Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

It's me, Ms. Webster, again for the next Highwayman lesson.

This lesson will be all about writing speech, which is a really important skill to have in our writing, isn't it? So I hope you're feeling comfortable.

Hope you're feeling ready to learn.

Let's get started.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper, a pencil or something to write with, and your brain.

If you haven't got everything that you need, pause the video, go and collect everything, and I'll see you back when you're ready.

So we'll be doing our writing warm up.

Then we will be looking at rules for writing speech, and then we will finish by practising writing some sentences.

Let's have a look at what our warm up is today.

You've got to match the verbs to the most appropriate adverbs.

Now these verbs are all synonyms for said.

Should we read them aloud? We've got muttered.

Let's do it in the style of the verb then.

Muttered.

Exclaimed.

Exclaimed! Whispered.

Snapped.

Well done.

And you've got four choices of adverbs there.

Softly, grumpily, angrily, enthusiastically.

Let's act those out actually.

Softly.

Grumpily.

Angrily.

Enthusiastically.

Well done.

Pause the video now and write down the verb and the adverb that you think matches it the best.

Pause the video now.

Have you had a go? Let's see what I thought.

I thought we could have this one, muttered grumpily.

Can you mutter grumpy at me? He muttered grumpily.

Ugh, she's being so grumpy about something.

Go on, have a go.

Well done.

So let's look at this one.

Exclaimed enthusiastically.

He exclaimed enthusiastically, meaning he was really excited about something.

If you exclaim something enthusiastically, do you think you'd do it in a loud way or a quiet way? One, two, three, a loud way.

Well done.

Let's look at the next one.

Whispered softly.

Good job.

And the final one must be snapped angry.

If you snap at someone, it means you're cross with them or cross about something.

So angrily would be a really appropriate adverb to go with that verb.

Well done for our writing warm up.

So our next part of our lesson is going to focus on rules for writing speech.

Let's have a look at this sentence.

I'll read it aloud to you.

"Hello, my love," the highway man said.

What punctuation can you see? What punctuation can you see? I can see some inverted commas.

Can you point to the inverted commas? Well done, we've got our opening ones and then our closing inverted commas.

Can you say that, inverted commas? Well done.

What about the letter in pink? That is a capital letter.

We have to have a capital letter to start our speech sentence.

What about the piece of punctuation in blue, in dark blue? That's a comma.

Okay.

And then we finish our sentence with a full stop.

So let's just check.

We go inverted commas, then a capital letter, then we write the speech sentence, then we have our comma, and then our closing inverted commas, and then we can finish the rest of the main sentence off.

Finishing, of course, with a full stop.

Okay, it's your turn to punctuate this sentence correctly.

I'll read it aloud to you.

As I'm reading, you can think about what punctuation is missing that we saw in the last example.

Okay.

"I will be back soon," promised the highwayman.

So think about the bit that he's actually saying.

What is he actually saying? Where do your inverted commas need to go? Where does your capital letter need to go? And where does your comma need to go? And what do we have at the end of the sentence? Hmm.

Okay.

Pause the video now, and write the full sentence with the correct punctuation.

Pause the video now.

Shall we check? So this is what I thought.

We've got to have our opening inverted commas at the beginning.

Give yourself a tick if you got that one.

What's your next tick going to be? For the capital letter, capital I, and then we've got to have our comma.

Give yourself a tick if you got that one.

And then we've got our closing inverted commas.

And finally, we finish the whole sentence off with a full stop.

Show me on your fingers how many you got right.

Was it five? I bet it was.

Well done.

So we're focusing on speech first sentences.

So just a little recap.

Speech first is when the speech bits, what the character says is written first in the sentence.

We go back to this example.

You can see the bit, "I will be back soon." That's the bit the highwayman is saying, and that's the bit that's written first in the sentence.

So we're focusing on speech first sentences.

Okay.

How many pieces of punctuation do you have to have? We've just had a go at writing a sentence with speech first, and you had a go at punctuating it correctly.

So think about this question.

Hmm.

How many pieces of punctuation do you definitely have to have? Shall we say it together? One, two, three.

You have to have five, don't you? Well done.

So let's just check.

Opening inverted commas.

Okay, there's two.

Our capital letter, that's three.

Our comma, that's four.

And then our full stop at the end of the sentence.

That's five.

We might have other pieces of punctuation in the sentence.

For example, I can see another comma in the speech sentence, but that's just dependent on what we've actually written, whether we have to use commas for clauses or adjectives or any other reason like that.

So what word classes do you have to have? Can you see the word that's coloured in navy? Highwayman.

What word class is that? The highwayman.

Think about your word class definitions.

Highwayman is, let's say it together, a noun.

Okay, so we have to have a noun.

In other words, we have to have the person who's doing the speaking written in our sentence.

Okay, and then can you see the word in pink? Said.

That is a.

Tell me.

Yeah, well done.

It's a verb.

So you've got to always have a noun and a verb.

So our next question that we need to think about is making sentences more precise.

We've done a little bit of work on using precise vocabulary, especially when we're thinking about planning our writing.

So let's see what we can do here.

So I've got this sentence.

"Hello, my love," the highwayman said.

What word would you change to make this sentence more precise? Have a bit of thinking time.

Not going to change the bit that he's saying.

Might change how I refer to the highwayman.

So I might give him a different, I might write a different noun, but let's think about that verb, said.

I think I could be much more precise.

I could say this, "Hello, my love," the highwayman exclaimed.

Exclaimed.

Exclaimed.

Well done.

And that gives the reader a little bit more detail about how the highwayman is feeling.

He's feeling really happy to see her.

So he's exclaiming that he, he's exclaiming the words, "Hello, my love," 'cause he's really excited to be there and he's very happy to see her.

So we've spoken about choosing a more precise verb to make sentences more precise.

There are other things we can do as well.

For example, we can add in an adverb, which would look a little bit like this.

"Hello, my love," the highwayman exclaimed.

And then what's my adverb there? Joyfully.

Ah, okay.

So I've got even more of a picture in my mind about how he's saying, "Hello, my love." So I can add in my adverbial detail, and you can see that I've kept the verb exclaimed and just added in my adverbial detail there.

The other way that you could make sentences more precise when you're writing speech is to add an as clause in.

Can you see the as clause in my sentence? I'll read it aloud.

See if you can see it.

"Hello, my love," the highwayman exclaimed as a beam spread across his face.

So this time I haven't got an adverb, but I do have an as clause.

What's the as clause? As a beam spread across his face.

Just act that out for me.

A big beam spreading across his face.

And again, that gives your reader much more detail about what's happening, about how the highwayman is saying this, and what he looks like whilst he's doing it.

So let's recap.

We can choose a more precise verb.

We can add in some adverbial detail, so how he's saying it, or we could add in an as clause to make the sentence more precise.

So it's your turn to pause the video in a second and write the full sentence, choosing either a more precise verb or adding in some adverbial detail or adding in an as clause.

Pause the video now and write your sentence.

Have you had a go? Shall I share my one? And I actually put all three into this sentence.

I wonder if you put all three into your sentence too.

I'll read you this one.

"I'll be back soon," the highwayman promised sincerely as he gazed into her eyes.

What's my more precise verb choice? Remember, in the example it was said.

So I changed said to, what was it? Promised.

What's my adverb in that sentence? Point to it.

Let's say it out loud.

Sincerely.

And we had that word in a previous lesson, meaning he did that really seriously.

He promised seriously.

Sincerely means seriously.

And then what's my adverbial clause? My as adverbial clause? What did he do as said it? He gazed into her eyes.

Tell me your sentence.

Read it out loud.

Fantastic job.

Well done.

So we are going to move on to the next part of our lesson, which is practising writing some sentences.

So this is what the highwayman said in the poem.

I'll read it aloud to you so listen carefully.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight, but I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light." So those are the actual words he says in the poem.

Now this is what I think he could have said.

He could have said, "I'm so happy to see you.

I just came to say hello.

I'm going to go and steal you something, or I am going to steal you something, and I'll be back soon." So four different things that he could have said.

So just before I ask you to go and write your sentences, let's just recap on some of the great vocabulary that you planned for the speech in our last lesson.

So we talked about synonyms for said for this bit, didn't we? We've got promised, assured, vowed.

Okay? And we had these adverbs, didn't we? Lovingly, sincerely and affectionately.

Okay, so you might want to choose some of those to use in your sentences.

So it's your turn to write four sentences using correct speech punctuation and precise vocabulary choices.

Pause the video now.

Have you had a really good go? I bet you have.

Do you want to see what I wrote? So this first one, I'm so happy to see you.

I wrote, inverted commas, "I'm so glad to see you," comma, inverted commas, the highwayman exclaimed as he stared lovingly at the beautiful lady.

So I've changed, or I've chosen the word exclaimed, the verb exclaimed, and I added an as clause to show my reader what he did as he was saying this.

Okay.

Can you read me your sentence? Well done.

Shall we have a look at what I got for the next one? And I did actually add a couple of words into the speech part of the sentence.

Let's read what I wrote.

Inverted commas, "I rode all this way just to say hello," comma, close inverted commas, announced the highwayman as his heart soared.

And I really thought carefully about that as clause to give my reader a really good picture of how he's feeling.

That's a really good show not tell.

As his heart soared, which means he felt really, really happy that he was seeing her.

What was your verb for that one? My one was announced.

Tell me yours.

Well done.

So for our third one, I also changed the words for this one a little bit.

So instead of saying, "I'm going to steal you something," I wrote, inverted commas, capital letter, "I will be back with the finest golden necklace," comma, close inverted commas, the robber promised sincerely.

How did I refer to the highwayman in that sentence? Did I say, "the highwayman"? I said, "the robber".

What was your verb in your one? My one was promised.

What was yours? Well done.

And for our final one, again, I changed the words a little bit for this one to make it a little bit more detailed.

Inverted commas.

Oh.

So for the last one, I also changed the speech a little bit, and it says, inverted commas, capital letter, "I'll see you again by sunrise," comma, close inverted commas, he vowed as he gave her one final wave.

What was my verb in my sentence? My synonym for said was vowed.

Well done.

What was yours? And did you add any extra detail? Did you add some adverbial detail or like me, did you add an as clause? Tell me it.

Well done.

You've worked really hard today.

You did a great job in the writing warm up.

We talked a lot about rules for writing speech, and then you practised writing some sentences with accurate speech punctuation and really precise vocabulary choices.

Congratulations.

You finished our lesson for today, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you again very soon.