Good morning everyone!
Happy World Book Day! I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in your costumes!
Today we are going to have a day where we celebrate books, reading and writing. I'm going to put a list of activities here and you can do them in any order that you like.
Sponsored Read
This for me will be the best part of the day - grab your book, get comfy and read for an hour!!! Add this time to your sponsored read form.
I'll be looking for book recommendations when we get back for what we can spend the sponsored read money on.
Be an Author for the Day
Today we are going to be authors for the day! For this 'lesson' I am not going to tell you what to write or how to write it. It's up to you to be an author today!
Begin by looking at this picture
To help you think about what to write, consider these questions:
- What can you see in this setting? Where do you think this is? How has Petur chosen and used colours to create a mood?
- Who is the person hanging from the clock tower? How did he get there? Who is the person holding him? Are they allies or enemies? How do you know?
- What are they doing here? Does anyone know that they’re there?
- Why is there a drone in the foreground? Does it belong to those characters or someone else?
- Write an adventure story using this image as inspiration. At which point in your story will you use this scene? Challenge: How could you effectively use it as an opening to a story? What about the end of a story? Can you end a story on a cliffhanger?
Now it's over to you! I'm going to choose y favourite story to be presented on the blog, in school and maybe even in the termly newsletter!
I'm really looking forward to what you young authors come up with!
Author on Demand There are a whole host of authors giving talks on this website. I was going to tell you who to watch...but then I thought that you might like to choose for yourself! Pick someone you know to find out more about them or someone new to find out if you would like to try their books! Enjoy!
Author Masterclass
We are going to work with another author now. Here is a video by Derek Landy, author of 'Skullduggery Pleasant'
Today we are going to be working on how to make characters feel real!
Begin by reading the extract of the book and consider these questions:
1. What do you learn about Adedayo on page 1?
2. How would you describe Adedayo’s bond with
his grandmother?
3. What do you think is the significance of the
‘polished wooden box’?
Next conisder the following:
Derek explains that when we write, the temptation is
to create a character who we aspire to be. What we
should aim to do instead is try to create a real person.
This would result in a three-dimensional character.
• Creating 3D characters means showing all of the
different layers (good and bad!) of a character. Read the extract from the book where we
are introduced to Adedayo for the first time. What
layers of Adedayo’s character can you see already?
• Create a Character Wall made of bricks to show
Adedayo’s character so far. In the bricks at the
top of the wall, you might include how Adedayo
presents himself (i.e. his surface level traits). In
the bricks below, you might include his deeper
emotions, his fears and his motivations.
Here is a brick wall for you
Derek talks about giving characters emotional depth in
order to make them feel more real. He suggests that a
good starting point is to put in a little piece of yourself
– how would you feel and react in the same situation?
• Imagine that you, like Adedayo, have just realised
that you are capable of magic. Consider how you
would feel about this. How would you react? What
would be your best thoughts and ideas, and what
would be your worst?
Write a paragraph about what you would do and how you would react...would you use or magic for good...or would you use it for ill?
BBC Live Lesson
There is a BBC live lesson at 11.30 that you could watch and there are some worksheets on the website to work with if you would like to watch the live lesson.
