Scottish Children S Book Awards

Scottish Children’s Book Awards

Older readers (12-16)

Activities to get your pupils excited about this year’s shortlist

Contents

Who are these resources for? 1

Activities for Mosi’s War 2

Activities for The Wall 4

Activities for Dark Spell 5

Getting your school excited about the books 6

Getting your school excited about voting 9

Enter our competitions 9

Resources for additional support needs 10

Further tasks 10

Appendix 1 – Comparing and contrasting the books 11

Who are these resources for?

These resources are designed to be of use to any secondary teacher, school librarian or community librarian looking to create a buzz about the shortlisted titles and also to make the 12-16 books a part of the curriculum.

Some of the activities can facilitate joint work between the library and English department, as well as other departments. See the task for The Wall on page 4 for an example of this.

Mosi’s War by Cathy MacPhail

A second look at graffiti Lit 3-02a, Eng 3-27a, Exa 3-02a (For research task - Lit 3-14a)

Graffiti is often thought of as vandalism, but graffiti as art is on the rise, and there are many legitimate artists who obtain permission to produce graffiti in public spaces. Councils have even commissioned these artists to brighten up places in the community.

·  Investigate your pupils’ preconceptions of graffiti. Ask them where they have seen graffiti, what kind of graffiti they have seen and whether they found it pleasing to the eye. Ask them what they know about the legality of graffiti.

·  Now ask pupils some questions to help them to develop their thinking about graffiti. Is graffiti always just crude slogans? What else could it be? Could it be used for different purposes? Can they think of ways in which graffiti could be a good thing?

·  Show pupils some examples of graffiti being used in different ways for different purposes. The following video of artists showing and talking about their work should help: http://bit.ly/LibMurals

·  Obviously not everyone has access to a graffiti wall, but there are different ways to engage with graffiti. You could find images of derelict spaces and ask pupils to draw some graffiti which would brighten these up. You could give pupils a task to design graffiti which has a specific aim, for example to encourage people to use public transport. To help the pupils draw their graffiti, you can use this page to give examples of how graffiti artists create their own fonts: http://bit.ly/GraffitiFontCreation

·  If you want to try spray painting on to paper, have a look at this video which demonstrates the stages of creating stencils and producing spray painted images: http://bit.ly/CreatingStencils

·  You could also encourage pupils to research the history of graffiti. This page should give you some ideas: http://bit.ly/HistoryGraffiti They might also be interested in how graffiti has been used to convey political messages: see the task for The Wall on page 4.

·  Encourage pupils to think about what they might like to do next. Is there a space in their school which might benefit from having some custom artwork on display?

Refugee awareness campaign Lit 3-05a, Lit 3-25a, Lit 3-28a

The Scottish Refugee Council is often able to send speakers to schools at no cost. These speakers are all refugees who talk about their experiences in the UK: http://bit.ly/ScotRefugeeCouncil

After hearing about these experiences, you could ask pupils to write an informative text or prepare a presentation for others. Alternatively, they could try the art based task below.

Explore immigration through art Exa 3-03a (Illustrated story: Eng 3-31a)

When asked how to describe setting in a novel, Anne Enright’s view was that, “Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.”[1]

Everybody sees the world differently, and to a refugee the features of our landscape, so familiar to us, may seem daunting and alien.

This can be conveyed through illustration as well as text. Shaun Tan’s wordless picture book The Arrival is a beautiful example: http://bit.ly/ShaunTanTheArrival. The book conveys an immigrant’s disorientation through metaphorical images.

Ask your pupils to imagine how a refugee might see their community. Ask them to produce artwork conveying a refugee’s perceptions and experiences of the community.

After this task, you could ask them to come up with their own illustrated stories based on the refugee experiences they have heard about.

If you liked Mosi’s War Lit 3-11a

The thorny subject of prejudice is explored in Cathy MacPhail’s novel. Why not check out our list of books dealing with prejudice: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/10-books-about-prejudice

The Wall by William Sutcliffe

Create your own wall Eng 3-27a, Exa 3-02a

Ask pupils to create a simple 3D wall from cardboard. You might find some of the ideas in the following video helpful: http://bit.ly/FauxBrickWall

Now, have a look at some slogans from political protestors: http://bit.ly/ProtestSlogans Discuss what makes a memorable slogan (rhyming, alliteration, emotive language and so on).

Ask your pupils to imagine that they are the people on Leila’s side of the wall. Ask them to come up with slogans expressing their discontent with the poverty and violence they suffer, particularly in comparison to those on the other side of the wall.

Ask pupils to write their slogans on one side of the wall. They can either use marker pen, or spray paints with stencils (you can find out how to do this in the graffiti task for Mosi’s War on page 4).

For the other side of the wall, pupils can design government propaganda posters designed to convince the people on Joshua’s side that the wall is necessary and worthwhile.

This activity may provide a good opportunity for English, Art, Social Studies and the library to collaborate. The wall will be a great way to arouse the curiosity of other pupils if you want to raise awareness about the shortlisted titles. It also might make a good backdrop for a book trailer (see page 9 for more information about creating book trailers).

Was Joshua right or wrong? Lit 3-02a

Joshua’s intentions are arguably good, but they end up damaging lives, including his own. Discuss the rights and wrongs of his actions in your group.

·  Is it fair to describe Joshua as a selfish character? Or do you interpret his actions differently?

·  Did he have good reasons for crossing the border in the first place?

·  How do you view his decisions to try and repay his debt to Leila and then her father?

·  How do you view the way he interacts with his mother and Liev?

If you liked The Wall... Lit 3-11a

...check out our book list of 9 dystopian fantasies: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/9-dystopian-fantasies.

Dark Spell by Gill Arbuthnott

Find out about witchcraft Lit 3-14a

Witches are presented in a light hearted way in the book, but the history of witchcraft is a dark one. Ask your pupils to find out about the history of witchcraft. The following research prompts might be helpful:

·  According to popular belief, how did people become witches?

·  What kind of activities were witches said to take part in?

·  What kind of magic acts were they said to be able to perform?

·  What social and economic factors drove the increase in accusations of witchcraft in the Elizabethan era?

·  Why were women far more likely to be accused of witchcraft?

·  How did people determine whether a person was a witch or not?

·  The term ‘witch hunt’ is still used today. What does it mean? Why does the term carry this meaning?

The BBC has some useful videos on witchcraft: http://bit.ly/BBCwitchcraftvids. The predominance of women in those accused of witchcraft has a fascinating history – if you’re looking for in-depth reading, this website should be a good start: http://bit.ly/WhyWitchesFemale

Try some card tricks

Here’s a very easy card trick to get your pupils started: http://bit.ly/EasyCardTrick. There are plenty more tutorials online; why not get your group to each learn different tricks and bring them to your next meeting?

If you liked Dark Spell Lit 3-11a

Have a browse through our Witches and Wizards book list: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/witches-and-wizards

Get your school excited about the books

There are plenty of ways for your group of pupils to create a buzz about the awards. Here are a few!

Setting up different types of book groups Lit 3-11a, Lit 3-02a, Lit 3-09a

·  A parent-child book group: you could ask the pupils to read the shortlisted titles along with their parents, and then ask pupils and parents to email book reviews to the school. You could then collate the reviews into a booklet.

·  A teacher-pupil book group: have a look at our free Teachers as Readers e-book (particularly chapter 12) for more info on modelling yourself as a reader: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/CPD/toolkits/teachers-as-readers

·  A Transition book group: why not invite some of the P7s from cluster primaries to come in and discuss the 8-11 titles with secondary pupils? You could get seniors to introduce the P7 pupils to the secondary library.

Get them talking about the books – part 1 Lit 3-04a, Lit 3-16a

You can use our worksheet as a starting point for comparing and contrasting – see Appendix 1 on page 11.

Alternatively, you can use the suggestions below:

Ask your pupils to compare the opening pages of each book. You could do this through the following activities:

·  Ask them to mindmap all the questions raised by each opening section;

·  Ask them to write down all the impressions of character;

·  Ask them which book they would be most likely to read, and why;

·  Ask the pupils to compare the openings with the openings of other books they have read.

Get them talking about the books – part 2 Lit 3-02a, Lit 3-09a

You may want to enter the SCBA review competition with pupils before doing this activity, as they may have a stronger idea of what they liked and disliked about each book after reviewing. You’ll find out more about the competition on the SCBA homepage: http://bit.ly/SCBAhome

·  First of all, divide your classroom into 3 ‘stations’, one for each of the 3 books (this could be as simple as putting up a sign indicating the position of each station);

·  Ask pupils to go to the station representing the book they liked best;

·  After this, there are different options – you could ask pupils to discuss their reasons with each other and feed back to the class, or take different pupils from each station and put them together into debating groups of 3 or 4 to make their case for their favourite book. You can use our worksheet in Appendix 1 on page 11 to support pupils with comparing and contrasting the books, and you can modify the table to include different points of comparison – for instance, character, plot, setting, beginning and ending, etc.

Create a marketing campaign for each book Eng 3-27a, Exa 3-14a

Rival pupils try to persuade others that their book is the best. Put a ballot box in every classroom and get pupils (and other teachers) to cast their votes too!

·  Ask pupils to write their own blurbs for the books, and get them to present these to their audience;

·  Ask pupils to make a book trailer for each book (see the book trailer section on page 9);

·  Ask pupils to create a dramatic sketch introducing the books and act it out.

Create posters with taglines Eng 3-27a, Exa 3-02a

Ask your pupils to create posters for the books, thinking about the following:

·  Taglines – how much of the plot should be revealed in the tagline? How long should a tagline be? Have a look at some examples – what do you want to know after reading them?

The Enemy - http://bit.ly/TheEnemyCover

Finding Violet Park - http://bit.ly/VioletParkCover

Ostrich Boys - http://bit.ly/OstrichBoysCover

Grass - http://bit.ly/GrassCover

Draw in potential readers Lit 3-11a

Pupils can choose a section from the book which they feel will draw readers in, make a copy of the page(s) and display this in the library.

Further ideas

For some more ideas about getting the whole school excited about books, check out our guide to creating a reading culture in your school, with lots of practical ideas: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/whole-school-reading

Get your pupils excited about voting

Check out some more ideas

For some great ideas to make the voting process lively and fun for your pupils, take a look at this blog: http://bit.ly/scbavoting

Celebrating the announcement

·  You can find out the results live through SBT’s Twitter feed. Why not set up a school account for teacher use only, and then display SBT’s Twitter feed live on your whiteboard? https://twitter.com/scottishbktrust Getting started with Twitter is easy – see this guide: http://bit.ly/TwitterforBeginners

·  Every year SBT commissions an artist to design trophies for the awards. Ask your pupils to design a trophy for the winning author. They may want to think about how the design can reflect one or more of the main features of the awards: the fact that they are voted for entirely by children and the fact that schools and libraries all over Scotland take part. They will also have to think about how to make it clear that the awards celebrate books and writers.

Enter our competitions

Every year we run two competitions connected to SCBA: a review competition, and a book trailer competition. You’ll find details on the SCBA homepage at: http://bit.ly/SCBAhome.

How to get started with book trailers

Book trailers are a fantastic way to get pupils engaging with books, making meaningful use of ICT and challenging their critical understanding of what they read.

Scottish Book Trust has made a series of videos available which explain how to construct a booktrailer. You’ll also find links to a wealth of further resources on the same page, including a full unit of work and a link to some example book trailers: http://bit.ly/booktrailermasterclass

Resources for additional support needs

Teachers and librarians can request accessible copies of the shortlisted titles from CALL Scotland. Sign up to their newsletter to be informed when these are available: http://callcentre.education.ed.ac.uk/Home/