Lights , camera , action!

For this piece of writing;

Purpose – To describe Audience – The directors of the film Form – character/setting description

Effect: To inform

Dear Year 4 parents/guardians,

Thank you for all your support, so far. We really do acknowledge and appreciate what an undertaking home learning is and the pressures placed on all families during this time.

Many thanks,

The Year 4 team

A note for our fabulous Year 4 pupils:

We hope that you are all enjoying your home learning and everything that we have planned for you. As we go through this next writing journey, many of you who are coming back into school will carry out some of these tasks at home and some of them with us in the classroom! However, even if you are not coming into school, you will still have access to all of the tasks as we will continue to publish them all onto Edmodo. As always, continue to try your best and complete the different tasks to the best of your ability.

As a reminder; please remember that your mums and dads were not ever expecting, when you started Year 4, that they would be having to support you with your learning in this way. Please show them the kindness and respect that we see in school, as they have got so many other things to think about as well. We have planned your learning, so that you can work as independently as possible. Have fun!

Take care,

The Year 4 teachers and teaching assistants

Monday 6 th July

Learning objective: To identify and apply language and structural features that will engage the reader

All: As move into this next part of our journey, we should have now written our ‘opening’ and ‘build up’ sections of our plans. Remember, they should flow coherently so they coincide with each other and the other parts of the story. These two sections should also give the reader into a much better insight about who the new character is and the setting that they are based in. Talk to a partner or someone at home about what you like about your first two sections and why they will engage the reader. Read p151 – 154 of ‘How to train your dragon’ and the encounter with the sea dragon. How is the tension and fear built in this climax of the story? What techniques of writing are used to make the dragon seem impressive next to the Vikings? Annotate the text to show examples of; high quality adjectives, similes, short sentences for impact, examples used to show how impressive / powerful it is, other characters’ reactions to it.

Look to your own plan and write the climax to your own story, using similar techniques to increase tension and fear in their climax. Use the pages provided to support you with this as well as your own ideas.

Tuesday 7 th July

Learning objective: To use adverbs to add detail All: Have another look at the ‘climax’ section that you produced yesterday. Think about the features of writing found in the pages from the book ‘How to train your dragon’, have you used any of these in your climax section? To dramatise this action, it needs to be really exciting and we need to use words that truly explain how this actions are being ‘done’. Remind children that adverbs are used to describe verbs and the emphasis will be placed on these, if we begin sentences using them.

Adverb: An adverb is a descriptive word which describes the verb (Doing word) in the sentence.

Have a look at the section below.

“Slowly and carefully, Coughup edged up the narrow, stoney path that led around the side of the colossal mountain. Every footstep he made was precisely placed to ensure no stone was dislodged and Slimerat was not alerted of his presence.”

Using the sentences above, identify the different adverbs used. Think about how these different adverbs alter the meaning of this text. What impact does having two adverbs at the beginning of a sentence have? By doing this, it places the emphasis on these words, to show the reader how important it was that he was moving in this way (it raises their importance).

Before writing your ‘resolution’ section, practise and write a sentence which begins with an adverb. Tell a partner or member of your household how this has impacted the text. Using these ideas and your plan, write your resolution section to your story for this film.

Wednesday 8 th July

Learning objective: To make clear links between an opening and conclusionAll: Take a couple of minutes now to read over your resolutions once more (Perhaps to a partner or member of your household). How effective was it? Did it keep to the plan and provide a resolution? Did you use any sentences beginning with adverbs? What impact did these have? Have a think and discuss, then edit and improve using a different coloured pen/pencil.

Have another look at your plan and now begin to consider how the conclusion links to your opening. A conclusion should draw in all the threads of the story and provide an answer to the problem caused by the characters and storyline. E.g. if your new character is perceived in the intro to be an ‘unlikely hero’, then perhaps he defies the odds and saves the day!

Before writing your conclusion, you need to consider your plan and read the story you have written so far, from the start. It should show cohesion between the paragraphs, and ‘flow’. It should be clear how different events occur and how the resolution has impacted the setting and characters. Write your conclusion to complete the story, link it to the opening and ensure that there is a clearly signalled ending (the reader is under no uncertainty that it is the end of the story).

Thursday 9 th July

Learning objective: To edit and publish All: Take some time now to read the stories that you have produced. Does your story flow coherently? Your story may have some gaps in between certain events that occur. Take some time to edit and fill these gaps in with a purple or coloured pen. Do we know the fate of all the characters? As a reader, is there anything we’d like to know more about? Are there any unnecessary sections? Could further description be used to enhance the story? There is a lot of questions to think about here, so there may be a lot of editing!

Using these questions above and self-marking grid the grid below, take the time to edit your pieces of work.1)

Spellings

2)

Punctuation

3)

Different sentence starters

4)

Sense

5)

Capital letters

6)

Checked with a

partner

Edit and marking grid

Friday 10 th July

Learning objective: To produce a review for this newly directed film

All: Imagine that we have now fast forwarded time and the date is the 10th July 2021. The film we planned has been funded and filmed! The cast all agreed to come back for another sequel (Including your new character), the location manager found a setting suitable for your give criteria and it is ready to be released in cinemas. However, before a film is usually released, film critics from different news agents are given an early access preview to the film. They then provide a review for the film to inform viewers about what to expect. We now want you all to take a sudden shift in career paths and become one of these well respected reviewers and write your own review based on your vision for ‘How to train your dragon 4.’

Think about both the positives and negatives of the film which viewers can come to expect. What rating out of 5 stars would you give it? What advice would you give to the director if they decided to make a 5th film? What audience base would you recommend to go and watch this sequel? Use these questions as well as your own ideas to write an informative review. However, we do not want to give away too much about the film, so be careful not to discuss too much about the best parts!