Start the Story issue 2

Aug 14, 2012 by Barry

It’s here – issue 2 of Start the Story Magazine is now available to download!

We were overwhelmed with the support we got from everyone for the first issue, and are delighted everyone is getting behind what we’re trying to achieve – making literacy lessons more fun for teachers and pupils alike, and helping spread a love of reading and writing.

For issue two we’ve tried to make things even better. Here are just some of the things you’ll find inside…

• Interviews, with Irish Children’s Laureate, Niamh Sharkey, tie-in fiction specialist, Cavan Scott, and The Dandy cartoonist, Andy Fanton.
• Reviews of books for all ages.
• Graphic novel recommendations.
• Six of the best sports-related books.
• How to use LEGO in plotting your stories.
• A lesson plan for our featured book, THE CLUMSIES MAKE A MESS OF THE SCHOOL.
• AXE COP, and starting your own webcomic.
• Plotting stories the BAD way.
• The two most important words in story-telling.
• How to write a Haiku.
• Why character names are so important.
• Five tips for writing description.

On top of all that we’ve got story-starters, suggested classroom writing activities and lots of other stuff, too. We’ll also be providing five pupil worksheets crammed with writing and illustration related goodness, and we’re giving away a free and exclusive “open source” action adventure novel, written by Barry Hutchison, which you are free to edit/adapt/do with as you will.

We also talk about our author directory and why we started it, and spotlight one of the authors listed within it. Oh, and we’ve got competitions, too. Four of them, in fact, with lots of lovely books as prizes.

Ready to download? Grab the zip file below and start a new story today.

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