Lesson video

Hi everyone.

My name is Ms. Smith and welcome to today's lesson, lesson nine of our units on the Golden Compass.

In today's lesson, we're going to be writing the opening scene based on that short film clip.

And I really hope you enjoy our learning.

So in our lesson today, we're going to look at complex sentences and practise writing a complex sentence.

Then we'll look at some model writing and how we can use all our planning so far to help us to write the opening scene, which will be your task at the end of this lesson.

And so the things you need are an exercise book or some paper to write on, a pencil or pen to write with, and really importantly, all you're planning from our previous lessons.

Okay, so let's start by reminding ourselves of complex sentences.

So a complex sentence contains a main clause and a subordinate clause.

Let's just say there is two really important terms, you've got main clause and subordinate clause.

And here we're thinking about clauses and we need to just remind ourselves that a clause contains a verb.

And this little image of Batman and his companion Robin can help us to remember this really well with Batman being our main clause.

The main man in the partnership and Mr. Subordinate our helping clause being Robin in our little picture.

So that's a really useful picture prompt that will pop up throughout our lesson and can remind you of the main clause and the subordinate clause, being that partnership in our sentence.

So let's look at a complex sentence, we're going to read it now.

"Fists clenched and staring into each other's eyes, Billy and Lyra engaged in a fiery discussion." So can you think, in that sentence can you identify the main clause and the subordinate clause? Remember the close contains of a verb.

Okay, so we've got, "Billy and Lyra engaged in a fiery discussion." That's the main clause, it makes sense on its own.

"Fists clenched and staring into each other's eyes" gives us some information about Billy and Lyra, but it needs the rest of the sentence.

It doesn't make sense on its own, it is our subordinate clause.

So our complex sentence consists of our subordinate clause and our main clause and importantly you need a comma, in between the two clauses so that they're clearly marked and you can see where our subordinate clause ends and our main clause begins.

So we're going to now write a complex sentence for this image.

This comes towards the end of our opening scene.

You might want to pause and have a go at doing that now or you might wait for some extra help on the next slide.

So either pause now, if you feel really confident and can use your planning notes to write that sentence, or you might want to see what I've got on the next slide that's going to help.

Okay, so here I put our notes Okay, so here I put our notes from planning in previous lessons and our planning for this image in particular.

And that might be really helpful for you writing your complex sentence for this picture, remembering it needs a main clause and a subordinate clause and we need that comma to demarcate after the subordinate clause and before our main clause.

Press pause and off you go.

Okay, so I had a go at writing complex sentence for this image.

Let's just see if I've managed to do that.

Let's check for all of those important features.

First sentence, "Wondering into the college grounds, Lyra calmly reassured Roger." Lyra calmly reassured Roger." Secondly, "Lyra encouraged Roger Secondly, "Lyra encouraged Roger as they wandered into the college grounds." So I remembered everything.

Is it a complex sentence in each example? And have I punctuated them properly? So we've got main clause and subordinate clause, "Wandering into the college grounds, Lyra calmly reassured Roger." The main clause in this sentence, "Lyra calmly reassured Roger" our subordinate clause, doesn't make sense on its own, "Wandering into the college grounds." Because that comes first in our sentence, we put a comma after the subordinate clause.

Let's look at how this is different in my second example, we've got, "Lyra encouraged Roger as they wandered into the college grounds." "Lyra encouraged Roger" is our main clause, that's the Mr. Main in that example.

"As they wandered into the college grounds." is subordinate, doesn't make sense on its own.

And because it's second in our sentence, we don't need a comma before the as if the clause is second in the sentence.

So that's a slight tweak and then something else to remember in that comma rule.

Comma after subordinate clause, when it's first.

So today then we are writing the opening scene and we've spent lots of time gathering ideas and being really thoughtful about the language we're going to use to describe our character, our main character and different elements of this opening scene, whether it's ambitious verb choices, whether it is prepositional phrases to make sure our sentence structures are varied.

All of those elements are there and you can rely on those to build into your very writing today.

How will we make sure our writing engages our reader? We want to pause and have a think about all of the things you do in your writing all the time that makes sure at the end you feel as though you've got a piece of writing that is going to be enjoyable to read, and it's going to keep someone reading all the way through to the end.

So things we're going to think about today are ambitious adjectives, specific verb choices and that complex sentence structure.

These are things we've been thinking about leading up to this writing outcome.

A little reminder of our Mr. Main and Mr. Subordinate.

When we're building those complex sentences, we need to just check we've got both parts of the sentence and that it's punctuated correctly.

So what are we writing? Well, we're going to be writing the whole of our opening scene.

the whole of our opening scene.

And we're going to aim to write two or three sentences for each image through the opening scene for each image through the opening scene that we know so well now.

So let's have a look at some writing that I've had to go at for the two of the images in this opening scene.

So I'll read my writing first of all.

It reads, "Ancient trees bordered the fields between the long grass and the familiar streets of Oxford.

With screams of joy and endless energy, Lyra and her companions bounded towards the imposing college." So just a reminder of planning that we have done previously, and you might be able to see some of the content, some of our ideas in the plan and how I've used them, I've tried to use them in my writing.

Let's look first of all, for ambitious adjectives, Let's look first of all, for ambitious adjectives, because that's something we said we're going to try really hard to include today in our own writing.

You might want to pause and read through my writing again and see if you can pick out my most ambitious adjectives so pause and have a look now.

Okay, so I've highlighted three adjectives in my writing.

I've highlighted ancient that describes my trees, familiar that describe the streets and imposing describing the college.

That's not every adjective, but I was thinking of the most ambitious adjectives in my writing, not just every adjective.

And I think those are the three most successful adjectives that do the best job at describing in my writing below.

that do the best job at describing in my writing below.

Specific verb choices then verbs, doing or being words.

Can you pause and think, look through my writing to find my most specific verb choices? to find my most specific verb choices? Hopefully you've had a good read through.

And so again, we're looking for the most specific verb choices.

We're not checking whether we can identify any verb, but do we know the most effective verb choices in this writing? And two verbs that I thought were most effective are bordered, the trees bordering the field and bounded was really ambitious.

And that's one of our synonyms for running that we did in our planning so bounded, I managed to build into my writing.

Finally, looking at the complex sentence.

You have a think, remind yourself what it means to write a complex sentence.

And can you identify whether or not I managed to do that in my writing? Pause and have a look now.

Okay, so my second sentence is a complex sentence, let's read it, "With screams of joy and endless energy, Lyra and her companions bounded towards the imposing college." And I've highlighted the main clause, it makes sense on its own.

Subordinate clause, "With screams of joy and endless energy." And it comes first so I need a comma after it.

So then I had a look at an image that comes in later in our scene and had a think about using ambitious adjectives, specific verb choices and complex sentence structure.

I wonder, can you have a, let's have a read through my writing and I want you to think about these things on your own afterwards.

It reads, "The two companions stood beneath the stone archway and together remained firmly in front of the ornate, iron gates.

As their enemy edged closer, anticipation hung in the air" So have a think, those three features that we're aiming to include, how do you think I did in my writing? Okay, I want us to zoom in on that final part Okay, I want us to zoom in on that final part of the second sentence, "Anticipation hung in the air." We're going to think really closely about the sentence and look at it and decide whether it's a complex sentence and evaluate is that final part particularly effective? So the sentence reads, "As their enemy edged closer, anticipation hung in the air." So a complex sentence needs a main clause and a subordinate clause.

Have a think, does that sentence have those two parts? It does "As their enemy edged closer," Is a non-verbal clause, it's an as-clause, it subordinate, doesn't make sense on its own, it's got a comma after it, remember that.

"Anticipation hung in the air." is a main clause And I tried so hard with that main clause.

It's figurative language because anticipation can't really hang in the air, can't really hang in the air, but I worked hard to describe that feeling and set the atmosphere in my writing.

And I was particularly proud of myself for that one.

So I wonder if you can sneak any figurative language into your writing today.

So your task today is to write the opening scene and remember, we're aiming for two or three sentences for each image.

You have all your planning and all of your fantastic ideas that you've worked so hard on so far to help you with your writing.

So keep those next to you and keep referring to them and including as much as you can throughout.

Remembering our aims for our writing today, we're looking to include the most ambitious adjectives we can, making sure verb choices are specific we can, making sure verb choices are specific and describe people's actions and tell us what as well as telling us what's going on and to able to include complex sentence.

and to able to include complex sentence.

So you're writing the opening scene and here's a reminder of those images in that scene.

And so pause the video and off you go.

And that's the end of lesson nine, congratulations.

So we started looking at our complex sentences and you wrote a complex sentence.

You might even have included that in your writing today.

We analysed some model writing of mine and well done for all of your efforts in writing the opening scene.