Video: Can I improve my essay about Islam?

﻿Hello there my friends, and welcome to this lesson on the unit of Islam. My name is Mr. Pedroza and in this lesson we're going to have a look at how we can improve our essays. So we've already written amazing essays on the religion of Islam. Today we're going to have a look and see how we can improve them. So what are we going to do today? Today we are improving our essay on Islam. And the lesson structure is going to be as follows. First you're goin to being by editing for spelling. Then we will edit for punctuation and grammar. After that we're going to add a little bit more detail. I'm going to show you the effectiveness of adding more detail into you're writing. And then we'll do our end of unit quiz, which is going to quiz you on all of the things you learned through out this unit. So let's being by editing for spelling. Now the steps to success for writing a beautiful essay include writing in full sentences, so you can provide lots and lots of information. Then you've got to include key information and key vocabulary so that could be key dates, names of people, names of places, and so on. When you're writing about history, and what we've been learning about is historical, you have to include key names, key dates, key places. Then you've got to leave a line between each paragraph. The reason why you write in paragraphs when you write an essay is because it makes it more presentable and it makes it easier for the reader to read. Makes it easier for them to digest. Yeah, then you've got to imagine that you're explaining this topic to someone that's never learnt about it before. You guys are now experts on Islam, because you have been doing all of these lessons. So you're going to treat the audience as somebody who- as people who don't know anything about it. And the way that you do that for your essay is by giving them as much information as possible. And then the last step to success is you've got to use correct spellings. You've got to use correct spellings because it adds an air of authority to your work. It let's people know that you are an expert on this subject. If you reader started to notice spelling mistakes they're going to begin doubting the overall quality of your work. So for correct spellings you should have been using your word bank from your planning sheets. So again, you might ask me, "Oh well, does it really matter if we spell or punctuate things wrong?" Well they are. The use of correct spelling and punctuation are key features of any well written essay. The correct use of punctuation allows the reader to better understand and enjoy your work. It also adds a sense of professionalism and authority. And remember that you should have been using capital letters at the beginning of each sentence as well as for proper nouns, names of places, and people. So let's begin by editing for spelling. In this sentence here there are five spelling mistakes. I'm going to read it to you and I want you to see if you can suss them out. So, Muslims believe that the Qur'an, which is written in Arabic, was revealed to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel. So where do you think the five spelling mistakes are? Once you suss them out what I want you to do is correct them and then you've got to write out the sentence correctly again. So at this point pause the video and complete that task. Okay let's all look and see where those mistakes were. Three, two, one, and boom. So the mistakes were in the words Muslims, believe, written, Arabic, and we used the wrong to. So Muslims needed an M, rather than N. And believe- there's no double E in believe, it's I-E. Written needed a double T. The word Arabic finishes with a C not a K. And at the top we used the word two, T-W-O, that's two as in the number two, is not the to that we needed. So, those were the mistakes. You found all of them. Did you find all of them? Awesome job. Guys I'm going to leave it up so that you can check your work. Okay, now that we edited for spelling- we had a go at practising that. Now let's edit for punctuation and grammar. So in this example there are a few things wrong. Capital letters and the correct punctuation are missing, so it might be full stops are missing, maybe commas are missing. There is also a word which doesn't make sense in the sentence, so it needs to be changed for another. Remember that full stops, they tend go at the end of a sentence. Commas, they break our paragraphs into more manageable chunks. And then capital letters they go at the beginning of the sentence, but also at the beginning of names, at the beginning of proper nouns. So there are 10 mistakes that you've got to find. Can you find all of them? Once you find them all- you can underline them, you can circle them- write out the paragraph correctly. So at this point pause the video and then have a go. Great job my friends. Let's have a look, are you ready? Boom. That's the original paragraph. This is the correct one. Okay, so I'm going to read this. At the end of the month of Ramadan, Muslims believe- Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr. This marks the first day after the end of the month of fasting. Eid al-Fitr officially begins when the first sight of the new moon is seen in the sky. So the key mistakes there were the beginning, was at- we were missing a capital letter. Ramadan is the name of an event so it needed a capital letter. After that you had to break it up with a comma. The comma comes after the end of Ramadan. At the after Ramadan. So at the end of the month of Ramadan comma. Next one we've got Muslims, again Muslims are the name of a people, so they need a capital letter at the beginning. At end of the month of Ramadan, Muslims celebrate Eid- that's the name of an event so it needs a capital letter. And then after Eid al-Fitr, so full stop, that means after that we're going to begin with a capital letter, so this needs a capital letter. This marks the first day after the end of the month of fasting. Next one again, Eid al-Fitr officially begins- Eid again has to begin with a capital letter, because it is the name of an event but it's also the beginning of a sentence. Eid al-Fitr officially begins when the first sight of the new moon is seen in the sky. So instead of what, we're going to use the word when. Eid al-Fitr officially begins what the first sight of the new moon does not make sense. The word when makes more sense there. So Eid al-Fitr officially begins when the first sight of the new moon is seen in the sky. Is saw in the sky is incorrect tense, you've got to use the word seen instead of saw. So those were the my ten mistakes. At this point pause the video and just check that you have got all of those down. Great job my friends. Now let's have a look- this is what I want you to do. So we have practised editing for spellings, editing for grammar, and editing for punctuation. What I want you do to do is I want you to go back and read your own work. I want you to go back and read your essays and see if there are any mistakes that you can find and then you can fix them. So they could be spelling mistakes, they could be grammar mistakes, they could be punctuation mistakes. It's fine to make mistakes, I make loads of mistakes all time, but what I always do is I always read my work back and I always have a go at editing it, that way my work becomes even better. So at this point pause the video and go and edit your essay. Guys I could see some- I could hear some great editing. Awesome job. Now let's have a go at the last bit, so- This section is about adding more detail. And one of the key features of a fantastic essay is the inclusion of lots and lots of detail. This can take place in the form of key dates, it could be names of places, it could be names of people, and sometimes even quotes from historical figures who you are writing about. In this unit we have learned a lot of key dates and a lot of names, so we've got to make sure that we use these in order to upscale our essay. Now I'm going to give you- so it could be key dates, it could be names of places, it could be names of people, and it could be quotes. Those are the things that make a fantastic essay because it adds lots and lots of detail. Now the whole point of this essay is to be informative and to tell the reader as much information as possible on the given subject, which is all about Islam. So here, I have two examples of a paragraph which talks about the same subject. This talks about how the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad. I'm going to read the first one and them I'm going to read the second one and then I want you to think which one of these examples does a better job. So this one says the Qur'an is the holy book for Muslims. The word Qur'an means recite. The Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad. It is said to correct previous human errors. Okay if I read this one then I know that the Qur'an is the holy book for Muslims, I know that the Qur'an means recite, I know that the revealed to Muhammad, but I don't know who revealed it to him, and then I know that it is said to correct previous human errors but what previous human errors? They're a little bit vague. I think I need a bit more detail. Maybe this one will provide it. So the Qur'an is the holy book for Muslims and is written in Arabic. Ah, it is written in Arabic- I didn't pick that one up from the first example. Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God. Ah, literal meaning that it comes directly from him. Again I didn't pick that up from the first one. The word Qur'an means recite, okay that's the same. The Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel from 609 A.D. It took 23 years for it to be fully revealed. Okay so in this one on the right, I know that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel, he began- from 609 A.D. the first revelation, and it took 23 years for it to be fully revealed. That key information is not on the first example. Some Muslims- some Muslims believe the correct- that it corrects any human errors from previous sacred texts, such as the the Torah and the New Testament. Okay so now I know a little bit about the last section. In the first one it says it is said to correct previous human errors, that is really vague, I don't really know what that is talking about. In the second one it tells me that the Qur'an is believed by some Muslims to correct previous errors from other secret texts- from other sacred texts such as the Torah and the New Testament. So what I want you to do now, is I want you to have a look at both of those. Which one do you think is more informative? Which one does a better job at giving information to the reader? So this point pause the video and then compare. Guys what did you think? I think most of you thought the one on the right does a better job. I thought that too. And the reason why is because it's got key dates. So right, at some point it tells me that the Qur'an was first revealed to Muhammad in 609 A.D. It's got more names, it includes the Angel Gabriel. It's got the names of the Torah and the New Testament, which tells me that those are the previous texts that the Qur'an is said to correct. It just has a lot more information. It tells me that the Qur'an is written in Arabic. That information is not forth coming on the example on the left. So you can see that when you add more detail to a piece of text that makes the essay a lot better, because it makes it more informative, it tells the reader more information. And so what I want you to do now is I want you to have a look at your essay and I want you to see if you added key dates, if you added names of places, if you added the names of people. Maybe you added some quotes. So at this point what I want you to do is I want you to go back, read your own work and find opportunities to add an extra layer of information. And again, that's going to make your essay even better. So at this point pause the video and upscale your essay. Oh my goodness, I can't wait to read your edited essays because I know they're going to have so much more information than in you originals. And guys that is the end of the lesson. I wanted to leave you with a quote by a man named Vince Lombardi, who is a really famous American football coach. And he said, "There's no such thing as perfection. But, in striving for perfection, we can achieve excellence." And what he means- what he meant by this quote was that your essay might not be perfect, things will never be perfect, because you can always make them better, but when you're striving for perfection, when you're trying to make something perfect, you can do something really, really excellent. And that's the whole point of the essay- of this lesson. We're never going to make our essays perfect but by trying to do so we can make them excellent pieces of work. Guys, awesome job. Well done. It is now time to complete your end of lesson quiz. And if you'd like to I really would, really would encourage you to please ask your parent or carer to share your edited essays- they can do it on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. They're going to tag @OakNational and they're going to use the hashtag #LearnwithOak. So once you have edited your essay for punctuation, spelling, grammar, and you added more detail, please, please, please ask your parent or carer to share your work. But you've got to ask them to do it for you. Guys thanks so much for all of you work through out this unit and in this lesson, and I hope that I shall see you in another lesson. Good bye my friends.

Exit Quiz: Can I improve my essay about Islam?

Completed: Can I improve my essay about Islam?

In this lesson, we will look at some ways to improve our essay, including by checking our spelling, grammar and punctuation, as well as looking at how we can add more detail to our work.

Religious Education

Can I improve my essay about Islam?

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Final Quiz

Lesson Complete