Using the above as a stimulus for poetry (Thanks to @redgierob and www.literacyshed.com for the idea) the children will spend time just thinking about the mountain and complete the following short activities before writing their own poetry imagining themselves as the mountain. Focus – Poetry – Creating show not tell poetry about natural phenomenon. Watch the opening to the Winter Olympic Games from the BBC (Literacyshed front page). Watch it initially with no sound – (Stop at 53 seconds before athletes appear) During this time children are to write down any nouns they might include in their writing (recap on 4 types of nouns here - proper, abstract, common, collective). Mountains, icicles, snow, wind, rain, mist, clouds, Now they have done that get the children to add an adjective circle around each noun Following this get the children to add another layer to their noun – VERBS – action words. What could the wind, rain, mountains etc be described as doing? This is called personification. Next - if needed do an adverb circle too. This will add to the word bank that children will have available. An alternative to this would be to do an a-z race and have them up around the room as an aid to the children when they begin their writing. Examples of planning and vocabulary work.
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We used a video called 'The Black Hole' to inspire the children to write a short story. This prompted many questions in class, particularly on whether they would use it for good or bad! Many were pinching chocolates from the vending machines (watch the video you'll understand) while others had all sorts of weird and wacky ideas on how they could use the miraculous black hole.
How I used the video to prompt many discussions and get their creative minds motoring! - Stop at 00:07 - Why might it be called the black hole? What do we see in the picture that might give us a clue as to what might lie ahead? Where do we think the video is set? Is it a real or animated video? What could possible happen? Stop at 00:13 - How is he feeling? What can we tell from the man? Build a character description here. Use show not tell (this is explained brilliantly by Alan Peat here http://www.alanpeat.com/LIT%20FILES%20900/lit2900.html) Stop at 00:24 - What? What is going to happen with this Black Hole? What might he be able to do with it. (Make sure this is group discussion! How many different ideas can they come up with?) Stop at 00:29 - What is the character thinking at this point? Stop at 00:39 - What happens next? Again, lots of discussions on tables. Stop at 00:55 - Would you put your hand into the black hole? Why/Why not? What might happen if you decide to put your hand in? At this point you may want to stop the video and get the children to write the ending. What might he do next? How might he use the black hole? Where might he disappear to? What lives in the black hole? Stop at 1:14 - What is he looking at? What is he thinking about now? How is he feeling at this point? Stop at 1:28 - Is it stealing if nobody knows about it? THUNK prompt Stop at 1:44 - What is inside the office that he wants so bad? Predict what it is going to be found. How is he going to use the black hole again? Stop at 2:12 - What happens next? Predict the ending. Will he get caught? Will someone walk in? Watch till the end. How you might use this to inspire writing Get the children to imagine they had found a black hole. How would they use it? Model how to write a short story based on the video. Find the black hole Use it once Use it again Disastrous ending! Examples of writing from my awesome writers! Rather than use something related to love and care because it was Valentines Day I went for the much grimmer, “Last Man” A video about being the ‘apparently’ last man on the planet.
The video starts with a simple introduction and then gives the chance for using a flashforward. Prompts for developing writing (before they actually start!) 00:11 – Who is he? What is he doing? Who does he work for? What clues do we have that can help us distinguish what he might be doing? 00:20 – Who is at the door? How might the story unfold from here? 00:29 – What is the report on? Is it the next top secret mission? A new cancer drug? (You could stop the video here and get the children to write what the report might be). 00:40 – Who is on the phone? Does this have something to do with the report? What could the conversation turn out like? (Role play the conversation in pairs and share with the class… See where their imaginations take them) 00:49 (Don’t overrun as this will spoil it) How could everyone be dying? What might have happened? What is he thinking? Develop vocab and look at emotion word, (comma) sentence. E.g. Shocked, I dropped the phone and got home as fast as I could. Terrified, I stayed in my office and locked the door – I didn’t want to die. From here get the children to make notes on the different things they hear him say and see him do. These will be discussion points at the end and will be needed for when they do their writing. 01:39 “Everyday is the same” – Why do we think everyday is the same? What types of things does he have to do everyday in order to survive? If he is all alone what kinds of things might he be doing? 03:28 Sometimes I think/wonder, “Why me?” Have a go at the ‘Many Questions Sentence’ from Alan Peats Exciting Sentences (http://www.thecepress.com/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=60) Why me? Why not a scientist? A doctor? Why just me? How was I immune to the disease? From here watch it till 5:29 – DO NOT GO PAST HERE! At this point I plan for the children to begin writing their diary/story of the man and what his daily life is like. Use the video to write the opening and the diary entry of a normal day. (Prompt the children to make sure they include lots of thoughts and feelings in a similar way to the narrator in the video) It was a day like every other: phone calls, reports, meetings and unnecessary emails from colleagues looking to get one over me. Office work, not exactly what I dreamed of when I was younger. I remember it so vividly. My wife (Jane) had stayed at home that day (normally she’d be at work in the office with me). The new report about a potentially life-threatening virus had just been completed and delivered to me. That’s when it happened. The phone rang. Time stood still. It was Jane, “Everybody is dying, come home quick!” she pleaded. “Please hurry!” Without thinking, I picked everything up and ran home. Everyone was dead, but not me. I still think about this every day. Why me? Why not a scientist or a doctor? A biologist? Why little old office worker me? It’s been a few years since that fateful day that changed the evolution of the human race. Luckily, all the bodies have decomposed and vanished from the streets and houses around me. I’m the only one around…. Etc etc Allow the children time to think carefully about the everyday life and enourage them to think about other things that he will have to do everyday just to survive. Once all writing is completed (or they think is completed) Show the final part. Now it is up to them to write the ending. Walking home after a long day rummaging for supplies, a light appeared in a house….. How can that be? Who is there? I thought I was the only one! Cautiously, I approached the house and broke down the door. What stood before me is something I could not believe. Hope you enjoy this writing prompt. For other videos and prompts look further down my blog and also visit www.literacyshed.com Please leave a comment and let me know how your writing goes in class if you use this prompt. Thanks Shaun Prompts Used in Class (Alan Peat Sentences) If, like me you have been enthralled by the Winter Olympics and passed that obsession onto your children in class (unless you've been on half term) it will come as no surprise that this weeks writing stimulus will be a video from the Winter Olympics. This week in class we have had our own (Non-Winter) Olympics. We've played Table-Top Beanbag curling championship and Table-Top Marble Slalom. Next up tomorrow I hope will be the Bobsled or paper plate speed skating. We haven't been able to fit in the non-ice hockey championship that was planned. (Some pics from this week on my old school blog ( http://www.st-patricks.sheffield.sch.uk/winter-olympics-in-class-8/ ) Anyways, back to the writing. This week we (my class and I) have been obsessed with the curling ever since we watched it while playing our own table top curling. On Wednesday night (after staff meeting) I couldn't leave work until the curling had finished. We needed 1 to draw or two to win. What happened next couldn't have been written better. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-olympics/26262095 (Link to video here - with commentary) How I plan to use this in class We will watch the video to begin with and have a discussion about the feelings of both sets of players throughout the different points of the end of the match and will create a feelings map. (I will post pictures of this here). Following this we will write a dual diary. As usual we will use our A3 paper and line guides to produce a diary as either the GB captain or the Swedish captain. This will allow for many different feelings ranging from extreme disappointment to extreme elation. This will be a further extension on the diary work we have done a few times in class. The children will be encouraged to use the many different @alanpeat exciting sentences we have been learning in class. Other uses for this video Write a newspaper report about the match. Write instructions of how to play curling. Write a biography about the life of the Team GB captain David Murdoch. Change the ending - What if the Sweden Captain had not missed, what would have happened next? Could the children re-write the ending? If you have enjoyed finding out about this idea and my other ideas why not tell everyone else about it! Retweets and Reblogs appreciated. It's all about getting the children to write and enjoy writing! My kids love it! Examples of Writing Completed Cleaning the house on Saturday mornings, it is common place in our house to see MTV or another music channel running. Using music videos as a stimulus for writing in class has worked well previously. (see other posts) Because of the success we have had with this, I'm always on the lookout for more music videos to add to my collection. That's when this beauty came to my attention. Bastille Pompeii how It could be used in class Writing the music video as a story
Possible questions to put to the children to develop their thinking behind the story. 0:17 who is he? What is he thinking at this point? Where is he? What gives us clues as to his whereabouts? 0:24 What is he looking for? What is he hiding from? 0:39 "I was left to my own device" is the first lyric from the song - What could this mean in terms of the story? 1:00 stop it here and allow the children time to discuss what they think so far and share it as a class. 1:14 What might happen in the shop? What is he after that is in the shop? 1:24 Why does he look so surprised after seeing the woman? 1:26 Her eyes are all black - can the children use Alan Peat Sentences to describe her in a short paragraph? 2:30 What is he running from? Is it ok for him to take a car that obviously doesn't belong to him? (thunk) End : where does he go to try and escape - describe the different places. By researching Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius the children could then go on to find out about volcanoes. Possible Writing Opportunities and resources you could use Non - Chronological report about a particular volcano Explanation - How a volcano erupts Persuasion - Write a letter to the people of Pompeii telling them to move out of the are and why. Newspaper - The eruption of Vesuvius I hope you get to use this in class. Let me know how it goes if you do! Share and comments are always welcome! Thanks to @Grahamandre for pointing out this fantastic video from Coldplay. Check out Grahams awesome website www.mathematicshed.com which is a collection of maths videos with ideas on how to use them in your class. It may seem like a strange video of choice at first. I think it is more of a thinking video and not one where I would normally stop and get the children to think of feelings of the characters etc. I would probably allow the children to watch this all the way through and then choose from one of the following... - How did he become the best magician in the end? (Focused, determined, persevered, resilience etc) - Write a biography of the main character (Chris Martin) - Write about 3 events from the video and be creative with the rest - What is life like working for a travelling circus? (Would require a lot of creative thinking and discussion with the children) - If you had magic powers how would you use them? - What happened to the bad magician after he floats away? Complete the story with your ending that shows what happened to him. - Research famous magicians e.g. David Copperfield, Penn and Teller, Dynamo - Do their biographies maybe. As well as all these you could also retell the story in stages. It has scope for developing lots of feelings work as the different characters. Contrasting the anger and sadness of the bad magiciain with the hope and curiosity of the new magician. Then of course you could learn this trick and show your kids how amazing you are at magic! Reporting from the danger zone. This week we have been working through the Past Sats Paper called, "Dangerous Ground". If you don't know it, it is all about Volcanoes with an emphasis on Pompeii.
By chance (it wasn't planned) there is also a movie called Pompeii. The children have become very interested in how the bodies have been preserved and begun to think about what the people must have went through. They have also begun to investigate the different types of volcanoes and seemingly (by surprise) they are very interested in Pompeii so hence this weeks writing. Letter writing is not something we have done a lot of this year and so we are going to be sending letters in the role of an observer watching the terror who is somehow at a safe distance but still wants help. An example of these is shown in the reading booklet. The video shown above will give the children some ideas of what they could be describing to the recipient of their letter when asking for help. Topics to discuss with the children to help them - mountains - volcanoes - lava - ash, hot gas pumice, stone - dangers they can see - what they can hear - what help they need - what they are feeling - anguish for the people they can see, relief they are far enough away, fear of being killed As usual we will use a range of @alanpeat sentences to ensure the children use a range of sentence structures within their writing. My kids love these and they are an integral part of our writing process that has ensured the children across every year group have made unbelievable progress this year. If you like this idea or any of my other writing ideas please share. Where this video could fit in - As part of a quest - Winter Theme Descriptions - PSHE - All working together - PSHE - Reputations - PSHE - Never go anywhere alone if you can help it - PSHE - Personal challenges and never giving up Inference opportunities and opportunities for creative thinking and discussion Who is he? What is he doing? Where is he going? Who is watching him? Why is he by himself? How is he feeling here? Why do you think that? Should he be there by himself? Why? Why not? What other things should he have with him? What else might be hiding in the trees? (Science) How are the wolves suited to that environment? What kind of trees are they? A key theme of this video is 'reputation'. Stop the video before (2:27) the wolves cuddle around the man - what do the children think is going to happen next? Link this to reputations of people/things and how we expect them to act and that sometimes we make presumptions of people based on what we think we know about them. Possible Writing Activities Twitter writing challenge - describing the scene at a certain point in 140 characters Write his diary at the end of the video. Stop it at certain points and create a timeline of event and how each event was making him feel. USe a thesaurus with the children to create a wordbank of feeling words. Use this to create some FEELING WORD (COMMA) ED sentences. E.g. Freezing, I shivered uncontrollably, all hope was lost. (ALAN PEAT EXCITING SENTENCES) Write your own narrative about a journey that ends in a similar way. Where were you going? Why were you trying to do that? Create a piece of poetry about the scene around him. Write the story from the wolf's point of view. What would they think of this man trying to find his way through such a dangerous place all alone? Please let me know if you use this idea in class or indeed in assembly and if possible any examples of writing completed from it too. Fantastic Friday Writing
Adventures are the pits… Y4 Class Stop at 00:11 Discuss using mix-pair-share / round robin (Kagan Co-operative learning structures) how the boy might be feeling at the top of the slide. Children to come up with varied vocabulary to describe feelings. The teacher at this point needs to guide some children to develop their responses. Teacher to also write these up for display so the children can use these as part of their writing. At this point introduce the 2ad and ad,same ad sentence types (Alan Peat Exciting Sentences). Model to the children how to use these by writing your own sentence based on the video. Then ask the children to do the same and then to share with the class if they feel confident enough. (Do this on their jotting sheets). Stop again at 00:15 – What is he scared of? How do we know he is scared? How else might we know he is scared? What happens to us when we are scared? (Hear beats faster, sweaty, heavy breathing). Model how we can write this to show the reader he is scared rather than just writing the boy was scared. (This is called show not tell) STOP at 00:23 – Very important to not go past this point. Up until now the children have an image to use to write their beginning of the story of the boy. Now, however they will need to use their creative juices to think of where the ball pool will take him. What adventure will he go on? What will happen to him when he falls into the ball pool? Where could he go? Ask the children to discuss and then share all their ideas. Following this the children will then be given the beginning of the story and then be given time to complete the story as they see fit. With the boy going on some sort of adventure. But where to? How did he eventually get out of the ball pool? Did anyone help him? What happened to him when he was down there? A planning frame to plan out their adventure will be used to enable the children to plan their writing out and my own version of the story shared with them. The point being here to show the children how not to get carried away with the adventure but to keep it very simple. Hope you enjoy using this great video in your own writing lessons. I will post work completed on here when it is finished. For more info on Alan Peat Exciting Sentences visit www.alanpeat.com This week we will be using our senses to describe what its like in a scary forest. For this we will use the following sound effects video from youtube.
As part of this we will be working heavily on the sounds heard and will be encouraging the children to also develop their own soundscape prior to watching the video. We will also be using a specific scary forest picture (so many to choose from!). Step One - Show the picture and get the children to write down as many nouns as they can think of/see in the picture. It must be the nouns as this comes into the next part of the work. Step Two - Now we have the nouns - add the adjectives (a minimum of two for each noun). Carry out mix-pair-share or round robin kagan structures for this to take place in mixed pairs around the classroom. Step Three - The children now have lots of adjectives and subjects to write about. But that's it. To enable them to think further we will create a soundscape with the children. This works by getting the children to think of one sound each from the forest and to then say it over and over again at specific intervals. Children who find it difficult can be supported in this by giving them a specific sound. It is important to get the children to close their eyes and to listen intently. As part of this part of the lesson we will also use the sound effects from youtube shown above. This will be followed by the children writing more nouns and adjectives about the sounds heard. Thus so far, we have looked at what we can see and what we can hear. Step Four - Moving into exciting sentences We are just beginning the exciting sentences in my new school so embedding them into practice and getting them into their writing is in its infancy. That being said I will be using the following modelled sentences to help them develop better sentence structures. NOUN, which The forest, which was as scary as an ancient haunted house, swayed in the ferocious winds. Pairs Sentence Spooky and mysterious, scary and silent - the forest stands still in time waiting to swallow up anything that moves. List Sentence It is a long, leafy, winding lane that leads out of the forest. Then it is up to them. We've given them sentence stuctures, vocabulary, stimulus. Time for them to write and for me and the support in class to wander round, check and get them to improve in the lesson. Don't wait til the end to mark it. Visible progress in the lesson! |
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May 2015
AuthorI'm a deputy head in Scarborough, England and love using media and tech to develop writing. I'm also a keen advocate of Learning Without Limits and believe in a games based approach to developing mathematicians. Archives |