Lesson video

Hi everyone! It's Mr. Brown with your English lesson and this is our last lesson before we'll be writing the build up to "A Christmas Carol".

So we're planning today.

Let's make sure we use this last lesson really well so that we are super prepared to write next time.

Okay, so our learning objective for today is to plan the build up.

Our agenda.

First of all we're going to remind ourselves of what the job of a build up is.

We're then going to look specifically at our build up, the build up of "A Christmas Carol".

Then we're going to start making a plan.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper, a pencil, and your brain.

Let's start with a writing warm up.

I have written an extract from the build up, I hope you like it.

See what you think.

I would love your feedback, let me know if there's anything you think I should change, anything that doesn't sound right.

Okay, here we go.

"Scrooge sat in his chair by the fire.

Scrooge suddenly looked towards the door because he heard a noise.

Scrooge listened carefully.

A moment later, Scrooge heard the mysterious sound again.

The noise seemed to be getting closer to Scrooge." What do you think? You can tell me, I can take it.

Say it to my face.

Do I need to improve it? What do I need to do? What stood out there as something I should definitely improve? Of course.

I had used Scrooge's name one, two, three, four, five times! I keep referring to him as Scrooge.

This is something that happens in a lot of children's writing actually and we can work on that.

Because, there are different ways of referring to the character.

We did this before, didn't we? When we were writing the opening, we said that we could refer to him as a man, a person, a banker, a misery, we said we could call him a misery.

Of course, you can call him by his name, Scrooge.

You can use the pronoun he.

But these are all great ways of referring to him so you don't have to keep saying his name, which is Scrooge.

However, you can use adjectives in this way too.

Now, this is a page I took from our lessons earlier in the unit.

When we said that adjectives to describe Scrooge would be grumpy, mean, rude, cruel.

Theses are all great, however, we're now in the build up.

It's a different point of the story so different adjectives would be needed to describe him.

He now, is very different, isn't he? Look at the differences in these two pictures.

He certainly looks different and will need different adjectives.

So, instead of grumpy, mean, rude, cruel, we can now use scared, petrified, terrified, frightened, fearful, alarmed, and horrified.

These are all words you've already generated before.

Now, what we need to do is put those adjectives together with a noun to make an expanded noun phrase.

Exactly like we've done before.

So, how does this sound? "Scrooge sat in his chair by the fire.

He suddenly looked towards the door because he heard a noise.

The alarmed man listened carefully.

A moment later, Scrooge heard the mysterious sound again.

The noise seemed to be getting closer to the anxious banker.

So much better.

So much more interesting to read.

That V word again, variety.

It's varied isn't it? These are really good choices that I've made here to make my writing much, much easier to read.

Can you do exactly the same? Can you have a go at, first of all, just writing some expanded noun phrases that we can use in the build up? So, things like "scared, petrified man." Remember, that comma between your adjectives.

We're always coming back to it, aren't we? Adjective, comma, adjective, noun! Exactly.

Okay, pause the lesson and have a go at making some expanded noun phrases to refer to Scrooge in different ways.

Off you go.

Okay, well done! So, let's move on.

We're now going to re-watch the build up of "A Christmas Carol" again to ensure we are familiar with this part of the story and the events that take place.

We've got to know it inside-out because we're going to write this build up, aren't we? It's all still a house- How now? What do you want with me? Oh, much.

Okay, so let's take a look at the job of a build up.

Here's our story mountain again.

I've crossed off the opening because we've written the opening already.

We are now onto the build up.

And we said that the purpose of this build up was to really start creating suspense before we get to the climax.

Let's remind ourselves again.

The main job of a build up is? To build suspense and excitement.

Building suspense and excitement.

That's the key point.

We are not getting to the super exciting, amazing bits yet.

Not high, high, high drama.

We're building.

And we do that through a few different techniques.

So, let's just remind ourselves.

Suspense.

A feeling of excited anxiety about what may happen.

Look, there I am, eyes glued to the screen, I can't turn away, biting my nails, holding my breath, so much suspense.

I'm really- I'm really anxious and nervous about what might happen next, but at the same time I can't wait.

I want to see.

Okay, here's a few techniques that I wanted to just share with you about how to create suspense.

We can use short, snappy sentences.

S, s, s.

Exclamation marks and an ellipsis.

And we're going to whizz through those now so that you're ready.

Because I'll be referring to these when I'm writing in our next lesson.

Okay, so the first thing I want to show you is short, snappy sentences.

Let's read you an example of short, snappy sentences being used in my writing.

"Scrooge's eyes were fixed at the door.

Just then, the door knob began to turn! The petrified man's heart was beating wildly in his chest.

He held his breath.

It was silent.

Scrooge froze." Okay, so as you can see sentences like "he held his breath", four words, "it was silent", three words, "Scrooge froze", two words.

These are really good in your writing when you are trying to create suspense.

Because they stretch out a moment.

You can break that moment down into tiny details.

Things like "Scrooge froze".

It makes the reader want the next bit of action to happen, but you're almost teasing them.

You're almost, just stretching that moment out and giving them ever last detail.

Very nice.

Okay, exclamation marks.

"The sound of heavy chains being dragged along the floor echoed around Scrooge's house! Who could this be? Just then, the noise stopped.

Scrooge's eyes darted to the door knob because it began to turn! Whatever was outside of the room, was trying to get in!" Three exclamation marks in that short passage.

These are not normal sentences.

We are talking about high drama and emotion.

We've got to make sure exclamation marks reinforce that point to the reader that big things are happening.

Things like, "whatever was outside of the room, was trying to get in!" Make sure that that exclamation mark is there because it builds the suspense.

Okay, an ellipsis.

"Left and right, the door knob turned.

What could Scrooge do? He was frozen in fear.

Then, silence.

It seemed like an eternity.

Just as the petrified man was starting to think his ordeal might be over.

Crash!" Okay, now an ellipsis is just three dots at the end of a sentence.

Three full stops, you could look at it a bit like that.

And they are great at showing that something could be about to happen.

They build suspense really well on their own.

For example, "then silence.

." The ellipsis fills the gap.

It makes you stop reading at the pace you are and slow down slightly.

And it tells you that there's nothing happening at that moment.

It is building that suspense perfectly because something might be about to happen.

Definitely worth using.

Okay, making a plan.

Let's get started.

Here is your plan.

Just going to move my picture down here for now so you can see.

You've got a part of the build up and it's broken into three sections.

You've got your fronted adverbials, or your sentence starters.

If you haven't watched our fronted adverbials lesson, you definitely need to go back before this lesson because we're going to be using them today.

A box for our adjectives and a box for our verbs and adverbs.

Okay? Let's have a go at filling in our first one and I'll talk you through my choices.

"In his tall, leather chair", that's a fantastic fronted adverbial to say where Scrooge was.

And it suits the first part of the build up because he is in his leather chair, isn't he? And he actually stays in his chair for the whole of the scene.

But at the start we want to say that he's in it so that the reader can picture where he is.

"Just then", "carefully", and "as Scrooge stared at the door".

These are some of the fronted adverbials I think I might get into my writing.

I am certainly not limited to these.

These are just my ideas.

This is what a plan does.

It gives you a chance to take some ideas with you into the writing lesson.

You don't have to use these.

You might end up not using "carefully", you may use anxiously, but it gives you an idea, okay? My adjectives I've chosen are "anxious", "nervous" I'm definitely going to describe him as anxious and nervous when he starts to hear the footsteps outside the door.

"Deafening", that's what I'm going to describe the footsteps as.

And "brass", I thought that was a good adjective for.

the door knob, exactly.

Verbs and adverbs.

"Quickly turned", that'll be Scrooge when he quickly turns to the door.

"Slowly dragged", I thought the sound of the chain.

It sounds like someone's slowly dragging it along, so "slowly dragged".

And "turn gradually".

What turns gradually in this scene? Yeah, the door knob just gradually turns.

Let's have a look at the second section.

And I've broken it up into three sections, just to help me with my writing too.

And each picture you could use to write one or two sentences about.

Okay, "crash!" I'm putting that sound effect in as the sound of the chains and the chests coming through the door and crashing down onto the ground.

You notice that my fronted adverbials have got a lot quicker.

"Instantly", because this is where our action is starting.

"Desperately", "through the door", all good fronted adverbials.

"Instantly" tells you when something happened.

It happened instantly.

"Desperately" tells you how it happened.

"Through the door" tells you where it was.

Through the door the chains came, that's where they came from.

Okay? My adjectives.

"Bulky" and "thick", definitely for the chains.

"Rusty", could be for the chains as well, could be for the chests.

"Heavy", same.

In fact, those four adjectives work for the chains or the chests.

Verbs and adverbs.

"Flew violently".

I wanted to create that sense of danger, so violently was a really good adverb to use there.

"Smashed noisily", so the chains or the chests they smash noisily down onto the ground.

And "cowered", we talked about cowered before.

When you're kind of hiding because something bad could be about to happen.

"Cowered desperately".

Okay.

And let's have a look at our last ones.

I'm just going to move my picture again, this time up to there.

Okay.

Fronted adverbials.

"Moments after", "a few feet away", "cautiously".

Now moments after will tell the reader that there is a bit of a gap from everything crashing through the door to the ghost starting to move closer.

And I want that gap to feel- I want the reader to be able to feel that gap.

"A few feet away", perfect fronted adverbial for where the ghost is or where Scrooge is in relation to each other.

A few feet away Scrooge sat, a few feet away the ghost hovered, it works.

"Cautiously." I thought that would be a good one for when I start writing speech of how Scrooge approaches the ghost and talks to him.

Quite cautious.

Adjectives.

"Long, wispy", what do you think? I've taken these from our generated vocabulary lesson.

Long, wispy hair for the ghost.

"Jagged, rotten" teeth for the ghost, good.

And then verbs and adverbs.

"Sluggishly floated." I thought long and hard about sluggishly.

If you're sluggish, it means you're moving quite slowly and maybe heavily.

And I thought sluggishly worked quite well for someone who, you know- like he's tied to chains so he is quite sluggish in the way he moves.

"Apprehensively peered." The way that Scrooge apprehensively looks at him.

He's very nervous, he's very worried something bad might be about to happen, he's apprehensive.

Apprehensively- not looked.

Too confident, not descriptive enough.

Peered.

He's peering at him.

Okay.

What I want you to do is to have a go at using your plan.

This is just going to be a practise go.

Use the first part of our plan, which is below, to have a go at writing a few sentences to start the build up.

You're going to take this plan and turn them into full sentences.

This is exactly what we'll be doing next lesson when we come to write the build up.

But, you can use the time between this lesson and next lesson to have a practise at that.

You've got your plan.

This is part of the build up, the first part of the build up.

When Scrooge hears the noise and sees the door knob turn.

You don't need to go any further than that.

Okay? Okay, so we've looked at the job of a build up, we have looked at our build up specifically, watched the clip again, became really familiar with it, and we have made our plan.

Now you are going to have a practise at doing that after this lesson, but before our next lesson.

Congratulations! Another lesson done.

Superb work.

You are almost ready to write the build up.

Well done, everyone.

So, our next lesson will be writing the build up.

Use this time between this lesson and our next lesson to practise, to watch previous lessons if you want to.

Get yourself really ready so that you feel confident and ready to write the build up next lesson.

I will see you then.