To write the setting description

Key Stage 2

English

Macbeth - Narrative writing

﻿Hi everyone and welcome to the next lesson. In this lesson, we are going to be writing our setting description. So we've come to the most exciting part now of the unit, where we get to write our very own setting descriptions using everything that we've learned from all the other lessons. So remember, as always, you've got to find a quiet space away from any distractions and make sure you have everything ready. You want to have your pen or pencil, and your paper or your book, things that you can write with. And then when you're ready, we can begin. Okay. So in this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pen or pencil and your thinking heads.

Okay, so the agenda. Let's have a look. We are going to start with a writing, a quick writing warm up to get us ready for the lesson. Then we're going to look at how to structure our writing. Okay, are we going to start with the heath, the fog, the witches? How will we structure it? And then we will look at the success criteria. So what is it that's going to be in our writing that's going to make it successful and it's going to make it sound appealing to the reader or create the atmosphere that we want the reader to feel. And the way that you're going to be successful in this lesson is I'm going to show you, I'm going to model to you how to use your plans to do this. And that's going to be in the shared writing part of this lesson. Okay, so let's start with our writing warmup. Let's see if we can improve the sentence below today. so the sentence that we're looking at is it was night time and the wind blew over the heath. Now, I think that you can write a much better sentence than that. And the way we could do it is we could try and include adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Okay? So how could we change It was night time and the wind blew over the heath? We could either insert words, or we could take out words, or we could even just strip away that sentence and write our own one from scratch. So you could write a complex sentence or you could write a compound sentence. It's up to you. So what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to pause the video to complete the task. So you're going to improve the sentence below using adjectives, verbs and adverbs. I've put a few, a few adjectives and a few verbs that we have looked up from previous lessons in case you need a few ideas. Or you can look at your plans from previous lessons because you have loads and loads of adjectives, verbs and adverbs on your plans. So you could use those to help you, okay? Pause the video and have a go. Okay, so here's my sentence. So if we go back, it was night time and the wind blew over the heath. I changed night time. So I said it was a dark and stormy night. So I added two adjectives, dark and stormy. A howling wind blew violently over the eerie heath, comma, as three hideous witches huddled and screamed with malignant laughter. So let's go back to our sentence. So I changed night time and then I changed the wind. So I inserted an adjective, so I said, a howling wind blew violently. So I described how it blew. Over the eerie heath. So I described the heath And then I put, as three hideous witches huddled and screamed with malignant laughter. So I added my subordinate clause there and I described the witches. I said they were hideous and I said that they were huddling and screaming with malignant laughter. Okay. So we need to look at how are we going to structure our writing today. The first thing we need to think about is what should be included in the setting description. Now, we've already looked at planning our setting description. We need to just remind ourselves what we need to include. We are trying to create an atmosphere in which the reader will feel. I want you to have a think. Okay, hopefully you've paused the video and you've had a think about what atmosphere we're trying to create. So as I had said previously, we would like the reader to feel a sense of confusion, scenes of chaos, and we want them to feel impending doom. And how would we do that through our writing? Let's watch the clip again just to get a few more ideas and just to remind ourselves what the atmosphere was like.

Nothing was as it seemed.

When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?

When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won

Where the place?

Upon the heath

There to meet with Macbeth .

Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Okay. So hopefully you've watched the video to give yourself a little bit of an idea of what atmosphere we're trying to create to remind ourselves, okay? And this is going to be the structure of our writing. So as we'd previously planned before, we will firstly introduce the heath and then write about the sky. And then the second part of our writing, we will be writing about the witches. So we need to think about what atmosphere do we want the reader to feel when we're writing about the first paragraph, okay? Then also, what do we want to know? What do we want to feel about the witches? Do we want to like them or do we not want to like them? That's got to come through in our writing, okay? When we introduce the characters. They ghostly or they friendly. Okay, so our success criteria for today. What do we need to include in our writing to be successful? So as we had previously planned, we have ambitious vocabulary, adjectives, verbs, adverbs. We've got to remember to use those in our writing today. We've also got to remember to use the figurative language that we've got on our plans. That could be similarly a metaphor or personification. We don't have to use all of them, but we might want to consider using one or two. We definitely need to think about using adverbial phrases because we need to tell people where something is. Above the heath, in the distance. We also want to let people know or let the reader know when something is happening. Is it happening suddenly? Is it happening just then? Is it happening hours later? Don't think so, not in this section of our writing. I think we would be thinking about using some quick time conjunctions because things are happening quickly. And then one other thing that is on your success criteria is I'd like you to include at least, at least one complex sentence. So in this unit, we have looked at other different types of complex sentences. We've looked at relative clause complex sentences and adverbial clause complex sentences. If you don't remember them, you may pause the video and go back and watch the video on complex sentences. But if you do, that's brilliant and you can include it in your writing. That would be amazing. So what we're going to do now is we're going to grab our plan from the previous lesson and our plan should have all of the vocabulary that we will need. Okay? This is what my plan looks like. And I'm going to use this plan to help me to write. So on my plan, I have vocabulary to describe the sky, the heath, the fog and the witches. And they're in their separate columns so that I know that when I write, I can tick them off so I've included them in my writing. Or if you want, you can highlight words that you have used, so you don't use them again. Okay, so in this next part of the lesson, I'm going to be showing you how to do a shared write. Okay? So that's when I will be modelling to you how to use the plan and using the plan, we're going to then write and formulate our sentences. So here we go. Okay, so we're going to start our shared write starting with the sky. I think that's a good place to start. And here, we've got bit of the plan snapshotted onto this page so that we can use the plan and all the vocabulary that we've generated to help us to write the first part of the setting description. So I think a really good way to start would be to use an adverbial phrase. And if we look at our plan, the adverbial phrase that we have is above the heath. So I'm going to go ahead and pop that in. Above the heath, comma. So what's above the heath? It's the sky. So let's describe the scope of the heath. How could we describe it? Let's look at our adjectives. We could say it's ominous. The ominous, ghostly night sky hung over like, and here we could use figurative language. Hung over like a thick blanket of gloom. Then maybe I want to describe the clouds, or the fog or the mist. So that could be on my next sentence. Plumes of slithering mist crept, I want it to sound like it's an animal, crept over the horizon as the darkness suffocated the land. Read overall writing to make sure that it makes sense. Above the heath, I could add an adjective there, maybe I'll say the barren heath, the ominous ghostly night sky hung over like a thick blanket of gloom. Plumes of slithering mist crept over the horizon as the darkness suffocated the land. I think that's a really good way to start off our setting description. So hopefully you've all watched very closely. And now it is your turn to write about the sky. So I want you to pause the video, look at the success criteria that I have up on the screen. Make sure you have your plan right next to you. And I would like you to give it a go. Pause the video and have a go. Okay, so we're going to move on to the next part of our setting description, which is, if we look at our plan, is the heath. I know we've already mentioned little bit about the heath in the first part. So we might not want to keep referring to the heath again. Just one sentence, I think, using our plan about the heath would be perfect. So a really good way to start would be, again, to use an adverbial phrase because it sort of brings us right to the place, okay? So I've got in the distance on my plan, but I don't think I want to use that one in this instance. I think I want to use all around because I want to grab the atmosphere, the heath. So I'm going to start with all around. All around, comma, and I want to talk about atmosphere so maybe, I can say all around the atmosphere became, and I want to say it was really chaotic. Because then that's sort of building up the picture and it's building up my setting description to become something from eerie and calm to some something a little bit more exciting. So I might say all around. Okay, so I want to list what things are causing the chaos. So it could be, I could talk about the wind because I've got howled on my plan. And to me, howled would suggest it was the wind growling. So I could have howling wind. What else could I have? I could talk about about the rain and maybe the thunder, something that would be causing the chaos. Read over it. All around the atmosphere became a sea of chaos, colon, howling wind, lashing rain and echoing thunder. Okay, now it's your turn to write about the heath. You've got to remember your success criteria and have your plan right next to you with all the words that you need to write about the heath. Remember to try and insert figurative language if you can remember adverbial phrases. And if you want to write a complex sentence in this section of your setting description, you may. Off you go. Okay, now we're going to move on to the next part of our setting description, which is to describe the fog. Let's look at our plan. We've got adjectives, thick impenetrable. Verbs and adverbs, suffocated, enveloped tightly. And then some of our adverbial phrases this time we've got silently. Okay, so how could we start to describe the fog? Maybe we could start with the air. The air was filled with fog. Maybe I could insert an adjective here. We could say that the air was suffocating. Suffocating air was filled with hazy fog. I could put a full stop there, but I'm going to continue. Which swirled and billowed. If I look at the picture, it's swirling and billowing out. So that's how I'd want to describe it. Which swirled and billowed incessantly. I think that's a really good way to describe how it's moving. In every direction. Let's it read over to make sure that it makes sense. The suffocating air was filled with hazy fog, comma, which swirled and billowed incessantly in every direction. Okay, now it's your turn to write about the fog. Use the success criteria on your plans. Off you go. Okay, and now we're onto the last part of our setting description, which is when we start to introduce the witches. So this is quite an exciting part because there's a lot to write about here. We can describe what they look like, we can say what they were doing. And let's look at our plan to help us. So we've got adjectives, sharp talons, evil. Verbs and adverbs, screeched, danced maniacally, cackled malignantly, as sharp as knives. And we could use our adverbial phrase of suddenly, it's a time conjunction. I think I might start with their laughter because that was something that was quite prominent in the video. So, shrieks is a really good way to describe how they laugh. Shrieks of malignant laughter. And I want to say that it sort of came out from the darkness. So maybe pierce would be a good word. As the three, and how would I describe them? What would be a good way to describe them? I could say that they were hideous witches, we could say witches. Maybe a different way to describe them could be hags. What were they doing? They were huddling closer together. Okay, let me read it. Shrieks of malignant laughter pierced the shadows as the three hideous hags huddled closer together. Then I want to talk about that one witch, the one that's in the picture hovering over the other two. So I could say, from the group, describe her as a shrivelled demon. We could say she's a shrivelled-skinned demon. What's she doing? She's raising her arms. She's sort of looming over them. So, And how was she looming over them? She was looming over them intimidatingly, yeah? Okay. From the group, a shrivelled-skinned demon loomed over the two other witches intimidatingly. Suddenly, I want to use my adverbial phrase that's on the plan. Suddenly, comma, in the video, I think all of a sudden or suddenly the lightning flash, so I want to talk about the lightning. Whipped through the dense air. Now, I could include a simile here. What can I compare the lightning with? Maybe I could say it was a like silver daggers. I could also describe since I'm describing the lightning, I could also now go further and describe the thunder. Or maybe I could carry on talking about, I think we had mentioned the thunder before, so maybe I could continue talking about how the lightning sort of lit up the place. Okay, I've got a sentence. While ear-splitting cracks While ear-splitting cracks illuminated the ashen skin of the ghostly figures. While that was happening, they plotted and schemed. Maybe I want to use single words now for effect. Mutters, moans, murmurs. Once they had devised their devious plan, they disappeared just like that. Or they disappeared in a flurry of smoke. Perfect, let's read over it to check that it makes sense. Shrieks of malignant laughter pierced the shadows as the three hideous hacks huddled closer together. From the group, a shrivelled-skinned demon loomed over the two other witches intimidatingly. Suddenly, blinding lightning whipped through the dense air like silver daggers. While ear-splitting cracks eliminated the ashen skin of the ghostly figures, they plotted and schemed. Mutters. Moans. Murmurs. Once they had devised the devious plan, they disappeared in a flurry of smoke. And finally, your turn to write about the witches. The same success criteria on your plans. So important to have your plans as well to support your writing. Good luck. Okay, so now that we have written our setting descriptions, we need to make sure that we have ticked off our success criteria. So have we included our ambitious vocabulary? Have we included our adjectives, verbs and adverbs? I want you to go ahead now and put a little tick above the words that you have chosen in your setting description. Have you included adjectives? Go and take them off now. Have you used verbs? Tick them off. Have used figurative language? Have you used an adverbial phrase or adverbial phrases? And I'd like you to tick just one complex sentence that you're really proud of. Pause the video and have a go at ticking off your writing. Okay, now we need to read back. Why do we need to read back our writing once we've written it? It's really important that we do this. We need to check that it makes sense, we've got to make sure we've got the purpose right. We've got to get a sense of what the reader will feel. Are we creating the right atmosphere? We've got to check punctuation. Have we got our commas in the place, our full stops? Maybe we want to use an exclamation mark. We've got to check we've used precise vocab. And to check and change spelling, any spelling errors. And also to enjoy your writing. Of course, that's the most important part. So I'm going to read back my writing now just to have a quick check over. Above the barren heath, the ominous ghostly night sky hung over like a thick blanket of gloom. Plumes of slithering mist crept over the horizon as the darkness suffocated the land. All around the atmosphere became a sea of chaos. Howling wind, lashing rain and echoing thunder. The suffocating air was filled with hazy fog, which swirled and billowed incessantly in every direction. Shrieks of malignant laughter pierced the shadows as the three hideous hags huddled closer together. From the group, a shrivelled-skinned demon loomed over the two other witches intimidatingly. Suddenly, blinding lightning whipped through the dense air like silver daggers. While ear-splitting cracks illuminated the ashen skin of the ghostly figures, they plotted and schemed. Mutters. Moans. Murmurs. Once they had devised the devious plan, they disappeared in a flurry of smoke. Now it's your turn to read your opening out aloud. I want you to pause the video. I want you to enjoy it when you read it. Think about these things as well. Does it make sense? Have we got the vocabulary right? Have we created a sense of chaos, a sense of impending doom? I'll put these up for you to check when you are reading your setting descriptions out loud. Pause the video and have a go. Brilliant. So we've come to the end of this last lesson of the unit. In this lesson, we have learnt how to improve a sentence. We've also learnt how to structure our writing before we begin to think about what we will want to include in our first paragraph, second paragraph, with depending on how you want to set out your writing. Then we looked at the criteria that we need in order to be successful for this piece of writing. And then I did a little bit of shared writing for you and I modelled how I would use my plan and the success criteria in order to be writing an amazing setting description. Congratulations, you have completed this lesson and we would love you to share your work with Oak National Academy. So if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on social media. You could either use Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, but you've got to ask them for permission. And then I'd like you to tag @OakNational and hashtag it with #LearnwithOak. I'm sure everybody would love to see your writing.

To write the setting description

To write the setting description

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UnitEnglish / Macbeth - Narrative writing

English