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To write the build-up

Key Stage 2

English

A Christmas Carol - Narrative writing

﻿Hello everyone. It's Mr. Brown with your English lesson for today, and it's the one we've all been waiting for. We are going to write the build up today, the build up from "A Christmas Carol." All the work you put in over this unit is going to be used today in writing our build up. So let's get started. Okay. Our learning objective is to write the buildup. In this lesson you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper, a pencil, and definitely your brain. Writing the build up. Again, let's use our Story Mountain to familiarise ourselves with where we are. In the story we've written the opening, we've set the scene, we set the atmosphere. It's now time for the buildup. There we are. Let's re-watch the buildup of "A Christmas Carol" again to assure we are familiar with that part of the story and the events that take place then.

"It's all still a hum...ah!" "Oh!" "How now! What do you want with me?"

"Oh, much."

Okay. Let's remind ourselves. What is the main job of the buildup? Of course it is to build suspense and excitement. That's what we're going to be doing with our writing. We know that we can create suspense with short snappy sentences, exclamation marks, and the use of an ellipsis. Here is our success criteria for today. So the first thing that our success criteria is, I have used adjectives before my nouns to describe them in a more detailed way. Don't forget your commas to separate your adjectives. So we must be using adjectives before our nouns to create that extra level of description and detail. Next target. I have used verbs and adverbs to describe what people and things are doing. Let's use verbs and adverbs to explain the movement in the scene- what people are doing. Next target. I have used coordinating conjunctions to write compound sentences and there they are, and, but and or, and but and or have a comma before them. And then our above and beyond target is building on our work previously. I have used a variety of fronted adverbials for when, where and how. Okay. Here's our plan. I'm just going to move my picture again so you can see that that box is for our verbs and adverbs. We have got the buildup split into three separate parts. There are two pictures in each part to help keep you on track I suggest we will be writing one to two sentences for each picture. If you can write three or more, that's fantastic. But at least one to two sentences for each picture. We have got our fronted adverbials, our sentence starters, our adjectives, and our verbs and adverbs. Okay. So here we go. We've got the first part of the buildup. So let's start writing. I have got my plan in front of me. I know the first sentence I'm going to need to tell the reader how much time has passed from our last scene, which was in the banker's office to now. So I'm going to start with "later that night" comma. It's a fronted adverbial tells the reader when this action happened, but it's also clever because it tells them that a few hours have passed since we were in the banker's office. "Later that night, Scrooge was in his drawing room" and the drawing room is another name for the lounge. That's where he was. "In his tall, leather chair," so I've used that from my plan, "the grumpy banker warmed himself by the fire before bed." Why have I called him a grumpy banker because we said during the buildup, he's a terrified banker or anxious banker or nervous? Of course, that hasn't happened yet. He's still a grumpy banker at the moment, but he's about to become terrified, nervous, anxious man. So, later that night, Scrooge was in his drawing room. "In his tall, leather chair, the grumpy banker warmed himself by the fire before bed." "Just then," I've used that from my plan, "a loud sound could be heard outside the door." "The anxious man," see what I did there? So it's, he's now the anxious man. He's gone from the grumpy banker to the anxious man. So we're telling the reader his mood is changing. "The anxious man quickly turned his head and listened." Quickly turned is a verb and adverb from my plan as well. "It sounded like metal chains being slowly dragged across the wooden floorboards." "The deafening noise," so I'm really getting that point across how loud it is. It's a word from my, it's an adjective from my plan. The deafening tells the reader how loud it was. "The deafening noise grew louder and louder!" Good repetition. You could always say something gets louder and louder, bigger and bigger, louder and louder with an exclamation mark. So the combination of the repetition louder and louder, and the exclamation mark really gets the point across that that noise is now very, very loud. "As Scrooge stared at the door," that's from my plan, that fronted adverbial, "the booming sound stopped. He held his breath and waited..." And then I've used an ellipsis. An ellipsis is to get the reader to wait as well. Scrooge is waiting, so let's make the reader wait for the next sentence by using our ellipses. "Suddenly, the brass door knob began to turn gradually from left to right!" Must be an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence, because the doorknob is now turning. Okay, this is caught over here. I'm now going to ask a question directly to the reader. I'm now going to stop telling the story and just ask them what they think might happen next, or what's going on. The question I've gone for is "Who or what was inside the house?" And the or what is inside commas because that's extra information I've dropped in there. I could just say, "who was inside the house?" But then I've added "or what" because we don't actually know that it's a person. "Who, or what, was inside the house" question mark. Cause you're asking a question to the reader. Really good technique in your narrative writing. Okay. Let's use our success criteria. The first thing I'm looking at is adjectives before my nouns. Have I done that? Yes, definitely. Lots of them. "Tall, leather chair," "grumpy banker," "anxious man," perfect, I can put a smiley face in there. Well done Mr. Brown with your help of course cause we generated all these adjectives before. Next one, verbs and adverbs to describe what people and things are doing. Yeah, there's three examples. Yep, I think that's enough. I always say you need at least two or three examples to be able to tick something off. I've got "quickly turned," "slowly dragged," "turned gradually." Yeah, I can do that. Okay. How about coordinating conjunctions to write compound sentences. And, but, or or. No, not yet. I've got an and. "The anxious man quickly turned his head and listened." But that's just in a list. I'm telling the reader two things that he did. He turned his head and listened. It's not used to join the two main clauses to make a compound sentence, okay? Above and beyond. A variety of fronted adverbials. Have I used that? When, where, how. I've got "later that night," that's when. "In his tall, leather chair," where. "Just then," what's that one? When, where or how? "Just then," where, or when sorry. "As Scrooge stared at the door," that's another when isn't it? Cause as this was happening, this happened. When this happened, this happened. Good. Suddenly is another when. Again, suddenly this happened. Okay. So I need to get some how in there. I'll do that in the next section. Okay. Let's move on to part number two. I've got my plan in front of me. Good. I'm going to start with gradually because that straight away gets my success criteria ticked off for how, because remember we said, how was the one I hadn't done for my fronted adverbials. And gradually is an adverb and adverbs are perfect for fronted adverbials tell you how something happened. "Gradually, the door knob stopped turning and Scrooge breathed a sigh of relief. The room fell silent..." and there's another ellipsis. Let it wait. You can feel with that ellipsis, that everything is frozen. There's silence in the room. "Crash!" That is a perfect way to break that silence. Can you see how clever that is? The room fell silent and then extremely noisy. And cause in the movie there was that huge kind of massive bang where everything came through the door, and there was a silent before it. So I've done that as best I can in my writing. "The room fell silent... Crash! Bulky thick metal chains flew violently through the door!" Exclamation mark. Has to be. Things are flying through the door. It must be an exclamation mark. "They were glowing and translucent!" Again, exclamation mark. I am telling the reader that these chains that are flying through the door were glowing and translucent. It must mean that they are ghost chains, I guess. That's what the reader is going to be thinking. So it has to have an exclamation mark. This is very very unusual, the things we're writing about. "Instantly," and that's from my plan, "instantly Scrooge cowered and the terrified man tightly gripped the arm of his chair." Now in my plan, I had coward and desperately in brackets because I thought I could start that sentence with desperately. But then I've used instantly instead. That's absolutely fine. You do not need to use anything that's in your plan. You are not tied down to it. You can always use your own ideas, shorten things, change things. Okay. So I've got Scrooge holding onto the arm of his chair. "Through the door, rusty, heavy chests now came darting towards Scrooge. As they smashed noisily onto the floor," comma, "he looked up to see a sight that filled him with fear," dot dot dot. It has to be the ellipsis, doesn't it? "Filled him with fear," the reader is going to be hooked right now, desperate to read on, to know who this thing is that he has seen. Okay, let's pause back to our success criteria, coordinating conjunctions. We said we had and, now we've got two of them, but no but and no or. I'm not happy. I'm not happy to take that off, to put that smiley face in there, unless I have got at least, at least one of but or or. So I have to do that in the next part of the buildup. Okay. Above and beyond. Fronted adverbials for when, where, and how. I really focused on how. I've got "gradually," "instantly," and "through the door." So perfect, I can do that. I can put the smiley face there. Great! Okay, let's move on to the last part. "A horrifying ghost with long wispy hair and jagged rotten teeth." And we took all of that from our lessons when we generated vocabulary, didn't we? "Emerged through the closed door!" Again, exclamation mark. It feels like we're doing quite a lot of them, but this is a highly intense moment. It needs them. "Scrooge's jaw dropped open." Full-stop. "His eyes widened." Full-stop. Good, short snappy sentences, and a great way to show the reader how Scrooge is feeling. I could say Scrooge was shocked. I don't need to if I can show that he was shocked by saying his jaw dropped open. His eyes widened. Really good example of show not tell you. "Moments later, the haunting figure sluggishly floated towards Scrooge!" I like sluggishly floating. I tried to think of an adverb to say how he floated. And every one that I started coming up with when I was writing this, was too positive, was too friendly. He gently floated, he silently floated. It was too nice. Sluggishly is when, if you do something sluggishly, it's quite slow and it's not smooth. And that's perfect for the ghost because he's tied down by those chains, isn't he? So maybe, he sluggishly moving closer and dragging the chains with him. "A few feet away, the petrified banker," remember, he's petrified now, "the petrified banker apprehensively peered at the ghost, but," and there's that but that I've been trying to get in there, "but he didn't know who it was." And but works because he apprehensively peered. This is the line where he's going to see who the ghost is, but he didn't know who the ghost was. So it is a good use of but. I also liked that I've chosen "apprehensively peered." Apprehensively. If you do something apprehensively, we talked about that before, you don't, you know that there could be something bad about to happen. So you're doing it gradually and cautiously. And peered, much better than looked. Looked is too confident. He's peering at the ghost. "'What do you want from me?' questioned Scrooge cautiously." So this is our speech. I used my speech checker. If you need to go back to use your checker or your speech sandwich, you definitely can do that in our last lessons. They'll help you. "'What do you want from me?' questioned Scrooge cautiously." Okay. I'm now going to write what the ghost says to respond, which means I need to do new speaker, new line. Exactly. If you're not sure about that, please go back and watch our last lesson again. Do not worry if you need to. That's what all our lessons are for. "'Much,' replied the ghost ominously." And ominously, brilliant, because it means that something bad is about to happen, which sets up the climax, the next part we're writing, really nicely. Exactly what the build up is meant to do. Okay. I can tick off coordinating conjunctions now because I've used a but, haven't used or, but I used two out of the three, so I feel that's enough for me. Correct. Okay. It's your turn. I want you to use your own ideas. Be influenced by my example, but you do not need to copy it. You are so creative. You have so many great ideas, much more greater than I am. You will be able to write an even better builds up than I did. Use the success criteria and our plan to help you. Here's the success criteria. You want to pause on this page while you write so you can see it. That's perfectly fine. And here is your plan. If you want to pause on this page so you can see the plan, you can do as well. Let me move my picture down so you can pause now if you want to see the plan. Okay. Well done everyone. So that's it. Well done everyone. You have put in so much effort into your writing. The progress you've made is fantastic. Well done. I'll see you soon.

To write the build-up

To write the build-up

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UnitEnglish / A Christmas Carol - Narrative writing

English