Year Group

Year 4

Duration

60 minutes

Class Size

30 students

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National Curriculum English Links

Writing - Composition

• Pupils should be taught to write for different purposes, including narratives.
• Develop positive attitudes towards and stamina for writing by:
  • Writing narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real and fictional).
• In narratives, pupils should be taught to:
  • Create settings, characters and plot.
  • Select appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning.

Vocabulary, grammar & punctuation

• Use expanded noun phrases to describe and specify.
• Use fronted adverbials.
• Use and understand the grammatical terminology in English Appendix 2 accurately and appropriately when discussing their writing and reading.

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Learning Objective

By the end of the lesson, pupils will be able to write effective sentences for a journey story by:

• Using precise verbs and adverbs to create imagery and mood.
• Incorporating metaphors to enhance narrative depth.
• Expressing inner thoughts and employing repetition for effect.

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Success Criteria (Using The Write Stuff ‘Noticing, Collecting, Deepening’ Model)

I can:

• Notice and select vivid verbs and adverbs that bring a scene to life.
• Create metaphors that deepen the meaning of my writing and contribute to the idea of isolation yet safety.
• Write sentences explaining a character’s inner thoughts and desires, using repetition to emphasise emotion.

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Materials Needed

• Farther by Grahame Baker-Smith (copy of page 2 and page 8 as reference images for the class)
• Whiteboard and markers
• Individual whiteboards for pupils or notebooks
• Word banks with verbs, adverbs, and synonyms for “fly” (soar, glide, hover, etc.)
• Writing Rainbow symbols for visual support (verbs, adverbs, metaphors, inner thoughts, repetition)
• Success Criteria poster clearly displayed

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Lesson Breakdown

Starter (10 minutes)

• Display Page 2 image from Farther on the board without reading the text.

Whole class discussion:

• “What do you notice about the house? How does its position make you feel?”

• Use targeted questions to probe deeper thinking:

  Bloom’s Question (Analysis):
  “Why do you think the author chose to put the house on a cliff rather than somewhere else?”
  Expected response: Because it shows that the house is isolated but also protected from the dangers below.

  Bloom’s Question (Evaluation):
  “How does the location affect what might happen to the people inside?”

• Ask pupils to generate adjectives and verbs describing the scene focusing on the loneliness yet protection (e.g., isolated, seclusion, bellow, cascade).

• AfL: Use think-pair-share to assess understanding of the mood created by word choices during this discussion. Circulate and listen to responses.

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Learning Chunk 1: Noticing Verbs and Adverbs (15 minutes)

Model:

• Write this teacher model on the board while thinking aloud:
  “A remote house stands isolated, perched on the edge of a cliff. Smoke bellows from the chimney of the lonely structure as the sea crashes against the rough rocks and a path of poppies cascades down its jagged edges.”

• Highlight the verbs and adverbs, e.g. stands, perched, bellows, crashes, cascades.

• Explain how these verbs/adverbs show movement and feeling, making the house feel both lonely and safe.

Enable:

• Pupils write 2-4 sentences describing the house scene, using descriptive verbs and adverbs to create mood.

• Challenge: Deepen the moment – add sensory details or personify the natural elements (e.g., smoke whispers, waves roar).

• AfL: Use whiteboards to write one verb/adverb sentence, then peer/share with a partner for verbal feedback. Teacher picks examples for whole-class discussion, praising good choices and suggesting improvements.

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Learning Chunk 2: Metaphors (15 minutes)

Initiate:

• Revisit the image and teacher model sentence. Discuss features in the image that can be compared to something else. Prompt the children:

  “What could the cliff be if it was something else? What about the clouds, the poppies, or the rocks?”

• Use higher-order question:

  Bloom’s Question (Creating):
  “Can you invent a metaphor that tells more about how the house feels or what the people living there might experience?”

• Collect suggestions and write these on the board. Examples:

  • Cliff is a stage
  • Clouds like curtains
  • Poppies like soldiers
  • Rocks as teeth
  • Sea as a blue blanket

Model:

• Share the teacher model sentence:
  “The cliff is the stage, a platform for the boy’s father to act out his fantasy of flight. Clouds part like curtains to reveal the beauty of the skies above: a place he longed to be.”

Enable:

• Pupils write their own metaphor sentence linking a noun in the image to something else and adding to the idea that the house is isolated yet safe. Encourage imagination to enhance the narrative.

• Challenge: Deepen the moment – combine more than one metaphor in a sentence or extend the metaphorical idea for deeper meaning.

• AfL: Invite a few children to share their metaphors; discuss how these shape our understanding of the character’s feelings or the setting. Use this to prompt other children to improve their own.

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Learning Chunk 3: Inner Thoughts and Repetition for Effect (15 minutes)

Initiate: Hot Seating activity (whole class participation)

• Teacher assumes role of the father character (revealed as an inventor dreaming of flying).

• Pupils ask questions about his wishes and aspirations. Example questions:

  • “Why do you want to fly?”
  • “How does it make you feel when you imagine flying?”
  • “What obstacles stop you now?”

• Scaffold answers using expressive vocabulary gleaned from synonyms of fly (soar, glide, hover, float, drift).

Model:

• Write a model sentence capturing inner thoughts and repetition:
  “Uninhibited, unrestricted, liberated – the boy’s father dreamed to soar above the tallest trees, above the clouds, and beyond the horizon – it’s all he ever thought about.”

• Explain how repetition emphasises the father’s deepest desire.

Enable:

• Pupils write one sentence describing the father’s inner thoughts and feelings about wanting to fly, using a verb/adverb from their word bank and repetition for effect.

• Challenge: Deepen the moment by using more emotive language and embedding metaphors or adverbs.

• AfL: Collect sentences and use mini whiteboards or sticky notes for anonymous peer feedback on emotional impact and clarity. Select some examples to discuss improvement ideas.

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Plenary (5 minutes)

• Recap the success criteria by showing the poster visually. Ask pupils to self-assess (“Tick the boxes they feel confident about”).

• Ask whole-class:

  • “How do verbs and adverbs help to create atmosphere in the story?”
  • “Why is using metaphors important for a journey story?”
  • “What does writing inner thoughts add to your writing?”

• Bonus reflective question:

  Bloom’s Question (Evaluation):
  “Which sentence or metaphor did you like best today and why? Can you explain how it made the story feel different?”

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Assessment for Learning (AfL) Points

Teaching Stage	AfL Activity	Purpose
Starter	Think-pair-share on how setting influences mood	Checks understanding of imagery and mood
Modelling 1 & Enable	Peer feedback on verb/adverb sentences	Assesses use of descriptive language
Modelling 2 & Enable	Class discussion of metaphors	Monitors application of metaphor creation
Modelling 3 & Enable	Whiteboard/share sentences on inner thoughts	Checks emotional expression and use of repetition
Plenary	Self-assessment against success criteria & class discussion	Gauges holistic understanding of skills learned

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Differentiation

• Support: Provide word banks with verbs, adverbs, and metaphor starters; use sentence frames (e.g., “The ___ is like a ___ because…”). Pair weaker writers with peers for collaborative sentence creation.
• Challenge: Encourage deeper metaphor layering, extended repetition, or introducing similes in addition to metaphors; try writing a short paragraph linking all three skills in one.

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Teacher Notes – Integration of The Write Stuff Scheme

• Following Jane Considine’s Sentence Stacking approach, this lesson concentrates on sentence-level craft. Each ‘learning chunk’ allows pupils to build scaffolding for a sentence stack to be used in upcoming lessons for a fuller narrative.
• Visual stimuli paired with scaffolded teacher models facilitate pupil confidence before independent attempts.
• Throughout the lesson, use ‘Noticing, Collecting, Deepening’ to guide children beyond simple sentences to more sophisticated writing.
• Emphasise vocabulary precision and sentence variety to meet Year 4 expectations for vocabulary and composition.
• Encourage reflection on word choice and effect, developing metacognitive writing skills aligned with national curriculum aims for composition and vocabulary development.

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Summary

This highly structured yet creative lesson enables children to write vivid, layered sentences that bring a journey story to life, linking closely to the Farther text and The Write Stuff teaching model, whilst fully addressing the relevant National Curriculum English requirements for Year 4.