To explore persuasive techniques

Key Stage 1

English

Persuasion: Why you should never light fires in a dry forest

﻿Hello, and welcome to lesson three of 10. My name is Mr. Santhanam. And today's learning objective is all about learning how to use persuasive language techniques. Persuasive writing is really important in life and we use it all the time to try and convince people to believe in what we're saying. It's really important if you feel really strongly about something, that you have the tools in order to tell people what that is and why. Before we begin, I want to show you something. This is my plant. Hello, plant. This is the best plant in the whole world. It has green, shiny, soft leaves. Have you ever seen a plant this beautiful before? I think you need this plant. This plant is nearly as big as me. It's so big. Can you believe how big this is? You may have noticed some persuasive techniques in what I just said. And that will really help you later on in the lesson. How would you persuade someone that your plant is the best? Okay, let's begin our lesson. In this lesson, you are going to need some paper, a pencil and your brilliant brain. Pause the video now while you go and get these things. Amazing you got them, well done, shine to you. Let's begin our lesson. The first thing we're going to be doing is our spelling activity. Then we're going to move on to our grammar focus. After that, I'm going to introduce some persuasive techniques to you. And you might have some ideas of some from my description of my plant that I gave you earlier. After that, we're going to apply these techniques to a TV advert, and we're going to an activity where you have to try and persuade someone to buy something. First of all let's get started with our spelling's. Now, this week. The words we're trying to learn are tricky words. Sometimes they're called common exception words. But for now, we're just going to call them tricky words. And they're called tricky words because they are spelled in a way that you can't sound out. Most words we can sound out really easily and blend the sounds together to make the word but these are very mischievous and naughty and tricky and they try and trick you out. Pause the video now and think of any tricky words that you know that you can't sound out. Some of the words that you thought of might be plant, improve, whole, should, again, half, money, class, sugar and steak. An interesting way to learn your spellings is to try and put them into nonsense sentences. This way we can make up our own nonsense story. And you're really practising to put them into a sentence as opposed to just writing them on their own. Here's an example of a few sentences I did, including these tricky words. Remember, it doesn't need to make sense because it's a nonsense story. One day I went to the garden to look at my beautiful plant. The garden was so messy, I wanted to improve the whole garden. I've used three of my tricky words there. And I'm really starting to think about what they look like in my head, because I know I can't sound them out. So I just need to remember, look in my brain, and then be able to recognise it when I see it. Why not have a go telling your own nonsense story with these tricky words? Pause the video now while you write a few sentences for your nonsense story. Wow, I had some really silly nonsense stories there. It's now time for our grammar focus, and today we're going to be looking at sentence types. There are four different sentence types. One type of sentence is a statement. Statement. I'm saying a simple fact, I'm making a statement. Question, question. I'm asking a question. And I know that if I'm asking a question, what kind of punctuation would I end with? Hmm. That's right. It would have to be a question mark. A command, command. This is when I'm telling someone to do something or commanding someone to do something. Switch off the light, open the window, cook me dinner. And there's also an exclamation, exclamation. This is when I'm saying something in a powerful way. I could be angry, I could be upset. I could be excited. I'm just saying something in an excited way. And what kind of punctuation do you think that might end with? If it's an exclamation? Hmm, that's right, it would end in an exclamation mark. Great job. Okay, we're now going to have a two-minute challenge, where you are going to pause your video, and you're going to write down as many statements as you possibly can. Remember, these are just short, quick facts. These are statements. You're then going to write down as many different questions as you can possibly think of. You've got two minutes to do this. So for example, I might say my statement column. I like chocolate. It is a statement, it is a fact. Or you might say for a question, what do you like? And I know that is a question because it starts with a question word and it ends with a question mark. How many sentences do you think you can come up with in two minutes? Pause your video now while you try to write down as many as you can. Good luck. Wow, I saw so many sentences there. I saw things like, I like going to the park. I go to school. My school uniform is blue. And I like playing video games. In the question column, I saw things like, what is your favourite sport? Would you like to come to my house? What do you watch on TV? And how many brothers or sisters do you have? Lots of shine to you, well done. Okay, it's now time to do some new learning and learn about some persuasive techniques that you can use in your writing when you're writing persuasive texts. So, what kind of things can we do in order to persuade someone? And I know that if I want to, I know that persuasive techniques are so important because I might be writing to the Prime Minister, to ask him to change a law that I feel really strongly about. I might be writing to the council to ask them to put a sign up near my school so that the cars don't go so far. I might be writing to someone to warn them not to light fires in forests. Just like the fire chief did. Now, let's have a think back to what he said. Hmm, I'm going to look at my story map to help me. I've got my story map here. He said to not light fires in dry forests. He said that we must save lives. We must not light fires and we must protect the forest. He said that animals and plants live in the forest. And sometimes humans die in forest fires too. He also said that plants and trees give us oxygen. And if there's no oxygen, and the world will just be full of carbon dioxide gas. And this means that's very dangerous for our planet. He also said that even if you're being careful, a spark might fly off the fire and start the fire somewhere else. So even if you're camping or even if you're lost in the forest, and you make a fire to survive, that might cause a fire too. Do you notice any things that the firemen did to persuade us? Let's have a look at some things that he might have done. When we are doing persuasive writing, it's really important that we use the power of three. My turn your turn, power of three, the power of three. This is because when we say three things in a sentence, it has a really powerful effect on us. There were three little pigs. There were three bears in the Goldilocks story. And in the speech that the firemen gave us, he said three key things. He said, don't light fires, protect the forest and save lives. Using three things is really powerful in persuasive writing. Do you remember what I said about my beautiful plant? I said, my beautiful plant had soft, green, shiny leaves. Another persuasive technique is direct address. This means that we speak directly to the person we're talking to. We're not vague about it. We don't talk to just anyone. We're talking straight to you. And this is really powerful because it makes you think, oh, they're talking to me. I better sit up and listen. Another example is repetition. Repetition. This is when you repeat yourself again and again and again, to really emphasise your point. You might say something at the beginning of your speech. And then at the end, you might repeat it again, to make sure that people hear you. Once you hear something over and over and over again, it gets locked into your brain, and you can't forget about it. So it's very persuasive. Another persuasive technique is using evidence to support your point. Evidence, evidence. This is when we explain ourselves using reasons. When we give people reasons for things, there's not much they can do to argue with that. We do it all the time when we're reading. And we do it all the time when we're trying to explain ourselves. So if I was to say to you, my plant is the most beautiful because it has beautiful, shiny, soft leaves. You can't deny that, it does have beautiful, soft, shiny leaves, so you're more likely to agree with me. Okay, we're now going to do our amazing TV advert activity. For this activity, you're going to need to choose a random object in your room. This could be a water bottle, it could be a pair of sunglasses, or it could even be a pencil. Think about what are you trying to sell. In order to do this, we are going to try and use the power of three direct address, repetition and evidence to support our points. So I think I'm going to try to persuade you to buy. I'm going to persuade you to buy this yummy avocado. This avocado is delicious, succulent, and juicy, hmm. I've used three words there to describe the avocado. Next one, direct address. I'm going to talk directly to you now. You definitely want to try this. I'm talking specifically to you so that you feel like I'm connecting with you, not your friend, not the person next to you, not Bob down the road, you specifically, it's much more persuasive if I'm connecting with you. Repetition, there is nothing else like it. There simply isn't anything like it. Saying it once is great but saying it twice really emphasises just how amazing it is. It's as if it's so great, but I need to say it twice. Evidence to support your point. Not only have I said how great it is, I'm now going to explain to you why it's so great and give you really clear reasons for why you should get it. It is healthy for you and it contains many nutrients and healthy fats that you need. I've said that it's delicious, juicy and succulent. I've said that you need to try it. I've said that there is nothing else like it. There's nothing else like it. I've also said that as healthy nutrients and healthy fats to keep you healthy. Well, if that's not enough to convince you to buy my avocado, I don't know what it is. Pause your video now while you choose your random object in the room and you try to sell it to someone. You could film yourself doing as a TV advert and really try to overemphasise just how amazing this thing is. Good luck. And I can't wait for you to persuade me. Incredible work so I can't wait to see how you're going to use the power of three, repetition, direct address, and evidence to support your points in your persuasive writing later on the unit. Don't forget to share your work with Oak National. If you would like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational, and #LearnwithOak. See you next time.

To explore persuasive techniques

To explore persuasive techniques

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UnitEnglish / Persuasion: Why you should never light fires in a dry forest

English