Coming Soon…. Poet Terry Caffrey

As part of our annual Literary Festival the MRC has arranged for Poet Terry Caffrey to spend the day with our Year 7 Students on 28th June. (Today!)

He has written the lyrics to the Children’s Olympic song so the olympics will be a theme for his session.

I for one am looking forward to his visit as he is quite animated when he reads his poems out.

Check out his website to watch / listen and read all about him!

 

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a restful, if slightly damp, Easter Break.

How many of you have still got some chocolate left? I’ve only a little as I like to munch whist I’m reading and I did a fair bit of reading over the break, (more about that later!)

So on the horizon for the Summer semesters are…..

The Queen’s Jubilee celebrations and of course the London Olympics, here in the Academy we have the Carnegie Shadowing group; the Literary Festival with an author visit; and a possible Year 6 /7 workshop day – watch this space!

Inspired by GP Taylor…

S GFl tutor group was one of the four highest borrowing tutor groups in the academic year 2010/11.

As a reward they were  one of the tutor groups that were lucky enough to spend time with our visiting Author GP. Taylor last week.

He was very impressed with them as a group and obviously the feeling was mutual as during their next DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) session they read an extract from “Shadowmancer” one of his published books and created some really good pictures that represented the storyline.

S GFl turor group display

Well done S GFl

Design a new front cover

The deadline for the Design a new front cover competition is fast approaching (this Friday – 8th July).

Choose a book (your favourite story perhaps) book cover template.pdf

then get creative and design the cover you’d like to see!

Here’s some advice for Designing a Book Cover

Book covers really do matter. Readers look at the front cover and the back cover and then quickly make buying decisions. Reviewers can only review a few books each week, so must select book covers that appear to be the most interesting. Your book cover must survive “the glance test” for both reviewers and book buyers!

Use cover templates

To help you create artwork for your front and back book covers, use a  template.

Back cover treatment

Back covers are the best chance to sell the book. Adding testimonials, quotations or review “blurbs” help sell books — word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful forces in marketing.

Designing spines

Spine images can be a little tricky, because the spine width is determined by the number of pages in your book.

Cover font sizes

Sans serif faces are typically used for book covers, while serif typefaces are used for body text for easy reading.

Make sure your cover type stands out sufficiently to be read. On average, a browser spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. Not much time to make a sale, particularly if your cover can’t be read or doesn’t stand out.

Laura Watson visits us TODAY!

Laura Watson is in school today working with Year 8’s as part of the Literary Festival.

She is a scriptwriter and has written for Casualty and EastEnders.

Scriptwriter Laura Watson

Period 1 session with 65 Year 8 students

Period 2 session with 98 Year 8 students

i-connect session with two high reading tutor groups (T RAr & S MTa)

Period 3 workshop with one lucky Year 8 class

Period 4 session with G&T students from Yr 7/9

Watch her video below.

I’ll post an up-date soon about how the day went!

GP Taylor visits us TODAY!

GP Taylor (first name Graham) is in school today working with Year 7’s and 8’s as part of the Literary Festival.

GP Taylor

• Period 1 session with 150 year 7 students
• Period 2  45 Year 8 students
• i-connect two high reading tutor groups (C ABa & S GFl)
• Period 3 Yr 9 workshop
• Period 4 session with G&T students from Yr 8/9 and TheWord Interview

Why not check out his website or watch the book trailer below

I’ll post an up-date soon about how the day went!

Literary Festival

Over the next two weeks the MRC is supporting Comms College in their first Literary Festival.

Coming to the TDA this week are

Author GP Taylor – writer of Shadowmancer,

and Scriptwriter Laura Watson who has written for both Casualty and EastEnders.

They will be talking to Year 7 and 8 students as well as the top four borrowing tutor groups.