Puffin Short Story Award

Penguin Group (NZ) & Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust team up again with nationwide Short Story Awards for children.

Following the success of the inaugural Puffin Short Story Awards last year, school children across the country are again invited to show off their writing skills in this unique competition.

The competition, which aims to nurture young writing talent, is now open and culminates in an awards ceremony at the Storylines Auckland Family Day on 28 August 2011. Entries are accepted in three categories: Junior (School Years 4-6), Intermediate (School Years 7-8) and Senior (School Years 9-11).

“ A writing competition for young writers is a splendid way of encouraging young people to realise the power of words to inspire, entertain, inform, persuade and to explore ideas. Becoming a writer goes hand in hand with becoming a reader. Budding writers feed on the words of the authors. As they see themselves in the author role they become more perceptive and critical readers. Storylines is delighted to work in partnership with Puffin/Penguin in this short story competition. It aligns closely with our aims to support New Zealand writers and illustrators for children and to celebrate reading and writing for young people. We look forward to those who enter the competition being among our published writers of the future.”
Dr Libby Limbrick, Chairperson of Storylines, Head of School of Arts, Languages and Literacies , Faculty of Education , University of Auckland.

This year, the prize up for grabs in each category is an Apple iPad. All three winners will also take away 50 Puffin books for their school library.

A team of judges recruited by Storylines will short-list up to 10 finalists per category, and the overall winner in each category will be selected by a high-profile children’s author.
Dawn McMillan is back to judge the Junior category, along with Joy Cowley in the Intermediate category. David Hair joins the team this year as judge in the Senior category. The theme for the competition is open, allowing participants to write about subjects of their own choosing.

The competition closes at 5pm on 3 June. Entry forms and full details are available at www.puffin.co.nz or www.storylines.org.nz

For further information please contact:
Lyn Olds | Penguin Group (NZ) | Tel: 09 442 7465 | lyn.olds@nz.penguingroup.com
www.puffin.co.nz

Heave Ho ! Heinz Janisch

A wonderful picture book - concise, clever, and - as proclaimed on the opening page "This story is told in twelve sentences. Start counting now." The text continues "In the first sentence, a cat runs into the story..." and so it goes as the cat, a dog and three mice co-operate to achieve their goal.
A quirky book which illustrates perfectly the power of picture books with a dozen simple sentences to tell a great story... and maybe a useful writing framework for students' own storytelling?

Available to borrow from National Library.

Kiwi kids' writing

Two books of kiwi kids' writing have been published recently...

Leprechaun ice-cream - Magical Tales by Kiwi Kids is the publication resulting from a competition for aspiring young authors (years 1–8), which was run by New Zealand Post in conjunction with the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2010.
It includes the work of fifty Kiwi kids from all over the country. An expert judging panel, including well-known New Zealand writer Kate De Goldi, selected the winning works from more than 7000 entries. The challenge for the competition was to “share your writing magic”, giving young writers the opportunity to interpret and explore the theme in their individual ways.Order from Learning Media ph 800 800 565 or local bookshops $



http://www.learningmedia.co.nz/our-work/portfolio/leprechaun-ice-cream

and

20 winning stories written by New Zealand children!

When Scholastic ran a Short Story Competition through its Book Clubs, over 1300 entries were received. With the help of educator Jill Eggleton, children’s author Kyle Mewburn and What Now! TV presenter Charlie Panapa, 20 stories across three age groups were selected as the best in the country. Imaginations are thriving! Read these great stories written by NZ children between the ages of 5 and 13 and see for yourself.
ISBN : 9781869439958 Scholastic New Zealand Limited, September 2010 $20

ipl2 - research and writing guide

ipl2 is the result of a merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII).

It provides an A+ Research and Writing pathfinder for teens - taking students through a step by step approach to planning, preparing, researching and writing... http://www.ipl.org/div/aplus/toc.htm

For the "panic stricken" who need something urgently, there is a quick starter guide with just the essentials http://www.ipl.org/div/aplus/quick.htm

and for the thorough students there is a detailed view http://www.ipl.org/div/aplus/tocdetail.htm

Here is the "home page" for teens at ipl2 http://www.ipl.org/div/teen/

OWL - Online Writing Lab, Purdue University

Senior students or teachers might be interested in this resource from Purdue University (Indiana, USA) http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/



From the website :
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Pre-writing section explains the invention stage of the composing process and gives various strategies and questions to help students organise their thoughts and begin to write...
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/673/01/

Ralph Fletcher and student writing

Ralph Fletcher has written a number of resources on helping students with writing. In particular he has written about the benefits of keeping "a writer's notebook". This latest book is available to browse online, and from page 116 are examples of some classroom approaches...

From the publisher :
Pyrotechnics on the Page helps teachers energize student writing with an in-depth look at the kind of language play commonly used by writers and 24 new craft lessons. Preview the entire book online!
Pyrotechnics on the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing

Preview the book online!

Ralph Fletcher Year: 2010 Foreword by Katie Wood Ray Media: 192 pp/paper ISBN: 978-157110-783-1 Grade Range: K-8 Item No.: WEU-0783

Kate De Goldi spoke about the advantages of keeping a writers notebook when she was talking to schools in Northland last year. Good writers, she told us, are good readers, keen observers, avid recorders and from this comes the connections and new ways of seeing and describing...

See her brilliant post to the Northland students she visited on the Book Council blog : http://bookcouncil.blogspot.com/2008/04/from-kate-de-goldi.html

Writing can improve reading skills - Carnegie reports

We often hear how being a good reader influences writing ability, but here is a blog post about a new report which describes how specific writing skills can improve reading comprehension .

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2010/04/writing_can_improve_reading_sk.html

Here are the introductions and download links for the key reports mentioned (the focus is on adolescent literacy) :

Writing to Read (2010) is a Carnegie Corporation report published by the Alliance for Excellent Education which finds that while reading and writing are closely connected, writing is an often-overlooked tool for improving reading skills and content learning. Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading identifies three core instructional practices that have been shown to be effective in improving student reading. download >

Reading Next (2004) is a cutting-edge report that combines the best research currently available with well-crafted strategies for turning that research into practice. Informed by five of the nation's leading researchers, Reading Next charts an immediate route to improving adolescent literacy. The authors outline 15 key elements of an effective literacy intervention, and call on public and private stakeholders to invest in the literacy of middle and high school students today, while simultaneously building the knowledge base. download >

Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools (2007), commissioned by Carnegie Corporation of New York and published by the Alliance for Excellent Education, discusses eleven specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help improve the writing abilities of the country’s 4th- to 12th-grade students. Along with reading comprehension, writing skill is a predictor of academic success and a basic requirement for participation in civic life and in the global economy. download >

Sharing non-fiction / Anastasia Suen's blogs

This is a link to Anastasia Suen's blog "5 great books" posted each Wednesday with 5 books on a theme and suggested ways to share them with students...

Here she is talking about Non-fiction
http://5greatbooks.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/sharing-nonfiction-with-new-readers/

Go here for a list of all her blogs http://www.asuen.com/blog/

I've mentioned before her "Picture book of the day" blog with suggestions on ways to use the books as mentor texts for students' own writing using the Six Traits structure for effective writing.

Student writing / writing competitions

Here is a collation of various student writing opportunities / competitions, complied by Angela Soutar and shared on the school library list serv.

Writing competitions / student writing publishing opportunities

1. NZ Post – March, information sent to schools – by 30 April
2. Scholastic NZ by 30 April , primary age http://www.scholastic.co.nz/schools/index.php
3. STORYLINES/PUFFIN writing competition – by 11 June 3 age groups, mostly primary Yrs 4-6 Yrs 7-8 Yrs 9-11 http://www.storylines.org.nz/Other+Stuff/Puffin+Short+Story+Competition.html
   
4. NZ Book Council, once a month, 2 age grps up to 13 yrs http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Education//Writers_Gallery/Creative_Writers_Gallery.htm
5. Upstart Magazine – continuous http://www.upstartmag.co.nz/
6. http://www.kidpub.com/ Kids submit their stories and poems
7. Kidzmag - available Whitcoulls etc – there is no website, continuous kidzmag@gemfishpublications.com
8. NZ Book Month , ASB Wordbank - October, various ages http://nzbookmonth.co.nz/default.aspx
   
9. Write on Magazine – continuous 8-18 yrs SECONDARY [mainly]
10. http://thepulse.org.nz/Read/Get-Published/Competitions/ Christchurch school for young writers and loads of others but mainly 13 yrs up
    
11. AUT writing competition including song lyrics, 15 yrs up http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/languages-social-sciences/creative-writing-competition
    
12. http://www.aucontraire.org.nz/competitions-writing.php Sci fi , fantasy, under 18 yrs can apply and will compete with adults.
    
13. Sunday Star-Times usually have one, closing date late August Secondary schools section
14. Library week /LIANZA usually have a selection of writing competitions, late August? Check their website, 2009 covered yr6 upwards
    
15. BNZ Writing competition, 13 yrs up http://www.contest.co.nz/other-competitions/26596-bnz-short-story-competition-win-10-000-a.html
16. Write on – continuous contributions 8-18 yrs http://www.schoolforyoungwriters.org/writeon/index.html School for Young Writers.
    

"Picture book of the day" blog

I've just come across this blog which may be of interest - Anastasia Suen’s Picture Book of the Day blog at http://picturebookday.wordpress.com/

This blog recommends a picture book each day of the week (some days have a special focus eg Non-fiction Monday, Poetry Friday) with a 1 or 2 line plot summary, a short quote from the text (in italics), and a suggested writing activity for one of the six traits of writing

The six traits of writing were identified in the 1980s as a way to help young writers look at their own writing. They are

1. Ideas
2. Organization
3. Voice
4. Word Choice
5. Sentence Fluency
6. Conventions

The books featured in Anastasia Suen's blog are American, but many are available from National Library and may trigger ideas for similar books / activities.


Here is a link http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/503 to more information about the 6 Traits which has been expanded to now include a 7th - presentation...

The 6+1 Trait® Writing analytical model for assessing and teaching writing is made up of 6+1 key qualities that define strong writing. These are:

• Ideas, the main message;
• Organization, the internal structure of the piece;
• Voice, the personal tone and flavor of the author's message;
• Word Choice, the vocabulary a writer chooses to convey meaning;
• Sentence Fluency, the rhythm and flow of the language;
• Conventions, the mechanical correctness;
• and Presentation, how the writing actually looks on the page.

Student writing

Some places for student writing to be published...

From Angela Soutar, Sunnynook Primary School Library :

• NZ Book Month , ASB Wordbank http://nzbookmonth.co.nz/default.aspx
• Storylines Family Days in August - check website closer to the dates around 20 August onwards
• Upstart Magazine http://www.upstartmag.co.nz/
• http://thepulse.org.nz/Read/Get-Published/Competitions/
• Kidzmag - available Whitcoulls etc

From Melanie Muir, Macleans College Library :
There is always the New Zealand Herald “College Herald” site : www.collegeherald.co.nz/

From Glyn Strange, School for Young Writers :

Our organisation runs an important competition for teenagers every year. It's called the Re-Draft competition and the excellent Re-Draft books that result from it come out around this time of year. I am in the process of sending standing order copies to schools, public libraries, universities and polytechnics. Always happy to hear from schools that have not yet picked up on this fabulous opportunity for teenage writers. This year's Re-Draft book, the 9th in the series, is Fishing for Birds. Copies cost $30. The 2010 entry form is in the back and the deadline is 30th September.

In our twice-yearly Write On magazine (see attached) we are running a competition open to all with the fabulous Oxford New Zealand Dictionary (all 1300+ pages of it) as the prize for three age groups. When I send out copies of Fishing for Birds I enclose complimentary copies of this magazine -- hoping, of course, that schools might get excited and subscribe! It is also possible to subscribe to Write On at a cheap rate of only $10 a year. For this you receive only one copy per issue but we are grateful for that support and it allows your students to enter the competition. If either of these options interests anyone, please contact me soon. Stocks are running low.

Regards, Glyn Strange.
The School for Young Writers PO Box 21-120 Christchurch 8143
tel/fax 03 355 3588

young.writers@xtra.co.nz
www.schoolforyoungwriters.org

Write On - student writing

A magazine called Write On published twice a year by the School for Young Writers.

In recent years this has been upgraded to a colourful glossy format that appeals to young readers and it has been opened to allow submission of work from subscribing schools.

Write On is perhaps more specialised than many of the magazines I see listed, but it's full of good poems and stories by young New Zealanders and is useful not only as a reading resource but as a source of good writing exemplars and teaching ideas for use in the classroom. Our aim is not to make a profit but to provide a service at reasonable rates.

Enquiries are welcome!
Dr Glyn Strange Director
The School for Young Writers PO Box 21-120 Christchurch 8143 tel/fax 03 355 3588 young.writers@xtra.co.nz