Lesson video

Hi everyone, It's me, Ms. Chu.

We are on our next lesson.

In this lesson, it's exciting because we get to start to write our newspaper reports.

For me, writing is the most exciting part.

Planning is fun, don't get me wrong, but writing is the best bit because I get to be super creative, and so will you.

Today, you need to definitely find a quiet space because we've really got to focus on our writing, so make sure that you go and do that now.

Go and find a quiet space away from distractions, and then when you're ready, we may begin.

Okay.

Go and get these things because you really need them today.

An exercise book or paper, pen, or pencil, and then this thing that we take for granted.

Is amazing.

Our brain switched on.

The agenda.

We are going to do a writing warmup in which we will look at semi-colons and then we are going to identify the five Ws.

I wonder if you remember what the five Ws are? Well done if you do.

I think I might have forgotten.

I need to remind myself, and then we will look at writing headlines for our newspaper report and then writing the opening.

So let's start with our writing warmup.

Semicolons.

Semicolons are normally punctuated like this.

It's got a full stop at the top and a comma at the bottom.

Semi-colons can be used to separate two main clauses.

Sometimes they could be used to replace and or but.

So that's normally two main closes joined together with a coordinating conjunction.

Instead of that, we could just use a semi-colon, but that's not what we're looking at today.

We're focusing on this part.

They can also be used to separate grouped items in a list.

That's what we're going to look at in the writing warmup.

It helps to simplify lists by showing which items are grouped together.

For example, let's watch this video to see how they do this.

Great, so now it is our opportunity to use the semi-colons in a list.

You've seen how they've done it in the video and now we're going to have a go at doing it ourselves.

So let's look at things that we could list that are related to our Spider-Man here.

So we could talk about the suspects and what they're wearing.

So I've listed some things that you might want to include when you are coming to write your own sentence.

You could talk about what they're wearing, and I've given the example of black hooded jumpers.

You don't have to write that if you don't want to.

I've just given that as an example, black hooded jumpers which had a DB emblem on the front.

You can choose whatever you like.

Woollen balaclava, which covered most of their faces.

Obviously, again, you can choose something else that they were wearing, and then the third thing I thought I'd leave you to do on your own, and then this is how you would structure your sentence.

The suspects were wearing a variety of garments, colon because we're about to start a list, and remember we use a colon, so the two look like two full stops, one above each other.

We're going to have that at the beginning because that's what we always start a list with.

The suspects were wearing a variety of garments and then what they were wearing, and then remember the last point you have a semi colon and fullstop, and remember that we only use the semi-colons if we've got commas within our list, we wouldn't use a semi-colon if there was no comma, we would just list things with a comma, but if we've got a comma within the list, then we use the semi-colon.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, so this is an example that I've written of using semi-colons in a list.

The suspects were wearing a variety of garments, colon.

I'm starting my list now.

Black hooded jumpers, comma, which had a DB emblem on the front, semi-colon, woollen balaclavas which made the identities hard to track, semi-colon, and were wielding guns, which the police recognised as belonging to that specific gang, interesting.

Now we are going to identify the five Ws.

I hope you remembered.

Remember at the beginning of the lesson, I asked you if you remembered what they were I think I might have forgotten.

So I need to just remind myself.

They're who, what, where, when and why.

The five Ws.

Let's see if we can pick out the five Ws in this example.

I've got my headline at the top.

It's in bold and it's in capital letters and it stands out and it's quite snappy and it makes me want to read it.

I'm going to read it now.

Kidnap attempt on famous scientists stopped.

You may pause the video and read the rest of this report now.

Now I'm going to read it to you.

One of the strangest kidnappings in the city's history happened yesterday when a man in flying armour tried to abduct noted scientis, Dr.

Otto Octavius near the university campus.

Octavius had been invited to the campus by Dr.

Curt Connors, long-time professor on the university staff.

I had asked him to come and lecture to my class about his specific advancements, said Connors.

He's done so much to help people, and my students were very excited about hearing him lecture.

Now what I'd like us to do, is I'd like us to pause the video, read through that again, having the five Ws in mind when we're reading through.

We could just read through it once without thinking about it, if we need to, or if we think we could give it a go, let's think about what the five Ws could be in this little opening paragraph of a newspaper report.

Pause the video and think about who is it about, what's happening, where it's happening, when it's happening, does it give any information about why it happened? Doesn't always in the opening, but it could do.

So I want you to pause and now have a go at doing that.

I found the who part in the first paragraph.

So one of the strangest kidnappings in the city's history happened yesterday, when a man in flying armour, tried to abduct noted scientist, Dr.

Otto Octavius.

So it was about Dr.

Octo Octavius.

That's who it was about.

I found out what happened.

A man in flying armour tried to abduct noted scientist, that's what happened.

That's the peculiar thing that happened.

That's the thing we want to report about.

Where did it happen? Yes, I found that it happened near the university campus.

It did give me information about that.

When? Did it tell me when? Yes, it happened yesterday.

I found out that it happened yesterday, and why? Why did the man in flying armour try to abduct scientist Dr.

Otto Octavius, I don't actually know.

So that's something that I haven't been able to find out but that is okay because the rest of the report if I continue to read, it would tell me why.

It would go in detail.

Would go in further detail.

Headlines.

When we are writing our reports, we need to think about a snappy, short headline that will pull the reader in and make the reader want to read more, read the rest of the report.

So these are two examples that I came up with.

High speed vehicle chase ends in low speed dangle from web.

If you see there's a play on the words, speed, high and low.

we're saying it's a high speed chase and contrast it with a low speed dangle from web, and then the second part spider web captures criminals faster than police.

So again, we're playing on the word catches.

We're saying that the spider web catches the criminal and police are meant to catch criminals aren't they? So it's kind of playing on that idea that actually the spider web was faster than the police, and that's a little bit shameful, I guess, in this example.

Okay, it is your turn to write a headline.

You could always start with something that I started with.

You could say high speed vehicle chase ends in disaster or ends in whatever you like, or you could say something, something spiderweb captures.

It is up to you.

It is your headline, but it needs to be short and snappy to draw the reader in.

Pause the video and have a go.

Now we are going to write the opening.

Well done for writing your headline at the top of your page.

Now let's look at how we would write our opening.

How are we going to be successful today? Let's have a look.

So our first thing we've already done, so we can tick that off, we have written a catchy headline to draw the reader in.

Number two and three, we need to do now.

In our opening, we need to include the five Ws.

The who, the what, the where, the when, and possibly the why if we wanted to.

You don't have to, but it would be good to to include that, to give it extra information.

Then number three, we've done a lot of practise on this is include a complex sentence with a relative clause.

Here is how I've started my opening.

I've got my headline, high speed vehicle chase ends in low speed dangle from web, and then I've written my opening like this.

Yesterday evening, two masked men, who investigators believe had robbed four restaurants at gunpoint, were apprehended after a frenetic police car chase which caused chaos and destruction in London's city centre.

Have I included my who, what, where and when and why? Yesterday evening, what's that? What's yesterday? That's a when.

That's when I'm saying when it happened, yesterday evening.

Two masked men.

That's who it's about.

Who investigators believe had robbed four restaurants at gunpoint for cash.

Oh, that's my who? That's my relative clause because I'm giving extra information about the men and I've got the who, and underline that, and then I've highlighted robbed four restaurants at gunpoint, oh, that's what they did.

So I've got my what, and my why, yeah, they robbed them for cash.

They wanted the cash.

Got my why, and then lastly, I forgot my where.

So I've got my who, two men.

What, they robbed.

Who, what, where, have I got my where? Ah, London city centre.

When, yesterday evening, and why, for cash.

Amazing.

I've got my five Ws, so I can tick that off in my success criteria.

Now it is your turn to write the opening of a newspaper report.

You've done your headline to draw the reader in.

You've got to focus on the other aspects of your success criteria, your five Ws, who, what, where, when and why, and then include your complex sentence with a relative clause.

Make sure you have your plan next to you.

So you should have some notes from your previous lesson to give you ideas of the who, the what, the where, the when and the why.

To give you ideas, now remember, it's your newspaper report, so it doesn't matter if you haven't got yesterday evening, you might have Monday evening or Monday afternoon or Tuesday, It doesn't matter the exact facts, the fact that you are making up.

You're going to pretend that the facts that you've got are real.

So it doesn't matter if they don't match mine, but we've got to get the who correct.

We've got to have the same who.

It's two suspects, don't abandon it.

The what doesn't really matter either.

I've located mine city centre, Oxford Circus.

You can choose your own location, and then when I've already talked about, and then why, I think why would keep the same because they're robbing the restaurant, so you give a reason and then the complex sentence with a relative clause, pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

You should be so proud of yourself because in this lesson you have learnt a variety of things.

You have learned to use semi-colons.

You have identified the five Ws within a model text.

We have looked at some headlines and written our own one, and then we've written the opening of a newspaper report including the five Ws and a relative clause.

So well done, you've completed your lesson.

If you'd like to please do share your learning with a parent or carer.