Lesson video

Hello everyone.

It's lovely to see you here today.

My name's Dr. Clayton and I'm here to guide you through your learning journey today.

So grab your pen, laptop, or whatever you're using for this lesson and let's get started.

A warm welcome.

Today's lesson everyone.

The lesson is called Improving an Essay.

We're gonna be talking through how you can edit your work to ensure it's clear and meaningful as possible, as well as thinking about how you can successfully respond to feedback.

So we have four words today we're gonna focus on as our keywords.

Those words are, grammar, elevate, editing, and ambitious.

The definitions for our keywords are appearing on your screen now.

These words will help you unlock the learning for today and you'll see 'em throughout all of the material.

They'll be identified in bold and I'll try to point 'em out to you as well, so you can see how they're used in context and how they'll help us understand the process of improving an essay.

So we have three learning cycles in our lesson today.

For the first learning cycle, we're going to be looking at spelling, punctuation, and grammar and thinking about some common mistakes that tend to crop up in essay writing and you'll have go at fixing those mistakes.

For our second learning cycle, we're going to have a look at the use of synonyms.

Now synonyms are words are the same meaning and they're an easy way of making your writing sound more sophisticated.

For example, instead of saying bad, you might say adverse.

They both mean the same thing, but adverse sounds more sophisticated than bad.

Finally, we're going to look at responding to feedback.

This is such a valuable skill, but one I think is something a lot of us struggle with because we can get quite protective over our own writing and creations, but we have to remember that feedback is there to help us.

So what I'd like us to start by doing is thinking about why reviewing our work is important once we've completed it.

This is something I think a lot of us struggle with because we think that writing the essay means we finished and it can be hard to motivate ourselves to go back and look at our work again.

But why do you think it's important that we do so?

Pause the video and take a few moments to think about it.

Fantastic.

Like Laura, you might have thought that reviewing your work can help you spot any spelling mistakes.

We all make mistakes with our spelling, especially in a pressured environment like an assessment.

So it's important to take a moment when you're finished, to read back through and see if you can spot anything that you can fix.

Like Izzy, you might have thought that reviewing your work can help you identify on areas to improve upon.

It's useful to think of your first golden essay as your first draft.

You then wanna read back through and see where you can perhaps use a different word to express yourself better or maybe reorder a sentence so it makes more sense.

Like Jacob, you might have thought that the reviewing process can help you make sure your punctuation and grammar is accurate.

As with spelling, none of us get our punctuation and grammar correct a hundred percent of the time.

So it's important to look back and make sure that everything you've written makes sense to the reader.

It's really important you think about getting into the habit of revisiting and improving your written work because it's a great way to elevate your writing.

Now elevate is one of our keywords.

It means to improve upon.

So it's a great way of improving your writing.

Now let's think a little bit more specifically about spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

So what I'd like to do is think about why it's important to maintain accurate spelling, punctuation, and grammar in your writing.

Now, grammar is one of our keywords and it refers to the rules about how words change and combine to make accurate sentences.

Often I think this is something that is afterthought for students 'cause they're so focused on getting their brilliant ideas about a text on the page.

They forget to think about spelling, punctuation and grammar.

So why is it important?

Pause the video and take a few moments to think about it.

Amazing, fantastic ideas there.

You might have said, the accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar helps us to speak and write clearly so people understand us better.

Without it, our writing can lack clarity and can seem confusing.

So all those brilliant ideas we were trying to get on the page actually become meaningless because the reader can't understand them properly.

Now what I'd like you to think about now are what are some of the common spelling, punctuation, grammar mistakes that students can make.

Pause the video and take a few moments to consider.

Fantastic, some great ideas there.

You might have said, the incorrect use of tense.

And this is something we're gonna focus on a little bit later on in the lesson.

Incorrect spelling.

Again, something we're gonna look at in a little bit.

And misplaced apostrophes.

Again, something we're gonna focus on later in the lesson.

Now a quick check for understanding to see if you can have a go at reviewing these two sentences.

So what I'd like you to do is match the sentence with the error.

So sentence one.

Prosperos' use of negative language presents him as cruel to Caliban.

Sentence two.

Prospero's use of language towards Caliban is arguably designed to show their power.

So which one of those sentences has the incorrect use of apostrophes and which one has incorrect spelling?

Pause the video, take a few moments to make a selection.

Correct answers are that Prosperos' use of negative language has an incorrect apostrophe, 'cause it should go between the O and the S.

And Prospero's language towards Caliban has an incorrect spelling but it's the wrong use of they're.

Currently, that they're means they are.

Whereas we want the there, that means it's Prospero's power.

So very well done if you've got those right.

Now, let's think together about what kind of strategies you might put in place to help you with your spelling.

So what I'd like to think about is what are some strategies you might use to ensure you spell words correctly?

Pause the video, take a few moments to think about it.

Fantastic.

Some great ideas there.

You might have said, you could use proofreading.

So make sure you go back and read through your work and check it.

You might have thought about how you could learn some common spelling rules.

So for example, a Q is usually followed by a U.

You might have thought that you could use dictionaries.

And you also might have thought you might be careful with homophones.

So for example here and here.

Now homophone is where a word sounds the same but has different meaning and spelling and it can really affect how the reader can understand your work.

So it's important to read back and make sure you catch as many as possible.

Now for a quick check for understanding.

What I'd like you to do is identify and correct the spelling errors in the following sentences.

So sentence one.

Prospeor acts as if you can't hear Caliban.

Sentence two.

Caliban believes he's write when he says this island's mine.

So pause the video and correct the sentences now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

So in sentence one.

We need to change the spelling of Prospero.

And we also need to change the hear to the correct here.

So the sentence makes sense.

For sentence two.

We need to change the spelling of beleives and we need to change the write to the correct right.

It says W-R-I-T-E, means to write something down.

Well we need R-I-G-H-T, meaning correct to make the sentence make sense.

Now we're gonna spend some time thinking about punctuation.

So what I'd like you to start by thinking of is why do you think it's important to use accurate punctuation in your work?

Pause the video and take a few minutes to think about it.

Fantastic.

Some great ideas there.

You might have thought that using accurate punctuation is important because it means the readers can fully understand our work and understand its meaning properly.

Now what I'd like to think about is where are the punctuation errors in this sentence?

So the sentence is, Calibans presented as inferior to Prospero.

So where are the errors?

Pause the video.

Take a few minutes to think about it.

Fantastic, everyone.

Now, we need apostrophe in Calibans to show it's a contraction of Caliban is and we also need a full stop at the end of the sentence.

So very well done if you've got that right.

Now for a quick check for understanding.

What I'd like to do is correct the punctuation mistakes in the following sentences.

So sentence one.

Caliban, Prospero's slave is treat cruelly by Prospero.

And sentence two.

Prospero calls Caliban a poisonous slave.

So pause the video and correct the sentences now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

So send us one.

We need to add commas around the subordinate clause.

So Prospero's slave as a subordinate clause 'cause it's adding extra information to the sentence and it doesn't make sense on its own.

So it need commas around it to show it's a subordinate clause.

For sentence two, we need to add quotation marks around the quotation to show it's an extract that's been taken from the text.

Now one of the most common mistakes that we see within essays is the use of incorrect tense.

So what I'd like to start off by thinking about is what does it mean to use tense incorrectly in a sentence.

Pause the video and take a few moments to consider.

Fantastic, everyone.

You might have said, the incorrect tense means using a verb tense that is not correct within the sentence or the larger context.

So for example, past tense has been used when it should have been present tense.

So one example might be, when Prospero arrived on the island, he is happy to let Caliban show him how to survive.

Now here, "arrived" is in past tense, while "is" is in present tense.

So what we need to do is change it to, when Prospero arrived on the island, he was happy to let Caliban show him how to survive.

Now the sentence has correct tense, since "arrived" and "was" are both in the past tense.

Now for a quick check for understanding.

What I'd like to do is correct the mistakes in verbs and tenses in the following sentences.

So sentence one.

Caliban should of refused to help Prospero.

Sentence two.

Prospero called Caliban and tells him to fetch fuel for the fire.

So pause the video and make the corrections now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

So sentence one should read, Caliban should have refused to help Prospero.

"Of" is a preposition and it can't be used as a verb.

For sentence two.

It should be, Prospero calls Caliban and tells him to fetch fuel for the fire.

Both "calls" and "tells" need to be in the same tense for it to make sense.

So very well done if you've got those right.

You're doing amazingly well everyone on our first task of our lesson.

What I'd like to do is take everything we've looked at so far and use it to improve a student paragraph.

So the example student paragraph below contains two of each of the following.

So it contains two spelling errors, two grammatical errors, and two punctuation errors.

The paragraph reads.

Throughout "The Tempest", Prosperos' language towards Caliban presents his treatment off him as cruel.

When Prospero called Caliban a "thing" it depicts him as an object, that has no feelings or emotions.

So what I'd like you to do is identify the mistakes and rewrite the paragraph to correct them.

So pause the video and have a go at that now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

You might have corrected the paragraph too.

Throughout "The Tempest", Prospero's language towards Caliban presents his treatment of him as cruel.

When Prospero calls Caliban a "thing", it depicts him as an object that has no feelings or emotions.

So it's "throughout" rather than "thoughout".

Prospero's needs an apostrophe after the O.

It should be "of" rather than "off".

It should be "call"s rather than "called" to make the tense match.

There doesn't need to be a comma after "object".

And finally there needs to be a full-stop at the end.

So very well done if you've got all that right.

You're all doing really well, everyone on our second learning cycle.

I know it can feel like a lot of effort to go back and edit your work once you've finish writing, but can really make a massive difference to your essays.

We're now gonna look at how you can use synonyms to improve your writing.

So let's start by just defining what a synonym is.

A synonym is a word or phrase that has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or phrase in the same language.

So for example, jolly is a synonym of happy.

What I'd like you to do is think about what other synonyms of happy you can think of.

So what other words mean the same as happy?

Pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

Fantastic.

Some great ideas there.

Like Lucas, you might have thought of the following words, joyous, merry, gleeful, delighted, cheerful, ecstatic, contented, elated, and glad.

Now that we've talked about what a synonym is, what I'd like to think about is how might using synonyms improve your writing?

So pause the video to give a few minutes to think about it.

Amazing.

Fantastic ideas there.

Like Laura, you might have thought that using synonyms for keywords in the question shows we have a really strong understanding of the task.

Like Alex, you might have thought that using synonyms might help us vary how we talk about the way a character is presented or their emotions to stop it from feeling too repetitive for the reader.

Now, for a quick check for understanding.

Which two of the following are synonyms for cruel.

So which two of the following mean the same as cruel?

A, inhuman.

B, brutal.

C, sympathetic.

Or D, kind.

Pause the video and make your selections now.

Correct answers are A, inhuman and B, brutal.

So very well done if you've got those right.

You're doing amazingly, everyone.

We're onto our second task of the lesson.

What I'd like to do is use the below keywords for "The Tempest" to rewrite the student's answer to use more ambitious vocabulary through synonyms.

So remember, a synonym can be for a word or a phrase.

Now our key words for The Tempest are, exploits, which means using someone unfairly for your own advantage.

Enslaves, cause someone to lose their freedom.

Superior, means higher in rank, status or quality.

And cruel, meaning deliberately inflicting pain or suffering.

And the student's current answer is.

Prospero treats Caliban meanly when he forced him to work for him and obey him.

Prospero uses Caliban unfairly because he believes he's better than Caliban.

Now there'll probably be a lot of times within your English lessons that the teacher may ask you to assess or potentially improve someone else's work.

Remember to be as thoughtful in your constructive criticism and make sure you aren't being unkind about the effort that someone else put into a piece of work.

So pause the video and rewrite the answer to include more ambitious vocabulary using the key words and their synonyms.

Amazing, fantastic work there.

You might have changed the answer to, Prospero treats Caliban cruelly.

So I said cruel rather than meanly, when he enslaves him.

So I've made it more concise because the original answer said, when he forced him to work and obey him, and you might have simply changed that to enslaves him.

Prospero exploits.

So instead of saying that Prospero uses Caliban unfairly, we might instead say Prospero exploits him because he believes that he's superior to Caliban.

So instead of saying he believes he's better than Caliban, we've instead said he thinks he's superior to Caliban.

Now the answer sounds a lot more sophisticated, it demonstrates an understanding, so the key words for "The Tempest" as a whole.

Amazing work so far, everyone.

We're now gonna focus on how you can effectively respond to feedback.

I know this can be difficult and it can be tempting just to skim over a teacher's comments in your work, but those comments are designed to help you improve.

So it's really important you take them on board and respond to them.

So what I'd like you to start off by thinking about is why is responding to feedback an important step in the editing process?

So editing is one of our key words.

It means the process of making changes to an answer.

So why is responding to feedback important?

Pause the video and take a few minutes to consider.

Amazing.

Some great ideas there.

Like Laura, you might have thought that feedback allows us to see how we might meet the success criteria in a more meaningful way.

Or like Sofia, you might have thought that actually it's often easier for people to spot errors in your work rather than proofreading yourself.

Because we've written something, we inherently understand what we're trying to say.

So it's difficult for us sometimes to spot the errors in what we're writing.

So it's useful to have someone else look over it and they can see what they can spot and hopefully help you improve it.

So as well as editing your own work, responding to feedback is an important step in elevating your work.

Elevating is another one of our key words.

It means to improve something.

So responding to feedback is all about improving your work.

So one of the key aspects of responding to feedback is recognizing it allows to understand how we are or aren't meeting the success criteria for an essay.

So let's look at the success criteria of an analytical paragraph.

That is, to have an opening topic sentence that explains the focus of the paragraph.

To use supporting details from the text as textual evidence.

To analyze those quotations and explain their connotations and effect using analytical verbs.

And to have a concluding sentence that summarizes the paragraph and links back to the question.

So what I'd like you to have a go at now is giving some feedback to this student's answer.

So this student has written.

Prospero treats Caliban cruelly throughout "The Tempest".

He says mean things to him all the time and makes him feel as if he's inferior and powerless compared to Prospero.

He forced him to obey through fear, and that's a very cruel thing to do.

The things that Prospero says to Caliban as well as what he does to him, shows that he treats Caliban cruelly.

So thinking about the success criteria we just went through, how could you improve this paragraph?

Remember to be constructive in your criticism and focus on how you can help to improve the answer and make a successful paragraph.

So pause the video and take a few moments to think about it.

Fantastic.

That's some great ideas there.

You might have thought that the topic sentence needs to explain the focus.

At the moment the first sentence just says that Prospero treats Caliban cruelly.

We need to think about how he treats him cruelly and explain that that is what we're gonna focus on in the paragraph.

You also might have said the student needs to use quotations and analyze their meaning.

At the moment, the paragraph simply says that Prospero says mean things to Caliban, but doesn't give us any examples from the text and doesn't focus in on them and explain their effect on the reader.

You also might have said, could have used more ambitious vocabulary.

So thinking about the way we talked about those synonyms, this student might benefit from thinking about using some of the key words from "The Tempest" to make that paragraph sound more sophisticated.

Now for a quick check for understanding.

If a student wrote, "Prospero says mean things to Caliban", which two pieces of feedback would you give them?

Would you say, A, they need to use quotations from the text.

B, they need a topic sentence.

Or C, they should try to use more ambitious vocabulary.

Pause the video, take a few moments to consider.

Fantastic.

The correct answers are.

They need quotations from the text.

And C, they should try to use more ambitious vocabulary.

So very well done if you've got those right.

Amazing, everyone.

You've done so well.

Our final task of the lesson.

What I'd like you to do is take everything we've learned so far and imagine you've written the following work and received the following feedback.

And then you have to rewrite the paragraph to respond to the feedback.

So the paragraph you've written is, Prospero treats Caliban cruelly throughout "The Tempest".

He says mean things to him all the time and makes him feel as if he's inferior and powerless compared to Prospero.

He forced him to obey through fear, and that's a very cruel thing to do.

The things that Prospero says to Caliban, as well as what he does to him, shows he treats Caliban cruelly.

So imagine you've written that and then you've received the following feedback that you need to have a topic sentence that explains the focus.

You need to use quotations and analyze their meaning, and you could use more ambitious vocabulary.

So put those two things together, rewrite the paragraph to create a more sophisticated version.

Pause the video and have a go now.

Amazing.

Some great work there.

It was great to see people going back and checking their spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as thinking about how to respond to the feedback.

You might have written, throughout "The Tempest" Prospero's use of language towards Caliban shows his cruel treatment of Caliban.

He continually uses with negative connotations just thing and filth.

These words betray Caliban as powerless and inferior compared to Prospero.

Prospero keeps Caliban enslaved through fear, which demonstrates his cruelty.

Therefore, Prospero's cruelty towards Caliban is depicted through his words and actions.

You all did amazingly well, everyone.

Here's a summary of what we covered.

Having accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar, allows your work to be clearly understood.

Using synonyms can help you express more ambitious concepts and how you understand the key terms of the essay question and responding to feedback helps you elevate your work.

I really hope you enjoyed the lesson everyone.

Goodbye.