Lesson video

Hi everyone, my name is Miss Smith and welcome to today's lesson.

In the lesson today, we're going to be writing non-finite complex sentences to support our writing of a new scene in this unit.

So hopefully you really enjoy learning today and let's get started when you're ready.

We'll start today's lesson with some Mrs. Wordsmith vocabulary before we move on to look at non-finance clauses making sure we really understand how to write them before you go and write some non-finance clauses to support your writing today.

You'll need an exercise book or some paper to write on, a pencil or a pen and make sure that your brain is switched on and ready for today's lesson.

If you need to go and collect any of those things, press pause and do that now.

So let's start with some Mrs Wordsmith vocabulary.

Can you define these Mrs Wordsmith words? Do you know what they mean? Let's read the words first.

We've got optimistic and promising.

Great job.

I wonder, do you know what either of these words mean? Just pause and have a think.

You may have come across those before.

Let's look at the Mrs Wordsmith definition for each of these.

Optimistic means hopeful and positive.

It's an adjective like being certain that the weather is going to get better.

Promising means hoping or having potential like a baby rocket scientist, promising.

What we're going to do now is see whether we can think of any synonyms. Do you remember what synonyms means? A synonym is another word that means the same.

So another word, different word with the same meaning.

So can you think of any other words that mean the same as optimistic and promising? Same meaning, different words.

Just pause and jot down any that you can think of.

Okay, hope you had a good think.

You might have come across other words in your reading that mean the same as these two words.

Let's look at the synonyms that I have for each of these.

The same words, the same meaning, sorry, but different words to optimistic are, hopeful, cheerful and positive.

All three mean the same as optimistic but they're different words.

And synonyms for promising, we've got encouraging and favourable.

Great job, there's a lot of synonyms that we have already a lot of range of vocabulary.

Let's now move on and think about antonyms. So the synonym means the same thing.

Can you remember what's an antonym is? That's right, an antonym is a word that means the opposite.

So word with the opposite meaning.

So can you think of any words that mean the opposite to optimistic or promising? And I'm going to pause again and just really think about that one, jot down any that you can think of.

Well done if you thought of one for each.

My antonyms for optimistic, things that mean the opposites are, pessimistic, gloomy and negative.

Now antonyms for promising we've got my turn ominous your turn, unfavourable, both antonyms for promising.

They mean the opposite.

Okay, now here's your challenge to start our lesson today.

Can you sort the words into the table? We look at this table, you can see that optimistic has its own row and promising has its own row with a column for synonyms and a column for antonyms. Let's look at the antonyms and synonyms for each below.

We've got pessimistic, hopeful, ominous, cheerful, negative, gloomy, positive, encouraging, favourable and unfavourable.

So can you pop each synonym and answer them into the correct space in the table to show whether it means the same or the opposite to optimistic or promising then you should pause and complete that on your paper now.

Okay, let's go through this then and see if you have the same solution as I'm going to talk through on here and if you put any of these synonyms or antonyms in a different box, you should just use your pen or pencil to move them into the right space so you have this to refer to.

So antonyms, things that mean the opposites to optimistic are pessimistic, gloomy and negative.

So we have three antonyms there.

Antonyms for promising, ominous and unfavourable.

They mean the opposite of promising.

So now we're thinking about our synonyms for each.

Synonyms for optimistic are hopeful, cheerful and positive and for promising, we've got favourable and encouraging.

Such a lot of vocabulary that we can use to describe our synonyms for optimistic and promising.

So what are the two parts of any complex sentence? Can you remind yourself? So complex sentence contains a main clause and a subordinate clause and we've got a little reminder there, Mr. Main and Mr. Subordinates to prompt us to remember that there's a main clause and there's a subordinate case.

So in this sentence for this image of Lord Asriel, it reads, mesmerised by the breathtaking view, Lord Asriel could think only of the importance of his quest.

Can you locate the main clause, the bit that makes sense on its own and the subordinate clause, that doesn't make sense on its own.

There we go, so our main clause is in green.

Lord Asriel could think only of the importance of his quest.

That makes sense on its own.

The subordinate clause, mesmerised by the breathtaking view.

So it's underlined and that's our subordinate clause.

Now a non-finite clause and that's what we're learning about today is just one type of subordinate clause.

So let's look at this example for the same image below.

It reads, scanning the vast, frozen landscape, Lord Asriel smiled with satisfaction and he muttered a warning to his faithful companion.

Then you can see that I've highlighted the subordinate clause in this sentence.

The subordinate clause is, scanning the vast, frozen landscape.

Now this is a non-finite subordinate clause and non-finite subordinate clauses often begin with an -ing verb.

and you can see that in my non-finite clause.

It begins scanning, scanning the vast, frozen landscape.

And you need a comma after my subordinate clause as usual.

Scanning the vast, frozen landscape, Lord Asriel smiled with satisfaction as he muttered a warning to his faithful companion.

It tells us what he's doing, doesn't it? We understand that he's in looking around and scanning the landscape as he smiles and mutters.

Now, we're going to watch a short clip to support our writing for this next part of the unit.

May God help us.

Can you see anything? Lyra, you're not listening to me.

That's a mighty fancy clockwork you got there.

So can you now sequence the images on the screen in the order in which we saw them in that clip? And you can just point to these and number them perhaps out loud to your screen, which order that they come up in our clip.

Okay, let's see, shall we? So we've got the boats on the water approaching that shore and the port really, we have a close up alongside the ship and then Lyra we're back with our main character.

She gets off the boat and act of getting off the boat is disembark.

So she's disembarking from the ship and she finds a quiet space with Pan.

So Pan has shifted into a mouse at this point, Pan and her looking at the alethiometer.

and there's somebody over her shoulder hearing over the shoulder from up on high is intrigued as she is about the golden compass.

So let's now write a complex sentence with a non-finite clause for this image.

So three verbs that might help us to do this, because we know that's a non-finite clause often starts and normally starts with an -ing verb.

We've got three here that we might use to describe what our character who's up by that iron wheel is doing.

We've got studying, pairing and looking.

Now to think, how might I write a non-finite clause for this picture.

I wrote studying the alethiometer closely, Lyra wondered how the device would help her on the quest.

Studying the alethiometer closely, is our non-finite clause and it begins with the -ing verb.

I remember my comma afterwards, because it's the subordinate clause and the main clause makes sense on its own.

Peering from beside the iron wheel, the aeronaut, that's the job of this man, the aeronaut watched closely as Lyra held the alethiometer tightly.

Peering from beside the iron wheel is a non-finite clause.

The aeronaut watched closely as Lyra head the alethiometer is our main clause.

Now I'm just going to highlight those verbs in each sentence and a really important thing to note is that in writing a non-finite clause, we need to make sure that we introduce the subject of the sentence in our main clause.

So in our first example, Lyra is the person who's doing the studying and our non-finite clause relies on the main clause for us to understand the whole sentence.

We need to make sure we introduce to the reader, that main character, the subject of the sentence in the main clause.

In the second example, the aeronaut is doing the peering.

So described his action peering from beside the iron wheel, we need to make sure the reader's clear of who is doing the peering and it's the aeronaut who's doing it.

Your task today then is to write a complex sentence with a non-finite clause and we're writing based on our new little scene.

So below my instruction on the screen today, you can see a range of verbs that might help you to write your non-finite clause for each of the images.

So we've got emerging, arriving, peering, looking, studying and examining and below that you can see a sentence frame as a reminder of that structure of non-finite clause.

So it begins with the invert and after the clause, you need to make sure you've got your comma before the main clause and remember that full stop at the end.

So the five images for this new scene are sequenced underneath, and you should challenge yourself to write a complex sentence with a non-finite clause for each image in the scene and if you need to go back and watch the film clip, that's absolutely fine.

That might help you with this writing as well.

So you should pause and complete your tasks now.

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

Some really ambitious language in our Mrs. Wordsmith work at the beginning before we looked at non-finite clauses and then you've written some fantastic non-finite clauses of your own.

I hope you really enjoy today's lesson and well done for working so hard on such difficult complex sentence writing.

You did a fantastic job.