“Traditionally defined as the ability to read and write, twenty-first century literacy is now widely understood as the ability to evaluate, make use of and communicate with a variety of media resources, including text, visual, audio and video.” – Screening Shorts

The Screening Shorts website, accessed by clicking the image above, is full of excellent ideas and resources for delivering Moving Image Education (MIE). MIE allows pupils to become literate using film and audio texts. Resources are free to access when logging in using your Glow username and password.

The ‘Media Literacy’ page on our blog also houses some additional resources which you may find useful, including the ‘Viewing Media’ questions.

I stumbled across this blog today whilst thinking about ways to give learners opportunities to write for a meaningful ‘purpose and audience’ when creating texts.

http://100wc.net/

The ‘100 Word Challenge’ allows pupils (under the age of 16) to take part in a new creative writing opportunity each week, writing their response to a prompt (in the form of a picture or series of words). The aim of the challenge is to engage writers by giving them a real audience for their work. When pupils have completed their piece, it is to be uploaded onto your class blog, and then a link sent to the ‘100 Word Challenge’ blog.

This could be a way of keeping the creative juices flowing over the final weeks of term, or something kept on the back-burner for kick starting the new term in August.

If your pupils are interested in a good book, are looking for something to do this summer, or perhaps you ‘d like to encourage them to read more for enjoyment – why not provide them with the incentive of the Summer Reading Challenge.

This year the theme is Creepy House – for more information visit:

http://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/

The website includes videos from authors, information on how to take part in the challenge, as well as a  section called ‘Book Sorter‘ which helps recommend books based on interest.

Keep track of the literacy events which happen throughout the year . . .

A comment was made on an earlier post about having a calendar of literacy events which happen throughout the year. Click the link below to see the annual events from the National Literacy Trust, along with links.

Annual Literacy Events Calendar – CLICK HERE!

It is great to see learners inspired by quality literature. ‘The Hobbit’ by J. R. R. Tolkien (1937) has engaged the late primary/ early secondary audience after the first of a three part film release last year. One learner, after watching the film, was eager to read the novel. They were extremely passionate about the book, and chose to record what they had learned using the topic to form their P7 Personal Project. Their enthusiasm for the book enabled them to produce a wonderful project.

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If you have any ideas of how to inspire learners using literature, please get in touch.

It’s been a busy morning today at Literacy HQ – so take a moment away from your reports, and check out the new resources we’ve added to the menus above.

More from Literacy HQ – coming soon!

Can you write a story in 50 words? Why not get the pupils to give it a go! The Scottish Book Trust’s ’50 Word Fiction Competition’ deadline is on Monday 20th May. The competition is a great way of providing children with the task to engage with their audience, providing detail, whilst working with a limited word count. For more information, click the link below:

’50 Word Fiction Competition’ – CLICK HERE!

Calling ALL Secondary colleagues – an exciting opportunity for pupils aged 14 – 17 to work with an established author has arisen. Check out the flier above by clicking the image, and visit the website below:

Secondary Creative Writing- Click Here

Another resource I’ve stumbled across whilst looking for literacy stimuli is ‘Teachers Media’. The website hosts thousands of videos which can be used for both lesson starters with pupils, and as individual CPD. Many of the videos were from Teachers TV. Click the picture above for a link to the website.

Thinking about how we can use video within the classroom; Ambleside Primary used it as a way of not only enhancing listening and talking, but also involving parents/carers. Worth a watch . . .

http://www.teachersmedia.co.uk/videos/using-video-to-improve-literacy