You may be aware that the new Curriculum for English in Primary Schools moves the balance more towards the Technical Skills for English (grammar and spelling and punctuation for example) and less towards Creative Writing.
So to encourage Creative Writing despite this change, it would be nice if as many of our children as possible write a story, or some poetry or even a script for a play or something, and send it to me so that I can collate them all and make them into an on-line "flip-book" so that their work is effectively "published".
You can see what a flip-book looks like here:- rxit.org.uk/Prospectus (this is our School Prospectus) You click the corner of the page to make it "flip"
You can see that it has a proper Tables of Contents that "jumps" to the right section when clicked, and that it can have different fonts and graphics etc.
So that the whole thing will look great, it would help if we adopt some simple guidelines:-
1. File format should be Open Document Text (*.odt) All word processors can save in this "Standard" format, including Microsoft Word or the free equivalents OpenOffice or LibreOffice
(I don't use Publisher, so please avoid that format - I can't read it - it's too expensive - and .pdf is no good because the Table of Contents won't work when bound together)
2. I suggest we mostly use Comic Sans for the main font - it is a common school font, it's free and it will give a common "style".
3. You need to tell me how you want your name in the Contents list, maybe just "Jane", or "Jane B." or the full name "Jane Bullfinch" - and the Title of the Story or Poem etc
4. It would be nice if you include your Class Number to give an indication of age - but this is not "mandatory" of course - In fact, some children might like to be totally anonymous - that's fine as well.
5. Graphics can be scanned drawings (you can see some examples in this flip-book :- rxit.org.uk/Dorothy_Needham) or clip-art or photos etc.
6. Text can be any size or colour - but 12pt looks nice on a page.
7. You can give it a cover or not - whatever you fancy.
8. I don't want to be too restrictive - it is, after all, Creative Writing - but it will look nice when they are all "bound" together if there is a common style of sorts.
If any of this is "gobbledygook" just give me a call or something - we could even get together for a writing afternoon in the Village Hall using the dozen or so laptops from the Broadplace.
Let's try and get 100 "Chapters" - and of course any child can send more than one piece of work - I will publish everything I receive
So let's get writing! (or wait for the holidays before starting)
And if you are wondering why this is "Event 2", well that's because Event 1 is recording our own Bingo Calls - see my email of yesterday or have visit to Yoland's Blog (http://yo-emails.blogspot.co.uk/) And make sure your friends and neighbours know all about it too - not everyone is on Yo's list.
--
Colin Case
www.ruytonxitowns.org.uk
Tel: +44 1939 260628
Mobile: +44 7860 904006
Fax: +44 872 115 8730
Colin Case
www.ruytonxitowns.org.uk
Tel: +44 1939 260628
Mobile: +44 7860 904006
Fax: +44 872 115 8730
-- Yoland Brown Brownhill House B&B, Ruyton XI Towns, nr. Shrewsbury SY4 1LR ShACC - Shropshire Alternative Car Club www.eleventowns.co.uk www.eleventowns.com www.ShACC-uk.org Tel: 01939 261 121 Fax: 01939 260626
