Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's lesson.

Mine name is Ms. Smith.

Today we get to write the first parts of our narrative scene.

So I hope you really enjoy today's lesson and when you're ready let's get started.

Today we'll begin with some sentence level writing before we review and analyse a piece of model writing for this part of our scene, and then you will be able to get on with writing your own narrative scene for this first part.

And so you need some paper or an exercise book, something to write with and your planning from our previous lesson for this first part of the scene, and so if you need to go and collect any of those things now then you should pause and give yourself time to do that.

So we'll start today's lesson writing a compound sentence for this image.

And this is the first image in our scene that we're writing today.

If you have a compound sentence ready for writing you're going to get yourself really ahead and feel really confident when you start your task later on.

Let's just remind ourself first of what a compound sentence is.

So compound sentences are formed from two main clauses.

We know that a main clause makes sense on its own.

Now, to join the two main clauses we need to use a coordinating conjunction.

There are just three coordinating conjunctions, I wonder if you can remind yourself of the three coordinating conjunctions.

That's right, they are and, but, and or, and you can see that and doesn't need a comma, if you use and as your coordinating conjunction no comma required but buts and or need a comma before them.

So let's just look at my compound sentence for this image.

Mrs. Coulter appeared at the doorway and she confidently swaggered into the opulent lounge.

My coordinating conjunction is and, and you can see that there are two main clauses that make sense on their own.

Mrs. Coulter appeared at the doorway, she confidently swaggered into the opulent lounge.

There's a verb and a subject in both clauses.

Can you write a compound sentence with this image? Press forwards and off you go.

Today we are writing the first part of the scene.

So let's just remind ourselves of all the work we've put in already in preparation for writing.

So we have our table of planning for each image of the scene and you can see my table with the planning on screen now.

We've previously thought about how to incorporate speech into this scene in a way that is conveying of character, and tells the reader about the character at that point and helps to advance the action so that the speech included has purpose in our narrative.

We've got that really useful speech sandwich prompt to remind us of speech punctuation.

So you've always got that on screen, you can find it if you need to use your writing today to check your own punctuation for speech.

If you need to go and find any of your previous planning, just press pause and go and find that now.

So we're using these images to support our writing today and there are five images for this first part of the final scene.

From when Mrs. Coulter enters, to the conversation just before it turns to be a little more intense.

And for each image we are aiming to write two or three sentences, and then we'll have a really lovely piece of writing that is comprehensive and describes the scene in detail if we aim for two or three sentences per image.

So we're going to watch the scene again now to remind ourself of this part that we're writing.

-aren't allowed into Hmm, perhaps we shouldn't have invited Professor Docker.

He's such a bore, isn't he? And he had sauce in his beard! But he is one of the foremost experts on particle metaphysics.

Have I taught you what a particle is? Oh I know about particles, like Dust That's a particle, isn't it? Dust? I mean the dust from space, that dust.

Like in the north.

Where did you hear about that? It must have been one of the scholars at Jordan.

Wise person knows Lyra, that there are some things that we best ignore, subjects that you, well you never speak about.

But.

I.

Yes, you didn't know so I forgive you.

Just don't mention it again.

So what do we need to remember in our writing today? Really important to think back at everything we've worked on in preparation for writing.

What do we need to remember? Can you just pause and have a think? So in preparation today we've thought about all different ways we can refer to our characters in this scene, and then plan lots of alternatives for referring to Mrs. Coulter and the adjectives to describe her.

So you should work as hard as we can to incorporate those ideas into today's writing.

We also planned how to include speech, remembering that the best writers convey character and advance action when they're using speech, so that the reader understands not just what's happening and how the narrative is moving forwards, but also what characters are doing and how they're saying things.

And finally we're going to make sure that the drama in the scene is communicated through use of varied sentence structures, and already today we've planned a compound sentence that you can use in your writing to start today.

So let's look at some model writing for this scene.

I'm going to read the paragraph so you can follow on screen or read aloud with me.

Suddenly, the door flung open and Pan turned sharply to see Mrs. Coulter stride confidently into the lavish lounge.

Sitting to attention, Lyra clutched her shoulder bag.

For a moment, they were both quiet with fear.

Looking at the plan at the top of the page and the paragraph of model writing, what evidence can you see of me including ideas in our planning and the writing below? Pause and have a look.

Okay we're going to look at this together and analyse that planning and how well I've used it.

So we've got Pan turned sharply, and that's in our other column where we see our ideas of panic and shock at the beginning of the scene.

Then Mrs. Coulter striding confidently is from our Mrs. Coulter column, and then in Lyra's planning column we've thought that we would capture her sitting to attention and clutching her shoulder bag with that show not tell idea of her feeling a little bit afraid of Mrs. Coulter, and that's there in our second sentence.

Now when we listed those things we're aiming to achieve in writing today, we said varied sentence structures was one of them.

And in this writing, we've got two different sentence structures.

Got a compound sentence to start, with a coordinating conjunction and, and then we've got a non-finite clause sitting to attention.

Lyra clutched her shoulder bag is our main clause of that sentence.

So a complex sentence, a compound sentence, and at the end for a moment they were both quiet with fear, an adverbial phrase in the beginning of our final sentence.

So varied sentence structures, I think we can give ourselves a tick for that model writing.

Let's have a look another paragraph for later in this scene.

It reads With her daemon by her side, a smile crept across the manipulative woman's face and she began to laugh.

Lyra fiddles nervously.

Peering over her thin-rimmed glasses and with a sinister tone, Mrs. Coulter questioned, "How do you know about particles like Dust?" So again looking at the planning at the top of the page, what evidence can you see of me incorporating ideas from our plan in writing, and are there any other elements of our success criteria that you can see evidenced in this paragraph.

Just pause and have a look now.

Go ahead take a good look and we'll look together.

So manipulative to describe Mrs. Coulter, and that she began to laugh, are two ideas.

A short sentence incorporating fiddling nervously, Lyra fiddled nervously.

Those ideas highlighted for you to see in purple.

And then manipulative and then the final element of speech linked to all the work that we did in preparation for including speech in our writing today around conveying character, characteristics of our characters, for us to convey character, sorry, and advancing the action.

So Mrs. Coulter asking a key question in this speech that we've concluded, and the fact that we've described her as manipulative conveys character.

Referring to characters in different ways, the manipulative woman's face, is variety in our references to Mrs. Coulter.

Your task today is to write the first part of this scene, and remember to aim for two or three sentences for each image, and you have all your planning to help you to improve those first scenes.

The things that you're having in mind and you're aiming to include.

When to refer to characters in different ways throughout your writing of the scene, and to incorporate speech in a way that conveys character and advances the action.

And finally being really mindful when you're reading through, using your writing to vary your sentence structures.

So the images for this scene are on screen as a reminder we can always revisit the clip and re-watch if we need to.

But your task is to write the first part of the scene, and so when you're ready, pause the video and off you go.

Congratulations, that is the end of today's lesson.

So we started with some really useful sentence writing, writing a compound sentence from scene today, and then we analysed some model writing for this scene before you completed your own writing of the first part of this narrative scene.

And so well done that is the end of another lesson and you should feel really, really proud of your writing today.

Well done.