Video: To edit a non-chronological report

﻿Hello, I'm Mrs Smart. Welcome to today's English lesson. In today's lesson, we're going to be editing our non-chronological reports that we've written so far. So, we've written our opening paragraph, and our appearance paragraph, and now is our chance to review and reflect, correct any errors and make some improvements. So, let's get started. In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a colouring pen, or a pencil and your writing. So, you're going to need your opening paragraph and the appearance paragraph that you have written so far. If you haven't got a colour pen or a pencil, don't worry, a black pen or a blue pen or a normal pencil will be absolutely fine, but we're going to be editing today. So, if you have got a different colour, that would be really helpful. If you haven't gotten any of these items with you right now, just pause the recording and go and get them. In our lesson today, we're going to start with discussing what the purpose of editing is, why we do it. Then we're going to decide on an editing checklist. So, what we're going to edit within our writing. We're then going to practise some editing and I'm going to model some editing to you, and then your task will be to go away, reread your opening and your appearance paragraph, and edit yourself. What is editing? And why do we edit? You might have edited in English lessons before, you might not have done. You might have heard of authors talking about editing. Pause the recording and write down anything you know about what it is and why we might do it. So, I think that we edit, because it's a really good opportunity to reread and reflect on our writing, and I know me, personally, I often make mistakes. Often, very silly mistakes that I only spot if I reread my writing. It helps us to identify what we've done well, it's not just about finding what's wrong with our writing and what mistakes we've made. It's a really nice opportunity to realise how well we've done, but it is an opportunity to also identify areas for improvement. So, ways that we can make our writing even better then it already is, and we can correct our errors. We can make some changes and we can make additions. We can add extra parts to our writing, if we want to. So, our editing checklist today is based on our success criterias from our last few lessons. So, this was our success criteria when we wrote our opening of our non-chronological reports. So, we had to have our opening and our linking sentence, a relative clause and brackets to add extra information, formal conjunctions and subject-specific vocabulary, and a question in the opening to hook the reader in, and in our appearance paragraph, we have very similar features. The only one that was different is we didn't have a question. We had to refer to nouns in different ways. So, our editing focus is going to be on those features, today. So, what do you think we might need to edit? If we're going to think about errors to start with, what errors might we need to look out for? What errors do you often make? I know personally, I often miss words out. So, I often have to go back and add words in that I've missed out. Pause the recording and write down anything you think you might need to check for today. So, all of us will be very different and we'll all probably make different sorts of errors, but generally, these are the three different areas that we're going to check for today. We are going to check for your punctuation. So, making sure you've got your capital letters, your full stops, any commas are in the right place. You might've used brackets. You might've used question marks. So, checking all of those. We're then going to make sure that our writing makes sense. So, it's in the correct tense, our subjects and verbs agree. We haven't got any words missing, and lastly, we're going to check the spelling. We're not going to focus on this too much, but if there are some spellings that we notice that we know are incorrect and we can very easily correct them, then we can. If you want to go away and look in a dictionary, and correct more of your spellings, you can do. Now, what improvements do we need to make? We've talked about corrections, but we can also use this opportunity to make our writing even better. Pause the recording and write down any improvements you think you might need to make. So, we'll all need to make different improvements, depending on what our writing looks like, but these are three main areas that we can try to improve today. We can think about our language choices, and remember, we're trying to use really formal subject specific vocabulary. So, there's a word that you think, well, that sounds a little bit informal. You can change it and make it more formal. We're going to think about our sentence types. So, making sure that we have got a range. So, our simple sentences, compound sentences and complex sentences, and remember on your success criteria was to include a relative clause complex sentence, and lastly, your structure. So, hopefully you've got your title and your subheading in the right place, but our structure is also to do with our paragraphs. So, remember we need that opening sentence in our paragraph and that linking sentence at the end of our paragraph, and then within our paragraphs, we need to make sure that our sentences flow well together, and we can often do that through using those formal conjunctions. We can also expand on our ideas by using coordinating or subordinating conjunctions to add additional clauses. We're now going to practise some editing together. So, we're going to focus on our errors to start with. So, remember, we're going to check for our punctuation, sense and spelling. Let's have a look at this opening that I've written here, because I think I might have got some errors that I need to correct. Going to read it through sentence by sentence, and I'm going to check for punctuation. So, capital letters and full stops in the right place. My commas for my rules, possibly brackets or question marks, I might've used in my opening. I'm going to make sure it all makes sense. So, it's in the correct tense. My subject and my verbs agree. I haven't got any missing words and then spelling. If I spot any spellings that I know straight away are incorrect and they're very easy to correct, I'm going to correct those as well. So, let's go through for the first sentence. "Tigers, which are known scientifically as Panthera tigris, is the largest type of cat." Now, I can see straight away, I've got a relative clause in there, with 'which', but I've forgotten my comma around it. So, I'm going to put a comma in there. Now, where was the end of it? "Tigers, which are known scientifically as Panthera Tigris." That was my relative clause, so, I'm going to put commas around that. I can also see that I've made that spelling error that I always make, which has a silent H at the beginning. So, I'm going to put that in. I often make that error. Now, there was something else that didn't sound quite right. "Tigers, which are known scientifically as Panthera tigris, is the largest type of cat." That doesn't make sense. I've talked about tigers, but I'm talking about plural tigers, more than one tiger. So, my verb here can't be 'is', it must be 'are'. The verb to be, but when you're talking about a plural noun, I need to use the verb 'are'. Let's check that now makes sense. "Tigers, which are known scientifically as Panthera tigris, are the largest type of cat." Excellent. That's much better. Let's read my second sentence. "There are six subspecies named after area they inhabit. Bengal, South Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Malayan, Sumatran, and Siberian." Now, I think I've made my classic mistake and missed out a word here. "There are six subspecies named after." What word am I missing? Tell me? 'the', you're right. Often it's those little words that we miss out. They're still really important to make sure our writing makes sense. So, "There are six subspecies named after the area they inhabit." I've got my brackets, which is excellent, and I remembered my capital letters for my proper nouns, "Bengal, South Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Malayan." I've forgotten my capital letters for these proper nouns here, "Sumatran and Siberian." And then I need to close my brackets to show that that's all extra information, and then I have my full stop at the end. Let's now look at the next part of the opening paragraph. Going to go through sentence by sentence, and check and correct any errors. First sentence, "Tigers live up to 20 years of age in zoos." Okay, that all sounds fine. Next sentence, "However, they only survives for a maximum of 15 years in the wild, moreover, a half of." Oh, I'm running out of breath. That's a very long sentence. "Moreover, half of all cubs die during their first year." I think I need a full stop in there. Where am I going to break that sentence? Let's read it again. "However, they only survives for a maximum of 15 years in the wild, moreover, half of all cubs die during their first year." I think I change idea here, because this sentence is about the length of time they survive for, and then I go on to talking about cubs. That's going to be my second sentence. Also, I can see here a formal conjunction and I know my sentences always start with formal conjunctions, but I'm missing my capital letter, and I need to comma after that, as well. Good spot if you notice that. Okay, let's go back to this sentence. Now, I've broken it in two, "However, they only survives for a maximum of 15 years in the wild." Now, again, I've missed out my comma after my formal conjunction, and something doesn't quite sound right. "However, they only survives for a maximum of 15 years." I think I've got my subject and my verb not quite right. So, 'they' is referring to plural tigers, more than one tiger. So, I need to make sure that my verb agrees with that. So, it needs to be 'survive' rather than 'survives'. Let's check if that makes sense now. "However, they only survive for a maximum of 15 years in the wild." That's better. Next sentence, "Moreover, half of all cubs die during their first year." Oh, I've spotted that spelling mistake I always make there. Now, remember it's, "The cubs die during their first year." The first year belongs to the cubs. Which spelling am I going to use of there to show possession? Tell me now. Well done. It's going to be T-H-E-I-R. Next sentence, "Did you now?" Hang on, that's not right. It should be, 'Did you know?' I've missed my silent K out. "Did you know tigers are generally solitary animals and roam across large territories." I've got a rogue comma in there. I do not need a comma after, "Did you know", even though it might sound like there's a bit of a pause. It's not one of my comma rules. "Did you know tigers are generally solitary animals and roam across large territories." There's another spelling error that I've spotted. That's a rule that I know. Now, if a word is plural that it ends with consonance, and then Y, I can't just put an S on the end. What do I need to do? Tell me. Well done. I need to remove the S and the Y and change it for I-E-S. Let's make sure there's a space in there, between my full stop and my next sentence, and make sure you've got your finger spaces in. "This report will provide information about the creatures' appearance, diets and habitat." That all looks okay. Anything wrong with that one? Sorry? Oh, well done. You're right. I've missed out that apostrophe to show that the appearance diets and habitat belongs to the creature. Good spots. So, if we have a look at our editing checklists, we have now gone through our opening paragraph and checked for punctuation, sense and spelling, and made any corrections. I would now like you to pause the recording and read through your opening and your appearance paragraph and check for errors and make any changes linked to your punctuation, sense and spelling. Pause the recording now. We're now going to focus on making some improvements to our writing. So, changing any language choices to make sure that we're using that formal subject specific vocabulary, maybe using some different sentence types, if we've used any one or two different types, making sure we've got simple compound and complex sentences with that relative clause complex sentence. If you haven't already used that, and then also thinking about our structure. So, making sure we've got that opening sentence, that we then expand our sentences and link them together, and then we have our linking sentence at the end. So, we're going to have a look at an appearance paragraph together, but when you edit, you're going to edit your opening and your appearance paragraph. So, we're going to read through sentence by sentence, just as we did before, and see if we can make any improvements. "Tigers have got lots of features to help them survive in their homes." Now, I can see straight away that I've used some quite informal language in that sentence, rather than 'lots of', I'm going to use 'tigers have many'. I'm going to say, that sounds more formal. "Tigers have many features to." I'm not going to use this word 'help', I could use the word 'allow', or maybe 'enable' would be a more formal word, instead of 'help'. "To enable them to survive in their homes." Now, I know I don't really refer to an animal where an animal lives is their home. I call it their environment or their habitats. I'm going to change this one to 'environments'. Let's read that sentence back and check it makes sense. "Tigers have many features to enable them to survive in their environment. They are big monsters and can grow to about four metres long and one metre high." Now, 'big monsters', I'm not sure that's a very formal way of referring to the noun. What could I use instead? "They are large." That sounds more formal than 'big'. "They are large." I'm going to just go with 'mammals'. That's quite a scientific word to refer to the tiger. "They are large mammals and can grow to about four metres long and one metre high." Now, this word 'about', I'm going to use a more formal word of "approximately four metres long and one metre high." Next sentence. "Tigers are covered in fur with stripes." Well, that will make sense, but it's quite a short simple sentence. Maybe I can add a bit more detail to my reader. What sort of fur are they covered in? I know that they're covered in 'thick, orange fur'. So, I've got my expanded noun phrase there. I've taken my noun, fur, and I've added some adjectives to it to add more information, and you'll notice I've used a comma to separate my two adjectives, because they are a list of adjectives. "Tigers are covered in thick, orange with." Maybe I could add some more information to this noun, 'stripes'. What are their stripes like? I could say 'dark, vertical stripes'. That's much better. That adds a bit more detail to my reader, and then I've got, "They are camouflaged in jungle areas with long grass." Now, I think that would be an excellent place to use a clause or conjunction, because the colour of their fur helps them to camouflage. So, I'm going to use 'as a result,' and then a lower case T, "They are camouflaged in jungle areas with long grass." Now, I know my sentence types, I haven't used a complex sentence yet, and I want to try and get that relative clause in. So, I'm going to add it in here, in that first sentence. I think that's probably the best place for it to go. To add more information about the noun, tigers. So, I'm going to say, "Tigers, which are recognised by their distinctive appearance, have many features to enable them to survive in that environment." Excellent. I'm really pleased I managed to get that relative clause in. So, you are now going to read through your opening and your appearance paragraph, and see if you can make any improvements. Focus on your language choices, your sentence types, and your structure. Pause the recording and have a go, now. It is now time for your independent task. If you haven't already edited your opening paragraph and your appearance paragraph, then that's the first thing you need to do. So, read it through really carefully and make any corrections or improvements. If you've already done that, you can now publish your non-chronological report with all of your improvements. That means you can write it out in your neatest handwriting. I know I often find after all my editing, it's quite difficult to read my writing. So, I really enjoy writing it all out neatly. It's also an excellent opportunity to practise your neatest joined handwriting. If you want to, you could add in some illustrations to add more interests for your reader. Imagine, it's like a non-fiction information text with illustrations dotted around the text to illustrate points to the reader. In our lesson today, we've covered the purpose of editing. We then drew up our editing checklist and what we were going to focus on. We then had a go at practising editing together, and you had to go at editing your own piece of writing, and now you're going to complete your independent tasks. So, you are either going to go away and edit your opening and appearance paragraph. If you've already done that, you are going to publish your opening and your appearance paragraph in your neatest handwriting, adding some illustrations, if you want to. Congratulations, you finished today's lesson. If you'd like to, please share your work with your parents or carer. I'm sure they would really enjoy seeing your published opening and appearance paragraph. I'll see you in your next lesson. Goodbye.

Completed: To edit a non-chronological report

In this lesson, we recap the key features of non-chronological reports. We will then edit our reports, focusing on correcting errors and making improvements.

To edit a non-chronological report

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Lesson Complete