Video: To write the build-up (Part 1)

﻿Hello, everyone. I'm Miss Saab. Welcome to lesson number nine in the second part of our BFG unit. Today, we are writing the first part of the build up. You have worked so hard to get to this point, you are so ready for your writing and I cannot wait to read it. Today we are going to write the first part of the build up. First, we're going to order the build up. Then we're going to look at ways to build suspense. After that, we're going to write the first part of the build up. And finally, we're going to read back our writing. In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or a paper, a pencil, and your brains to be switched on. If you have any notes from previous lessons about the build up, then you can bring them as well because you can use them to help you with your writing. Pause the video now to grab your pencil, paper, and any notes that you have about the build up. Great, we are now ready to start our lesson. First, we are going to order the build up. Can you remember in which order these things happen? The giant grabbed Sophie. The giant walked down the street. The giant blew his trumpet. The giant looked at Sophie. Can you write down the letters in the correct order on your piece of paper. Pause the video now. Let's check. So this was the correct order. The giant walked down the street. The giant blew his trumpet. The giant looked at Sophie, and the giant grabbed Sophie. Today, we are going to write about the first part of the build up. So that's the first two pictures, the giant walked down the street, the giants blew his trumpet. We will leave the other two for our next writing lesson. Let's look at ways to build suspense. Remind me faster, what is the main job of the build up? What do we need to do today? The main job of the build up is to? Build suspense and excitement. So suspense is when you are feeling excited or anxious about what may happen next. So your eyes might be glued to the screen. You might not be able to turn away. You might bite your nails because you're feeling so anxious. You might be holding your breath to see what happens next. So we want to make sure that today we are building that suspense in the first part of the build up. And there are different ways to build suspense. We can use show not tell, we can use questions to the reader, exclamation marks, ellipsis, and short snappy sentences. Today we're going to look at show not tell and questions to the reader, and use those to help us build suspense in the first part of the build up. Now we have already thought of ways to show not tell how Sophie is feeling in the build up. We are just going to recap our ideas so that we can use them in our writing today. So here are three different ways to show not tell that Sophie was feeling nervous. So we could say Sophie ducked under, so she's hiding because she's feeling nervous. Sophie peeked out, Sophie's heart raced, so when we're feeling nervous and worried our heart beats faster and it starts to race. So can you show me these things, let's act them out. Three, two, one, ducked under. Three, two, one, peeked out. Three, two, one, heart raced, great acting. Can you pause the video now to write down your two favourite ways of showing that Sophie was feeling nervous. If you have your own idea, please do write it down as well, I would love to see it in your writing. Pause the video now. Great, let's move on. So here are three different ways that we could show not tell that Sophie was feeling curious. So we said her eyes bulged, that means they stuck out. They stuck out to stare and look in amazement at the potion. She gaped, that means she stayed with her mouth open, and then she leaned forward because she wanted to find out more. So show me those things, let's act them out. Three, two, one, eyes bulged. Three, two, one, gaped. Three, two, one, lean forward. Great acting. Can you pause the video now to write your two favourite ways to show not tell that Sophie was feeling curious. If you have your own idea, please do write it down as well so that you can use it in your writing. Pause the video now. Great work. Now we're going to think of ways to generate questions to the reader. So we could think of who questions, what questions, where questions. For example we can write, who was this colossal figure? What was this strange potion? Where did this giant come from? When we write a question to the reader that gets the reader thinking about what the answer could be and it builds their excitement, they want to carry on reading to find out the answer. So can you pause the video now to write your own question to the reader that you would like to include in your writing. If you are not sure, you can use one of mine. Pause the video now to write your question to the reader. I cannot wait to see your question to the reader. We are now going to write the first part of the build up. You are so ready to write, you have practised retelling the build up several times, you have those precise verbs, precise adjectives, ways to show not tell, questions to the reader, and slow and first fronted adverbials, I cannot wait to see all of this in your writing today. To be successful, we need to do these four things. First, we need to think, say, write, and read every sentence. When we write a sentence, we must always think of what we want to write about then say the sentence out loud, so we are practising it, then we write it down, and finally, it's really important to go back and read our sentence to check that it makes sense and we've got all the punctuation that we need, capital letter at the beginning, full stop at the end, commas in the right places. And the next thing we need to do is to use show not tell to talk about how Sophie is feeling in the first part of the build up. We also need to use precise verbs to describe what happened. And finally, we need to use a range of joining words to extend our ideas, so we can use because, when, so, if, and, but, and or. And we learned last time in our grammar lesson if you've watched it, that we need to come up with but and a comma before or. Make sure that you have all of your notes next to you so that they can help you with your writing today. I have had to go writing the first part of the build up. I'm going to read you my writing and then we're going to check if I have been successful and then it will be your time to write and check if you have been successful. So, "Gradually, the giant edged down the gloomy street. "Instantly, Sophie ducked, but she had to have another look. "She hesitantly peeked out of the window. "Her hands clenched the window tightly "and her heart raced wildly." Let me see if I have been successful. So I have already thought of my ideas, I've said them out loud and then I wrote them down, and now I've just read them back to you. So I've given myself a tick for that target. Let me see if I've used some show not tell. So I've used Sophie ducked to show that she was nervous. I used hesitantly peeked out to show that she was nervous in this part of the build up as well. And then I used, her hands clenched the window tightly because she's feeling nervous, and her heart raced wildly because she was feeling very nervous and anxious at this part of the opening. So I can give myself a tick for show not tell. Have I used some precise verbs to describe what happened? So I used, instead of saying the giant walked down the street, I said the giant edged down the street. So that's a lot more precise and describes how the giant walked down the street in a more accurate way. So I can give myself a tick. And then did I use any joining word? Yes, I did, I used the but and an and, I remembered to put my comma before the but as well. So I gave myself another tick for that. Let me read you my paragraph about the second picture where the giant blew the potion through his trumpet. "Carefully, the colossal creature "twirled his long, thin trumpet and blew a dazzling, emerald "potion into a window. "The curious girl was mesmerised. "Her eyes bulged and she gaped at the shimmering liquid." What was this strange potion? Who was this extraordinary figure? Let's see if I've been successful in this second paragraph. So, I gave myself a tick for think, say, write and read every sentence because I did think about my sentences, I said them out loud and I wrote them down before showing you, and then I've just read my sentences back to you. So I gave myself a tick. I did use some show not tell to show that Sophie was feeling curious at this point in the build up. So I used her eyes bulged and she gaped at the shimmering liquid. So these things show that she wants to find out more about this liquid and she is curious about it. I did use some precise verbs. I said the creature twirled his long, thin trumpet, and he blew a dazzling, emerald potion. So twirled and blew are precise verbs that describe what the creature did in an accurate way. And then I challenged myself to include two joining words in this paragraph. I used an and and then another and to extend my idea, So I gave myself another tick there. I also remembered to include two questions to the reader. What was this strange potion? Who was this extraordinary figure? So I used them because I wanted to get the reader to think about what might happen next, to build their excitement and get them wanting to read more to find out what is going to happen next, so that's building the suspense which is what we want to do in the build up. It is now your time to shine. You are so ready for your writing, you are so prepared. I would like you to write two to three sentences for each picture, so four to six sentences all together, but I know that you can challenge yourself to write even more. So have a go, make sure that you are challenging yourself to write your very best sentences. And I've put the success criteria there for you to keep checking and looking at to make sure that you are being successful in your writing today. Once you have finished, press play so that we can carry on with our lesson. Super effort with your writing, everyone. I am sure that you've challenged yourself to do your very best writing. I'm so excited to read the first part of your build up. We have come to my favourite part. It's now time for you to read back your writing so that you can enjoy it, so that you can feel proud of all the efforts and hard work that you've put into your writing today, and it's also a chance for you to check if you have been successful and if you've met the success criteria today. So I would like you to pause the video now to read your work back, and do not worry if you haven't met everything in the success criteria, I will give you a chance later on to make any changes to improve your writing even more, okay? Pause the video now to read your work back. I hope that you feel super proud of yourselves for producing your first part of the build up and challenging yourself to do your very best writing today. It's now time for you to make one improvement, one change to make your writing even better. For example, you could add a question to the reader. If you've already done one, you could add another one. You could add an ENP, so two adjectives to describe the noun. You could check for any missing punctuation. So make sure that you've got a capital letter at the beginning of every sentence and the full stop at the end of every sentence. Check that you've got the capital letter for any names like Sophie, check that you've got your commas in the right place, so a comma after fronted adverbial or sentence, a comma before but, a comma before or. You could also, so if you haven't met one of the success criteria, that's okay, this is your chance to try to add something to your writing to make sure that you have met that success criteria as well. So here is what I chose to improve in my writing. I chose to add an ENP. So instead of saying, gradually, the giant edged down the gloomy street, I said, gradually, that towering, terrifying, giant edged down the gloomy street. So can you pause the video now to make your improvements. Well done for making a change in your writing, that's called editing. The best writers always edit their work, always find ways to improve it and make it even better. I would like you now to underline your favourite sentence, the one that you are most proud of. Pause the video now to have a go. Excellent work, everyone, we've come to the end of a writing lesson. Today, we ordered the build up. Then we thought of ways to build suspense. So today we looked at show not tell and questions to the reader. We wrote the first part of our build up, and we read back our writing to check it and make any improvements. Well done for working so hard on your writing today. I hope that you feel super proud of yourself. I would love to see your build up. So if you would like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Bye, everyone.

Lesson summary: To write the build-up (Part 1)

In this lesson, we will explore some additional aspects of suspense writing, including ellipses and exclamation marks.  Following shared writing, we will write the first part of our build up. For this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper and a pencil.

English

Y3 English

Key Stage 2

Year 3

Miss

To write the build-up (Part 1)

The BFG - Narrative Writing

Writing

THEME

UNIT

To identify the main characters and the setting in a visual narrative

To investigate suffixes: Past and present tense

To explore simple sentences

To sequence and retell the opening

To develop a rich understanding of words associated with night time

To generate vocabulary for character description

To practise and apply knowledge of suffixes: Past and present tense, including a test

To analyse the opening scene

To write the first part of the opening (Part 1)

To write the first part of the opening (Part 2)

To write the second part of the opening (Part 1)

To investigate more suffixes: Past and present tense

To explore compound sentences

To write the second part of the opening (Part 2)

To sequence and retell the build-up

To practise and apply knowledge of more suffixes: Past and present tense, including test

To generate vocabulary for the build-up

To write the build-up (Part 2)

English

To write the build-up (Part 1)

Video

Lesson summary: To write the build-up (Part 1)

Time to move!

Browse Oak's lessons:

Take part in The Big Ask.