Silverstone Study Centre

The picture below was created from the brilliant new Wordle application. Enter any text and it’ll create a ‘cloud’ of your words with more prominence given to those that occur more frequently. It gives a useful view of the ‘big picture’ of a piece of writing. I can’t wait to start using this with students.

I entered the copy for Silverstone’s entry in this year’s Study Centres Annual Review. The results do actually reflect the flavour of what we are aiming for (and hopefully achieving) at Silverstone. This might form a handout for my meeting on Tuesday. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case it’s true! Click on the picture for a larger view.

The POWERnight racing was perfect for the powerful writers from the Sponne cluster primaries. They gathered ideas and scribbled notes about what they noticed and experienced. They then wrote their favourite or lasting ideas here on the Sponne Blog to shape at a later date.  It is also good to read other people’s notes to jog our own memories and to be inspired. I can’t wait to see the finished results of their creative labours.

We have been taking raw promotional footage of Silverstone driving experiences and adding our own captions and voice-over. You can view the official Silverstone promotional videos on the website.

Cosgrove’s Beulah has produced a particularly slick example below. She allows the cars and people to speak for themselves, reinforcing and persuading only where necessary.

transl8N txt msgs N2 norml en S sumtyms a challnG. hwevr, itz posbL 2B cr8tive W txt msgN. studnts r usu bilingual - dey cn txt spk or wrt n norml en. w’r gunA mak gud uz of dat skill @ Silverstone!

Our after-school Playing for Success sessions have concentrated this week on preparing students for our forthcoming Blog 101 TV live broadcast. Having something persuasive to say comes out of research and thought beforehand. The majority of students were willing to give this their full attention and effort. However, a number did not make the most of the opportunity presented to them and I worry that their final interviews will reflect this.

Kingsbrook School’s students will have no problem making interesting live TV though. Their Blog 101 nominations are on Blog 101 at the moment and can be voted for until tomorrow evening. They chose a range of interesting subjects and looked to express powerful points with a liberal sprinkling of emotive language, hyperbole and rhetorical questions. The other schools have definitely benefited from reading these great examples.

Paulerspury Primary students are definitely well-prepared for their interviews. They did some excellent work back at school around persuasive Blog101 ideas, which allowed them to make even greater progress during this week’s PfS session. They will take over the Blog 101 homepage next week.

As well as crafting our ideas we practiced using an autocue which was not quite as simple as it first appeared. We also carried out some screen tests in the studio, looking at our body language and overall presentation both as interviewees and as members of an audience. Being a sensible member of an audience proved challenging for some. Being a sensible interviewer without any preparation proved challenging for me!

Jonny and I have been ensuring that the streaming over the internet will work using our channel at Ustream.TV Jonny also has a few customisations up his sleeve to make the broadcast even cooler. We’ll post details of the broadcast times and password details during the course of this week. It should simply be a case of visiting this page at the correct time and you’ll be able to see all the action below!

We have been using the Picture Power software from the English and Media Centre to storyboard events from different perspectives. Here are Pattishall students at work.

We have been trying to persuade people to accept our Blog 101 nominations. It is not always easy getting people to agree with us. Some of the nominations so far include:

• cats
• world poverty
• cigarettes
• Everton FC
• allergies
• wasps

Thinking carefully about how to write persuasively is the key to convincing others to accept your view. Language that is able to influence or persuade is called rhetorical. If this language is analysed, what will be found is that some of the words are being used in ways that are slightly unusual - they are being used as rhetorical devices. Why not try some of these techniques in writing your ideas for Blog 101 ?

• Hyperbole is when exaggeration is used for effect. For example - ‘Drunk drivers think they can get away with driving at the speed of light through the town centre’
• Repetition - For example - ‘It’s not fast enough, simply not fast enough!’
• Triadic structure such as a list of three - For example - ‘It’s not fair, it’s not sensible and it’s certainly not decent!’
• Another very powerful persuasive device is the anecdote. Anecdotes are short personal stories that powerfully illustrate why your view is the right view to hold.

During the recent PfS introduction days the students got the opportunity to write a very short piece of writing about themselves or something important to them. We emphasised the need to ensure that the opening sentences of our pieces drew the reader into wanting to know more. There is only one opening line so we need to make the most of it! Here are some good examples. Click through to read more!

Megan - Cola is as fast as a racing car but Basil likes his snacks.

Amrinda - Aman, the young two-year-old girl, was as tiny as a breadcrumb when she was born.

Max - “Arrrrggh….” I screamed as I fell to the freezing-cold ground.

Alex - Formula One is fast and sometimes hard to keep up with. Yet it is awesomely exciting. The thrill makes my heart race almost as fast as the cars themselves.

George - Smashing the ball past the keeper, rattling the back of the net to win the cup, is the best feeling ever.

Anna - Street dance is a passion.

Joe - Food technology is my life.

Jacob - Kicking a football is the best feeling in the world - actually doing something rather than sitting at home.

….

Here are some Fordy examples inspired by the writing of the students at the time.

Fordy1 - Devouring chocolate cake is a passionate of mine, secondary only to watching Everton Football club win the Merseyside Derby!

Fordy2 - Playing for Everton Football Club is my dream but it is slowly slipping away as the years pass. I have to face the truth - I am probably not ever going to lead the attack in the Merseyside Derby!