STEFAN GATES: I’m Stefan Gates, I’m a TV presenter and a chef. I’ve eaten all sorts of food, from the weird to the wonderful. What can I say? I just like exploring the world.
Whether you are making a Victoria Sponge, or an exploding cake, the essential thing you need is a recipe.
Now a recipe is an example of instructional writing, which helps you to follow a course of actions successfully to create something.
So I’ve got an idea for making a massive chocolate head, for you to make for your mates when they come round. The idea is that it’s going to be so big, that you can just dive in there and make a terrible mess!
Now the first thing I need to do is to plan the recipe, so the question is, what do I need?
What I like to do is write a list of all the kit and all the ingredients, and then you know you have everything together before you begin.
So I need certain kit… and certain ingredients for you to be able to make this massive head…
Right that’s everything I need. Now I like to make sure that my instructions are easy to follow, so I use simple, precise language, and then nobody can make any mistakes.
I also need to make sure that the instructions appear in ‘chronological order’. Now ‘chronological’ means in the order that they happen. You don’t want to start putting the rice pops in before you’ve put the butter, otherwise you’ll have a disaster on your hands!
The next step is to work out what we do with all these ingredients. So first of all, a quarter of a normal pack of butter into a bowl. Then a hundred and sixty grams of golden syrup… whoa I love it! And then a hundred grams of drinking chocolate…
Now what I’m going to do, is pour all of that into a big saucepan… and then I need to warm it over a nice gentle heat.
Stir until it’s all melted into a sticky goo… beautiful! Now tip a box of rice pops in, and then mix it together with the spoon.
Next take a large bowl and grease it with butter.
Then pour your rice pop chocolatey mixture into the bowl… and press it firmly down.
Repeat the process making more chocolatey rice pops, and then pack them in on top of the first layer. Keep doing this until your bowl is a little bit overfull.
There we go, when the bowl’s full, chop the top off to make a nice flat layer… beautiful! Then pop it in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Now when I write a recipe, I make sure that I address the reader, so I’m basically saying “What you must do now is this…”. To do that you use these things called ‘imperative verbs’, they’re also called ‘bossy verbs’, because they tell you what to do. It’s things like ‘stir’, ‘mix’, ‘pour’, or ‘grease’. They are all examples of imperative verbs.
So after a couple of hours of your bowl being in the fridge it should be ready. So ‘take’ the bowl out of the fridge.
‘Take’ a baking tray, ‘put’ it ontop of the cake, and then flip it over and ‘tip’ out your cake… ho ho ho ho!
Then use the sweets to make a face.
And then we have a vast chocolate head, how brilliant is that?!
So the last thing you need to do is think through the recipe and work out how successful you’ve been?
Now I think he’s great, but there’s a few sort of cracks in the front of the head here, and if I go back to the recipe and change the amount of golden syrup in it, I think that’ll crack it.
Now you don’t need to rewrite the whole thing, just go back to it and adjust a few bits here, and then I’ll press it down, make sure they press it down really, really hard. And then that’s the recipe done!
Which means there’s only one thing left to do…
Eat it!
Video summary
Stefan Gates demonstrates the process of instructional writing using a cake recipe.
He talks through the key features of instructional writing including using the correct technical terms, simple precise language, and imperative or bossy verbs.
This short film is from the BBC series, The Facts About Non-Fiction.
Teacher Notes
Key Stage 1
Ask pupils to identify how well Stefan writes his recipe. Does he use the correct language? How do you know?
After he has made his cake, why does he change some of the instructions?
Your pupils could follow Stefan’s recipe and make the cake together in class.
Key Stage 2
Ask your pupils to recall the key features of instructional writing and write down as many as they can remember in groups.
Watch the short film together and ask pupils to check their lists against the key features outlined by Stefan.
Ask them how well they think Stefan did. Could he have added any other sections to improve his instructions or final cake? What about a section exploring decorating the cake in different ways?
Pupils could write a survival guide to demonstrate their understanding of chronological order and imperative verbs.
Survival guides could be linked to pupils’ learning, for example: ‘How to survive in the Amazon/ Antarctic/ Space/ the 1960s/ without water.’
The survival guide could be related to a text pupils are reading too, ‘How to survive the wrath of Macbeth'.
This short film will be relevant for teaching English at KS1 and KS2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 1st and 2nd Level in Scotland.
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