Writing the diary entry of a Windrush passenger after their arrival in the UK
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can write the diary entry of an imagined Windrush passenger after arriving in the UK, using a conversational tone and a range of cohesive devices.
Key learning points
- Writing is most successful when we orally rehearse before writing.
- A diary can include events and feelings written in the past and present tense.
- We use a range of cohesive devices in all writing, including different punctuation, sentence types and parenthesis.
- Because a diary is a personal piece of writing, it can have a conversational tone.
- We can create a conversational tone using questions, exclamatives, verbless sentences and conversational openers.
Keywords
Conversational tone - the effect created by using language features such as conversational sentence openers that may break normal ‘rules’ of writing
Cohesive devices - language structures that develop text cohesion
Orally rehearse - when we say aloud the sentences we want to write before we write them
Common misconception
Pupils may think that every single verb in a past or present tense paragraph has to stick to that tense.
We're writing from a present or a past tense perspective, but the way that language works means that not every verb will be in the same tense in a paragraph. Encourage the children to think about what 'sounds right' and to orally rehearse sentences.
Teacher tip
Ensure pupils have access to their plans and that they draw on all their role play experiences when writing. If required, complete lessons on the cohesive devices briefly mentioned here can be found in our KS2 Grammar curriculum.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which of the following sentences uses a conversational tone?
Q2.Which of these features is not used to build a conversational tone?
Q3.Which of the below are verbless sentences?
Q4.Which of the sentences below use conversational sentence openers?
Q5.Which sentence has the colon in the correct position?
Q6.Which word is not an appropriate one to describe Celia's feelings as the Windrush leaves Bermuda?
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which sentence below has a conversational tone?
Q2.Match the features of a conversational tone to the examples.
How strange!
What would my mother say?
An absolute mess.
But here I am.
Q3.Which verbless sentence could follow this sentence for effect? 'Every door was slammed in our faces.'
Q4.Which sentence with a conversational opener could follow this one? 'The government has placed us in an underground shelter in Clapham.'
Q5.Which cohesive devices have been used in this sentence? 'As the ship neared Tilbury, we all rushed around in panic: we wanted to look our very best.'
Q6.Which word best describes Celia's feelings at the end of the diary?
To help you plan your 6 English lesson on: Writing the diary entry of a Windrush passenger after their arrival in the UK, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 6 English lesson on: Writing the diary entry of a Windrush passenger after their arrival in the UK, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 English lessons from the The Empire Windrush: diary writing unit, dive into the full primary English curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.