Video: To analyse characters

﻿Hello everybody. My name's Ms.Chamberlain Webber. This is lesson three of our guided reading unit on the book "Demon Dentists". Today we're going to focus on the main character Miss Root the new dentists. Now it's important that you know that we are going to be talking about the old dentists stack in a bit of detail. And this might be a bit gory. So if this is something that makes you feel uncomfortable, then please pause the video here, and talk to a trusted adult, and perhaps they can watch it with you. Now, this is lesson three of our unit, so if you haven't yet watched as one or two, stop the video and go and do that. Because it's really important, that you've been introduced to the book and the author and some of the characters already, before we get started on today's lesson. We're going to start with recapping what we know about the "Demon Dentist" already. The characters, what happened in chapter three, whiter than white. And then we're going to analyse the text, looking at a key question that we'll be able to answer by the end. We going to have a vocabulary check. And finally, we're going to summarise what we've read so far. In this lesson, you're going to need a pencil and paper. It's also really important that you're having an active role in the lesson. Don't just listen to me talking, but think about what I'm saying, and it really involved in the questions and tasks that we're going to get through in this lesson. Pause the video if you need to get a pencil or paper. So here's the front cover of our book we're focusing on the "Demon Dentist" by David Williams. Let's talk about the author David Williams a bit more. So, we've talked about how he is a very funny author. He also has many different hats. This means he's not just an author, he's a comedian, an actor, a TV celebrity, but he definitely reminds me, of another very well known author. Can you think of any authors that he reminds you of? In fact, I'm thinking about Roald Dahl, and this is because they have a very similar style of writing, which adds to the rich humour in that bit. They really characterise, so each character in the book, they've thought about really carefully. And make sure the reader already connect with them and feel their emotions. And exactly what we're going to be focusing on today with the main characters from "the Demon Dentist". Let's start with Alfie, who is he? What do you know about him so far? I wouldn't need to pause the video here and write down two things about him, press and play when you finished. Well we know, that he does not like the dentist. In the chapter before we read Whiter than White, he was sitting at the very back of the room away from Miss Root. And we'll say he doesn't have very a teeth at all. His uniform is very untidy and bedraggled, which is a word that we did last time. Do you remember what it means? It means very untidy and messy. Next we're going to analyse the text. Well key question we're focusing on is, what impression of the new dentist? Miss Root, does the author create? So, constantly in your mind, you're going to be thinking about Miss Root, but also why and how David Williams has created this impression of her. We're going to start the lesson first, thinking about dentists in general. Because it's important that we think about dentists when we're comparing how David Williams has described the dentist in the book "My Street". To me, a dentist is someone that some people have a fear of. However, they have a really important job and that's to give medical care to you to really look after your teeth. Okay, pause the video and add to this my mind at least two or three things about dentists. Okay, well done. One more thing I have to add, is that they actually help with pain. If you have toothache and it's really sore, it's really important you go to the dentist. By the end of the lesson, I'm hoping that we'll be able to do a similar mind map for Miss Root. What does she say? What does she do? What does she look like? And how do people react to her? As an author you're constantly thinking about these four things. In order to make sure the characters in your books are understood by your reader. Our first question then, we 're going to read this extract together, but whilst we do, I want you to think about, why did a hush descend on the room? What does this tell us about her character? Okay, read along with me, scanning with your finger if you can. I said good morning children? Repeated the dentist, and she fixed them all with a powerful stare. So powerful that soon a hush descended upon the room. Okay, in order to answer this question, what's my number one step? I need to find that phrase, a hush descended on the room. Oh, there it is ,in the last sentence. And now I need to think about what this tells us about the character Miss Root. Pause the video and try and fill in this sentence. Miss Root is unexplained using because. Press play when you're ready to check your answer. Okay, well done for having a go at that. Let's have a look at the section i decided to highlight. Fix them all with a powerful stare. Now, how did I find that? Well, I read around the phrase that was in the question. Hush descended on the room, and I realised that it said in the sentence before why everyone was so quiet. Because a hush descending on a room means it's silent. I know you Miss Root, gave everybody a powerful stare. This tells me that she's a confident character, quite assertive, and the fact that everyone was so quiet might mean that it was a threatening stare. Can you show me a threatening stare? Okay, this will help me answer. Miss Root is an assertive and threatening character because her "powerful stare", 'causes a whole room of children to be silent. And you see how I included some evidence straight from the text in my answer. Vocabulary check. Here are full words we're going to look at the definition for, you might know some of these words already, but they're really important to understanding the text. So I'm just going to tell you what they mean. Fatal, your turn . It's an adjective that means causing death. Wretch, this is a noun and it means someone who is unfortunate or an unhappy person. Befell, this one's a verb and it means to happen to someone, and usually means something bad has happened to them. Now a dental instrument is quite a broad term for anything used in a dental surgery. But this particular one I'm showing you is a dental probe. We're going to continue analysing the text. Miss Root has made her way to the front of the school hall and has introduced herself. Next she's going to tell them a bit more about why she's there. So in this question, we're going to read the section here together. And then I want you to think about the questions and answer them independently. Read along with me, excellent. Now I came to this town when a very unfortunate indeed fatal accident befell Mr Erstwhile. The poor wretch must've fallen onto one of his own dental instruments. So all of those key words are in this text. Hopefully it makes a bit more sense to you now. So time to pause the video, thinking about who is Mr Erstwhile? And what happened to him? Use the sentence starter below to answer this question and press play when you're ready. Let's see how you got on, So Mr Erstwhile, who is he? He is the dentist. And we know he's a dentist because it says he's fallen onto one of his own dental instruments. Now what happened to him? Very unfortunately, we know about this word fatal now. So to put it into a complete sentence, yours might be quite similar to mine, I think Mr Erstwhile died because he was involved in a fatal accident which means he didn't survive. Next, we're going to read this extract and think about our focus character Miss Root or the irony. Of course, there's no need to go into all the gory details, but suffice it to say, Mr Erstwhile was found lying on the floor of his surgery, in a huge pool of blood, the dental probe was embedded into his heart. So embedded means physically in his heart. Now, we're going into the four different words we've got here. And the underlined section or the irony. I want you to pick a word below that best describes Miss Root here. She said the words are the irony about the old dentist death. So does that mean she's just being funny? Trying to make the children laugh ? Doesn't mean she's being kind about him and his death? Perhaps she's being sarcastic or is she being aggressive? Pause the video for some thinking time and then write down which word you think best describes Miss Root here. Well, I think that she was being sarcastic. Sarcastic as an adjective. I'm going to tell you what it means within my answer. Miss Root is being sarcastic. This is when someone says something that clearly means the opposite of what they say, in order to hurt someone's feelings or to criticise in a funny way. Now we know a bit more about what sarcastic means. What does that tell us about our impression of Miss Root? Is she a nice person? If she's actually making a joke almost out of this poor dentist's death. we're going to explore the word irony a bit more in our next challenge question. How could Mr Erstwhile death be ironic? So something is ironic, if it's sarcastic, they're very similar in meaning, in fact, they're synonyms . So, ironic things are strange or funny because of being very different from what you would usually expect. Now to make this a bit clearer, I want us to look carefully at Mr Erstwhile death. How did he actually die? Well, we picked out that word earlier, embedded and the dental probe was embedded in his heart. This means, he had a pretty gory death with lots of blood, but I'm more interested in why Miss Root thinks this is ironic? I want you to pause the video, look for some evidence that might help us decide why she said this word. Write down any ideas you have and press play when you're ready to look at it further. It's a difficult one, so I'm going to guide you through some of the things I picked out after or the irony. Miss Root also said, there's no need to go into all the gory detail. So she's actually said, she's not going to tell the children, but later on, she talks about him lying on the floor, she talks about him on a huge pool of blood. And she even tells them exactly how he died. I think she is being a bit ironic. But, the key question was how was his death ironic? Thinking about the meaning of ironic and irony, how has something opposite to what it should have happened? Well it's about how he died? What was embedded in his heart? A dental probe, a dental probe. What are dental probes supposed to help with? They're an instruments to medically take care of your teeth, okay. And then what did it actually do to him instead? Let's have a look, there are two key words to try and answer this. I think Mr Erstwhile death could be seen as ironic, sarcastic, because a dental instrument is usually use to help fix your teeth. So the opposite has happened here, instead of helping Mr Erstwhile the dental probe has killed him, and this is an example of irony. I know this was a very tricky idea to get your head around, but it's important that we know the meanings of these words. So if they come up later in our reading or in questions and comprehension, we will have a bit more of an idea of what they might mean. Brilliant, well done for your hard work. Time to summarise our learning today. Starting with our big key question. What impression of the new dentists Miss Root, does the author David Williams create? We know a usual dentist from earlier in the lesson is a caring type of person. Although some people are sometimes scared of the dentist. Could you see the same about Miss Root? Did you see any caring characteristics about her? Or did you see more that might be feared by people? Let's sees a mind map to help us? I started one for you with Miss Root in the middle, what impressions I got from her? But most importantly, where in the text I got that impression from? I think she's assertive. I think she's threatening. And that's because she had a powerful stare that silenced the room. Now it's time to pause the video. If you want, you can rewind back to some of the questions which have more of the text , in which you can pick out for use. I would need to add at least three things to this mind map about your impression of Miss Root and how David William has given you this impression. Good luck, pause the video here. Right, that's have a look. She's evil, because she wants to tell the children all the gory details to scare them. The gory details about Mr Erstwhile death. I don't think that's very nice. She's menacing and mysterious. Why did she know so much about his death? How is she so sure about how he died? This is making me ask questions, about how and why she knows some of these things. And finally, we know she's sarcastic and that means she's not caring. If he's trying to make a funny joke about someone he's actually dead. Talking in an unsympathetic way about poor Mr Erstwhile death. Before we finish, I'd like you to answer this extended question. Using, some information from your mind map you have written down. I want you to write at least two statements about Miss Root. What kind of person is she and why? use the sentences on the screen to help you, and then pause the video here. Two sentences about my impressions of Miss Root. I think Miss Root is menacing and threatening because she might have had an involvement in Mr. Erstwhile death. And she is threatening towards the children. These shows she is a villain with evil intentions. Maybe thought the same. What is a Villain? It's an evil character within books or films. Can you think of any other villains that are a bit similar to her? Before we finish, I thought I better show you some pictures of her. If you haven't read the book, there's illustrations throughout the book. And these are two of Miss Root. The first one, when she's talking in front of the children from the chapter we've just seen, and the second one on the right is her with her cat. Do these attitudes your impression of Miss Root and her personality. Finally, I want you to write two sentences to explain how Miss Root is a villain. Pause the video and then press play when you want to resume. I had a bit of an idea that, I think the word demon and demon dentist describes her very well. And I think David Williams was very clever when he picked the title of this book. She's a villain that wants to do evil things, just like demons do. Miss Root, actually reminds me of an evil dracula or vampire, because she's got quite a pointy face. Also, she reminds me of the witches in "Roald Dahl" book. That's the lesson finished for today. Well done you analysed a character, and in next lesson, we're going to look at new chapter in the book "Demon Dentist".

Completed: To analyse characters

In this lesson, we will explore the main characters in the text in more detail. Our main focus is on Miss Root, the new dentist, and the impression of her that we get as we read about her actions and the way in which the previous dentist died. For some people the violent death of the previous dentist will be a sensitive topic. If this applies to you, you may want to do the lesson with an adult. We will look closely at the author's choice of language and characterisation.

English

To analyse characters

Video

Lesson Complete