This November, it was Scotts' turn to explore the world of everything Library.
In week one, year 7 Scotts took on the challenge to compare
examples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ book covers, what does this mean, is there such a thing,
what might be done to improve them and what makes a person want to pick up a
book and read it…or not?
There were some great responses looking at colour schemes, imagery, use of font and illustration, content of the blurb, how long it was and where it was situated, all very valid and interesting points from the year 7 group.
The conclusion: everybody is different but the general consensus
was that clever use of colour, an eye-catching illustration or image relevant
to the plot and an informative blurb on the back would win the attention of
these year 7s…as long as there were no spoilers!
In the second week, there was a mad dash for the students to
locate certain books using the Dewey Decimal System. With some healthy competition,
between them they managed to find an example of every topic set to them:
triumphant…if a little out of breath.
The Year 7 activities came to an impressive crescendo for
Scotts House on Monday 21st November with the week six
presentations. We saw some innovative ideas coming through using video and music
as well as home-made, stop-motion animation!
All in all, some fine examples of
research on such subjects as: Favourite Author/Book, Books vs Films, Books vs
E-books, How We Choose What to Read Next, The Library of Congress and The
British Library, Book Covers and Illustrations and Penguin Books.
Stimulating
discussion ensued on how knowledge of an author’s book awards influences our
interest and attraction to their books, on the importance of investigating the
reliability of certain websites for research and on how not to create an appealing book cover for a story!
We had two pairs coming in in joint 3rd place for this task as we simply could not
choose just one:
Barnaby and Akram demonstrated excellent organisation and
team work skills with a focussed attention to the task in their discussion of
their favourite book/author. Mak and Freddie showed they knew their way around a Powerpoint
and made some great critical analysis using pertinent examples of book covers
and illustrations.
In 2nd place was Ellie and Rosanna who presented a
beautifully informed discussion of the British Library that was clear and
precise and included some lovely images to guide them. It made us all want to
go there!
And in 1st place with an extremely impressive
video presentation about Penguin Books was Holly and Franziska. These two worked
very hard and showed excellent team work to produce a memorable stop motion
animation montage of all the colourful and iconic book covers from Penguin
Publishing over the years and it was all done on their i-pads. They presented
an in depth historical context for the publishers whose founder was a previous
BGS student (see the wall hangings in the library). Thank you both for a special
take on the task.
Well done Year 7 Scotts, we look forward to seeing you put
all your new found expertise into practice in the Library :)