Lesson video

Hi everyone, we have come to the most exciting lesson in my opinion.

And in this lesson, we are going to be writing a character description.

We're going to write the first part of our character description.

And in the next lesson, we will write the second part.

But how exciting we now have come to this point in the unit where we get to be really creative.

So what we need for this lesson are the usual things.

We will need a pen, pencil, something to write with, paper, book, quiet spaces is really important today.

Really, really quiet space away from distractions.

So we can really focus because writing requires us to have our thinking being switched on an absolute, no distractions.

So when you're ready, we can begin.

Did you remember to get these things? Hopefully you have, if you haven't pause the video, go and get your book, go and get your paper, pen and your pencil please, because you really need those today.

Let's look at our agenda.

We've got a quick little warm up.

Then we're going to look at types of conjunctions that we will need for writing.

Then a look at our plans from our previous lesson, and then I'm going to do a little bit of shared write, so that you know how to start your descriptions.

Quick warm up.

Let's see okay, let's go over some of the adjectives we have used so far to describe Macbeth different parts of the play.

In the first column, it's Macbeth at the beginning of the play when he is a warrior.

And we would describe him as brave, fearless, powerful and victorious.

In the middle column, it's when Macbeth visits Lady Macbeth.

And that's when we see his character change, from becoming ambitious, he then turns to becoming weak of character.

And we would describe him as hesitant, unsure, uncertain.

And finally, in the last column, Macbeth feels guilty after he has killed Duncan.

And some of these adjectives are remorseful, ashamed, conscience-stricken, and contrite.

What I'd like you to do now, is I'd like you to use those adjectives to describe Macbeth.

Here's an example of one.

You are going to say it.

We're not going to write it.

You may choose to write it if you want to, but I am going to say my sentences.

Macbeth is a brave and fearless warrior, full stop.

However, he becomes weak and hesitant.

Another sentence that you could say is Macbeth is ambitious, however, he feels remorseful for what he has done.

Pause the video and have a go at saying those sentences to the screen.

This part of the lesson, we're going to look at types of conjunctions because this is so important in helping us to structure our character description.

We have 'And' conjunctions and what do 'And' conjunctions consist of? 'And' conjunctions help us to build on a previous point that we've made.

We don't want to just say also, also, also, and and and.

We want to say, in addition to this, moreover, furthermore, as well as this, because it's one that makes our writing more sophisticated.

We also might want to use, 'But' conjunctions.

What are 'But' conjunctions? They sound a bit funny.

'But' conjunctions are contrasting conjunctions.

So if you want to say something, but so something however, something, despite this, on the other hand, we want to oppose a point that we've just made.

We want to show that we're contrasting a point we've just made.

Lastly Causal conjunctions.

Can you say causal? Causal conjunctions give reason for why we've said something.

So as a result of his greed, due to this, due to his greed, or consequently or therefore, so that's showing us because of something, this has happened.

It's caused by something that's causal.

And we've already had a quick recap about Macbeth, at various points in the play.

This is so important because we need to keep remembering these objectives because then it would help us to structure our writing really easily.

We're going to practise now writing a sentence, just one sentence, just a quick practise, writing a sentence with either an 'And' conjunction, a 'But' conjunction or contrasting conjunction.

We call 'And' conjunction because say they're linking another point then adding the 'But' conjunctions or contrasting and the causal conjunctions, give reason.

I've come up with a couple.

I've started my first sentence with the causal conjunction.

I've used due to.

Due to his loyalties to the king, comma, Macbeth felt torn about committing the act, full stop.

And then I've used the 'But' conjunction.

Despite this, comma, he went ahead with Lady Macbeth's plan.

Can you now pause the video and have a go at writing your own sentence.

You can choose any conjunction so as to start with.

You could use an 'And', a 'But' or a causal conjunction to write about Macbeth at any point in the play.

Use your plans to help you.

Hopefully you've had a chance to write your sentences.

Now it's my turn to share with you three more sentences, that I've written.

The first one starts with moreover.

So this is an 'And' conjunction.

Moreover, Macbeth felt invincible because he had just been victorious in battle.

Second one, however, this is my 'But' conjunction, later on in the play, he becomes ruthless.

Lastly I've used consequently as a causal conjunction to give reason for something that I said previously.

Consequently, he hallucinates the ghosts of the people he has killed.

Let's now move on to our character description plan.

This is a quick activity for you to do.

I would like you to put the words at the bottom, into their relevant columns.

This is another activity to jolt our memories because we really, really need to have that part secure before we can write anything.

Where, at which point in the play is Macbeth brave? Which point in the play is he uncertain, conscience-stricken, victorious, remorseful, or hesitant.

Split your paper into three columns, draw two lines down and one line across horizontally.

Then I would like you to put those adjectives in the correct columns, off you go.

Brilliant, hopefully you've all had a chance to go over the adjectives.

Amazing, so let's have a look to see where you've put your adjectives and to see if I've got the same as you.

For brave, I thought that should go at the start of the play because that is when he is a warrior.

He's brave and he's just won the battle.

Uncertain, that's when he starts to feel weak in character.

Conscience-stricken, when he has done the deed and his conscience takes over.

Victorious again at the start.

Remorseful, he feels guilty and hesitant when he is not sure about going ahead with the plan.

Speaking of plan, this is our plan, our character description plans.

This you should have from a previous lesson, because this will help us to structure our writing into four paragraphs.

The first paragraph, we will describe him as being a warrior.

The second paragraph, we will describe him as being ambitious.

And we would describe him as being weak.

And lastly, as being guilty.

Shared writing, since this is the part of the lesson now where we will come to write the character descriptions.

Before we begin our writing, we always need to know or have a list of criteria in mind, to support us with our writing.

And always, always keep referring back to the criteria.

To the success criteria.

Have I included this? Have I included this? Because we need to know if we have been successful and that helps us to become successful.

So for example, number one, we need to remember to use precise and ambitious adjectives to describe Macbeth at different points of the play.

If we don't do that, we won't have described him to the reader.

Number two, we need to use the linking conjunctions, 'And' conjunctions, which build ideas from, build previous ideas, 'But' conjunctions which contrast any idea that we've said before any point.

Causal conjunctions to give reason for why we said something.

That makes our writing much more sophisticated.

Also we need to use time conjunctions because we need to refer to Macbeth at different points of the play.

We need to say at the beginning, comma, he was like this.

After he met the witches he was like this.

Before he killed Duncan, he was like this.

And then at the end, what was he like? And then I thought something simple that we could do cause we've done lots of practise on this, is include a complex sentence with a relative clause, but also bearing in mind that throughout our writing, we need to also write simple sentences, compound sentences, and other types of complex sentences to the one that we need to make sure that we have definitely in our writing, is a relative close complex sentence, because that's what I've asked you to do to make your writing successful.

So let's go on to our first paragraph, a shared write about Macbeth being a warrior.

We will be using this part of our plans, to help us, to support us with our writing.

Let's begin our shared write.

Looking at the plan and the success criteria, we're going to use those two to help us start off our character description.

Because it is about Macbeth, we need to introduce him as the main person in which we will be writing about.

So we need to have one general line about Macbeth before we break him down into four sections.

So let's talk about Macbeth generally.

Macbeth is the leading character in the play.

So that's something we will want to say.

Macbeth is the leading character or protagonist of the play.

We could leave it as that.

Or we could say, who wrote the play, so we could give a little bit more information about.

Okay, we could say of one of William Shakespeare's plays.

We could say that he is one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays and even name it Macbeth.

Hope all we've written one line about Macbeth.

With that now want to go into his character.

We want to break it down.

So we want to explain what he was like at the start of the play.

So we look at the time conjunctions.

We can see we've got at the beginning, after and before.

So most appropriate time conjunction would be, at the beginning of the play, Macbeth, what would Macbeth look like at the beginning? He appears as a, have a look at our actor's terms we've got loyal, triumphant, indestructible, or tough.

I could use those or I could say that he was brave.

He was a brave soldier.

And then indestructible, I'm going to use one of those objectives, man.

And why do we, why do we say that he is those, than he's brave? And why do we say he's indestructible ? Because he has just won a battle.

So we can say, who wins a battle and King Duncan chooses to reward him by making him the Thane of Cawdor.

That is in my list of evidence.

So for every adjective I say about Macbeth, I want to back it up with some evidence from the play.

Brilliant, Let's just check my success criteria.

I've got my objectives.

I've got my, I've got a time conjunction, and I've got my relative clause to 'who' pronoun there, who wins the battle.

Okay, I'm going to continue this paragraph.

The same paragraph on the next slide.

Following on from my last sentence, I want to give the reader a little bit of a hint or a bit of a clue that Macbeth's character does change because I've already mentioned that he is a brave warrior.

But I want to give them a clear, so I might want to use my contrasting conjunction to start my sentence.

However, when Macbeth, what happens when he meets the witches? Let's describe them as mysterious witches, where, on the heath, what happens to him? It is clear that he is a complicated and confused character with multiple sides to him.

We could say ripped two sides in, but actually there are multiple sides to him.

And this is, this can be seen throughout the play when he changes.

Great, hopefully you've had a really good close look at how I did my shared writing with you.

Now it is your turn to write about Macbeth at the beginning of the play.

There is the success criteria to support you, to help you make sure that you're always referring to one, two, three, and four.

Also so important to have your plan right next to you so you can look at the adjectives that you might want to use and the evidence to support your writing.

Pause the video, and have a go at writing that first part of your character descriptions.

Great, we are now onto the second paragraph of our shared write of this lesson.

The part when he becomes ambitious.

Again, we will be using our plans like we did for the first paragraph.

And we're going to be using these to write our character descriptions from.

when you are ready, I will be showing you how to do a shared write.

Now, we're going to use the plan to help us to write the second paragraph.

And the paragraph in which Macbeth becomes ambitious.

He is, he has the witches' prophecy planted in his mind, and he now becomes determined to become king.

So you're going to use the plan, You're going to use this success criteria and let's think about how we would start then.

Following on from the last part, we might want to say later on, because this happens later on in the play, Macbeth is a very, we say what adjectives could we use? Let's have a look, determined and driven, we could use driven character as, and why, let's give a reason.

So we say the quality and we give the evidence.

As his only real reason for killing King Duncan was so that what was it? He could become king.

And what happened then after that? What could we say to build upon the fact that he's ambitious? What does he keep doing to suggest that he's determined? So eager to keep his crown, Macbeth's motivation cause we've used determination, we've used eager, so let's say motivation becomes even greater.

What does he do? What does he do later on? This is shown when he has Banquo killed.

because why, he's scared that Banquo's heirs will become King, Because that was one of the witches' prophecies to remember, let's just check our spelling of Banquo.

At the beginning, when they meet the witches, the witches say that Banquo's heirs will become king.

So he will Banquo, won't become king, but his heirs will.

Great, let's continue this paragraph on the next page.

Following on from the previous sentence, we are going to now write a sentence about the witches' prophecy.

This was suggested witches' because it's more than one of them, prophecy.

His determination, which is running throughout this paragraph, is it a good or bad thing? Does it become something that is in his favour, or is it always suggesting that causes his downfall? I would say the latter.

It's overpowering and causes Macbeth to solve every problem.

If we look at our evidence, his ambition overrode his loyalty, he started to scheme a plot.

So we want to say that he starts to solve every problem with violence and murder.

This is the turning point.

This is the turning point of his character in the play.

Amazing, it is now your turn to write about when Macbeth becomes ambitious.

That's the success criteria again, let me go through it again for you.

Adjectives, linking conjunctions, time conjunctions, and a complex sentence with a relative clause.

Of course you need to have your plans right next to you.

And when you're ready, pause the video and have a go.

Excellent, well done.

Now, It is our, it is time to read back our writing.

Why do we need to read back? It's so important.

We need to read back our writing to check that it made sense.

To get a sense of what the reader will feel to make sure we've got the purpose right, to check punctuation, to check we've used precise vocabulary, to check and change any spelling errors that we might have, and also to enjoy reading our writing.

We've got to make sure that we tick off our success criteria as we are reading it over the second time.

Have we used any adjectives? If we have great, put a little tick above the word, put a little tick above the adjectives.

Have we used any linking conjunctions? Did we use a 'And' conjunction, a 'But' conjunction, a causal conjunction.

If we have again, put a little tick above that.

Any time conjunctions? tick, tick, tick, and hopefully find our complex sentence with a relative clause, and give that a big tick to.

Now I'm going to read over the two paragraphs of my character description.

Just to make sure that I've got everything that is in my success criteria.

Macbeth is the protagonist of one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays Macbeth.

At the beginning of the play, Macbeth appears as a brave soldier and an indestructible man, who wins the battle.

And King Duncan chooses to reward him, by making him the Thane of Cawdor.

However, when Macbeth meets the mysterious witches' on the heath, it is clear that he is a complicated and confused character with multiple sides to him.

My second paragraph.

Later on in the play, Macbeth is a very determined and ambitious character as his only real reason for killing King Duncan was so that he could become king.

He got to keep his crown.

Macbeth's motivation becomes even greater.

This has shown when he has Banquo killed because he's scared that Banquo's heirs will become king.

This was suggested in the witches' prophecy.

His determination is overpowering and causes Macbeth to solve every problem with violence and murder.

This is the turning point of his character in that play.

Now it's your turn to read your two paragraphs out loud, to check and make sense.

To get the sense of what a reader will feel, to make sure we've got the purpose right.

To check punctuation, to check reviews, precise vocabulary, to check and change any spelling errors, and lastly to enjoy it.

Amazing and congratulations.

You have completed today's lesson on writing two paragraphs of the character description, and that was very difficult.

The character description so well, well, well done to you, for completing your first two paragraphs.

In the next lesson, we will write our other two paragraphs, but if you would like to share today's learning with someone your parent or carer or an oldest sibling, someone that you trust, then go ahead and do that, and I look forward to teaching you in next lesson.