Lesson video

Hello.

Good morning.

Today, we're going to start our writing of our Happy Prince unit, which is really exciting because you've been working super hard to make sure that you have all the things that you need to do really detailed, vivid writing for your reader.

So let's get started.

Let's have a look at how we're going to do that.

We're going to do a writing warmup, then we're going to recap our plan.

So basically what we've been doing to lead up to our writing, to remember all the fantastic things we already know.

Then we're going to do a shared write.

So we're going to write something together with you helping me with ideas and me showing some of the things that you could include.

Then we're going to check and edit, and then you are going to have a go yourself at writing an opening.

What will you need for this lesson? You'll need an exercise book or a piece of paper.

You'll need a pencil or a pen, and you'll need your notes or your fantastic ideas from the previous lessons in this unit.

So if you haven't got any of those things, just pop off and get them now and make sure you are in a space that's as distraction-free as possible.

Pause the video and get those if you're not quite ready.

Okay, let's start with our writing warmup.

Here we have the parts of a compound sentence.

So we've got two main clauses.

"His sapphire eyes gazed down at the people." That's got our verb, gazing.

"His hands held a sword with a ruby." Also got the verb held.

So I want to join those two main clauses with a conjunction.

So what conjunction would you use that would make sense? Is it two things that agree with each other, where you'd use an and? Is it one thing disagreeing with another, where you might use a but? Or is it or? Have a go yourself.

Say it aloud and see what makes sense.

Say aloud the full sentence with the two main clauses and see what makes sense.

Okay, could you say it aloud for me, please? With the full sentence, with your joining conjunction, please.

Fantastic.

For those of you who said it aloud really, really clearly, well done.

Let's have a look at what you could have used.

I've used an and because I thought those two things added to each other.

So it was adding rather than one disagreeing slightly with another.

"His sapphire eyes gazed down at the people, and his hands held a sword with a ruby." And I've got my nice capital letter and full stop at the end to show that now it's a full sentence, not just two clauses.

Do you think that looks okay to you? Have a check.

Yeah, it's okay.

We've got all the bits that we need.

Well done for checking carefully, because even when you think it might be all sorted, sometimes there's something missing.

Okay.

Now I want to add some words to make it more vivid in my head.

So, "His sapphire eyes gazed," so looked, "down on the people." Only a bit of hair sticking up.

"And his hands held a sword with a ruby." What are those words that are missing that help us describe things? What are they called? Can you shout it out for me? Three, two, one.

Adjectives.

Fantastic.

So can we describe those sapphires? "His sapphire eyes gazed down." Can you pause and write down this sentence for me with two adjectives in the gaps? You don't have to do all three.

Just choose two to put in those gaps.

And so pause the video now and write it out with two adjectives in, and then we'll have a look at what those could be.

Pause and write down on your paper.

Okay, here's an example of what it could have been.

So it could have been his bright sapphire eyes.

So shining brightly.

"His bright sapphire eyes gazed down on the people, and his hands held a huge sword with a ruby on top." So I chose to put an adjective before sapphire and sword, those two nouns there, describing those two nouns.

Or you could have had something like this.

"His deep sapphire eyes," so it shows us that there's lots of feeling behind his eyes, "gazed down on the people, and his hands held a sword," so I've not used an adjective there, "with a giant ruby on top." So giant and huge are synonyms for the same thing, which is very big.

Make sure you've got your capital letter and full stop.

So just edit to make sure that you have got a full sentence with our joining conjunction, and make sure that you've got two adjectives in your sentence.

Just pause now.

Make sure you've got that.

If you do already, let's just move on.

Okay.

Let's recap our plan.

So we've been working towards doing this writing, gathering vocabulary, writing star sentences.

Let's recap.

We're writing the beginning of our opening today.

That means we are setting the scene.

So the first part is helping our reader to imagine where we are.

We have looked at camera shots, so we've started on the ground, at what's happening deep on the ground, very close up.

We've moved up to the statue with a tilt, and then we've ended with the character, just like this.

Start on the ground, move to the statue, and then end with the character.

So we introduced the Happy Prince right at the end.

So we've got lots of notes from our previous lessons with really powerful vocabulary.

And you had such fantastic ideas with those that here are some examples that I had.

I bet you had some other brilliant ones too.

So then we built some sentences.

So you'll have those in your books as well for when you come to do your writing.

And some more description of the statue, and some more fantastic sentences that we built together.

And now we're going to use those to have a go at writing together.

And then you are going to write yourself with all your brilliant ideas.

Okay, this is the things that we need to include.

We need to describe the ground or what's going on on the ground.

And then tilt up to the statute using our camera shot technique.

We're going to use powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

And we're going to try to start our sentences in different ways so that it doesn't sound like a list.

So sometimes when you're writing, if you look back and you've started in the same way, it doesn't flow very well.

It just sounds like a shopping list.

This and this and this and this.

Okay.

We also need to make sure we're checking whether it makes sense and what punctuation we should have there to help our reader along with nice signposts.

This is what we want you to be doing.

It's kind of a way of holding their hand and showing them where you want them to go.

So we do that with a two finger check, with one finger on the capital letter, one finger on the full stop, make sure we've got something at each end.

We sound out our words.

We check they're really there, which we do by reading aloud.

And we make sure that we have our commas only when there's a rule that we know.

So not just popping them in whenever we feel like it.

Okay, so here's an example of when your commas, you would use them because you know the rules.

So we've got two adjectives, dark and bustling.

So, "Down in a dark," comma, "bustling city." So we've got our comma between the two adjectives, and then we've got another comma.

So that was our first comma.

Then we've got another comma, and this other one is at the end of the fronted adverbial.

So, "Down in a dark, bustling city." That tells us where something's happening.

And then we've got our comma at the end of that phrase.

Okay, now we're going to start our shared write.

So you can see our checklist is in the top corner.

And the first thing that we need to do is describe the ground and then tilt up like a camera shot to the statue.

Now, I'm going to type, and you can give me ideas.

I want you to tell me things, try and fill in the gaps, and we can do this together.

Okay, so let's start down.

Down.

Where are we? We're in.

Down.

Tell me where we are.

Down in the town.

Yep.

Down in the city? Let's describe it.

So, "Down in the centre of a." I like the description of the air, because that sort of appeals to all the different senses.

So let's describe it from our notes.

We had choked, didn't we? Choked, and let's have two adjectives.

What do we need to do between two adjectives? We need to have a? Comma.

Fantastic.

"Down in the centre of a choked," comma.

What other adjective could we use to describe the city? Look back at your notes.

Tell me.

Yep.

So, "Down in the centre of a choked," you could say, "busy city." And we've got a comma after that fronted adverbial.

"Down in the centre of a choked, busy city." How are we going to describe the children? They were very.

Hmm.

They were dirty, yup.

What else? Say it aloud.

They were? Tired.

Yeah, definitely could be.

Maybe you're a bit tired just now.

"Down in the centre of a choked, busy city." They were also, yes, they were hungry.

Hungry and quite dirty, weren't they? Let's describe it as they were kind of grey.

'Cause that's so sad, isn't it? And that's nice with an opposition when we get up to the statute.

We had grey on one side, and we had golden on the other, that's right.

So grey.

"Hungry," comma, "grey children played and." I'm going to extend it with a joining conjunction.

And we talked about the feet.

Hmm.

Tired.

Another way of saying tired.

Weary feet.

What do they do like an army? Yeah.

Armies march.

And they also, do you remember our word from before? They trudged.

That's it.

"Weary feet trudge," this is a fairly detailed sentence, "to work." Okay.

"Down in the centre of a choked," comma, "busy city," comma, "hungry," comma, "grey children played and weary feet trudged to work." Lovely.

Now next sentence.

"Towering above." Because we're tilting up now, aren't we? We had towering, We also have looming, didn't we, which you could use.

Or high above, which is another way of saying it when you do your writing.

"Towering above was a shimmering golden statue of a prince." So I haven't used the capital letter for prince yet, because it's just any old prince.

It's not the Prince, who is our character.

So let's have a look at that together.

Let's go through and check.

Let's start going through our checklist.

So we've got to describe the ground and then tilt up is the first thing on our list you can see up there.

Okay.

So start down in the centre.

So we've started on the ground, "Down in the centre of a choked, busy city, hungry, grey children played and weary feet trudged to work." I think that we have started on the ground.

Have we then tilted up? "Towering high above was a shimmering golden statue of a prince." So we've gone from the ground and tilted up.

Really well done.

Thank you for your help.

So I would say we can tick that one.

So now let's look at the second one.

Powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

So have we got some powerful adjectives to describe? We have got, "Down in the centre of a choked." Pop your hand on your head when you spot one.

Choked is a nice adjective, and let's keep going.

Choked.

Ooh, there's another one.

City.

And ooh, so many, hungry.

And grey.

I'm going to keep my hand there.

"Children played and weary feet trudged to work.

Towering high above was a shimmering." Good spot.

Oh, I've spotted another verb there.

I put that in first.

Weary feet.

"Shimmering golden statue of a prince." So I would say that we have got some really powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

Ooh, there's another vivid verb, trudged.

So I would give that a tick as well.

And that's because we've got such powerful vocabulary from our notes before.

So now starting sentences in different ways, I got a tick.

'Cause I got down for my first sentence, and I've got towering for my second sentence.

Now let's have a look at punctuation and whether it makes sense.

So we're going to do our two finger checks.

We put one finger, this side, one finger on our capital letter, and then another one on our full stop.

So could you please put your finger on my capital letter if I got one there.

Down.

Tick.

Good.

And then do do, do, do, do, do to the end of the sentence.

"Down in the centre of a choked, busy city, hungry, grey children played and weary feet trudged to work." But not there, missing.

Lucky we checked; sometimes I forget.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

So I've missed that one.

Have I got the next capital letter that should be there? Yes.

I've got towering, capital T for towering.

"Towering high above was a shimmering golden statue of a prince." So I need a full stop at the end.

Have I got one? Tell me.

Yes I have.

Brilliant.

So I've done my two finger check, but I need to make a correction.

Let's just make sure we make that correction.

Okay.

There we go.

Here's my full stop at the end of work.

So I've done my two finger check now.

Ooh, itchy nose.

Okay, now I've got to sound out my words.

I have actually gone through and sounded out my words, and I spotted a spelling mistake.

Did you spot it? I bet you did.

It's somewhere where there should be a short vowel sound.

And when there's a short vowel sound, there's usually a double consonant.

So two of a particular letter, like hitting would have double T, or hopping would have a double P because it's oh or eh.

So let's see if we can find that.

Can you put your finger on where I made my mistake? Ready, steady.

Ah, there it is.

Because it's not shimmering.

It's not shy, long.

It's shimmering.

Eh.

So we need to correct that.

There we go.

It's got the double M now.

Just like magic.

So we need to check the words are really there.

Ooh, there it is correct.

Just to make sure you can see, and we've ticked it there.

So checking the words are really there.

I have actually been through.

And the way that I do it is saying it out loud and putting my finger on each word.

I want you to do that when you're doing your writing, but we're not going to do it all here each time, because we just won't have time.

So I have checked they're really there by putting my finger on the word when I think it's there, and I usually spot something missing.

Today, I'm okay.

The next is commas for a rule.

So we've got a comma between the two adjectives choked and busy.

And we've practised that quite a lot now, haven't we? And then we've got another one at the end of that fronted adverbial that tells us where it is.

It's, "Down at the centre of a busy, choked city." That's telling us where it is.

And then it's telling us what is there after that comma.

"Hungry, grey children." So then we have got one between hungry and grey, because those are two adjectives, but we missed one.

"Towering high above was a shimmering." Uh.

Comma.

Yeah.

"Shimmering," comma, "golden statue." Because shimmering is an adjective, and golden is an adjective.

You could, mm, let's not get into that.

That's just going to confuse things.

Those are two adjectives.

There you need a comma.

So we need to make sure we pop one in there.

There it is as if by magic.

So we have checked now that we have got a comma where there is a rule.

Right.

Next bit.

So the next part of the action.

Let's just check.

There we go.

When I type, it is working.

So we need to go up to the Prince and describe the Prince, this golden, sparkling thing.

We're introducing the character.

So we're doing the next part of this little bit of the opening.

And we need to show, remember, we were trying to get the opposition from the dirty, dirty below to the wonderful, clean above.

And that's one of the techniques, the writing techniques that Oscar Wilde used.

So let's try and really make this vivid.

So this, we're going to describe this beautiful.

We say, "This beautiful statue." Yep.

This beautiful, did we have any synonyms for statue? "This beautiful prince." Yeah.

We could say that.

"This beautiful monument." Yeah, let's try monument.

That's one of our new bits of powerful vocabulary, isn't it? This powerful, uh, powerful? "This beautiful monument of a prince had." What did he have? He had his feet fixed.

"Had his feet fixed to a tall." What was that long thing called? Ooh, you could say pedestal.

Yeah, but pedestals are not tall.

You could say his feet were fixed to a pedestal, or to a tall, say it.

That's it.

Column.

Column.

And.

I'm stretching it even further 'cause it's a really nice description.

And.

Ah, this beautiful.

And.

Of a prince.

Uh de de.

"And its," 'cause it's a monument, rather than his.

Beautiful monument.

You could say his.

And its or his, but we don't have an apostrophe there, do we? Because even though it's belonging, it doesn't make sense saying, "It is head." Right, if you're not sure what I'm talking about, have a look at the grammar lessons to do with apostrophes.

"Its head in clean." And let's have another adjective.

Clean.

Let's describe because it's the sky.

We described it.

Have a look at your notes.

In clean blue air? No, that doesn't quite make sense, 'cause the sky might be blue, but the air is not.

Might say fresh, yeah.

"Fresh air." Full stop.

Lovely.

Now we're going to describe his eyes.

I'm going to start the sentence with his.

His.

They're made of? Sapphires.

Lovely.

So, "His sapphire." Double P.

It's a weird one.

"His sapphire," comma between adjectives, "gemstone eyes." But you can use any of the notes we had to describe from previous when you do your writing.

"Gazed," 'cause he's looking down.

He's looking down in quite a serious way.

"Gazed down at the people below." I'm going to stretch it even more.

I've started my sentences in different ways.

I think this and his, yeah.

And what did he have in his hands? Hmm, can you see it in the picture? "Gazed down at the people below, and his hands held." How do you describe how they held? "Held tightly." Tight.

Held on tight.

Held tight.

You can say that.

Or tightly.

"To a sword with a huge," wow, I'm really stretching it here.

Huge, we had an example that you can think back to.

"Huge, sparkling." Nice.

What was it? Ruby.

"Ruby on top." We want to say who he is, and this is introducing the character, so we need capital letters.

"He was called the," Ooh, let's have a capital letter, "The Happy Prince." And a full stop at the end.

Let's have a look at it together.

Okay.

We know already that we have described the ground, and then tilted up to the statue.

We need to make sure we have got some powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

Now, I helped us a little bit by highlighting them so that we can go through quickly.

I want you to look really carefully, here's my looking eyes, whoop, to make sure that we've got the things that we need.

And also to remember and steal, if you want to, when you come to do your writing, which I'm sure will actually be better than this.

So let's have a look.

So have we got to have a look at our powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

So we've got in there in pink, you can see all my adjectives.

I've got this beautiful monument, and a tall column, and its head was in clean, comma, fresh air.

We've described his eyes, "his sapphire," comma, "gemstone eyes." I think you could probably do better with that one when you do your writing.

"Gazed down at the people below, and his hands held tight to a sword with a huge," comma, "sparkling ruby on top.

He was called," and then I've got my nice capital letters in there, "The Happy Prince." Have I started my sentences in? Have I started my sentences in different ways? This is my first sentence.

His is my second sentence.

He was my third sentence.

Wow, what a lot of writing just for three sentences.

And can you see, I've got a nice short sentence at the end, because otherwise it starts to get a bit much if every sentence is super long.

So I have used powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

And I have started my sentences in different ways with your help.

So make sure we've got these punctuation and sense checks right.

We have done a two finger check, and you can see I've got my capital letters in bold and my full stops in bold.

So when you look and check your own, you need to make sure you do your two finger, one on the capital letter, one on the full stop check.

You need to sound out your words.

Beautiful is a tricky one.

I always say be a ooh to full to help me remember, and I say it in my head.

Checking the words are really there for sure.

And you can see I've highlighted my commas.

And so I've checked that I've only used them when there is a rule.

Now it is your turn to have a go.

You have all your notes in front of you.

A lot of the work might be done already.

So you can see, I've got a little picture of a page.

I want you to use your notes.

I want you to say your sentences.

I want you to write them down.

I want you to check them.

I want you to edit them like we did together.

And when you have written your opening setting description with all those bits of action, you can see the pictures.

Whoop, always point the wrong way, don't I? The pictures there.

Got to have the starting down on the ground, tilting up, using powerful adjectives and vivid verbs.

Sometimes just write what's in your head and go back and edit and make them more precise.

That sometimes helps just to get going with the writing.

And just make sure you've started your sentences in different ways.

So pause the video, and you get started with your opening setting description.

Very excited to see the results.

And when you have done, have you finished? Make sure you've finished.

If you haven't, pause again and do your writing.

Because this bit is just checking through to make sure you've done everything.

So if you've got your writing in front of you, pause in a moment, make sure you have described the ground and then tilted up to the statue, and then press play if you have done it.

If you haven't, edit your work.

Have you used powerful adjectives and vivid verbs? Put your finger on each of the powerful adjectives, give yourself a little tick.

Have you got really powerful verbs? If you're not sure, and you'd like to use something more powerful, look back at your notes, drop something in.

Sometimes, like I said, you just need to get going, but you can go back and edit and improve.

So pause and do that, and play when you have done it.

Okay, have you started your sentences in different ways? Check through your work.

Look at the first word in each sentence, make sure it doesn't sound like my shopping list, and then press play when you've done that.

Well done.

Now you have done that.

That's fantastic.

Now, crucial because it all falls down if you haven't got this right.

Make sure you've done your two finger check.

You've sounded out each of your words, making sure each of the sounds is included.

Check they're really there.

Always read your writing aloud.

Because then you hear what it sounds like to your reader.

And that's how I always spot mistakes, and only use a comma when there's a rule.

Pause now and then press play once you've done that.

Fantastic.

Really, really good work.

I know you've tried so, so hard with this.

I think you definitely deserve to show your writing to someone at home.

And I think that the next bits of writing will also be fantastic.

So well done.

What a lot of work today.

I look forward to doing the next lesson with you.

Bye.