Lesson video

Hello everyone.

It's Mr Brown here with your English lesson.

And it's the last lesson of this unit.

And it's kind of over to you because we're going to be doing a free write.

I'm going to help you to plan and set up an idea for a free write, and then you're going to do it yourself.

So let's get started.

Our learning objective for today is to write a persuasive letter, free write.

So same learning objective as last lesson.

But this time it's over to you.

In this lesson you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper, a pencil, a pen, some thing to write with, and most definitely your brain, your ideas, your life experiences.

You're going to need it all today.

So we're going to start with choosing a purpose, a reason to write.

Then we'll be generating points, and then a plan.

But before we do anything, let's get warmed up.

Persuasive techniques.

What are the three persuasive techniques that we've been using in our writing so far? So in our unit on persuasive writing, we've looked at three persuasive techniques.

Can you remember what they are? Pause the lesson and write them down on a piece of paper in front of you.

Off you go.

Okay.

Let's see if you managed to get all three.

We had flattery, presumption, and veiled threat.

Well done if you got one out of three, amazing.

If you've got two out of three hats off.

Incredible, if you've got three out of three.

well done.

You are writing a letter to the prime minister to pass a law stating that all children would receive £10 of pocket money per week from the government.

Try and use all three of these persuasive techniques in sentences that could be used in a letter.

You can say them, or you can write them down.

So I want you to write three sentences, one using flattery, one presumption, and one for veil threats, that could appear in your letter to the prime minister saying that all children should receive £10 of pocket money per week from the government.

Okay.

Pause the lesson, have a go.

Well done.

Okay.

I hope that you managed to write an amazing flattery sentence, a good example of presumption, and a veiled threat.

Let's move on.

Choosing a purpose.

And it all comes down to our PALLP, doesn't it? Purpose, audience, language, layout, and punctuation.

And we're focusing on the purpose.

The reason to pick up a pen and start writing.

And let's start with some inspiration.

Do you know who this girl is? Have you seen her before? Well she's actually a really inspiring figure when it comes to writing persuasive letters, or speeches, or just being an inspiration to young people today.

Her name is Greta Thunberg.

She is a Swedish climate change activist, which means that she is protesting and spreading awareness of climate change and the potential dangers that we have ahead.

She made a speech at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in December, 2018.

And this is, kind of made her famous, it propelled her into the public eye.

She made a speech that was so persuasive and so moving.

And she did this when she was just 16 years old.

What an inspiration for all of you watching this lesson.

Anything that you feel should be changed and you've got reasons behind it, you can go out there and you can try and persuade someone to change it.

And that's exactly what she's doing.

We're going to do the same here.

So my question to you is, what do you want to change? What do you think needs to be changed? First of all, think about where you want to change something.

What area of your life? Is it at home? Do you feel there should be a change at home, at school, or in your local area? Where do you want to change something? Pause the lesson.

You might need a good few minutes to stop, to think, to perhaps speak to family members or carers at home.

What do you think should be changed? What area first of all? Okay, I hope you've had a chance to think about the area of your life that you would like to change something? Is it home, school, or your local area? Then think about what you want to change.

At home perhaps you want to change your homework regime.

Perhaps you don't like the time that you are asked to do your homework.

Maybe it's meals, maybe there's something about your meals at home that you'd like to change.

Perhaps it's the diversity of the food that you have, having different foods.

Perhaps it's the time you have it.

Perhaps it's where you sit.

Maybe you'd like to have your meals outside a bit more.

Your bedroom situation.

Maybe you're sharing a bedroom and you feel that that should change.

Maybe there are two younger siblings who are sharing a bedroom and perhaps you feel that one of them should be sharing with you instead.

What changed do you think you'd like to make there? Getting a pet, a classic example.

Children are always trying to persuade their parents and carers to get them a pet.

This could be a really good opportunity for you to focus and write a persuasive letter for that purpose.

Next holiday, of course.

You could talk about where you'd like to go.

You're persuading your parents and carers to book a holiday for you, your next holiday of where you'd like to go.

Okay, what do you want to change for school? Let's have a look at that.

Maybe at school you'd like to change your lessons.

Where do you think the lesson should be different? Maybe it could be the timing of the lessons.

When you do them, what you are taught.

School lunch.

Lots of children have a opinion on school lunch.

Would you like to change anything? This is your chance.

Play time, of course, yeah.

You spend a big chunk of your day out in the playground playing.

What would you like to change about that? How could that be improved? Uniform, we've spent a long time thinking about uniform haven't we? Maybe you've got your own ideas.

Trips, definitely.

You could try and persuade your head teacher to book a certain trip for your class.

Then we've got local area.

So in your local area, what about the roads? Are the roads always safe? Can you always find a place for you to cross safely? If not, this could be an opportunity to change that.

Parks.

Often children have ideas of how to improve their local parks.

You could persuade your local council to be able to put those changes into place.

Leisure, so things like swimming pools, or sports centres, cinemas, bowling alleys.

What would you like to see changed? Perhaps your local swimming pool doesn't have enough time where it's just family swim.

Perhaps your local swimming pool doesn't have enough time where they put the floats in for you to play with.

Shops.

Is there anything about the shops in your local area you would change? Maybe their hours they are open, maybe what they sell.

Okay, so we come back again to our PALLP and we are thinking about purpose, and audience this time, as well as language, layout and punctuation.

And the audience is the person you're going to write to.

So what do you want to change? Then decide who will be the recipient of your letter? If it's at home, it could be parents, carers, older siblings, or family members, anyone that lives at home with you.

School - your head teachers, your teachers, your school council, and your prefects.

These are the children who are representing you.

So this is a good opportunity to go to them with some changes and persuade them that they should be able to support your changes.

And your local area would be the council.

It could be the mayor, the owner of a shop.

So we have our purpose.

We've thought about our audience.

We know that our language, layout, and punctuation are all going to be.

? Formal.

Exactly.

We need to make sure that our language, layout, and punctuation suit the persuasive style of our writing.

And that's where that formality, using those formal conjunctions comes in.

And here you can see our layout example.

So let's start generating our points.

Let's use getting a pet as an example.

So for getting a pet we could say, will teach us responsibility, keeps us active as we'll be walking it, means that we have someone to play with if you're busy.

So if you talking to a parent or carer, you could say we could be playing with a pet so that we wouldn't have to play with you, if you were working.

Will help protect our home.

Good points there.

Remember we are choosing two.

So for each of these, I have chosen will keep us active as we'll be walking it and will help to protect our home.

And the reason I chose those is because I feel they are the most important.

Protecting our home, obviously hugely important for safety.

And then keeping us active, I can link back to healthy living and fitness.

I think that will definitely have perhaps an emotional impact on the reader.

Once I've got my points it's then over to planning.

And it's using our PEPS structure again.

And we've got examples, and here is one for getting a pet.

I am talking about teaching us responsibility.

I thought for my point I could talk about because owning a pet with teach us responsibility as will be looking after it.

Then I'm going to explain all about, it's part of growing up, learning to look after important things in your life.

And this is a great opportunity to teach us this lesson.

So I can pitch it to the recipient of my letter, that this is an opportunity we can't miss.

My proof is that a friend of mine recently decided to get a dog and he's so much more responsible and mature because of this.

I could talk about him looking after his belongings, maybe his mobile phone, because he had a pet which taught him to be responsible.

Then my summary, linking back to my point, being responsible is a valuable lesson to learn.

And we have the chance to do that by deciding to get a pet.

Now when you are writing, you must use the success criteria.

Exactly the same one as we used in our last lesson, when we wrote our persuasive letter.

Correct layout needs to be there, variety of simple compound and complex sentences to keep your letter interesting, and formal conjunctions.

And then if you want to go above and beyond, you've got flattery, veiled threats, and presumption that I would love to see in your writing.

Here are our examples of formal conjunctions.

You've used these before, but this lesson is a good opportunity for you.

So always rewind, pause at any moment where you want to write any of these down.

Okay, so what I thought I would do just before I let you go, to be able to start writing yourselves.

Okay, so I just want to show you, and remind you, of the features of a layout of a persuasive letter.

So we know we have the address that you live at, your address, on the right hand side.

The address you're sending the letter to on the left hand side, the date, the name of the person you're sending it to with dear before it.

So for you, it might be dear mom, dear dad, dear head teacher.

And at the end you have your closing sentence or sentences.

Yours sincerely, and then your name.

So for me, it's Mr Brown.

Okay, it's now over to you.

It's your turn to write your own persuasive letter to whoever you want to.

This is a free write, so the choice is yours.

Use the success criteria below and the planning formats we've been using to help you.

Well done, not just for today but for this whole unit.

And that's it, we've reached the end of our units.

You have worked so hard and you've made so much progress.

You've really had to use your own ideas, your own life experiences, you've learned all about formal conjunctions and persuasive techniques.

I think there's a lot you've learned in this unit that you'll actually use for the rest of your lives.

So get persuading out there, everyone.

I'll see you soon.

Take care.