiently 'cause he wants that treasure.

Impatiently I think is much more appropriate.

So, write down three, do something about the desert, something about the sand and something about the figure or the horse appearing.

Note down three things that you like from here to add to what you've done already.

Pause the video now.

Okay, we've done the first one, we've done the second one.

So we've moved from the sky down to the sand or down to the sand, and now we're going to get into the characters, right.

Now, a dark figure, yeah you can see that the Jafar there, he's that character, is a dark figure cause he's very much in the shadows.

How else would you describe these characters from what we've seen in this clip? Pause the video and make, take two minutes to note down everything that you can and then press play again.

Don't worry if you can't get too many, I just want you to get one or two on there and then we'll look at some together.

Pause the video.

Okay, so nice idea.

He has a large, dark cloak, that's a nice expanded noun phrase.

He has a scowl on his face like that.

He has a twisted beard, that's right, he has quite sort of ancient Egyptian style twisted beard.

Ooh, there is, there's a dark horse with yellow eyes.

Scary, have you ever seen a horse with yellow eyes? Not me.

And a raggedly dressed man.

So he's wearing rags.

And he's a squat man, we had that word from before, didn't we? That's nice, glad you're using it again.

And he's got the other man looming over him, so we've used that word again, that's great cause the horse is sort of looming over the servant, that's right.

And they're speaking in hushed tones, and they've got a devious plan, so well done for using that word as well.

So, we are next going to, or I'd like you first, just to note down three ideas from here.

Pause the video and note down three ideas about the characters, cause we're going to need them later.

Off you go, pause the video.

Okay, so we've done all three, we started in the sky, we've gone down to the sand, then we've gone into the character.

So we've got some really powerful vocabulary that's going to help us to write.

Now we're going to use it to write some star sentences.

So I've given you, because I'm feeling generous, some sentence starters.

And I would like you to add in some of the work as the notes that you've made from what we were looking at, from building our vocabulary just now.

As the stars comma the, so what happened while the stars were doing that? As the, let's use an adjective to describe the stars and then what they did, we need a verb, and then what happened at the same time in the sky, remember that first one's got to be in the sky.

And then below the dark sky, comma, what could we see? Have a look at the sand, the notes about the sand in the desert.

And then on top of that vast sand dune, and something about the characters.

I want you to pause the video now and write those sentences out for me in full.

Off you go.

Okay, so I bet you had really, really good go and yours probably doesn't look anything like this, that's absolutely fine.

I just wanted to show you an example so that you could have a sense of what it could look like.

Yours would probably be much better, because I'm a little bit rusty and sometimes my ideas don't just come pinging out as quickly as your brilliant young minds.

So let's have a look at these ones.

As the glistening stars shone like fireflies in the inky sky, so I used the simile, not bad, the moon cast shadows.

So as the stars, the glistening stars shone, comma, the moon cast shadows, full stop.

Below the dark sky, soft amber sand, sorry, below the dark sky, soft amber sand sat still and breathless, just threw that one in.

On top of a vast sand dune, a shadowy figure on top of a dark horse waited impatiently.

So don't worry if yours is not like that.

I think yours is probably better.

Well done for working so hard.

Let's have a look at why this one has worked, and also just to make sure that we've got all the things that we need.

So as, we've got our capital letter at the beginning, the glistening stars shone, we've got some nice, powerful verbs there highlighted in green, as the glistening stars shone like fireflies in the inky sky, comma, the moon cast shadows, full stop.

Below the dark sky, comma, soft, comma, amber sand, cause that's a comma in between the two adjectives, sat still and breathless, full stop.

On top of a vast sand dune, comma, a shadowy figure with a scowl on his face waited impatiently.

So I've got my capital letters, I've got my full stops and I've got my commas all in the right place.

Would you just pause and double check that you have in your sentences, make sure you've got the two sides, the two sides of your complex sentence, making sure that there's a verb on both sides that as this happened, this happened, to make sure that it's balanced with our comma in between.

Also make sure you've got commas in lists and just double check your capital letters and full stops.

Off you go.

Oof, that was a long lesson.

You worked really hard and you've done really well.

And all of the hard work that we do now will be fantastic for grabbing all our ideas and putting them into our writing of our opening, which is what we're going to be doing next with me.

So if you'd like to share any of your fantastic work with someone at home, a sibling or someone who looks after you, please do, cause you're working really hard.

Well done.