Catalyst voting: from longlist to shortlist

The Catalyst Longlist for 2012-13 has provoked some interesting discussions with the 3rd year English class reading them. The vast majority found something to excite them, but one or two others just couldn’t find anything in the list to motivate them.

Last week, we asked them all to vote for their three favourites and the top four were :

• Cracks by Caroline Green
• Goliath by Tom Gauld
• Superior by Mark Millar
• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Interesting that the two graphic novels on the list fared well here.

After collating all the votes from across the North Lanarkshire and public libraries, the finalists are as follows:

• Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson
• Goliath by Tom Gauld
• Department 19 by Will Hill
• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

We asked the class to choose their winner from this list and their result was an overwhelming vote for Goliath (17 votes), followed by A Monster Calls (7 votes) and Department 19 (3 votes).

So congratulations to Tom Gauld, author and illustrator of Goliath, winner in the eyes of Our Lady’s High School.

Now to see who wins across all of the North Lanarkshire schools and libraries!

Young Writers Awards 2013

Link to the Scottish Book Trust Young Writers Awards 2013

Which Dewey are you?

Put your name into this website and see which part of the Dewey Decimal Classification you belong to, and what it says about you.

Which Dewey are you?

Book trailers

For the past couple of months, Mrs Jeffrey’s 3rd year English class have been working on book trailers. Some groups chose to create a trailer for a book from this year’s Catalyst Longlist, which others preferred to work on a trailer for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a novel they’d been studying in class.

I don’t think the class realised just how much work was going to be involved when we started, but over the past weeks, they’ve had to get used to:

• camera angles
• storyboards
• taking photographs
• iMovie software
• Garageband software
• voiceovers
• visual effects
• sound effects
• copyright  free music
• getting permission to use non-copyright free material
• transitions
• creating credits
• lots of lots and lots of editing to pull it all together
• and how not to have a meltdown when the video seems to have vanished completely.

Meanwhile, Mrs Macfadyen and Mrs Jeffrey have become familiar with:

• camera juggling
• black bin bag backgrounds
• online iMovie help
• online Garagebank help
• getting advice from iMovie Guru Steinert
• locating videos
• keeping pupils from having a meltdown when their video seems to have vanished completely

Check out their work below.

To Kill a Mockingbird Book Trailers

 

The Great Catalyst Book Trailer Competition – A Monster Calls

The Great Catalyst Book Trailer Competition – Goliath

The Great Catalyst Book Trailer Competition – Superior

The Great Catalyst Book Trailer Competition – Torn

Red House Young Writers’ Yearbook 2013 Competition

For all young people between 7-17.

Red House are looking for submissions to be published in a new book, with winners also being invited to a writing workshop at the Imagine Children’s Festival in February 2014.

Entries can be stories, poems or articles, so long as they are under 1000 words.

Closing date is 31st July 2013.

Click here for more information and details of how to enter.